Eagle94-A1

Ebay, or Scouting memorabilia shop. Good luck finding one. It may take you 30 years to find one you can afford.

Trust me I know. My council is about to launch a capital campaign for repairs and upgrades at camp. What happened to the money from a camp they sold that they told volunteers would pay for these renovations? Yes, I know, it went to pay the council's share of the lawsuit.

Supposedly, if every CO in a county petitions to leave and join a council, it can happen. BUT every single CO has to agree to it. I do not know if they have everyone on board or not. But I told them to have patience as mergers are coming.

Registrars are extremely overworked this time of year, and usually until February/March One of the ways we found more Scouts were registration audits. We asked each unit to give us a list of their active Scouts, and compared it to the charter. I can tell you Scouts who should be on charters were found not to be on it, and other Scouts who should have been removed from the charter, were still on it. I know I still find that I have found folks still on charters that I took off the last year, and missing others, even with My.Scouting.Org. You cannot take off the ones still listed, but you can add the missing ones. The December 31st number doesn't actually come out until March. They do have a grace period. I have heard some pros joke about "December 42nd"

I do not know about today, but I know about back in the day. The #1 membership stat was the December 31st number. That was the one used in reports, media, etc. It is also the reason why a lot of councils had recharter December; delinquent units are still on the rolls until February or March. Rational was that paperwork was a pain, and it can take that long to get things fixed. The #2 stat was the June 30th number. That was used to set goals, see how much work will need to be done in Round Up, etc. Finally you had a monthly stat, and that compared to the previous years monthly stat. That is why you can see different numbers supposedly covering the same thing. While some will say it is "apples to apples," It is more like Granny Smith Apples to Gala Apples to Red Delicious Apples.

Trust me there is a lot of indignation. One unit now refuses to have anything to do with the council except paperwork: no camporees, no using camp, no purchasing supplies, no FOS, nothing at at. Most of the units do not use the local summer camp because the program sucks: it is a MB giveaway. Last time I went, inadequate supplies, equipment breaking, large Scout to Instructor ratios (30 people in Lifesaving MB; 15 minutes max on the water each day because you don't have enough canoes?!?!?!), and no improvements from complaints. Families are seeing all this and no longer want to support the council. There is actually discussion about the county leaving the current council, and joining a neighboring one.

@Tron, Since FOS has dried up, and only 1 unit in the district goes to the local summer camp, The "troop" is being charged $37.50 per Scout in addition to $100 recharter fee. Next year it goes up to $75/Scout. That is in addition to the individual 's national registration fee, council service fee, and insurance fee. That is $120/Scout. So a family with 4 Scouts in the program costs $480 individual fees plus $150 for "Fair Share", plus unit dues. And that doesn't include camp outs and summer camps. I know folks say scouting is cheap compared to sports, but there are a lot of folks who cannot afford to do sports, but could afford Scouting. Not any more.

Friends of mine have been hit with "Unit Fair Share" fees from their council. Unit is being assessed a per scout fee. This is being added to the charter fee, so not directly on the Scouts, but who pays unit dues. They are complaining of no services being provided by the council to warrant that fee, or FOS for that matter.

When I was a DE, my district had 45% of the current membership numbers. And that was just 2 counties.

WOW

It is dying. And the majority of folks do not want to put quality control measures. They want 'High Speed, Low Drag" advancement and increasing the number of Eagle Scouts. They would rather celebrate the 13 or 14 year old with all 130+MBs than the troop that is doing trail work on the AT, or the troop running Red Cross evac stations.

Can you give us stats for North Carolina? You aren't in North Carolina by any chance? Your council sounds exactly like mine. Although I did ask a pro for help this year. However he turned the request around on me, and wanted me to do the work for him.

What if they do not want to be in another unit? They just want registration current so that they can restart later?

So what happens to those folks whose registration expires in 3-6 months after the troop folds, and they do not want to transfer? One of my adults doesn't want to transfer to any unit or district/council POR, because he wants to restart the unit in a few months when he has more free time.

During COVID, we did our own summer camp for 5 days. Forgot how much it was, but it was under $100/person. Only out of pocket expense for the Scouts was the stop at the Hardees for shakes during the bike ride. We came up with different activities for the Scouts to do: cycling, canoeing, wilderness survival, emergency first aid drill, and the schedule was flexible, except for Thursday Night Dinner. We had troop committee visit to do BORs. The Scouts had a blast, and many said it was the best summer camp ever. But they didn't want to do it again because, "we didn't earn any merit badges." My kids were included in that. And yes, BSA shot itself in the foot on this matter. They are the ones that pushed advancement and getting Eagle.