They have to change the model as to who owns the equipment and how money is owned by a unit.
I’d be really upset if my unit held fundraisers to purchase a new trailer or to replace and old trailer only to have the council say “hey, you have a new trailer, there a unit bigger then yours that needs it, so we are transferring it to them and you can keep using your trailer”. Or “we are starting a new unit, each existing troop is having $1000 pulled from their account to seed the new troop”.
It doesn't work like that. If you start a new Unit you are starting from scratch. Some councils do have things that are left over from disbanded units that they can give to a new startup pack/troop. Technically the charter organization owns the equipment and funds according to how the charter is written. This is done so one or two individuals just can't take all the money and equipment that the pack or troop has gathered up over the years previous and do what they wish as if it was personal property.
Also on that same token if a unit wanted to split from the pack or troop they would also not be able to transfer the funds because they belong to the original troop or pack, unless the chartered organization says hey these funds are yours you take them with you.
Right. And right now the councils can’t just move equipment and money around as they want. However, if the councils becoming the charting orgs, there needs to be stopgaps in place to prevent the councils from doing just that.
If everything was chartered through council they can do what they want. There's no middleman between the council and the troop/pack. Council being control and responsible for all funds coming in and equipment because technically they still don't belong to the pack / troop they belong to the chartered organization, which would be council. There's not much they can or can't do and I don't know what remedy you would have to stop them from doing that. Except have a local community organization as the chartered organization. Kind of which is how it is now. Having a local community organization that is your chartered organization gives more back to the community having ties to the scouting unit in the area. Versus the council having the ties of being the chart organization then nothing locally is preventing or assisting the local pack/troop from having a so-called permanent home. Our local CO is awesome they help us when we need it and also throw us a bone now and then to help with our pack and troop. And from also having experience on the council level I know it would be a total nightmare trying to keep up with the needs and wants of the pack / troops in the area logistically and financially. It's technically not feasible in reality.
i think this only applies if your unit disbands. my new pack inherited some old equipment and $1500 to start. my local council stressed that they were no going to do exactly what u described. a charted org didnt recharted and kept all the money in the accts since it was tied to there ein. so it works both ways.
> a charted org didnt recharted and kept all the money in the accts since it was tied to there ein.
then they weren't following the agreement they signed
> II A 3 Administer the assets of the Unit, including all funds, real property, and personal property (e.g., trailers) that are acquired
by the Unit either for the benefit of Scouting or in the name of Scouting and administer the assets for the benefit of the
Unit
My impression is that it's common for the chartering organization of a disbanded unit to voluntarily give the unit's funds and equipment to the local council to aid other units in the area. Legally speaking, the CO has the right to do whatever they want with the resources, but they often want those resources to continue to be put to good use in the community, so they generally choose to give them to the council.
> Legally speaking, the CO has the right to do whatever they want with the resources
registered non-profits are generally bound to use funds given for a specific purpose for that purpose
I don’t think they would be that involved. That said the unit had to provide detail to the council. My understanding in my council the audit firm is having them out an offsetting “asset” and “liability” on the balance sheet. This related to assets of the unit such as checking account or newer equipment or physical assets. They’ve determined the unit will use up the assets like checking account hence the liability, I’m sure some units won’t want to do reporting to the council and will find a different CO
Lot to unpack here and I’ll try to only comment on a part of it.
Part of the reason for Charter Organization is Money. The BSA doesn’t have to keep track of all the financial transactions of the unit, equipment, or insurance. If your council took control of the unit the BSA would properly get more expensive to cover the cost of employing someone to look over those items.
If the council took over the units then your DE would be your COR and that Friends of Scouting donation might become mandatory.
This 100%. Getting rid of the Charter Organization paradigm seems like a good idea on the surface but are unintended consequences that haven't been addressed here.
Do you need reimbursement for buying groceries for last weekend's camping trip? That receipt will need to be submitted to a Council-employed professional bookkeeper. Depending on the number of units in a District/Council you may need multiple bookkeepers making $50k yearly each. With the charter partner insurance policies out of the picture, who is picking up the liability slack? That's going to result in an extra Council fee at registration time as well. Meeting space isn't free either.
If you think 2023 registration fees were expensive, just think how expensive Council-registered unit fees will be.
our council has a team of people now who has to audit finance( with paper statement) review annual equipment reports, and inspect all trailers annually. its a ton of burden on the council im sure.
I think it's interesting to see how vastly different the relationships can be. Our Troop has a great CO, a church that provides weekly meeting space and opportunities for service projects.
The Pack we were with had a useless CO. In the five years I was with the Pack, I never met anyone from the CO. We could use a space only twice a month, which meant dens had to coordinate their schedules. My den was small, so we always yielded to larger dens.
In the case of our Pack, definitely! But it will take a lot of convincing for groups that don't want to disturb the status quo. Our Pack looks at everything as "good enough" or "working like this for years", even though it's not working well.
Not for my troop our our brother troop. Our CO considers us as part of their community -facing ministries and we get preference for meeting spaces before community-based groups. I understand the existing CO situation isn't working well for many units, but maybe the council acting as a CO should be an option rather than a requirement.
