Pack18Alex

Also, if you are doing a fundraiser where the scouts are using their labor and the tax free nature of the CO, but it's more clear the benefits, you're probably going to be clearer. I mean, if the "Philmont Patrol" of 6 boys run a Car Wash every other month, and raise $500 to cover their trip to Philmont, and it goes into the Troop Account and 100% goes to the Philmont trip, there is ZERO problem, right?

They are raising money, as a Scout group (even if it's an ad hoc patrol for this trip), for a Scouting trip?

As pointed out by qwazse, if the Scout is getting a really private benefit (scouts split the money after each carwash), at most you have to 1099 them if it's more than $600, and they aren't going to owe any taxes on it anyway.

Just think more in terms of Units and Unit goals, and sub-Units and sub-Unit goals, and less in terms of ISAs, and you'll be fine.

I have to remind my parents on the committee that our goal isn't "fairness" our goal is to advance the pack. We want incentives to encourage the behavior we want, but if the goal is getting Scouts camping, then our budget priorities need to be oriented on getting Scouts camping, not on allocating costs fairly.

Same thing with ISAs. You can't use the BSA product sales for primarily private benefits, which ISAs are. But you CAN use BSA product sales to fund the Scout Unit, and as long as the primary benefit is NOT the individual, you can use incentives to align them, and people can work to earn their own way.

Taking the fundraiser money, dumping it in an ISA, and charging dues/event fees out of the ISA is simply the lazy way to do it. You've made the fundraiser simply an individual scout money making opportunity, and that's not what the IRS permits us to all do as 501c3 organizations. Service for money is always permitted. Incentives based upon the interests of scouting are permitted.

This means some of the benefits are privatized (incentives), some are socialized (Unit/Council Cut), and some are in the middle (Patrol Accounts).

I find for both my scouts and my parents: Sell 150 and Event X is free is way more motivating than X% goes into a Scout Account and you save $12 off something or other.

Letting the Scout keep 80%-100% certainly gives them the most incentive, but if the Scout is out selling popcorn professionally for a sales commission, that's NOT a non-profit fundraiser, that's a sales job. Just align your incentives and rewards and everything works out.

I mean, there is NOTHING wrong with a Scout buying Popcorn for $7 and selling it for $10 to pay for his Scouting operation. However, that's no more Tax-exempt an activity than Walmart buying Popcorn and selling it with a mark-up. He can source his own supply (or you can arrange it), and he can pay the taxes on the profits. If you want to be tax exempt, the benefit has to be for the tax exempt organization.

 

Not very boy-led.

Funds are not inherently boy led. Funds are the property of the Charter Organization entrusted to the Scout Unit. The Funds are supposed to be allocated based upon the designees of the Charter Org, which is the Unit Committee. The Scouts set the program up, but the Unit Committee is ultimately responsible for the funds, making sure to fulfill the values and expectations of the Charter Org.

Now, if the CO is a "Friends of" organization, and the "Friends of" CO wants the boys to have control over the funds, that's a different matter. But for the 70% that are operating under a religious institution, fulfilling the goals of the CO via the Unit Committee is paramount.

If the unit leadership WANTS to get boys to philmint, you subsidize it out of troop funds. If the boys want to go, they figure out how to fundrAise to go. Philmont patrol car wash, etc. If a scouter wants to go to wood badge, sign his form. If the committee wants to send a scouter to wood badge, offer of troop funds and find a volunteer to go. Either way, troop funds should go to further troop goals. Our pack committee set a goal of more people camping, because scouts that camp retain, scouts that don't camp are hit or miss. As a result, we budget to spend pack funds on campouts, which lowers te per person cost. That's not an individual benefit, it's a decision to try to get more scouts camping. I think you can do things carefully to get scouts in and actively working. Focus on unit goals and how to get there.

I agree with BD though. When someone buys our fundraiser, they are supporting Scouting in general, and POSSIBLY our pack in particular (when we fundraise in our neighborhood). So the money for Council is fine, the money that goes to our Unit is NOT intended to go to my son, we're not panhandling, it's to run the neighborhood/community scouting program.

