How to survive Ethan Draddy

It would be nice if you didn’t have to be concerned about this Scouting Wonder.  After all, you have chosen to work in an underappreciated, time consuming, underpaid position in Scouting.  The last thing you need (if you are hitting your objectives) is someone to come in to play games with your careers.  Sorry folks the games are about to begin.  Volunteers – the volunteers on the executive board – run Scouting and they don’t seem to care too much about the people doing the work. 

The same goes for those of us that volunteer on the council and district committees.  We love this organization, have given hours, days, weeks and years of our lives to it, but have had to face Ethan (or one of his cronies) asking us “what else would you like to do in Scouting?”  Done either to punish us for not joining Team Ethan or to reward one of his volunteer accomplices we were suddenly out of our Scouting positions.

We’ve come up with a list of actions you can take to survive Ethan.  We’ll start with the professional Scouters (as they will be the first to go) and then provide ideas to volunteers. 

There are two easy ways for professionals and support staff to survive Ethan right off the bat and not have to worry about a lot of what Baltimore and Ethan’s previous councils have gone through.  Organize yourselves for collective action.  Pool some money and place an attorney on retainer.  The first time Ethan goes after someone you’ll be ready.  Just make sure you have an understanding of employment law.  If someone is not making his or her numbers, life gets a little more difficult.  

If you are over 40 years of age we would highly recommend you reach out to other people within the council your age and older.  Ethan has a thing about people his age and older, he likes to demote and fire them. 

Hold on to your seat, we’ll be giving you some ideas to survive Ethan in the coming weeks, but remember – walk away power is the strongest medicine for the illness headed your way.