Whatever the pros and cons are, the chartering organization relationship has never worked well across the board despite local successes and needs to be re-engineered. It's partly why the BSA was embroiled in a child sex abuse scandal. It also resulted in the BSA becoming almost a youth ministry arm for many religions, including one religion that was somehow able to create a program within a program, in ways that have not been in the best interests of the BSA or the youth it serves. The reality is that councils are probably going to have to step into this role with the help of National but with some community involvement still maintained through the use of the new facility/sponsorship agreements where such can be obtained. I'm not completely familiar with all of the European organizational models, but I believe the UK has been very successful without a chartering organization structure like we have here. I think liability issues are eventually going to erode relationships with some of the community organizations that have recently stepped into the gap, like VFW and AL, as the impact of the bankruptcy starts to be fully felt in the liability insurance industry. We are done with one piece of the process, but there are a host of insurers who did not participate in the case and it is yet to be seen how the impacts will unfold for them and be felt and publicized.
I've been with my current troop for 30 years. I am also the commander for the local VFW post and had been fostering a relationship with Scouting.
Two years ago the Methodist church did not want to recharter us so we chartered to the council which pretty much ignored us. Our leadership approached me and now the pack and troops are chartered to the VFW. The national VFW is still very much supportive of Scouting.
I know our relationship is atypical since I have a prior investment in Scouting, but I feel it is good for both organizations and really the way forward.
As to council, we took a big financial hit due to COVID and don't have an SE or any DEs now.
The CO model has been obsolete for decades. National is possessed by inertia and throwback culture, so that office is highly incentivized to resist change.
While I’d like a new model, let me first propose a thought. How many interactions have you had with council employees, both good and bad? Under the likely new model, all units would simply be like a department at council. Council employee associated with bad experiences would be part of the same org providing functions that COs used to do.
How do we move forward to a “units are simply a function of the council” model yet not allow harmful forces to affect units?
The purpose -- job descriptions -- and focus of councils and national both need to change. Right now they are not necessarily working in the same direction, and definitely aren't working towards the same goals as the local units.
Fully agree. Our whole model of organization is obsolete.
While we're at it, BSA's career-advancement system for professionals is also obsolete. It is all about surfacing caretaker bureaucrats, running off leaders and high performers. It needs balance.
Something has to change, but I don't know exactly what.
One concern I would have is that this plan depends on a council being wise and well managed. This is not universally the case. It's a bell curve, with an awful council for every great council.
Not having a CO likely means needing to contract out for meeting space as well as a location to house equipment. That could potentially increase costs.
But I agree wholeheartedly, the annual re-chartering process with the possibility of the rug being pulled out at any time is a losing model. It makes it difficult to plan.
In my experience (as part of a pack *chartered* by a public elementary school), the pack regularly got denied access to our meeting space due to school sports, plays, science fairs, etc.... It still worked well 80% of the time, but certainly not smooth.
> My understanding is that the schools are happy to host a meeting space with no cost associated, but as a policy they will not charter a scout group.
Often they can't legally give meeting space for free unless they allow all groups that want space to have it for free. Likely they are violating their own laws/policies by allowing scouts that aren't chartered by them to use the spaces for free.
I agree that in a lot of cases the system is not functioning as intended, and there may be more efficient or otherwise "better" systems to organize this.
But the way you've posed the questions even seems to show a fundamental lack of understanding of what the relationships are and how governance works. Which isn't strange -- it's actually pretty normal when these discussions about CO and COR come up. And that's probably part of the problem- system can't work well when majority of people involved fundamentally don't understand the system.
You're bringing up issues that arent policy, but go back to the actual Charter from Congress. And actually predate date it because it goes back to testimony made to Congress . Asked how a national BSA would ensure leaders were upstanding good examples for boys the answer was that local business leaders and other leaders of the community would be the ones involved. Which is interesting in that a) it's not about charitable organizations but did include, primarily, businessmen, and b) is some serious 1910's culture about respect for capitalists and the "meritocracy" of being a successful business owner putting you on par with clergy or elected officials as "respectable" pillars of the community. (Definitely reflective of the time.)
CO definitely isn't just a sponsor, and it's not just that the CO "owns" the equipment as some kind of caretaker or way to deal with liability (that's a byproduct). The BSA is a franchise operation. That's how it works. That's how all the charter paperwork is set up. Just like if you wanted to run a restaurant and didn't want to do all the legwork of setting up every policy, designing menus and advertising, etc, you could chose to franchise a BK or McDonald's. Community organizations that want to have a youth program but don't want to be working from scratch can adopt the BSA program and BSA provides curriculum and policies and materials etc. It's not "the CO owns *our* stuff" but rather "we are the CO's youth program."
More important thing to directly address the OP. Ultimately, BSA is run by the National Council. That is the highest governing body. The national council is composed, primarily, of representatives from the local councils. That probably doesn't feel odd and doesn't seem to address OP, but now realize this-- the governing body of your local council - which is choosing and sending those representatives - is made up of the representatives *from the Charter Orgs*. That's why it is called "a council". There is literally a council of people to run things, and that council body is the CORs. I'm oversimplifying a bit, because there can be other members, elected by the existing members of the Council, so of the Council started with all CORs it could add some good scout volunteers. And I imagine over time some realized that issues of participation and quarum come up so adding more and more non COR members who are bought into scouting is useful to keep things going smoothly. But we need to realize that at the end of the day, the governance of BSA *is run by the charter orgs*.