Now, if you WANT Scouters to go to Woodbadge, than the Unit should pay between 10% and 100% of the cost to encourage them to go. If you want boys to go to Philmont, than the Unit should pay some of the costs to go. I don't overly object to letting a boy "earn his way" via fundraising, but certainly not a 1:1 relationship.

I see units putting 80% in the ISA, 20% in the Pack/Troop Budget, that in my mind is NOT what people think they are doing when they buy a Camp Card off the kid in front of the Super Market. Most of the money should be going to durable "stuff." The boys/families should be paying their own way… perhaps a general subsidy of certain events if you want more participation...

We're thinking of having the Pack pay registration fees for everyone attending the District/Council Camporees to bring the costs down and increase participation… but to make that work, your eligibility for that will be some level of fundraising as a family. That certainly runs into individual benefits, but we need some way to make it more viable to get families camping, and we need some way of encouraging the Scout Parents to take their boys fundraising so we have the funds to make that happen.

Down in my Council, at least in the few districts I know people in, EVERY pack has a trailer (we were one of the last to get ours), some have 2 (one that's storage), a pack kitchen, Webelos Tents, etc.

But here, because the weather is good, all the non-LDS Packs camp 3+ times/year… one camps 6 times/year.

But we have good camping weather from October to April.

But very common for a pack to have 1-3 Stoves, 1-2 grills, a few other packs have ovens. We all have fire pits for camp fires. Our Webelos tent in Pack supplied tents, etc.

HOWEVER, this may be selection bias, I know the leaders from the other super-active packs, and I see the camping gear of the packs that camp at camporees. It's very possible that I only see 50% of the Packs and there are a bunch that don't own anything, I'd have to ask my DE.

I don't see how you can "guide and support" the den programs if you don't monitor them... Cubmaster should be running activities for the boys when it's not den meeting times. That is a serious pack job. What else do you want to do?

An Individual Scout Account is not a drawable stack of funds like a bank account, it's an account in the accounting term. If you use a GL program like quickbooks, every Customer (the scouts), has a Scout Account, every Vendor (Council, places you camp, Wal-mart, etc) has a vendor account. You have income accounts (dues, fundraising, donations), you have expense accounts (camping, registration, food, etc), everything that money is tagged with in accounting is called an account.

When we experimented with ISAs, we put them as credits on the Scout's Customer Account. When they had a bill come up, we applied the credit and billed them for the balance. Since we don't refund off the accounts (unless special circumstances), there is no fiduciary issue, we're NOT a guardian of their funds.

You can treat the sales incentives as an expense (basically a Cost of Sales), or you can split the income between the Scout and Unit with splitting the revenue. But in no circumstances is a trust account needed for money that is held by the troop to be uses at the direction of the scout subject to Troop policies.

Was at Target last night and found red plastic (dishwasher/microwave safe) red plates, 2/$1.39. I now have 50 red plates for around $40… Walmart has bowls in Blue/Red at 4/$2 that I'll probably pick up. Party City has washable cutlery in colors (210pc set of red and/or blue) are each $10… I'm guessing that in the $150-$250 range, I can outfit out Mess hall, and build storage boxes.

This will actually enhance the duty roster, because we can't cook on Shabbat, there are few tasks for the boys to do around meal times, this will let us assign one Den to cleaning pots/pans, one Den to setting up the meal, and one Den to cleaning up the mess hall (after washing their own dishes). While we had 4 Dens this year, usually two required combining on any given campout because of numbers/leaders.

Philosophically, any scouts personal observances should be based on his home. However, as a group, we encourage observance during the camp out. As adults they will make choices in life. I want them to know that they can be as observant as they want. Well have dads donning Tefillin and praying with their son's Sunday morning... The same dads that are helping back the trailer after breakfast (or lunch, whenever we break)... That's a hugely important life lesson. I try to undermine this strange lack of self confidence amongst American Jewish men about their manhood.

