Tron

Forget everything else and deal with this right here before making any plans. Part of the patrol method is everyone puts in work. EG: Post grubbing up everyone pitches in to clean up and put the patrol box away. The PL might be drying while the 11yr old crossover is scrubbing, but everyone is putting in work. If the troop has enough scouts to allow anyone to hold down the earth with their posterior then they should have another patrol.

Anyone know what's going on with Bluegrass council?

This is great, this is what we need from national to make the program more accessible!

Backstory: Last year at the national meeting there was a few references to Quality Assurance coming back to replace JTE. That did not happen (or has not happened yet). Today I spoke with a couple people from different territories and it would appear that at the CST 5 and the CST 6 annual meetings it was briefed that there is a new council evaluation tool coming out this year. It does not sound like a JTE replacement, it sounds more like a council being audited by national tool. Has anyone else from the other CST' heard of this? Was it briefed there or at any other territory or national meetings? Has anyone that is going to the national meeting in a couple weeks heard if this is getting briefed there?

I did not want to start a new thread so I figured I would tack this onto here. It would appear that Voyageurs Council no longer exists and was carved up to the other councils adjacent in Northern MN.

This is your chance to make a positive impact. Find a way to be happy that you have an opportunity to make this scouts journey better. We all know that there are dirtbag units out there. The rest of us have to be the beacon for the scouts that want to actually grow.

Yet another discussion that is proof that we should scrap the eagle project.

Is there any follow up on Central Georgia? If they sold their HQ does that mean they are dissolving the council?

Unless the lawsuits come out of people who traveled in for the event on a special invitation (West Point Cadets can steer invitations to their hometown troops throughout the nation) I don't see anything going anywhere. This is really common weather for this time of year; maybe they might get some sympathy if they just moved there a month ago from Florida, but I doubt it. With the academy involved there are all kinds of crazy wavers that have to be signed in addition to just the reality of the time of year and expectation that something like this is likely to happen. Just to clarify further, crap weather like what was experienced has happened historically more on this camporee than not.

This is pretty normal weather for that area; I lived out there for a long time. It's crazy that there wasn't a contingency plan on standby.

What I am seeing is that there is no goldilocks zone for todays scouts. It's either the troop is a meatgrinder and only scouts with professional proficiency are getting things signed off or the opposite where anything can get signed off. I think the answer is unit leaders (all of us) and national need to push WAY WAY more outdoors programming. Some of the program needs to shift back towards scout skills emphasis; I would personally yank some of the non scout skill eagle MB and replace them with orienteering, wilderness survival, and backpacking.

You're running ILST, basically lightyears ahead of most of this organization.

If you're going to point a finger point a finger at everybody that has and still is doing it. I live in a major metropolitan location here in America and right now, right here, on your watch, this city and many others are landfilling estuary. Captain conservation, make a list of all the bad actors.

If we're going to go down this road of complaint I feel the need to point out that every major city in the world is built at the intersection of water and those cities all contain significant acreage of landfilled estuary and wetlands that were turned into developable land.

What I am wondering is what happens with all those new 12 month memberships that will start expiring around Oct 1st. If membership are no longer pro-rated, and if historically cubs are primarily recruited in September, doesn't the new membership model start to shift the expired membership situation to around Oct 1st? Will national shift membership performance reviews now?

Everyone is freaking out over this and the headlines are all wordsmithing to make it sound like someone important made this/these statement(s). The lady who ran her mouth about this has no military experience or ties, she has no scouting experience or ties; however, somehow everyone thinks this is an issue. This is going to be much about nothing.

Membership loss on/after Jan 1st has always been an issue right? This is the first year where we have 2 major renewal deadlines though. What happens October 1st(ish) ?

Last year they withheld exact numbers until the national meeting to add more spice to the convention? Do you think that could be the case again this year?

There are so many competing claims about the settlement fund and what's in it, and what is supposed to be in it. Based on my research the settlement fund amount was agreed upon at 2.46 billion dollars; there is no legal claim to anything higher. 1 billion of that is funded and in place. The remaining 1.46 billion is locked up in various stages which include: Amounts that are not available due to asset liquidation being stalled due to issues outside of the control of the settlement court. Amounts that are not available due to cooperating insurance companies needing more time to liquidate assets to fund. Amounts that are not available because some insurance companies are refusing to pay out until all appeals are settled. Not to be insensitive but where is the larger pot of gold that people seem to speak of?

His numbers seem to jive with what I am seeing in my district/council. Sounds like we lost 25% of membership in 24 hours. On a personal note I got off the phone with my COR and I told them that we're fine, we have no action to take, the numbers that dropped from our roll were expected and unavoidable. I reminded them that the extra paperwork I had them chasing the past few weeks to get our handful of not renewed over the line is right now paying with dividends as no one at council can complain about our units membership status; we had no sloppy losses due to laziness (which I suspect a lot of other units are now dealing with).

In that global news wire thing they state more than a million which is purposely vague; however, knowing how non-profits like to do things I am going to assume that more than a million is closer to 1 million than any other milestone number above 1 million. I think we take this as a good thing, staying above 1 million for 2 years in a row is a sign that the membership decline has arrested. If they had reported just under 1 million or almost 1 million I would totally be in the oh snap, we're still declining camp. My special twist to this discussion though .... local rumors in my area are that "all hands on deck" emails were sent out last night concerning membership loss. Apparently the council I am in was not watching the expired membership reports and was counting everyone who had not renewed their membership on Dec 31, 2024 as members and yesterday when national dropped all of those people from the membership rolls my council lost somewhere around 25% of it's membership. What is everyone else hearing in their neck of the woods?

When distributing equalized there are some dangers based on how much and to how many. At any time if 30% of net income (annual) benefits any 1 individual it violates the inurement rules (Wendy L Parker Rehabilitation Foundation INC v C.I.R). If an excess of 8% of gross revenue (annual) goes to member benefits it violates personal gain versus non-profit mission rules (Spokane Motorcycle Club V US 222 F. Supp 151 ). There are a bunch of other cases that touch on smaller amounts but you're dealing with a big dollar item so these 2 are the most probable court cases that define IRS rules that you need to be weary of.

That was supposed to be done before the end of Oct '24. Did he say anything about what delayed/is delaying that action?

I know national has term limits for district and council chairs. There was a situation in my council where a chair refused to step down/aside and claimed there were no rules against it. National stepped in and told the chair to step down per policy or get banned from being a registered adult. That was a few years ago, might have changed, but doubt it considering that district and council committee training still reference term limits for chairs.

Finally seeing some YPT updates that were talked about in the 2024 NAM. I was told today that Emails went out to commissioners to spread the word that Scouting America is now asking all adult volunteers to load a headshot photo to their scoutbook/scoutbook+/my.scouting accouts. Last summer at the '24 NAM Glen Pounder said that he was going to mandate it because UK Scouting mandates it, and then it didn't happen until now. No sign of any of the other mandates that were talked about last year (annual YPT, YPT directly tied to registration status). Has anyone seen anything that was talked about at last years NAM rolled out other than this photo thing that is supposedly happening as of today?