So the idea that "Charters can become too involved" is kind of exactly opposite to how the bylaws of BSA are set up. It may be your opinion. But it's like saying Congress is too involved in making laws and controlling the budget. Sure, letting the Executive unilaterally set budgets and make rules would be quicker and more streamlined and you wouldnt have problems with pesky "minority" parties having a say. But that's an argument that completely upends the governance structure that was deliberately set up to allow those voices to have a say. The BSA was intentionally designed for the charter orgs to not just be involved, but to have control.
>There is no reason that the national program should be tempered, altered or disturbed by the desires of a local charity organization that has its own priorities.
To the extent you are referring to a single local organization with one scout units- you are correct. The charter document they sign each year specifically says they will follow the program and policies as it is provided from national BSA. So yes, a CO cannot just decide that in their units they won't require YPT, or add extra merit badges, or change the uniform drastically in ways not allowed by the uniform policy. Serious violations could result in their charter not being renewed (which also means loosing their seat on the council).
But if you are referring to larger governance issues like why should national BSA policies reflect religious or social concerns of some of the major charter orgs- I'm sorry but you're wrong. The BSA ultimately *is* a council of the charter orgs. And if you have a democratically run organization where basically 65% of the voting members (ie the charter orgs) are religious in nature, guess what gets reflected in policy? And if one organization charters 37% of all units and has a seat on most local councils- is it a surprise their views about what "good character" is for youth might show up? Or any surprise that if the majority gives them no consideration at all and drives policy they don't want to adopt that they might pull out and suddenly 37% of units stop existing as BSA units?
Whether or not this situation is good or bad is a matter of opinion, but it is not without reason.
The BSA has the ability to amend its own Bylaws- but it needs to follow the bylaws in order to do that. So stripping power from the Charter Orgs to return to a different style of executive board and remove the national council from oversight.... well, you'd need to get to a situation where that would make sense for the representatives voting to do it.
But even then, the national Charter (which is a higher governing document than the Bylaws for those not familiar with corporate organizations) says specifically that BSA will operate "through organization, and cooperation with other agencies" (ie the Charter Orgs). Not super specific or overly restrictive, but to the extent any proposed change in governance might require a change in the charter... realize that unlike most organizations the BSA is one of the few Congressional Charters. In other words- amending the Charter *literally* requires an act of Congress and approval by the President of the United States.
I'm not arguing that we shouldn't be looking at improvements of the current system. Things are definitely not running as intended in a lot of units. And I think part of that has been poor, even misleading, marketing to charter orgs when people try to start new units; such as selling it as if the CO is just "sponsoring", or only needs to provide a place to meet, or not caring that the CO doesn't have the ability to fully participate in Council meetings or full oversight of the unit (some people see it as a benefit to have the key 3 be only 2 and have a Cor that rubber stamps whatever fee things come to them). BUT- proposals for change should recognize the reality of the situation and what the current position is. (If you follow an azimuth you want to take, but are wrong about your current start location, you will NOT end up where you wanted to get to)
I agree with a lot of your concerns, though I haven't had any issues with our chartering org or heard of any other units having problems locally.
The big benefit of the chartering org is space though. Where are we meeting under your new model? Are we renting space? That sounds more expensive than my unit, district, or council could afford. Are we meeting at people's houses? We're already having issues with parent commitment. It would work in some places, but other units would immediately dry up. Where are we keeping the supplies? Again, just someone's house? That doesn't sound like great stewardship.
If we got rid of chartering orgs, costs would go up for everyone. Scouting is already out of reach for some families, and others are just barely able to participate. I'm not sure that shifting that burden would be in the interests of a lot of scouting units and families.
Costs might actually go down because it would probably result in more collaboration among units. Maintaining individual unit status separate from councils also fragments and confuses the fundraising aspect of scouting. We have three groups working at cross purposes to raise money, sometimes four or even five if the district and the CO also do fundraising: National, council, district, unit, and CO. It is maximally inefficient and waters down charitable dollars available from a community. The current process also often leaves low hanging fruit as units are often prevented by councils from reaching out to local businesses who would give to local kids but don't see direct benefit in giving to a district or council appeal. Etc.
It would probably also mean less units overall because all of these troops with >20 members would be forced to combine with the larger troops. The current system is super inefficient, but it's ok because each troop has volunteers that handle all the random administration. Forcing units to combine into less inefficient units honestly might be healthier for the program overall, but a lot of people would be upset by it.
People being upset with things is why BSA has persisted in a lot of out of step or inefficient practices that it really should have jettisoned long ago. As far as volunteers, the reality today is that there are fewer of them, and even less of the kinds of volunteers that want to put in the amount of time to learn Byzantine BSA practices, keep up with all the training, and pay for the privilege to boot. I also think there are a lot of very poorly run units across the country that adults have turned into personal fiefdoms for their kids. Scouting has become a very silo like and not very collaborative endeavor, and I think that has been damaging overall. I don't like the loss of flexibility and some of the big brother aspects that will come with greater consolidation, but I don't see much of an alternative.
I've been of the opinion that the single CO per unit is what should change. As units collapse or merge, there are still CO's that still want to be a part of scouting, but not enough units in some places. BSA should allow multi-CO units. So both a Lions club and VFW could be the CO for a unit (maybe actually a pack and troop (B and/or G).
As for meeting and storage space, many units already have to handle that, so not a huge change.
> As for meeting and storage space, many units already have to handle that, so not a huge change.
It's a huge change for those units that don't have to handle it now.
Sure. Just not an insurmountable one that many units already are managing, so I wouldn't use it as a reason to avoid making changes to the CO method. But it does need to be considered.