Pack has never done disposables in 5 years of existing, it's always been mess kits, so I see no reason to do disposables now. We camp between 3 and 5 times/year, really does average 4 (this year was 5). It's not like they don't get lots of opportunities to camp.

Also, the Cubs (and the Cub Sisters), LOVE having the mess kits and cleaning up the mess kits. It certainly makes it feel more like a camp out and less like a picnic in the park. It also does get them ready for more intensive camping.

My reason for going to the Pack Model was to remove a hurdle from new families camping, at the risk of alienating the families that have the mess kids.

qwanze, if you're in Florida, shoot us a line, we're pretty easy to find.

Kosher's not a big deal, the dish washing station has separate bins and scrubbers for meat/dairy, we swap them out between meals. This summer, we're going to build a second, bigger station to handle pots/pans separate from the mess kits. Given that we've figured out how to make kosher meals, over the Sabbath, work on the camp out, I don't see any reason to step back and do less.

I have one family that uses pack disposable on each camp out… I was wondering if people here through that having a Pack Place Settings in a patrol box was a reasonable idea. I thought I had seen patrol boxes with plates in them, but I wasn't sure. If it's in-line with the patrol method to have each patrol have patrol mess kits, I don't see a reason, other than cost, to not get them for the Pack.

If we can get 2 plates+1 bowl for meat, and 1 plate+1 bowl for dairy, at $1/piece at end of summer clearance, even if I get service for 50, we're only talking $250, plus silverware. Totally fundraisable. Might also do the meat set this year, and dairy set next year, and let people either bring a dairy mess kit or use disposables.

Here is the thing, the OTHER packs in the area use mess kits, so if we're at a Camporee and on disposable, and everyone else uses mess kits, that reinforces to our kids that "its too hard" to be Jewish, which is the exact opposite of our mission and goal as a Jewish Pack. If it was my son and I in a secular pack's camp out, we'd be packing our own food and either disposables or mess kits/private dish washing station, but it's not, we have an all Jewish Pack affiliated with a synagogue.

The Mess Kits is one of the things that seems to overwhelm new families. We have disposables for those that don't bring, but generally after a camp out or two the families get them. Given the cost of a tent, sleeping bags, and mess kits (kosher requires separate kits for meat and dairy mess) can be prohibitive, so it's not something generally pushed so hard in the beginning.

I have one family that's a pain in the neck about mess kits and some other food related issues, and deciding if the individual mess kits make sense or if place settings should be part of the Pack infrastructure.

The "nice" colored plastic sets runs $12-$15/mess kit (compared to $5 for a cheap metal one), at $25/family member and an average family size of 5, it's a $125 investment to add to the $125-$200 tent, etc.

Plus for mess kits: more "scouty," personal responsibility, people take care of their own stuff.

Minus for mess kits: silverware is always disappearing/getting mixed up, makes tracking a pain, one more thing for me to depend on parents doing

Plus for Pack Kitchen: easier to track, everyone washing up when done, everything together. No "lost" pieces beyond actual losing, if the fork is found in the bin, it gets put back with the rest.

Minus for Pack Kitchen: up front cost, "unfair" to the families that shelled out for mess kits over the past few years

Bonus for Pack Kitchen: available for "outdoor activity days" because if we haul the trailer, we have the stuff, as opposed to counting on families to bring mess kits

One advantage to the Pack Approach is that the overall cost might be lower… We're NOT back packing, so could get items for $1-$1.5 each. At $5/place setting, even service for 50 for both meat and dairy would only cost $500. I would think that they'd need/be recommended to get Mess Kits as Webelos when they start camping with the Troop… going forward I'd like the Webelos to have their own mess area and cleanup area to reinforce the "patrol" concept but we're not there yet.

