What?? You've Got to Be Kidding Me with These Membership Numbers!

[Eagle1993]

8 hours ago, Tron said:

National needs to force mergers, tell councils they need to embrace remote work and tele/video conferencing. Every DE should live and work in their district, not at council HQ. Every council HQ should be a tiny hole in the wall or a cabin on the council camp used as basically a logistical hub to feed the districts

Fully agree. I understand my council knows they will merge with another council; however, that council is not in great shape financially and likely needs to close a camp or two.  My council is holding off on the merger so they aren't blamed for the camp closure.  I'm sure there are many similar stories, so national will have to step in.

During the bankruptcy a small/secret meeting was held by a fee national leaders.  Their PPT slides were reviewed in court but never added to the docket.  They included recommendations for a major reduction in councils among other ideas.  It is needed and hopefully coming. 

[yknot]

5 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

Fully agree. I understand my council knows they will merge with another council; however, that council is not in great shape financially and likely needs to close a camp or two.  My council is holding off on the merger so they aren't blamed for the camp closure.  I'm sure there are many similar stories, so national will have to step in.

During the bankruptcy a small/secret meeting was held by a fee national leaders.  Their PPT slides were reviewed in court but never added to the docket.  They included recommendations for a major reduction in councils among other ideas.  It is needed and hopefully coming. 

I think that slide is here somewhere in one of the bankruptcy threads. I know I've seen it, and I'm pretty sure it was here. 

[Eagle94-A1]

22 minutes ago, yknot said:

I think that slide is here somewhere in one of the bankruptcy threads. I know I've seen it, and I'm pretty sure it was here. 

It is. I remember seeing it. 2/3s of the councils gone if memory serves.

 

[PACAN]

I heard there are a large number of councils under conditional charters for 2026.   If they don't meet certain benchmarks )  I assume membership growth and raising $$ they can subject to be merged.

Free membership for military scouts is an interesting idea.   My friends troop is made up of Colonels and Lt Cols who certainly can afford the registration.   Junior soldiers most likely do not have children who are of scouting age.

[PACAN]

There used to be a chart showing number of scouts by sponsoring organizations.  Anyone seen that recently?

[MikeS72]

2 hours ago, yknot said:

I think that slide is here somewhere in one of the bankruptcy threads. I know I've seen it, and I'm pretty sure it was here. 

It was here, as I recall it also.  If I remember correctly, it showed a move toward mergers eventually bringing us to around 80 councils.

[Tron]

On 3/5/2026 at 12:44 PM, PACAN said:

I heard there are a large number of councils under conditional charters for 2026.   If they don't meet certain benchmarks )  I assume membership growth and raising $$ they can subject to be merged.

Free membership for military scouts is an interesting idea.   My friends troop is made up of Colonels and Lt Cols who certainly can afford the registration.   Junior soldiers most likely do not have children who are of scouting age.

I have also heard that there are a large number of councils under conditional charter; that came out of last years NAM and was related to some sort of discussion related to the financial health meeting. I believe the number was somewhere between 20 and 50 councils left the NAM being told that they might be placed on conditional charter before the end of the year. 

As I understand things national is looking at a handful of metrics: rolling 90 day cash-on-hand, unrestricted endowment contributions/growth, membership in relation to total-area-youth, and an amalgam of safety. Based on the councils that got merged out last year and so far this year the trend seems to be that if a council is surviving off of their endowment national puts them on transitional or if a councils membership shrinks below some ratio they are put on transitional. A good example of the financial is Suffolk Council in Long Island and their financial situation. A good example of the membership was Ohio River Valley (who had everything going good except the whole council was basically a district in membership).