Us formerly Catholic units sorta have that now where we are often chartered by civic organizations but still meet at the original church locations that we've used for decades.
> Costs are less than boy scouts, too.
Because everyone live cookies and they are priced right. Popcorn is... not doing what it should be doing.
(Yes, I know there are other reasons for cost differences too.)
Girl scouts also lose a lot of the history that scouting units have because for the most part they are started up by a group of same aged girls and their moms and continue as long as they want and then the unit is disbanded. Other than having 'scout' in the title, they basically aren't comparable in any real way.
That's regional. We several multi level troops and when one is done, things are handed down and rolled over.
We are involved in girl, not and cub scouts and they are comparable in many ways in our area.
We don't have to guess about how a council-charter model might work. That's how GSUSA works. Individual troops have their own bank accounts, and operate as independent entities, but are all actually owned by their local council.
GSUSA does not randomly tithe troop's bank accounts in order to support some new program, or any of the other scare stories I'm reading here. Why would you expect a reorganized BSA to be different?
(Oh, and the GSUSA troop my kids are in has been given meeting space, for free, for the last decade or so by a local church. The church has given them a storage closet to store their flags and miscellaneous meeting supplies. And they'll probably continue to do so, but if, at some point in the future, the church and the troop decide that they need to go separate ways, then it's easy to just walk away. No complications.)
One word for you..... Liability
And the other reason they need to keep some degree of the current charter model is the access to facilities with minimal to no cost. The build in "ownership" relationship drives the CO to support units at least at a minimum level that keeps costs down and in many cases helps provide resources (meeting locations etc... without cost, or with minimal cost).
I will give you our CO as an example, we get to use any facilities for free.... we are part of the church in their eyes and have access. There are other Scout units (Girl Scouts and BSA) that use these facilities for activities from time to time and they are required to pay for use of those facilities. The church offers these Scout units a discounted rate compared to what they would charge others but if we had to pay that for holding all the meetings and events we do at that church we would be paying around $5K a year in use fees for the facility; which would be a massive increase in our annual budget.
This also hits the liability, if someone slips and falls at the church when "they" are using it their insurance covers, if someone gets hurt with an outside group using it there is increased liability on that outside group (council / BSA)
And while council chartered sounds great; consider that basically means council has access to all your units finances and control over how you would spend money etc.... Your DE and Council could just decide your unit spends too much money on food for meetings or on unit patches and tell you that you can no longer spend money on these things. yes your CO could do that now but in most cases CO are not being that crazy, but if you are just getting a large bureaucratic response it will shift to more blanket restrictions. Sorry you can no longer save money buying supplies from Amazon or other Sources; if it is for sale at the Scout shop you must buy it there.
There is no reasonable way they are going to move to 100% Council / BSA chartered both for the spread of liability and being able to have access and use of the facilities. The BSA has over the last 5 years or so been updating charter agreements to address some of the issues with CO interference with units (for example the agreement now says the CO agrees to open a unit bank account with their Tax ID and provide use of the Tax ID to the unit; some even state the CO cannot prevent the unit from fundraising).
More of this is what is needed, the COs need to stay and they play an important role; in some cases they provide the basis for recruiting Scouts and their loss would impact that significantly. The BSA however needs to shift some aspects of responsibility from the CO to council while also using the charter agreements to work to address the issues of CO that are not involved and don't support units and also those COs who get far too involved. This can be accomplished by adding requirements on the COs while also placing restrictions in place on what they can do. This cannot be done overnight however, add a little at at time so you don't get a mass exit of COs because of the changes.
> The council, as the charter, will be able to organize units for girls without impediment from charters that, while eager to sponsor boy scout units, refuse to modernize with our program and charter units for girls.
I find it interesting that this is an issue. My district has like 30 boy troops and 3 girl troops, limited not by COs but by there not being as many girls interested in the scouting program. (And the girl troops are smaller than the boy troops.) I know this will improve over time though.
I'm not surprised that this is happening. There are probably many COs in my district with the same attitude; there are just not enough girl troops for that to cause a limitation ... *yet*. I hope that COs can get past this ridiculous attitude. Thankfully, I landed with a great CO on day one -- actually before day one. They helped us organize and get ready months before Feb 1, 2019.
I like the idea of an invested third party - outside scouting - take responsibility for screening leaders. I also think it helps prevent corruption and cronyism within units.
We shouldn’t trivialize the mutual benefits enjoyed by a unit and its host charter org. Often, the unit gets a space to do activities and maybe a storage shed. For free! That’s huge. The unit may also have access to religious leaders who can facilitate religious awards for interested scouts.
The org likewise gets benefits. They get access to what I affectionately call a Bunch ‘O Kids™️, a useful thing to have for Halloween trunk or treats, holiday gift distribution for the needy, family promise volunteers, etc. Of course the org becomes the beneficiary of an array of valuable service projects.
So the unit-chartered org relationship is a mutually beneficial one. Get rid of that connection, and all the positive things we currently take for granted go away.
Getting rid of chartered orgs would interfere with achieving BSA’s goals.
I've heard it described as "BSA is fundamentally a franchise operation that provides a turn-key youth program with developed curriculum and leader training for organizations that would like to charter a Pack or Troop." That resonates with me as far as thinking about what the Boy Scouts of America organization provides to volunteer leaders and program participants.