PackAlex' date=' cubs have an amazing ability to be "tired" and "exhausted" but when something peaks there interest, they get an instant recharge. We took a few cubs recently to a orienteering event that had a 1.5 mile short course for the cubs. The moaning and groaning starts in about 3/4 of the way through. That is until we came upon Cub World. Turned into a bunch of Energizer Bunnies.[/quote']

 

Laugh, VERY VERY VERY true. Some kids go to bed @ 7:30 normally, others 8:00/8:30, the latest is one family whose kids go to bed at 9 PM. None of them are routinely up and at it at 10 PM on a Friday night.

 

But you can see over tired kids, they refuse to lie down, and you have 8-10 year olds actually crying over stuff… They are excited, it's new and different, so we channel the energy into something productive. When they are tired, they get hurt. After an ER visit the last camp out, I'm done with over-tired kids that refuse to eat or settle down, it's not just out of control behavior, they're dangerous to themselves and others.

I'm the committee chair and a den leader. During den meeting nights, the CM opens the meeting (we do a joint opening then break into dens). During pack meeting nights, he directs the activity. During pack activities, he runs then if he's there, I run them if he's not there. The other den leaders jump in on activities because were used to running things. My in the background committee members help with some of the overall planning. A more active committee and Trainjng my replacement are near the top of the list. Den meetings are a time for you to gather notes and help share ideas between dens, plus a chance to chat with the parents. Plan more weekend activities, belt loop nights, etc if you feel under utilized.

So here is our current plan… We did a special, if your family sold 150 Camp Cards ($750), your family attended our Council Camporee for free (depending on family size, this benefit was between $65 and $190)… This was an attempt to help sell more camp cards (and fund our Pack and Council), and to encourage families to come to the Camporee. The incentive was small for a small family, but some of our larger families struggle to pay for the camp outs, bringing 4 or 5 kids with two parents makes for an expensive weekend.

Was this a private benefit? I'm not sure. I know we have lower attendance at camporees than pack campouts, I believe cost is a factor, and less manpower makes it REALLY REALLY REALLY hard on those of us going.

Since I've not been directed by council on anything (they still talk about scout accounts at round table), and all I got in an email a few months back and discussions here, I'm assuming as long as I'm not really tracking ISAs and doing incentives for participation, I think I'm in the clear.

In previous years, Pack has paid re-charter out of annual dues. This year, we're going to charge a re-charter fee to include re-charter + boys life… I'm not sure if it'll be $37 (direct cost), or $50 (to contribute towards leader re-charter). However, if you sell a certain amount of Popcorn, we're going to waive dues. The idea of this was to start encouraging more participation in the fundraisers, and to squeeze a few bucks out of the families not pulling their weight.

I'm concerned that if we set the threshold at $150 (which raises $50), we're entering the substantial benefit realm… which is mostly a shame because I basically want a system to whack the families that won't fundraise for one or two hours a few bucks so we can have a nicer program.

Thoughts?

For us, Friday night was hard, Saturday night easier… Jewish Pack, so no camp fire Friday night, no flashlights, etc., just overtired elementary school kids super excited and NOT wanting to go to bed. My kids were amongst the worst and got in trouble with me.

New policy… Friday afternoon is insane getting ready, cooking, etc., parents are wiped. Friday evening, prayer service, Sabbath dinner, after dinner prayers. We then do Cub Scout Vesper and TAPS. Any children that do not want to go to bed join us for a night hike. The night hike ends when they are willing to go to bed.

This stops them from torturing their parents and trashing the camp site… though I was told that I might be "hazing them" by making them walk until they are tired. This last time, the kids were wired, we had them running races in an empty field a few hundred yards. As they started to fall apart, they were walked back to camp 2-3 at a time and sent to bed. Worked pretty well.

This doesn't translate into the Troop at all, but I found it amusing that we just make them walk/run until they agree to go to bed… then they insist that they are too tired to brush their teeth.

