curious_scouter

Troops I know of rely 98% on cub crossovers, 2% on scout-friend recruitment for building a troop. Most don't "need" to market and sometimes individual troops don't want to market. Our troop is at 75 scouts. That will drop to 50-60 in the next two years due to the double whammy of boys hitting 18 and the pack we work with having only a handful of crossovers to feed the troop. I floated the idea of having a recruiting campout this year since we know our feed-in from packs will be light the next two years and it was received well. We'll see if we do it. When I was a youth we did that on

Thanks, good clarification. Anyone know if Scouts BSA has ever achieved that kind of membership gain in a 3 year period in its history? Anyone with involvement / knowledge of the strategy at national to achieve such an aggressive goal?

Does this mean their business plan currently relies on nearly doubling membership over the next 3 years? I'd love to see that, any one have insight on how they expect to hit that goal?

I feel like we might be in the same council. Either that or this is a VERY familiar story. Last year my scouts got ONE lunch at a Camporee free for this fee. A single turkey and cheese sandwich and a small box of milk. No joke.

$33 of the $33 was national. $75 of the $146 was national. My unprofessional, non-forensic opinion is the biggest impact they have seen is camping revenue has tanked. It's down over $500,000 annually. DESPITE this obvious reality - they continue to budget for much higher revenue from camp and consistently fall short. One of the reasons I have such an issue with the assessment of the additional council fee is that it seems obvious a bulk of it is to cover this deficit. HOWEVER, the fee has been assessed to every scout in council. The first year it was in place, Cubs could not eve

Welcome! Boy... this story sounds familiar to me It is basically the path I also took. Hyper involved as a youth, fell off after college and married life, son came home in 1st grade asking if he could join Cub Scouts: Heck yeah you can. Back in the fray! Probably the best thing I can share is be humble. I was amazed at how much I had forgotten. Let the boys in the troop teach you, you'll both benefit from it. If you're ever unsure how something is "supposed" to be done, do what the boys should do: Ask your SPL

Popcorn and FOS are almost exactly today what they were in 2018. It's not for salaries. It's not entirely clear what it is for, that's the issue. Help me understand how in 2018 first year membership was $33 and in 2021 it is $146 in my council. I stand by it. It's ludicrous. The people collecting these fees owe us transparency. They owe us a plan for getting back to an affordable rate. They owe it to scouting NOT to make this a country club activity only accessible to the most wealthy who can afford these huge annual fees which are just the tip of the iceberg in costs for scouting. Th

Our council has a hefty $46 per scout additional fee. Initially they called it an "insurance fee" but after being called out on the fact that insurance costs have gone DOWN for the council in each of the past 5 years, they renamed it "activity fee". You know what my two sons got for that $46 each fee last year? Free lunch one day at a camporee. A turkey sandwich, bag of chips and little carton of milk. I kid you not. I honestly don't know what council needs or uses that money for but from my POV it's just a tax on parents and volunteers to make up shortfalls in their budget. Even volunt

I'm not finding a lot of info about this. I found one mention in a council's FAQ doc indicating that visitors are allowed but constrained to central jamboree and not permitted in subcamps which is understandable and fine. Is it possible to attend as a visitor for a few days? We have some scouts who might like to do that, some of the requirements of being part of the council contingent preclude their involvement (cost to attend / time commit / equipment purchase / etc.) but will be too old next jambo and have an interest to go see it. We'd find suitable accommodations nearby and drive in fo

What plans does your unit have that you are really looking forward to? Any annual traditions that your scouts really look forward to?

It's a good idea not to hold two positions. In fact, it is BSA policy. Unless you are uber strapped for volunteers, having an ASM serve as advancement coordinator / chair is just going to make that person spread thin, likely to be mediocre at both roles, and burn out faster. https://www.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/Registration-Guidebook.pdf Page 14:

We are just back from summer camp. This is my third camp as support leadership, next year I've raised my hand to take the lead so I'm capturing some of the observations, notes, etc. immediately on return while fresh in my mind because my mind is a sieve I thought I'd post some of the general comments here and see also if I can take advantage of the accumulated wisdom and recent summer experiences of those gathered here. We had an AMAZING week. Should note we had over 30 scouts with us, so some of this might be more relevant to a group that size, but still worth sharing. Will encoura

Our SM put this to the PLC, which I thought was a great approach. They did some research and looked into policies from a variety of troops. They ended up taking the approach that electronics are part of our life now, but like Knives they are tools within Scouting and there's a time and place for them and a proper way to use them. So the set up SOPs for use of electronics and required a class to gain a "cyber totin chit" just like a knife. When Scouts aren't using their tools in line with the PLC's established SOP they are warned. If it becomes habitual or there's a severe infraction, they

Councils don't want to do this any more than the units do. If they did, they would have been pushing this for years. It's being done out of necessity and Scouts BSA needs this to work. If there's widespread looting of unit resources by council(s) it will torpedo this and scouting is likely to fail. I'm not worried at all about council chartering and the resources of our unit being protected if we're required to go that route. I'm more worried about having a consistent place to meet and somewhere safe to keep the trailer without having to pay through the nose for storage.