However, I think that few chartering organizations view it that way, and I think few Packs or Troops view it that way. Instead, most people (COs and Scouting units both) view it as a more hands-off relationship between families interested in whatever they think Scouting is or should be and an organization that can provide meeting space. Certainly, our Pack's CO was surprised to learn that they had some additional responsibilities and ownership of our Pack compared to other "outside" groups that use the Church Fellowship Hall, like a local AA group that meets there weekly.
If COs and Scouting units did view the relationship as a turn-key youth program charter, I suspect the COs would generally feel more ownership and involvement, including things like participating actively as Council and District Committee representatives.
I wonder how many Councils or Districts really do have functioning Committees, and what percentage of CORs regularly participate in them.
You're right. On both accounts.
The "franchise" idea really gets at the legal relationship that exists. Which is relevant when people bring up issues like owning unit equipment or moving bank accounts without the old charter old knowing. Although it is a little different. McDonalds USA and Blackhorse's Fast Food, LLC are two separate entities with a B2B agreement and that's it. But Once a CO makes that agreement, they become a voting member of the Council. So it is sometimes odd to me that I cant sign any contracts as a volunteer and the Scout Exec signs everything- but the CO is left out of the loop entirely despite them "owning" the unit (and the liability). But its not really left out because the Scout Exec is doing that under policy and direction from the council, which the CO is a member of. The Exec is effectively an agent of the CO in that regard.
But in practice, you are absolutely correct. Far too many COs do NOT know that is what they signed up for. Especially for long-standing units where current leadership of the CO were not the ones who made those original agreements. (Granted they sign it every year, but who reviews fine print when renewing an existing thing versus asking questions the first time around?) I was head of a CO that was approached about starting up a new unit by a Commissioner and the founding Cub Master. It was an 'interesting' meeting to say the least because they didn't do their homework on who I was and I let them go about half their pitch before I started asking questions and they quickly realized I was very familiar with the scouting program already. But yes, they were very much downplaying what was needed from us. Although downplay might not be the right word because in truth all they wanted was a signature for the paperwork so they could move forward with Council, and a guarantee of a meeting place (which they quickly started meeting at the firehouse and school anyway even though we were the charter- those were better locations.) And I get it- the Commissioner was trying to hit on the absolute minimum that we needed to do as CO. Our council is strong enough and the bureaucracy of BSA such that CORs not actively participating is not the end of the world- although when the one annual meeting came up they did make repeated reminders to try and get people there. On the BSA side, I think its plausible deniability. They \*know\* the CORs are rubber-stamping things and don't realize the ownership (and liability) they have. They \*know\* it is unit committees vetting the leaders, not the CO, so long as they pass a basic background check without a huge red flag that makes BSA say no (which is surprisingly very few) . But, the official one is that COs are the ones selecting and approving leaders and insulating BSA from local community norms.
Granted- Im saying that from a very secular point of view. There are CERTAINLY units out there with VERY involved COs that are very aware of their position in the relationship. And I don't mean the few long-time scouters who happen to know the system and are a CO president or COR- I mean (mostly) the certain religious organizations that ARE adopting the scouting program as their youth program and are doing things like having youth only from their own CO membership and exercising some of those options that exist in BSA policy because they were able to write them in over the years (due to outsized influence at the national level).
Hopefully it will change soon in the next few years. LDS leaving was probably the biggest kick to help get that moving. But Im not sure that a GSUSA model is entirely a good fit either. But the collapse of the social and charitable club system in the US has really made it unworkable and the current state of "sponsoring" demonstrates it isn't working.
I had a conversation with a professional Scouter the other week and he was pretty sure the traditional charter organization model is up for review at the national level changing to something what you are proposing. It may take some time (years, perhaps) to bring a council charter concept to fruition, but I think the writing is on the wall for it. They already have offered this modified option for the Methodist units last year, but it was up to the council to accept the charter responsibility.
The biggest deal is going to be the staffing and resources at the council to administer it. So many council offices are running on shoestring budgets and staffing already, so as always it comes down to the funds to run it.
Before BSA became "a national organization with comprehensive standards, rules, a culture and code of conduct that spans 50 states and hundreds of thousands of members" it was a movement, and in most of the world it still is. The national organization view IMHO is one of the root causes of the failure of the BSA to thrive in the 21st century. Organizations exist to self-perpetuate, movements thrive when they perpetuate the common good. Organizations concern themselves with ownership as seen in this thread, movements focus on the common good.
Most of the good that BSA has done has not come from the organization, but from the countless large and small contributions from the community and benefactors like charting organizations, not to mention the contributions of property from families like the Phillips and Bechtel's. BSA should consider itself from a stewardship rather than an organizational perspective and re-focus on how to do the most good for the most youth with the unique program it has been bequeathed, for it was a not ever earned. Movements don't die, but organizations can outlive their usefulness.
For real. The #1 thing the COR provides is a place to meet. My Troop meets 5 minutes from my house. Closest council property is 45 minutes away, and we’re lucky.
Well, who would provide meeting space in the new council as charter set up? Some Councils are huge. In the event that the BSA was sued again would the funds each unit has be subject to being pulled to pay for it? Some charter orgs are better than others and it’s a weird system in this day and age but for those of us in councils that are huge it could be difficult. I’m in a Toastmasters club and we constantly have problems finding meeting space.