You should always be trying to Earn the knots, JTE patches etc. The anti adult recognition people are wrong. The recognition is nice, but each award comes with a checklist of things that makes you run a better program for the scouts. My leaders all got their training completed because I hounded them while we pursued JTE. We hit JTE Gold, and everyone being trained made a huge difference in our program delicery.

One nice thing about Camp Cards is that 100% of the money goes to Scouting (in our Council, 50% Unit, 50% Council).

If a Unit puts half the money is an ISA and half in general treasury, that's only 25% for an individual benefit, which seems to be below the threshold ruled substantial. We generally keep the private benefit part to under 20%.

Patrol Accounts would let the Scout get closer to private benefit without it being actually private.

Internet Advancement won't let you register for both positions. Your Council Registrar can do it manually. Fill out an extra Application with the other position, bring it to Round Table, and tell the DE what you need (stick a cover letter on it that they need to ADD the registration).

Get yourself the Den Leader Knot f you want.

It is VERY hard to step back and let other people lead when you think you'd do a better job. It is very frustrating to see poorly done Den Leadership, when it is a relatively easy job. (Two Den Meetings/Month isn't that hard. It does require some prep work, but not planning anything and letting the boys down is really lame).

The most important thing (and hardest for us to remember as Scout Parents) is that the GOAL of Scouting isn't to amass recognition, that's a method. The goal is boys growing into self sufficient, self reliant men. As parents, we are always torn between our desire for the best for our children and our need to help them grow to make their own decisions.

As one gets older, the responsibilities get harder, and more lasting.

So if you meddle in the OA elections with the SM, you MAY get your son into the OA, which will get him some bling and an opportunity to do some OA activities, but you'll deny him the opportunity to earn his way in.

That's not to say you shouldn't help, but you should help YOUR son do it on his own. That will mean more to him than anything else.

Self advocacy does NOT come natural to many people, but it's an important life skill. Helping your son learn this is more important than an OA election. If he can't promote himself to win an OA election without you, what's going to happen at College/University when he needs to self advocate for leadership opportunities. What's going to happen in his career.

If self promotion is uncomfortable, you can learn it for OA Elections, which are VERY low stakes, learn it for summer internships (where it affects first jobs), higher stakes, learn it when it comes to jobs/promotions, with MUCH higher stakes. At some point he'll need to learn to promote himself. He can learn it at 14 when the issue involved is OA membership, or he can learn it at 35 when his career has suffered for 15 years because he won't self promote, when would you rather your son learn this.

College Decisions (100k+ decision), First homes (200k+ decisions), Career Track (1M + decisions), Spousal Selection (nearly infinite decisions) all have serious consequences. Scouting prepares you for life if your first decision is "Camp Out Menu" instead of "which college to I attend." It doesn't prepare you for life if you rack up awards that your parents pushed you through.

We got flack for it a few years back, link off the site. That's why it's a support role, and it will be to support the CO's Youth Scouting Program.

We'll word it carefully, it'll be to sponsor the Blue and Gold Banquet, not soliciting donations.

Internet Advancement is a royal PITA. It's slow, slug gist, and poor. Councils are hit or miss on recording the paper copy.

Helping on Go See Its would be huge.

Training sessions for Advancement Chairs, with Webinars, etc., might be helpful. One reason we're recording everything (or trying to), is if its in the record, and the boy sticks with Scouting, it'll show up at their EBOR... won't matter, but it'll show up.

Cub Fun Day here featured Planet Bobcat (the theme was space). The boys went from station to station, did the Bobcat, and left with a certificate to turn in. We got free Bobcat Patches (that was a nice one), and the boys earned their Bobcat. This was great for the New Scouts.

Easy to use Paperwork for tracking advancement would be nice. The parents won't read the book. The Tigers can't really track themselves. Tracking advancement with a half dozen wild boys is a PITA.

A low GPA and application to elite schools may end up with automatic filtering by computer, but once you get past any automatic screenings, you get read by a person. Those people are trying to fill out a well rounded class.

