T2Eagle

Just so I'm clear, supplemental to the auto insurance of whoever is pulling it right? Is that liability, comprehensive/collision? Do you know if it covers either trailer or contents when it's just sitting in the parking lot?

What was it Beavah used to say? Don't take legal advice from some furry critter on the internet?

We don't carry separate insurance on our trailer; I need to talk to the legal eagles on the committee at the time of purchase and see if that was a deliberate decision or not. Does your Troop or CO carry a separate policy for the trailer? I posted the link higher up that covered some scenarios that are probably accurate in terms of what happens if the trailer is damaged or causes damage. While going down the road, liability arising from an accident involving the trailer is probably going to be covered by the insurance of the vehicle pulling it. If there's a lot of money involv

No inspections of any vehicles where I live now. I grew up in PA which had semi-annual inspections of all cars. I found the inspections really annoying and expensive when I lived there, now I'm appalled at the obvious "beaters" I see being driven down the road.

This is how our trailer is registered. We are chartered by a Catholic parish. Our state does not require a SS# or EIN to register a trailer. Blw2, for your situation it sounds like the trailer is registered to the troop and it's just the former SM's address so really you should be able to just change the address to another leader without too much trouble. A couple of thoughts on the relationship with your CO, as I mentioned we are also chartered by a Catholic parish. You seem to want your CO to do things that they don't want to do and you feel that what they're doing is somehow "wr

I am not a tax lawyer, so take this with a grain of salt, but it seems to me that the cost of a unit to a for-profit CO are probably tax deductible either as a charitable donation or general business deduction. SO pretty much everything you mention washes itself out as far as tax having to be paid by the CO. You first mention someone donating to the scouts and the scouts counting it as income taxable profit. The scouts aren't an entity so they don't file a return, there is no such thing as income to the scouts. Likely, the money donated to the scouts would be income to the CO but immedi

Stosh, How many for-profit COs do you know of? I don't know of any at all, I am sure there are none in my district and I'm reasonably sure there are none in my council. To the extent a for-profit CO is sponsoring a unit I would assume some knowledge and awareness on their part about what tax laws apply to them. For non profits the tax laws generally say that income they generate is not taxable, you can screw this up if you work at it, like the case with the gymnastics' parents, but you do have to work at it. The laws are actually written and designed so as to make the non-profit inc

A lot of good advice so far, I would add two things. 1) There's no one who can make the CO do more than they want to do, if you want to reach out to someone in BSA to see if they have any help or advice track down your District Executive. I wouldn't expect great things, but they may be able to point you to other Packs or COs in he even you do decide to leave. 2) Talk some more to the SM of the Troop that the CO charters, he may have some insight about how his relationship with the COR is maintained, and maybe some tips for how you can improve your relationship. This kind of adult

The rest of the world is getting better and better at online/distance learning, and BSA is going in the other direction. You have to work hard at that level of dysfunction. Must be something in the water down there in DFW.

We heard a little grumbling a few years back when we picked up three boys from a Pack that had traditionally had its boys crossover to a different troop. This was not a case where the Pack and Troop had the same CO. My response was to smile and shrug. Packs in our area are mostly affiliated with individual public grade schools, which end at 5th grade. There are roughly four Troops in the area and they are chartered mainly by churches; the CO with the largest Troop in the area also has a Pack. We're sponsored by a Catholic Church, we have a Pack and the parish also has a school. The ye

My council does this, and you can spread it over more than one year if necessary, it took me two years and the testing out of a section through my District Training Chair to finally complete mine.

I'm not the biggest fan of BSA training, but there are orders of magnitude of difference between say IOLS and YPT. You can complete YPT online, either Venturing or Boy Scout, in half an hour --- probably less time than any of us spend reading or posting on here in any given week. And you can easily do it at the same time you're doing something useful like watching college basketball

Had a MBC call me the other night to walk her through redoing her YPT on line, after several attempts that kept crashing realized she was using Mozilla. I'm not techie enough to know if that was actually the problem, but if it takes any special programming for BSA training to be compatible with other browsers than I know it's not happening. Had her come to the next troop meeting and use my laptop.

We pay for basic leader training, for scouts and scouters; the costs for the courses are fairly minimal. We pay half the cost of NYLT and Woodbadge. We use some of the money we receive from our CO for this purpose rather than having the boys' or families' fundraising and fees pay for it. The largest cost for adults is actually the time not the money. In terms of IOLS specifically, I think they should move it into the unit to provide and certify the training. It really is not very high skill level stuff if you have any outdoor experience at all, and even without outdoor experience fo

The aluminum foil is the for the tinfoil hat everyone is wearing by the end. Sorry, couldn't pass it up, a slow pitch softball with no arc. I love my fellow Woodbadgers, but despite WB not because of it.