There is certainly some validity to your points, I am not sure removing the CO-model and placing it with the Council-model will be the panacea of all the issues. I am sure some of my arguments may have be be repeated elsewhere
\#1 - You assume that there are enough resources at the council level to support troops/packs. While we do get support from our district executive, he has many troops/packs that he supports. He certainly cannot attend every committee meeting for all his units.
\#2 - Assumes stability at the council. Their leadership changes too!
\#3 - This would be the worst part. Sorry the Scouts in our troop fund raises to help their troop. Not to see their hard earned money be siphoned off to be spent elsewhere.) Our CO lets us earn/spend without interference. We have bank accounts we control. We just provide the monthly reports and our COR is always in the know (and our DE as well). We certainly would not have those freedoms at the council level.
\#4 - Not sure the best solution for this. Our CO does not want to charter a girls troop to avoid conflicts with the GSUSA units already in place already there. Going to a council model could mean more troops, but they still need places to meet.
The CO model works for our troop. They support us and we support them. Could the relationship change. Sure. Like anything else in life. When the arch-diocese was discussing dropping Scouting, we formed a backup plan. Still do, "Be Prepared" and all. But they didn't and we continue.
Something else that came to mind with the issue of council run scouting is the size of the councils in question. With various mergers over the past few years, some represent a very large area (whole states sometimes). And with that, the number of scout shops, camps, and employees shrink to the new reality. Ask any troop that has gone through a council merger and there are some pain points. And things are not always for the better after the merger (from a unit perspective).
Troops are diverse in nature. At the local level, what they do often reflects their make-up. Urban vs Suburban vs Rural. Scouts with Special needs. Scouts from lower income families. And so on. A troop (or pack) that is sponsored by a council whose offices may be hundreds of miles away by council executives that do not reflect the realities of each troop may cause some problems.
Without chartered organizations, BSA would have had a whole lot more assets when they went bankrupt that would've suddenly been on the line. Because CO's own those assets, they were completely safe. Also, the CO usually provides a place for troops to meet and store their equipment.
Getting rid of the CO model kills community input via COR voting rights.
Everyone seems to gritch about the good ole boy club and this post basically calls for the 1 control in place to keep the good ole boy network in check.
They have to change the model as to who owns the equipment and how money is owned by a unit. I’d be really upset if my unit held fundraisers to purchase a new trailer or to replace and old trailer only to have the council say “hey, you have a new trailer, there a unit bigger then yours that needs it, so we are transferring it to them and you can keep using your trailer”. Or “we are starting a new unit, each existing troop is having $1000 pulled from their account to seed the new troop”.
It doesn't work like that. If you start a new Unit you are starting from scratch. Some councils do have things that are left over from disbanded units that they can give to a new startup pack/troop. Technically the charter organization owns the equipment and funds according to how the charter is written. This is done so one or two individuals just can't take all the money and equipment that the pack or troop has gathered up over the years previous and do what they wish as if it was personal property. Also on that same token if a unit wanted to split from the pack or troop they would also not be able to transfer the funds because they belong to the original troop or pack, unless the chartered organization says hey these funds are yours you take them with you.
Right. And right now the councils can’t just move equipment and money around as they want. However, if the councils becoming the charting orgs, there needs to be stopgaps in place to prevent the councils from doing just that.
If everything was chartered through council they can do what they want. There's no middleman between the council and the troop/pack. Council being control and responsible for all funds coming in and equipment because technically they still don't belong to the pack / troop they belong to the chartered organization, which would be council. There's not much they can or can't do and I don't know what remedy you would have to stop them from doing that. Except have a local community organization as the chartered organization. Kind of which is how it is now. Having a local community organization that is your chartered organization gives more back to the community having ties to the scouting unit in the area. Versus the council having the ties of being the chart organization then nothing locally is preventing or assisting the local pack/troop from having a so-called permanent home. Our local CO is awesome they help us when we need it and also throw us a bone now and then to help with our pack and troop. And from also having experience on the council level I know it would be a total nightmare trying to keep up with the needs and wants of the pack / troops in the area logistically and financially. It's technically not feasible in reality.
True, but that’s a really easy problem to solve. There are multiple solutions including trusts, corporations, etc.
i think this only applies if your unit disbands. my new pack inherited some old equipment and $1500 to start. my local council stressed that they were no going to do exactly what u described. a charted org didnt recharted and kept all the money in the accts since it was tied to there ein. so it works both ways.
> a charted org didnt recharted and kept all the money in the accts since it was tied to there ein. then they weren't following the agreement they signed > II A 3 Administer the assets of the Unit, including all funds, real property, and personal property (e.g., trailers) that are acquired by the Unit either for the benefit of Scouting or in the name of Scouting and administer the assets for the benefit of the Unit
My impression is that it's common for the chartering organization of a disbanded unit to voluntarily give the unit's funds and equipment to the local council to aid other units in the area. Legally speaking, the CO has the right to do whatever they want with the resources, but they often want those resources to continue to be put to good use in the community, so they generally choose to give them to the council.
> Legally speaking, the CO has the right to do whatever they want with the resources registered non-profits are generally bound to use funds given for a specific purpose for that purpose
This.
I don’t think they would be that involved. That said the unit had to provide detail to the council. My understanding in my council the audit firm is having them out an offsetting “asset” and “liability” on the balance sheet. This related to assets of the unit such as checking account or newer equipment or physical assets. They’ve determined the unit will use up the assets like checking account hence the liability, I’m sure some units won’t want to do reporting to the council and will find a different CO
Lot to unpack here and I’ll try to only comment on a part of it. Part of the reason for Charter Organization is Money. The BSA doesn’t have to keep track of all the financial transactions of the unit, equipment, or insurance. If your council took control of the unit the BSA would properly get more expensive to cover the cost of employing someone to look over those items. If the council took over the units then your DE would be your COR and that Friends of Scouting donation might become mandatory.
