Scouting the Web

Scouting is becoming more expensive but it isn't super expensive. One of my units recently got a family back from sports. They had pulled all of their kids and pumped them into baseball and after a year of the costs of organized baseball they came right back to scouting.  I think the expensive part of scouting is hidden by bad units and units that are too reliant on district/council based programming. One of the troops that I help with is getting ready to do its big fall campout and the cost for a weekend is currently at $70 a person. I'm struggling to understand why, with our state parks and how cheap it is to camp in them the cost should be more in line with $20 a person (for a 2 night 3 day campout).  The council fees are ridiculous. Michigan is $85 a person which is the highest in my neck of the woods. I look across the council line and I have no idea what they are getting for that $85 that we are not getting in my council and we're barely paying a council fee here. 

With national increasing prices, and councils adding their own fees, Scouting is slowing becoming cost prohibitive for most families. And do not tell me to sell Popcorn.  We have only 1 unit in my area selling it, and they are struggling. Only reason they are doing it is to have council waive their per Scout unit charge. And I have a feeling council will backslide on that.

Thanks. I didn't see that number in their recent email or the court filing. What prompted this question is the AVA email I saw posted on facebook guessed (estimated?) that they represented 5,000 claimants. It's getting near the end but that's a big difference in the unprocessed claims.

Resurrecting a slightly older post instead of creating a new one. I have noticed in the last couple decades more and more eagle projects with plaques attached with the scout's name and troop number.  While I appreciate knowing a project was done by scouts, I have begun to wonder about the creep from joyful service without recognition or reward to emblazoned plaques. I can see the benefit to the movement of recognizing the project as that of Scouting. Perhaps I am just being a fuddy-duddy or perhaps I am seeing how this named recognition decreases a main purpose of scouting of building character through cheerful service.  Perhaps it would be better if there were official plaques from HQ stating simply, "Scouting America Eagle Project <year>" and more forcefully promote the "without recognition" part of service. Of course the scout is recognized by the troop, council, and HQ for their achievement of Eagle.

The timeline is definitely fuzzy. National isn't pressuring enough change at the council level, councils are far too independent. As a franchise national does not control market saturation well enough. The Churchill report recommended 100-150 councils; my assessment and the huge improvement in telecommunications since that report make me though we should probably have less than 100 councils.