bobinbako

Our COR raised an issue and claimed we could be in big trouble with the council. (We are self-chartered, but that's another issue which we are addressing) Here's the background:

Once a year (for the past 20+ years) we hold a recruitment campout, sort of a mini-camporee, and invite the two cub scout packs that are nearest to us. It is a Friday-Sunday event, family camping, with the intention of introducing the cubs and their parents to our troop. We rent the facitlity, rent port-a-potties and washing stations, provide some food, and have several stations the cubs rotate through such as fire building, knots, some sort of craft, etc. A committee is formed each year and takes care of the planning, budget, acquiring of the facilities and equipment. The committee decides on a cost per family. In the past we have lost money on this event, and sometimes we break even.

This year our expenses were lower than expected and we ended up with a few hundred dollars extra that was deposited into our troop account. The COR says this turned the event into a fundraiser without telling the cub and scout parents and that now the council could audit our books and pull our charter.

I've looked at the BSA policy on fundraisers and don't see where this would be in violation, other than we didn't get council approval, but then again, it wasn't our intent that it be a fundraiser. COR says we have to refund pro-rated money to the families.

Personally I don't see a problem with keeping the money, but I want to do the right thing, so any advice is appreciated. I would also like your feelings on whether or not you think the council would even care about this.

And he would be correct. As far as the BSA is concerned, he is the owner of the pack. This is one of the reasons why self-chartered organizations are frowned upon.

 

Actually there are differing opinions on this. I spoke to our former Council Executive and current DE and both say he cannot make unilateral decisions, that the "Parents" have a say.

 

Things have been moving faster than I expected and with the help of all of the advice and information from this forum, and advice and information from other sources, we already have a line on an exiting civic organization that is interested in chartering a troop. We are going to meet within a couple weeks and decide if we want to form our own non-profit or go with an existing organization. I'm pushing for the latter and some others are already on board. Even the COR that started this whole "crisis" is on board for moving to an existing org.

 

Thank you for all the help and I'll keep you updated as we move forward and let everyone know how it works out.

Yep. Definitely a mess. I'm kind of disappointed that the council didn't educate us on how to do it properly as opposed to just chartering us back when we did all this.

scoutergipper: That's encouraging, but I just spoke to somebody else who said that since a certain individual's name is on the charter paperwork as the Executive Officer that I am out of luck, that he does own the troop number and assets. I guess my next step is to contact the council and get their take on it. Unfortunately our council is sort of in shambles right now with no executive and one brand new DE to cover 4 districts.

Fred: I agree it would be better to have "real" charter organization, and I may try to persuade others to find one. The fears we had was our troop has substantial assets and we worried about an organization seeing a golden opportunity to become the "owner" of those assets.

Ok. Here's the background. Our troop has been around over 50 years. We were chartered to a civic organization until they went defunct in 2011. They were an "invisible" CO, meaning they had no invovlement with the troop. When we, the parents/troop committee/leaders, discussed what to do we agreed to be self-chartered. The outgoing SM was selected to fill the role of IH and COR. Now some problems are beginning to occur and I have discovered we never formed any formal or legal entity to be the CO. Our charter is held as "Parents of Troop XXX", but there is no legal status. I assume we need to rectify it. SM Bob: We have a stable meeting place, but it looks like all the other steps you explained need to be done.

Our current problem is the person listed on the charter paperwork as the Executive Officer/COR recently made a claim that he and he alone owns the troop and we can't remove him until he decides to leave. And he appears to be wanting to change leadership without the consensus of the rest of us.

What I would really appreciate is an existing self chartered charter orgs bylaws as a template to try to rectify this. Many parents are ready to leave over this.

Thanks for any help.

I am looking for any info on how other self-chartered (Parents of/Friends of...) units are structured and operate. I've been searching and searching, and, although there appear to be many self-chartered units, I can't seem to find any information. Specifically, who constitutes the Charter Organization and who is considered the "head" of the CO? How is the Chartered Organization Rep chosen and who does he/she answer to? Where does the troop committee fit in?