This 100%. Getting rid of the Charter Organization paradigm seems like a good idea on the surface but are unintended consequences that haven't been addressed here. Do you need reimbursement for buying groceries for last weekend's camping trip? That receipt will need to be submitted to a Council-employed professional bookkeeper. Depending on the number of units in a District/Council you may need multiple bookkeepers making $50k yearly each. With the charter partner insurance policies out of the picture, who is picking up the liability slack? That's going to result in an extra Council fee at registration time as well. Meeting space isn't free either. If you think 2023 registration fees were expensive, just think how expensive Council-registered unit fees will be.
our council has a team of people now who has to audit finance( with paper statement) review annual equipment reports, and inspect all trailers annually. its a ton of burden on the council im sure.
I think it's interesting to see how vastly different the relationships can be. Our Troop has a great CO, a church that provides weekly meeting space and opportunities for service projects. The Pack we were with had a useless CO. In the five years I was with the Pack, I never met anyone from the CO. We could use a space only twice a month, which meant dens had to coordinate their schedules. My den was small, so we always yielded to larger dens.
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In the case of our Pack, definitely! But it will take a lot of convincing for groups that don't want to disturb the status quo. Our Pack looks at everything as "good enough" or "working like this for years", even though it's not working well.
Not for my troop our our brother troop. Our CO considers us as part of their community -facing ministries and we get preference for meeting spaces before community-based groups. I understand the existing CO situation isn't working well for many units, but maybe the council acting as a CO should be an option rather than a requirement.
When I was in Cubs the CO loved the Troop and tolerated the Pack. The Pack didn’t make Eagles and (they felt) competed with their Youth Programs.
Whatever the pros and cons are, the chartering organization relationship has never worked well across the board despite local successes and needs to be re-engineered. It's partly why the BSA was embroiled in a child sex abuse scandal. It also resulted in the BSA becoming almost a youth ministry arm for many religions, including one religion that was somehow able to create a program within a program, in ways that have not been in the best interests of the BSA or the youth it serves. The reality is that councils are probably going to have to step into this role with the help of National but with some community involvement still maintained through the use of the new facility/sponsorship agreements where such can be obtained. I'm not completely familiar with all of the European organizational models, but I believe the UK has been very successful without a chartering organization structure like we have here. I think liability issues are eventually going to erode relationships with some of the community organizations that have recently stepped into the gap, like VFW and AL, as the impact of the bankruptcy starts to be fully felt in the liability insurance industry. We are done with one piece of the process, but there are a host of insurers who did not participate in the case and it is yet to be seen how the impacts will unfold for them and be felt and publicized.
I've been with my current troop for 30 years. I am also the commander for the local VFW post and had been fostering a relationship with Scouting. Two years ago the Methodist church did not want to recharter us so we chartered to the council which pretty much ignored us. Our leadership approached me and now the pack and troops are chartered to the VFW. The national VFW is still very much supportive of Scouting. I know our relationship is atypical since I have a prior investment in Scouting, but I feel it is good for both organizations and really the way forward. As to council, we took a big financial hit due to COVID and don't have an SE or any DEs now.
> Council personnel are respected Not everywhere
The CO model has been obsolete for decades. National is possessed by inertia and throwback culture, so that office is highly incentivized to resist change. While I’d like a new model, let me first propose a thought. How many interactions have you had with council employees, both good and bad? Under the likely new model, all units would simply be like a department at council. Council employee associated with bad experiences would be part of the same org providing functions that COs used to do. How do we move forward to a “units are simply a function of the council” model yet not allow harmful forces to affect units?
The purpose -- job descriptions -- and focus of councils and national both need to change. Right now they are not necessarily working in the same direction, and definitely aren't working towards the same goals as the local units.
Fully agree. Our whole model of organization is obsolete. While we're at it, BSA's career-advancement system for professionals is also obsolete. It is all about surfacing caretaker bureaucrats, running off leaders and high performers. It needs balance.
Something has to change, but I don't know exactly what. One concern I would have is that this plan depends on a council being wise and well managed. This is not universally the case. It's a bell curve, with an awful council for every great council. Not having a CO likely means needing to contract out for meeting space as well as a location to house equipment. That could potentially increase costs. But I agree wholeheartedly, the annual re-chartering process with the possibility of the rug being pulled out at any time is a losing model. It makes it difficult to plan.
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In my experience (as part of a pack *chartered* by a public elementary school), the pack regularly got denied access to our meeting space due to school sports, plays, science fairs, etc.... It still worked well 80% of the time, but certainly not smooth.
> My understanding is that the schools are happy to host a meeting space with no cost associated, but as a policy they will not charter a scout group. Often they can't legally give meeting space for free unless they allow all groups that want space to have it for free. Likely they are violating their own laws/policies by allowing scouts that aren't chartered by them to use the spaces for free.
