Scoutmaster

[cjlomb]

Should a Troop have a set of Bylaws for the committee and leaders to follow?

[OldGreyEagle]

The Oath and Law is a good place to start, what situation would you see needing by-laws?

[NJCubScouter]

There also are National publications for each position, in a Boy Scout troop they would be the Scoutmaster's Handbook for the SM and ASM's and the Troop Committee Guidebook for committee members. Each of these books sets out the roles, expectation and guidance for the positions they cover.

 

Whether a unit also needs its own set of bylaws has been a subject of ongoing discussion in this forum for years. Some units have them, and some don't. My troop... er, the troop I serve, has been around for 80 years, does not have bylaws and as far as I know it never has, so that says something.

[Lisabob]

The answer might depend a lot on what you intend the bylaws to do. If it is a way for people to try to tie things in knots, probably not. If it is a way to take leadership opportunities away from the boys ("because the bylaws say so!" can be used to do this by some adults) then no way.

 

If you are using bylaws to achieve some other end, possibly.

 

Personally, having seen a troop do the former with bylaws, I'm not real fond of them.

[SeattlePioneer]

I've never served in a unit with bylaws.

 

However, I wont say they are never a good idea. Bylaws that required prudent controls over cash and finances might be an area due some regulation.

 

For example, I think it is wise for:

 

1) Monthly checking account statements be sent to someone other than the Treasurer.

 

That can be a powerful check and review on what the treasurer is doing.

 

 

2) Require that receipts be issued for cash payments.

 

Cash is slippery, and controls over cash are often sloppy in my experience.

 

 

3) Does your unit require two signatures on checks?

 

That can be a nuisance, and banks usually aren't ghoing to police such things. My bias is to have the Committee Chair review checks written when the statement comes directly from the bank.

 

 

 

 

[Oak Tree]

We don't have by-laws, per se, but we do have a set of general operating procedures. I think it can be a good idea to document some of these things just so that everyone knows them. It can make for smoother logistics. Somewhere you state what your dues are. That could be a by-law, I guess.

 

The advantage of having the rules written down is that everyone has the same expectations and you don't have to make up the answer to every question on the spot. Avoids complaints of favoritism or whatever.

 

But again, what do you want the rules to do?

[DeanRx]

Well, mine is the world of cubbing right now, but some things to consider and items our unit committee has ID'd and written into simple bylaws... most have to do with funding and decision making.

 

1) I would not advocate double signatures on checks. All it does is slow down reimbursement to those who have fronted their hard earned cash on behalf of the unit. Better stance is to have an independent audit of checks (once per quarter) by someone on the committee OTHER than the treasurer. If the treasurer is doing their job, this takes about 10 minutes.

 

2) IF you have indivdual scout accounts for fundraising, you need to identify WHAT the money can / can't be spent on - and more importantly spell out WHAT happens to any unused funds if/when the scout either quits or ages out of scouting. We usually have a good number of Web II's aging over to Boy Scouts that have a residual amount in their "cub bucks" account. It is spelled out in our bylaws that any unused monies reverts back to the general fund if a scout leaves the unit for any reason - period. Do not leave this open to interpretation unless you want some heated debate and very hurt feelings at a later date. You do not want Johnny (or more often Johnny's parents) asking you to cut a check for $250 out of unit funds because Johnny is no longer interested in scouting.

 

3) Finally, spell out WHO gets a vote and in what capacity on the unit committee. Must they be a registered adult? Just a concerned parent(s)? In a specific leadership position? Who has the athority to cast a tie-breaking vote? Not really that important HOW you set this up, just that it is down in writing BEFORE the unit reaches an impass on a particular issue and the leaders / youth involved have already voiced their opinions. This keeps any and all debate fair and above the board and gives dissenters very little traction if they end up on the losing end of a split decision.

 

My 2 cents - your miliage may very...

 

DeanRx

 

[Twocubdad]

One of my sayings is "never pay tuition twice for the same lesson" or less colorfully, learn from your mistakes.

 

A reasonable function of bylaws is to serve a institutional memory. In SP's case, if a unit had an issue with the treasurer going off-reservation, it's reasonable to codify the lessons learned into a policy that the bank statment goes to someone other than the treasurer. We had a discipline issue in our troop a year or so ago. Without going into all the details we made some changes to the bylaws to address some of the problems we had.

 

Of course this makes for a patch-work policy, but that's okay. Where units get in trouble, I think, is when a committee to sits down and writes bylaws from whole cloth. That almost begs for a big, hairy, bureaucratic document which unnecessarily hamstrings the unit.

[Nike]

If you have significant turnover due to a transient population, bylaws can standardize practice over time.

[Beavah]

Should a Troop have a set of Bylaws for the committee and leaders to follow?

 

Yah, hmmm...

 

I myself have no problem with troop bylaws. I think there's a role for 'em, particularly for the committee (not so much for the SM or program side where there are other materials, but if the youth PLC want to write some, that's OK).

 

However, the way this question is worded sets off my spider sense. Yeh see, a committee and leaders don't "follow" bylaws. Bylaws guide and define their normal operations. They still need to lead and work together. Think of bylaws more as a communication of common agreed-upon practices.

 

So cjlomb, maybe yeh want to give us a hint about what else is goin' on that prompted the question? I get a sense da question is more about your troop's operations than it is about bylaws per se.

 

Beavah

 

[acco40]

Should they? No.

 

May they? Yes.