Look at the most selective schools in the country. There are enough 4.0 high school students (unweighted) to fill up the entire freshman class at Harvard, Yale, Princeton, MIT, Stanford, etc., yet students without 4.0s get in.

State schools may use automatic scoring (GPA + SAT scores), but you can attend one if you are a decent student, maybe not you state flagship, but a state university nonetheless.

Eagle Scout doesn't give you X points, but it's something impressive on your resume. So is "lead part in high school musical," so is "editor of high school newspaper." There's no flat score. Harvard doesn't want 1000 newspaper editors, but they might want 10. Otherwise, the same people would get into every school, in reality, some people get into higher ranked schools and get rejected by lower ranked schools.

Elite schools want students that excel in their endeavors, while they have the ability to get the work done. A very low GPA will hurt you, but if the GPA gets you through the auto-filter, it's about, what do you add to the freshman class. Another 4.0 GPA + perfect SAT isn't all the interesting. There are thousands of them each year, you'll notice Harvard doesn't have a perfect SAT in their incoming class. If all that mattered was GPA + SATs, Harvard's endowment would let them fill an entire class with them and not charge tuition, yet they don't do that.

In our Council, Camp Cards are 50% Council, 50% Unit. Therefore, 50% of the revenue is going towards Scouting (Council), regardless of anything else. If the Unit gives 100% of the money to the now banned ISA, you might have a substantial problem. If some of the money (even if Camp Costs), is going towards Troop costs (i.e. Camp costs $250 and you charge $300/Scout to cover food, gas, etc., whatever), then 60% of the money is going to Scouting, 40% to individual benefit, probably fair as far as "substantially" is concerned.

We charge annual dues/Scout, we do NOT charge a separate re-charter fee.

Next year, we are charging a re-charter fee of $37 to cover National Dues + Boys Life. Anyone who sells $150 in popcorn (netting $50 to the Pack) will have their re-charter fee waived.

With the national price increase, we either have to raise dues, fundraise more, or both. This seems like a good way to involve them.

We're also creating a voluntary position in the Pack, Friends of Pack 18 Committee, tasked with raising/donating each year. This is a way for some of our well-to-do families that don't want to volunteer (time to valuable/rare/whatever) to "contribute" financially. We'll see how it works.

We have some boys whose families can't pay dues, we write it off as Campership, no muss-no fuss, we do ask them to try to participate in the fundraisers.

We have some fairly well off families, and many more in the community. We believe that the nature of scouting, making due with inadequate funds/equipment, has discouraged participation from many families because we don't look sharp at our recruiting/public events. Our theory is that investing some resources in higher quality stuff (like a fancy derby track, etc) will help with recruiting, and letting the well off families kick in a little more will help.

Selling $150/popcorn takes about an hour in our neck of the woods, if you won't take your son out so he can earn prizes, you can pay to re-charter. We're still the cheapest after-school program by far.

We have a handful of families that are doing all the work, all the fundraising, and killing themselves. I want to give other families a way to participate, and for many of them, cutting a check for $250 or $500 may be less painful than fundraising, and would let us be a top-notch organization.

What do others think?

I think that a minimum is not scout-like, but we've set goals. This year it was $100/scout in Popcorn (next year it will be $150/scout to cover re-charter). At Blue and Gold, we asked for $3/person donations, next year we're going to ask our Friends of Pack 18 "to underwrite it" with their donations.

When I took over as Committee Chair, we hadn't fundraised in over a year, so we were 100% dues-financed. Year 1, added Camp Cards, Year 2, Popcorn/Camp Cards. We're now about 50% dues-financed. I want to run a better program.

Some things are small but relevant. We don't own Pack Propane Tanks, which means getting a bunch of people to fill their tanks and bring them, which adds work to the leaders. I'm trying to stop burning out the leaders with grunt work to save a few dollars, when I could get a few families (basically the Doctor/Lawyer families) to write small checks and make this less aggravating.

Technically speaking. Charter Organization names a Charter Org Rep. The COR (or the IH) names the Committee Chair. The Committee Chair then names all other leaders with the approvate of the COR/IH.

