Local groups are the organisational entities that organise the weekly meetings and local-level camps that make up a lot of the scout work taking place in the DDS association on a daily basis nationwide. Most members of DDS are members of a specific local group somewhere in Denmark, and it is through their connection with the local group they are part of the nation-wide DDS association.
Local groups are legally independent associations
Local groups are all legally independent associations (in a sense, they are 400 horizontally differentiated entities), with their own groups of leaders, local boards, and general assemblies. Each local group pays a fee to the national-level association for each member of their local group; other than that, they are also financially independent from the national organisation, meaning it is also their responsibility to make sure they have enough money to fund their activities.
Funding
The local group receives a certain amount of municipal public funding based on the number of members it has and under a number of requirements, one being that the association is democratically organised (The Ministry of Culture, 2011b, 2011a). Each member also pays a fee to be part of the local group and its activi-ties. These two types of funding are dependent on how many members the local group is able to attract.
In addition to this, the local group fundraises by selling Christmas trees and dec-orative greenery once a year in the local community, by hosting a Christmas fair, and by selling Christmas calendars and flower bulbs (Dorthe, 2017, pt.
00:59:37-01:02:42). These sources of income are not very directly related to the actual scout activities the local group does, nor are they dependent on their number of members.
Local groups structured based on national principles
Local DDS groups are formalised and differentiated organisations in the sense that a number of predefined roles and entities exist and are described in the by-laws of the national-level association. Some roles and decisions about, for example, which age groups a local group will offer activities for, can be decided at the local level, and are not defined at the national level (The Danish Guide and Scout Association, 2015). The structure of Dorthe’s local group differs some-what from the local-level structure presented in the DDS by-laws. I will begin by describing the structure as it looks on paper and then move on to discuss how the Pine Trees local group differs somewhat from this.
In the organisational chart below, I have included all the formally existing roles in Dorthe’s local group. These roles exist before any person takes on the tasks associated with them, making the local group a form of formalised bureaucracy in which the way work is organised and differentiated is not something any per-son joining the local group can decide completely at their own discretion. Rather, the formal role sets a direction and some expectations for what a person will do in the local group (Jaffee, 2001, p. 91). The structure is presented in figure 1, and while it will not be exactly the same in all 400 DDS local groups, there will likely be many similarities. As with the library, the chart is based on seeing the organ-isation as vertically differentiated, where a higher placement in the chart means a progressively higher degree of authority over the organisational entities below any given entity in the figure.
For presentation purposes I have divided members into active members and par-ticipating members.
Active members (green) are the ones planning, organising, and doing the work in the group: among other things, attending co-ordination and planning meetings, organising activities and camps, and handling accounting and other forms of paperwork. Board members, group leaders, branch leaders, assistants, and other leaders belong to this group. None of these are paid for their work, other than having some of their expenses covered.
Participating members (red) are the ones participating in the activities organised by the active members. In the oldest branches, the participating members, espe-cially the patrol leader and patrol assistant, will gradually move towards becoming active members.
Annual general meeting
At the top of the chart we find the annual general meeting (AGM), which is the supreme authority of the local group. All active and all participating members of the association (or their parents, in some cases) have voting rights there. This means that the supreme authority of the association potentially consists of all members of the association – both the leaders who volunteer their time in the local group and all the children and young people who take part in the scout activities in the group (or their parents).
The AGM is held once per year, and among other tasks it must approve the ac-counts of the local group and elect the group supervisory board.
Group supervisory board
The group supervisory board consists of:
10. Parents, primarily to members under 15 11. Young members between 15 and 23
12. Leaders in the local group, among these at least one group leader (The Danish Guide and Scout Association, 2015)
According to the by-laws, the board is responsible, among other things, for en-suring that the local group lives up to the values, aims, and laws of the nation-al-level association; for the groups’ finances; and for following up on the deci-sions of the AGM (The Danish Guide and Scout Association, 2015).