Consistent with the don't overblow, but don't underestimate the risks sentiment (which is a good point) a corporation only provides so much protection. Officers of the corporation are quite often included in lawsuits, especially if there is some presumed negligence. I've run a 501c7 for many, many years and we carry officers and board liability insurance for this very reason. If you elect to explore the formal charity route, invest in professional advice from an attorney and an accountant who have good experience in these matters. They will know all the latest scuttle and they will be

In the Rules and Regulations there is a section about Charters to Groups of Citizens: Establishing a 501c3 doesn't seem to be 100% mandatory then. In the past I shied away from doing 501c3's for several groups I established over the filings and compliance requirements being pretty stiff and either challenging for a "regular person" to navigate or an expense for hiring a professional to maintain. There are probably others who will say it's a piece of cake. Just sharing my experience on establishing a real charity.

Yeah, that's what I was asking. If someone who administrates the forum could look to see if there is an option to enable discussion topic titles in the browser title bar. I went to the invision site to see if I could find info about the setting to suggest. I could not but while there I noticed their forums have this. See screenshots attached for what I mean. ETA: That long text "Option for homepage title..." that's the topic title I was currently viewing. On the Scouter Forum site it's always just "Scouter Forum".

When you click into a topic, is there a configuration in the back end that will put the topic subject in the browser title? I usually come, open the unread messages stream, and then I'll open several in new tabs and read through. But each tab just says "Scouter Forum", so if I need a refresh I need to scroll to the top of page. Not a HUGE deal, but thought I'd file the though/request and see. Thanks in advance for anything

My two cents: Assuming the idea is to help them ease into the Patrol Method, only the boys should wear the patrol emblem. You should emulate the role of a Scoutmaster or Assistant Scoutmaster in the exercise. We did this in our AOL year to prepare them for the patrol method. Have them elect a leader. When possible, rely on the Patrol leader to execute tasks and run activities during the den meetings. If you have a Den Chief, treat them like the Senior Patrol Leader and progressively start asking them to direct the Patrol leader. I found it hard after 8 years in a Pack to adjust

I'm an engineer so I value STEM but I do not want to see a focus on STEM in Scouts BSA. There is no shortage of STEM programs, focus, and push in school and home. Let Scouts be about other things.

I'd take the meeting with the COR at least by phone. They have the authority to replace the CC or the SM if they feel the situation demands it. I still think you should move on FWIW. Even if the COR does the right thing here, I think the well is poisoned. You will be valued elsewhere.

Has anyone here done what @elitts suggests and create their OWN not for profit to serve as a charter? I have never heard of this, curious to see if it's a common and successful practice. It seems like if you find yourself suddenly charter-less and need to act fast, if the Council Unit option does not appeal the best other alternative is the "group of citizens" charter option. But then some person has to volunteer to have the finances attached to their own SSN which these days seems like it would create tax complications for that person. I know I'd be reluctant to put my own SSN on the

I found this doc: https://www.bsacac.org/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Fiscal-Policies-and-Procedures-for-BSA-Units_CAC_FINAL.pdf I think it answers this question:

I think I'm a duty roster believer. This weekend we went to a camporee and ... well I'd like to say we "decided to try" the "everyone helps" method but in reality we just ended up there for ... reasons. I didn't love it, the boys were split. There were literally too many cooks in the kitchen in my opinion I see value in the duty roster. It sets expectations clearly, helps ensure everyone takes their turn, breaks larger tasks down into more manageable pieces, it helps those who need a turn for advancement get it, and it avoids congestion. The patrol leader can make an executive c

I suspect the answer to this is going to be "you need to call your council" but I've seen a lot of Charter orgs pulling support and have seen that you can now do a "Council Unit" charter directly with your council if needed vs. a traditional nonprofit organization. For anyone who has done that, how does banking work? Can you still obtain a bank account to conduct business or do you need to do everything via reimbursement? I can't find a lot of details on how a Council Unit works. The agreement is here: https://www.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Annual-Registration-Agreemen