So Bubba Bubba, your enthusiasm is welcome, but here's some thoughts after reading your post and the responses. First and foremost, institutional knowledge of an organization is critical information, and it will rarely be provided by the organization in any formalized way --- you need to go find it. You're not a little new to scouting, you're a babe in the woods in a century old organization, that's in no way a bad thing, but you need to recognize that fact when you are talking about setting goals or understanding what the organization does or even should want. You say "The BSA is p

I clicked on the Scouting Blog answer after my first post. Like most BSA communications it treats us as if we were Tiger Cubs. It restates that permission slips are recommended, but it doesn't give any reason why. The answer "you should probably do this because we think it's a good idea" provides no actual guidance whatsoever. I guess they do give some reason for them:Of course, our goal in all of this is to make sure that parents are aware of the kind of activities their youth will be participating in. But I don't really find that credible as the reason for them. We're adults,

Our Catholic Diocese' Youth Protection rules require them for overnight trips. We have a Troop specific one that specifically lists the CO. They don't provide much legal protection, if you're negligent and someone gets hurt because of it than you're going to be held liable for your negligence.

people before processes. I think it's reasonable that, especially in a large troop,you have some predetermined time that SMCs or BORs happen because that makes everyone's, scouts' and scouters', lives a little easy because it's a little more predictable. I don't think patience is the lesson being taught when, as in my troop, it used to be that you had to wait a week after you requested a SMC just because 'we want to teach scouts to schedule." What schedule, we are all at least in theory scheduled to be at the meeting every week, that's not scheduling, that's controlling. The same with

Calico, My interpretation of the "black hole' was not a money sucking black hole but a "the money is gone and well spent" black hole where the CO had no further interest in the details. Does your CO want that kind of detailed inventory? We're chartered to a Catholic Church and have been for 50 years, neither the business manager for the parish, nor the pastor, not the financial advisory committee has any interest in anything like that kind of detail. There is a diocesan rule that if we have a particular cash level in the bank for "a substantial period of time" we need to report tha

The cash is especially vulnerable, probably no one would want anything else and the Fair Market Value is probably zero, if you have a trailer that might also be at risk. Maybe find another CO, maybe especially one that already charters a troop and see if they'll take you on temporarily. I would think that would be easier and quicker than being a "friends of." Make sure your Council, not just the DE but someone like the SE and a Board Member know what's going on. They have a vested interest in keeping units whole. One interim solution might be to park your cash with the council. In

I do SMCs as needed. When I first became SM we had a formal "you have to ask a week in advance" policy for them. After I had to cancel two because things came up for me I ended that formality and I'll do them when asked, sometimes the same night sometimes the next week or on a campout. I know the scouts and the scouts know me, I don't see any reason to put it off for formality's sake. Our Advancement Chair schedules BORs, usually the meeting following being asked, but they can also happen the same evening. These things aren't disseration defenses they're conversations between a scout and

So, I'm still not sure what you're really asking about. Regarding assets, here's how it works. Let's say you want to buy a handful of tents. Whether you get the money for them from a direct check from your CO, or a donation of money from someone else, or a levy of dues on your families, or a bake sale or other fund raiser, the CO probably doesn't want and there's no legal reason why they would need, to get involved with that decision. Your Troop Committee and your PLC work together to decide what to buy, where to get the money, etc. Then you buy the tents. There is no need for there

Seldon, Is your concern academic or is there a specific action you want the CO to take? What kind of organization is your CO? What do you mean take ownership of the unit's assets? Do you want them to keep some sort of balance sheet reflecting the depreciation of the inventory of your tents? What do you mean by report income and expenses to the IRS? If for instance your CO is a religious organization they probably don't have to report much if anything about income and expenses to the IRS. For non Church COs it's a little more complicated, but unless you're bringing in a lo

From the Archbishop's letter: "Organizations that GSUSA promotes and partners with are conflict with Catholic values, such as Amnesty International, Coalition for Adolescent Girls, OxFam and more." It certainly possible to disagree with some of the actions or policies of those organizations, no organization, including my Catholic Church, is perfect. But it seems pretty extreme and dubious to claim that those three organizations conflict with Catholic values. There is certainly no church-wide prohibition of supporting or working with those organizations.