EEEagle74

I'm the current Board of Trustees Chair for a UMC congregation that chartered a Troop for 101 years. We also chartered a Cub Scout Pack and a Girl's Troop. In the past, I served as Scoutmaster for the Troop (among many other Unit, District, and Council positions) and my wife (a former Scout Office employee) acted as the COR for the church. The Troops and Pack elected to execute an Affiliation Agreement with the church, with the Council acting as Chartering Organization. The cutover process proved difficult due to the on-line Recharter web application's inability to process the new Affiliation Agreement cutover process. Fortunately, one of my wife's superpowers is the ability to make heinously-designed web applications work. Prior to the cutover, our church was one of the most conscientious COs you will find. For the last 15 years or so, church members served as SM and/or ASM, with some youth from the church belonging to the units. The Council, the new CO, is headquartered 100 miles away. One of the BSA execs in Texas has been the acting SE for the Council for a couple of years, supported by an office employee who acts as registrar and administrative support for the Council. The Council employs no DEs and is awaiting a shotgun marriage to an adjacent Council (or Councils). There were only 2-3 UMC COs in the Council, so we don't have many peers. Bottom line: the units traded a quality CO for the illusion of a CO. Cool.

Thanks for the welcome and encouragement! I was SM and Committee Chair for the church-Chartered Scout Troop and CM and Committee Chair for the Pack. Currently, I'm Chair of the church Trustees and no longer registered with BSA. The Trustees get to work through the relationship between the church and the units going forward. As a Trustee, I have a responsibility to protect the assets of the church. But I still have a lot of residual loyalty to the Troop and Pack and want to see Scouting continue in our community. The most elegant solution (given the current options available) for the church's units is probably the Facilities Use Agreement/new CO route. I'd feel better going this direction if our disintegrating LC had a DE to help find the new CO partner. Despite the fact our community is fairly large, we're down to 3 Scout Troops and 2 Packs, with one of the Scout Troops chartered by the Catholic Church. Not much choice if a unit disbands and forces the kids to join the remaining Troop/Pack. Definitely interesting times! After thinking about the concept of the Charter Organization a lot over the past 40 years (I've got a few stories that helped form my opinions!), I've concluded that the safest and least risk approach to supporting UMC Scouting units comes from the traditional charter agreement, new BSA insurance provisions, and a congregation that incorporates the Scouts into the church's ministry and takes its Charter Agreement responsibilities seriously. YPT (and adherence thereto), coupled with the UMC Safe Sanctuary program ably address - but can never eliminate - CSA concerns. However, a church that can't take an active role in the life of its units shouldn't be a CO! And thinking an LC would be anything other than a disaster as a CO (the Affiliation Agreement approach) is just foolishness. Were the UMC BSA Ad Hoc Committee to ask me (and they won't), I would recommend that the UMC permit those churches that faithfully adhere to the provisions of the original form Charter Agreement to continue as a CO if authorized by their Trustees and Church Council. I suspect that of the thousands of UMC churches that charter units, only 20-30% have the capacity and interest to act as CO. And the Annual Conferences will have a variety of views on permissible relationships between churches and Scouting units. Stay tuned.

I've been lurking for a number of months on Scouter.com. I finally took the plunge and registered. Understaffed LCs can't support the administrative requirements associated with an LC-sponsored unit. This makes the UMC Affiliation Agreement a non-starter. Furthermore, an understaffed LC can't help a unit find a new Chartering Organization should the unit elect to retain its UMC meeting/storage space via the Facilities Use Agreement. Prospecting and signing up a new CO will likely require some significant District Exec support, especially now that more national organizations (Elks, VFW, Kiwanis, etc.) are discovering what the traditional Charter Agreement requires of responsible COs. The LC for the units our church charters (101 years for the Troop) has no DEs, one back office employee, and an acting Scout Exec (for the last 15 months) who has a day job in Texas as the Western Area Exec. If our church doesn't act as CO, these three active units will likely disband. Given the bankruptcy-driven turmoil affecting Scouting, I suspect that many units face the same choice between two unworkable agreement formats. What's sad is that our church understands and takes the CO responsibilities seriously. Many of the Troop's adult leaders have been church members, some of the youth attend our church, and the COR has been an active Scouter and former LC employee. The fact that BSA and the UMC Ad Hoc Committee on Scouting "continue to talk" indicates that our units/LC aren't the only ones facing these unworkable choices.