In practice, there is nothing wrong with an Election that determines this, as long as the COR and CC are in agreement to honor those results.

If you are doing an election, this would be my suggestion:

1. All candidates for positions fill out an Adult Application, COR approves them (they can't run without COR approval)

2. Outgoing COR or Committee Chair should call the meeting to order, elect a new Committee Chair (old Committee Chair signs app). New Committee Chair should conduct the rest of the elections. Alternatively, old Committee Chair runs the meeting, signs the applications, new Committee Chair takes authority after the elections.

3. As candidates are elected, the Adult Application Position Code/Title is filled in, Committee Chair signs the form. They are all turned into Council.

In terms of the Committee, you should have a minimum of three:

Chairman

Treasurer

Secretary

A Vice-Chairman that takes over for Committee Chairman would be a "nice to have" position, but it could also be the Secretary doubling as Vice Chair.

Useful additional Committee Positions: Advancement Chair, Popcorn Kernel, Chaplain (for religious Units), Camping Chair, Pack Trainer/New Parent Orientation Person

One event people: Pinewood Derby, Raingutter Regatta, Space Derby, etc., need not be committee member. But if you can afford the $25 and they've done the training, I'd register them.

The BSA top salaries don't seem that high to me. They seem reasonable for people running organizations of that size. I mean, our local Council Budget is 3.6M, I don't see how you could have an executive overseeing that competently without paying $200-$400K/year. Now, the level of competence is another question.

 

National puts out antiquated tools, so council is administratively heavy to administer them, that isn't helpful. But you're delivering a semi-consistent program to millions of youth with hundreds of thousands of active direct line volunteers, that requires some serious management talent.

 

One of the areas council should get better on, IMO, is providing managerial help to Scouting Units. Most Units are filled with gung-ho leaders, but most are teachers with the occasional other white collar professional thrown in. In the more "youth at risk areas" we have a lot of blue collar business owners as long time volunteers.

 

One thing lacking is the support/tools for running the Scouting Unit like a small business. Things like budgeting, forecasting, planning, etc., those are areas that most Units are very weak on and areas that professional talent could really help. Instead I see Council unable to adequately administer their business and unable to help Units grow/prosper.

 

I see pre-school teachers as Committee Chairs, and other things. My Unit happens to have a lot of management personnel in the leadership, but nobody else in our District does. Trying to help run an event had me wanting to cry, people not aware of how to run a budget or use a budget, how to encumber expenses, reimbursements, etc. The fact that we are organized through 501©3 Churches makes the finances get swept under the rug, which may prevent tax problems, but avoids running efficiently.

 

That said, you need crisis response teams, when volunteers like GeorgiaMom go off half cocked without knowing what they're talking about and terrifying charter organizations with what needs to be done.

 

When she posted her non-sense about tax issues (she didn't even ask the right person, Tax CPAs fill out forms, they don't answer tax law questions, she asked a CPA a tax law question and got an incorrect answer, because she asked the wrong question), I asked her what return the Pack wasn't allegedly filing that they were supposed to, and she deleted the thread, but clearly thinks she is still right.

 

Council/National have too many people, too many senior people, and too high of a cost structure, not uncommon for older established companies. They need to go through a massive restructure/downsizing, but they aren't enriching themselves at the public's expense.

We have management personal, no skilled tradesman. It had advantages, but a ton of drawbacks.

Of the 50 or so packs in my district, the only one with this setup is mine. So when I'm at Roundtable and they are discussing things and gloss over the business side, I think it's a disservice.

If my district is typical, 2% management side, 98% teachers and tradesmen.

Talking to other leaders, they are all drowning on the paperwork side, so I think that BSA would do well to have professionals help on the paperwork side.

You are right, there is too much paperwork. But until national reduces it, I'd like to see council help units along, since in general,

Paperwork is not their strength.

My pack of pencil pushers can handle it, the rest are drowning.