wendyscout

If your CC is transferring money on his own without a Committee vote, and seeing it is a troop the SM should be insisting on a vote from the Boys.. Because basically it is money raised, by the boys for the boys.. A pack may get away with a vote from the adult leaders, but a troop should get approval from the boys.. Anyway if the CC is doing this on their own, it really is theft, maybe not for personal gain, but it would be for their personal interest group..

 

If your troop is suspecting, but not sure.. I have to ask, who is the troop treasurer.. You should have at least 3 in the committee, one should be a treasurer.. If your troop has handed all committee duties over to one sole person, you have a serious problem.. Where is the checks and balances?? You have set yourself up to be taken advantage of.. WHY.. Is the CC not allowing others to work in the committee, or our you parents concerned, but not willing to get involved in the troop enough to have the needed checks and balances??.. If your troop needs work who do you want to do the work?.. The CC, the SM, the boys, are you taking on some of the responsibility..??

 

I could see your troop offering support by working a joint fundraiser with them, (provided the boys are interested.).. The pack & crew must put in the elbow grease, but you can help them start to figure out how pull a decent fundraiser.. Perhaps with a joint venture, if needed you could provide the seed money, with the understanding that is paid back from the profits first.. But, permanently give up your own raised funds??.. Even if you are rolling in the dough, you can always find things to spend it on to improve your boys program.. A super trip, a couple of decent smaller trips, a troop trailer, etc, etc.

 

A pack would help with feeding the troop, but if they don't belong to the same CO, there is a big chance they will not come to your troop, but shop around for any troop in the area.. A venture crew, if too close and with an adult leader who is a strong influence starting to prefer the Venture Crew to the troop could be a killer.

 

We had that.. Rather then a place for boys who tire of BS to go, the adult leader tried to recruit her Venture crew members by stealing them from the troop.. "Come to Ventures, no uniforms, girls, we will complete your Eagle rank, blah, blah, blah.. Then after trying to steal the scouts, had the nerve to try to piggy back onto the troop activities.. One was a trip to Nantucket Island, she was told "NO" totally.. So she felt it being a free country, she could just take her group on the same ferry on the same weekend, rent the same bikes, bike to the same campsite, and the Troop couldn't keep her from following them.. She was at the time the troop outdoor coordinator, so she was booking the trip for the troop, and planned to book the same for the crew.. She came within inches of being fired as the Troop outdoor coordinator.. And though she didn't follow she was pissed for a long time.. She also complained that the Troop leaders were EXPECTED to take on leadership roles in her Venture crew, even though their scouts were not involved and they had no interest..

 

This is my bad experience.. This may not be your bad experience.. But, you are hitting some similarities that make my antennas go up..

 

If Adult leaders are in a couple of the units Pack, troop, crew.. This COULD be a good thing, if the person knows that all are separate, and are not a personality that manipulates situations.. I don't think I would like these people to be in as big a position as the key three of these units, unless a key three of one, and not a key three of the other.. These positions are large, and time consuming. But, it could be good for communication between the groups.. It just is the person sitting on the fence between the two, should not feel they have the right to commit one group to the other for anything.. They just are the voice to pass the communication onto the other group for them to decide on.

I appreciate your honest input. It validates the concerns many of us have. The committee chair has appointed two of her friends to the committee (advancement chair and general member) - and those friends support whatever the CC wants. When the CC asked the committee to provide $200 to the cubs, they were outraged that I asked for cub parents or at least their cub leader or committee chair to come to introduce themselves to us before we committed $ to them. The CC's friend was outraged and lectured me on how boys in the boys and girls club don't have any money and can't do this without financial support.

 

The rest of us (SM, ASMs, me, the treasurer) disagree when we are up for a battle. The COR only sees good in everyone (which is sometimes good, sometimes dangerous), and won't replace her. I'm helping the treasurer with our budget closeout from 2013, and see some questionable or vague spending - not a huge amount, but enough to raise my antennae.

 

So I was hoping I had an easier way for us to decline than to go through the battle with her.

Thanks again for your help - I'll probably be back with more questions along our path!

If you are all under the same CO I don't see why not.. All funds are really owned by your CO.. So all your doing is shuffling money from one of the CO's bank accounts into another of the CO's bank accounts.

The Pack is under a differen CO - the Boys and Girls Club. It was not initiated by the parents; it was 'sold' by our CC. I thought scout organizations couldn't solicit for donations?

The Pack is with a different CO. Does that change the answer?

The Venture Crew is in our CO.

 

The background is that our Committee Chair is trying to start the Cub Pack and the Venture Crew. However, many on the committee are not on board. Some are also concerned that she's been using Troop money and making promises to these groups without going through the Committee first.

 

We want to strengthen our own Troop, which is in desperate need of focus and basic infrastructure. We're concerned that her attention and time with the Cub and Venture are distracting her attention and ours - as she uses committee agendas to discuss Cub and Venture needs, often above Troop needs. And now she also wants us to spend Troop money supporting them. When she asked for $ for the Cub pack, there was no indication that there is any parent involvement or real interest, and she reacted very defensively when asked. We definitely would like to see them grow, but believe that they need to be committed themselves, and that we can provide more help if we're strong ourselves.

 

Any input?

The CO just doesn't have the bandwidth to start a cub pack. The CC went to the Boys and Girls Club across the street and sold the idea to them. Same troop number, different CO. She thinks it will be a feeder pack, but we already have a pack in the community with no troop - which we could simply court. Seems like a lot of work to start a whole new pack, especially when there are no parents initiating it. The Troop CC says she is an advisor, but when she asked for the donation, she was the one who spoke for the group. Only one other person was there from the pack - a past Troop scout, who she recruited on a temporary basis. He's about 20 y.o., and she kept dismissing him (he's only here til Jan - he's temporary as we find someone to lead the pack) when I tried to ask him questions. Even he didn't seem confident that starting this pack is a good idea. But she's an authority figure to him, and he couldn't say no.

 

For Venture, she started that too, and we're not sure what her real position is. We don't see any real evidence of anyone else being involved in that either.

 

I thought maybe I had found a polite way to avoid funding these groups, at least until we can see if they have substance or not.

The Pack is with a different CO. Does that change the answer?

The Venture Crew is in our CO.

 

The background is that our Committee Chair is trying to start the Cub Pack and the Venture Crew. However, many on the committee are not on board. Some are also concerned that she's been using Troop money and making promises to these groups without going through the Committee first.

 

We want to strengthen our own Troop, which is in desperate need of focus and basic infrastructure. We're concerned that her attention and time with the Cub and Venture are distracting her attention and ours - as she uses committee agendas to discuss Cub and Venture needs, often above Troop needs. And now she also wants us to spend Troop money supporting them. When she asked for $ for the Cub pack, there was no indication that there is any parent involvement or real interest, and she reacted very defensively when asked. We definitely would like to see them grow, but believe that they need to be committed themselves, and that we can provide more help if we're strong ourselves.

 

Any input?

Can a BSA Troop donate money to a Cub Pack? Can the Cub Pack accept the funds? Same for a Venture Crew...can they accept donations from the Troop?