Group leaders
Directly under the board are the group leader(s). A local group will have one or two group leaders, who are formally elected for two-year periods by the leaders of the local group. In the Pine Trees local group, the election happens during the AGM. Dorthe has been group leader for eight years. She is currently the only one in this role, and the elections are usually uncontested. While the AGM is the su-preme authority of the local group according to the formalised structure defined in the DDS by-laws, Dorthe describes the meeting as:
Dorthe: … [just an] expanded informal coffee party, where we go through the agenda, and the ones standing as candidates are usually also the ones being elected. And I have stood as a candidate. And we have a six-year principle … So, in principle, I shouldn’t be there anymore. But since there isn’t anyone else, and I want to, and they seem satisfied with the way I do it, I am elected.
Group leader
Group supervisory board Branch: Micro scouts 6-8Branch: Mini scouts 8-10Branch: Junior scouts 10-12Branch: Troop scouts 12-16Branch: Senior scouts 16-23
Branch leader Branch assistant Branch leader Branch assistant Branch leader Branch assistant Branch leader Branch assistant
Branch leader Branch assistant Patrol leader Patrol assistant
Patrol leader Patrol assistant Patrol leader Patrol assistant Patrol leader Patrol assistant
Patrol leader Patrol assistant
Grupperådsmøde = Annual General Meeting Gruppestyrelse (bestyrelsen) = Group Supervisory board Gruppeleder = Group Leader Grenleder = Branch leader Grenassistent = Branch assistant Patruljeleder = Patrol leader Patruljeassistant = Patrol assistant
Annual General Meeting
Lo ca l l evel
The Pine Trees local group Dorthe Other participating membersOther participating members Other participating members Other participating members Other participating members
Other leadersOther leadersOther leadersOther leadersOther leaders Figure 10. Structure of the Pine Trees local group, where Dorthe is a volunteer scout.
Dennis: I see. But it is the kind of thing where, every second year, you actually have to stand as a candidate?
Dorthe: Yes.
Dennis: But without rival candidates? You are not exactly looking at … Dorthe: Yeah, I haven’t had that yet. But I am trying to, I would really like a co-group leader. We used to have that, we’ve been two group leaders. So every year I try to persuade one of my scout leaders to join in. But they are busy, these young people, with all sorts of other things. Unfortunately [laughing]. (Dorthe, 2017, pt. 00:14:16-00:15:30)
There have been no other candidates for the position during the last eight years, though Dorthe says she tries to persuade others to join her. In other words, it seems that being in a position of leadership in this local group is not a coveted position.
Leaders
Under the group leader are the leaders. They are adult and young adult active members who are attached to one or more branches of the local group, where it is their job to organise the weekly meetings for this age group, as well as camps and other events. Aside from the group leader, the leaders are perhaps the most active of the active members.
The leaders are horizontally differentiated across the branches, but in what seems to be an effort towards integration, there are meetings for all leaders in the local group across branches:
Well, the leaders’ meeting is, as the name implies, the leaders who meet and plan what we will be doing of things that are the responsibility of the leaders, common things, throughout the course of the group and the scout year. And if we could do with some cleaning up or we need to check all the tents before a summer camp, or something else, then there will be a number of those kinds of things along the way. But it is then the task of the group leader, which is also me, to just make sure that we have the meetings we are required to have and that we hold the meetings we need to have. And they are not fixed; we take them a little, on an ad hoc basis along the way. (Dorthe, 2016, p. 00:14:09-00:15:33)
As weekly branch meetings do not take place at the same time, the leaders do not meet across branches there. The leaders are differentiated into the different age groups for which they are responsible, and the leaders’ meetings seem to be the place for common decisions.
Branches
The children and young people in a local group are divided into branches based on age. Each branch has leaders who are in charge of its activities. There is a
‘branch leader’, with overall responsibility, a branch assistant who is next in line, and there can potentially be other leaders as well.
Patrols
Finally, at the bottom of the chart, we have participating members and patrols.
Dorthe explains:
Dorthe: “Well… we don’t have to hide the fact, that it has arisen as, as a semi-militaristic project. It was a former officer who came up with the scouts, so there are some of the things [from his military experience] that have been passed on to the scouts, and we work in patrols, meaning teams, which are made up of children who can work together, and where they perhaps have different sets of skills. There is a … patrol leader and there is a patrol assistant, and they are usually the ones who are a little older than the others, or at least have some skills, which make them suitable for being patrol leader and assistant, and then there are ordinary members of the patrol. And the patrol leaders will get increasing responsibilities the older they get, up through the scouts. When it comes to the small ones, there are some who report in and out when on a hike, stand with the patrol flag
… and not much else, but as they become junior or troop scouts, they will gain a bigger responsibility for being the ones who kind of convey their knowledge to their somewhat younger patrol members, and that is the principle called children leading children, which is a substantial part of the scout work, yeah, that they learn from each other and lead each other, yeah.” (Dorthe, 2016, pt. 00:29:06-00:30:23)
Each branch may have a number of patrols, depending on how many participat-ing members there are.
The top-down perspective as a continuum
The above description aims to illustrate the formal (primarily vertical) differenti-ation of roles made in the local group. The chart is, as mentioned, based on the top-down perspective and principle of hierarchy, meaning that the decision-mak-ing power is highest at the top of chart and lowest at the bottom. If we continue this line of thinking, we could seek to identify some entities as the owners or controllers of the organisation and others as the workers, being the objects of this control.
One answer would then be that the AGM is the owner of the organisation. This would then mean that together, all members of the local group are its owners – all the people who take part in the group as either active or participating mem-bers also own the group.
This would make the group supervisory board the top representatives of the owner(s) who are tasked with making sure the goals of the organisation are met.
It is the leaders in the group who elects the group leader(s), and the branch leader and branch assistant answer to the group leader(s). Below these in this hierarchical description of the association are the children and young people who participate in scout activities. The older branches are also organised into patrols with patrol leaders and patrol assistants.
Schematically, the top-down perspective would look like this, if we place the or-ganisational entities on a continuum going from owners or controllers to work-ers:
Owners/controllers
1. Annual general meeting 2. Group supervisory board 3. Group leader(s)
4. Branch leaders, branch assistants, and other leaders Workers, the ones being managed and controlled.
Dorthe has two places in this hierarchy, as she is both the group leader and a regular leader (specifically, she is a branch assistant for the Mini Scouts.)
Managers answer to the workers
The peculiar thing about this type of organisational structure, when looking at it from a top-down perspective, is that the managers in the end answer to the very workers it is their task to manage. The group leader is elected by the other leaders in the group, and the group supervisory board is elected by the annual general meeting. The AGM consists of all active and participating members (or their parents, representing them), and this means that all leaders – the workers who are the object of management – are also owners/controllers of the organisation, along with the participating members.
Thus we can understand and illustrate this hierarchy not only as a continuum going from most to least power or control, but also as a circle, as illustrated in
figure 11, which shows a form of circular vertical differentiation, which I will call tension 3.
I define tension 3 as the co-existence of a top-down perspective, where a select group has the task of managing others, with a bottom-up perspective, where the
objects of management are also the owners of the organisation, as they have a vote in the organisation’s supreme authority. An organisation structured around tension 3 is still vertically differentiated, but it is so in such a way that the bottom decides over the top and the top also decides over the bottom. The organisation seems to exist in a tension between these two perspectives.
When Dorthe says, for example, that she has to take the initiative when the scout hut needs cleaning, this could be seen as her using her top-down influence to make a decision. When the other leaders agree to do this, this could be because they accept perhaps both the need for cleaning the hut as well as Dorthe’s au-thority to decide that they will do this. Dorthe’s auau-thority in the situation could be seen as stemming from the leaders having elected her as their group leader themselves, meaning they choose her to manage them, and now accept that she can legitimately do this.
Annual general meeting
Group supervisory
board
Group leader Branch
leaders and assistants Patrol
leaders and assistants
Participating members
Figure 11. Tension 3 – Top-down and bottom-up
I would argue that Dorthe having this authority can also be seen as the organisa-tion’s way of handling the integration necessitated by tension 2. The top-down perspective present in the structure of the local group could be seen as a way to create integration among all the leaders as part owners and workers of the group. When Dorthe decides to have a cleaning day, she is integrating vertically differentiated leaders.
The DDS association seems based on the co-existence of both mechanisms at both the local and national levels. In this case, on the local level, all of the po-tential objects of management have voting rights specifically regarding the areas where the management could exercise organisational pressure over these voters.
The formalised structure of the local groups seems to include both perspectives, and I will argue that this is one way the organisational structure differs from that of Dorthe’s paid work in the public library.