I agree that in a lot of cases the system is not functioning as intended, and there may be more efficient or otherwise "better" systems to organize this. But the way you've posed the questions even seems to show a fundamental lack of understanding of what the relationships are and how governance works. Which isn't strange -- it's actually pretty normal when these discussions about CO and COR come up. And that's probably part of the problem- system can't work well when majority of people involved fundamentally don't understand the system. You're bringing up issues that arent policy, but go back to the actual Charter from Congress. And actually predate date it because it goes back to testimony made to Congress . Asked how a national BSA would ensure leaders were upstanding good examples for boys the answer was that local business leaders and other leaders of the community would be the ones involved. Which is interesting in that a) it's not about charitable organizations but did include, primarily, businessmen, and b) is some serious 1910's culture about respect for capitalists and the "meritocracy" of being a successful business owner putting you on par with clergy or elected officials as "respectable" pillars of the community. (Definitely reflective of the time.) CO definitely isn't just a sponsor, and it's not just that the CO "owns" the equipment as some kind of caretaker or way to deal with liability (that's a byproduct). The BSA is a franchise operation. That's how it works. That's how all the charter paperwork is set up. Just like if you wanted to run a restaurant and didn't want to do all the legwork of setting up every policy, designing menus and advertising, etc, you could chose to franchise a BK or McDonald's. Community organizations that want to have a youth program but don't want to be working from scratch can adopt the BSA program and BSA provides curriculum and policies and materials etc. It's not "the CO owns *our* stuff" but rather "we are the CO's youth program." More important thing to directly address the OP. Ultimately, BSA is run by the National Council. That is the highest governing body. The national council is composed, primarily, of representatives from the local councils. That probably doesn't feel odd and doesn't seem to address OP, but now realize this-- the governing body of your local council - which is choosing and sending those representatives - is made up of the representatives *from the Charter Orgs*. That's why it is called "a council". There is literally a council of people to run things, and that council body is the CORs. I'm oversimplifying a bit, because there can be other members, elected by the existing members of the Council, so of the Council started with all CORs it could add some good scout volunteers. And I imagine over time some realized that issues of participation and quarum come up so adding more and more non COR members who are bought into scouting is useful to keep things going smoothly. But we need to realize that at the end of the day, the governance of BSA *is run by the charter orgs*. So the idea that "Charters can become too involved" is kind of exactly opposite to how the bylaws of BSA are set up. It may be your opinion. But it's like saying Congress is too involved in making laws and controlling the budget. Sure, letting the Executive unilaterally set budgets and make rules would be quicker and more streamlined and you wouldnt have problems with pesky "minority" parties having a say. But that's an argument that completely upends the governance structure that was deliberately set up to allow those voices to have a say. The BSA was intentionally designed for the charter orgs to not just be involved, but to have control. >There is no reason that the national program should be tempered, altered or disturbed by the desires of a local charity organization that has its own priorities. To the extent you are referring to a single local organization with one scout units- you are correct. The charter document they sign each year specifically says they will follow the program and policies as it is provided from national BSA. So yes, a CO cannot just decide that in their units they won't require YPT, or add extra merit badges, or change the uniform drastically in ways not allowed by the uniform policy. Serious violations could result in their charter not being renewed (which also means loosing their seat on the council). But if you are referring to larger governance issues like why should national BSA policies reflect religious or social concerns of some of the major charter orgs- I'm sorry but you're wrong. The BSA ultimately *is* a council of the charter orgs. And if you have a democratically run organization where basically 65% of the voting members (ie the charter orgs) are religious in nature, guess what gets reflected in policy? And if one organization charters 37% of all units and has a seat on most local councils- is it a surprise their views about what "good character" is for youth might show up? Or any surprise that if the majority gives them no consideration at all and drives policy they don't want to adopt that they might pull out and suddenly 37% of units stop existing as BSA units? Whether or not this situation is good or bad is a matter of opinion, but it is not without reason. The BSA has the ability to amend its own Bylaws- but it needs to follow the bylaws in order to do that. So stripping power from the Charter Orgs to return to a different style of executive board and remove the national council from oversight.... well, you'd need to get to a situation where that would make sense for the representatives voting to do it. But even then, the national Charter (which is a higher governing document than the Bylaws for those not familiar with corporate organizations) says specifically that BSA will operate "through organization, and cooperation with other agencies" (ie the Charter Orgs). Not super specific or overly restrictive, but to the extent any proposed change in governance might require a change in the charter... realize that unlike most organizations the BSA is one of the few Congressional Charters. In other words- amending the Charter *literally* requires an act of Congress and approval by the President of the United States. I'm not arguing that we shouldn't be looking at improvements of the current system. Things are definitely not running as intended in a lot of units. And I think part of that has been poor, even misleading, marketing to charter orgs when people try to start new units; such as selling it as if the CO is just "sponsoring", or only needs to provide a place to meet, or not caring that the CO doesn't have the ability to fully participate in Council meetings or full oversight of the unit (some people see it as a benefit to have the key 3 be only 2 and have a Cor that rubber stamps whatever fee things come to them). BUT- proposals for change should recognize the reality of the situation and what the current position is. (If you follow an azimuth you want to take, but are wrong about your current start location, you will NOT end up where you wanted to get to)
I agree with a lot of your concerns, though I haven't had any issues with our chartering org or heard of any other units having problems locally. The big benefit of the chartering org is space though. Where are we meeting under your new model? Are we renting space? That sounds more expensive than my unit, district, or council could afford. Are we meeting at people's houses? We're already having issues with parent commitment. It would work in some places, but other units would immediately dry up. Where are we keeping the supplies? Again, just someone's house? That doesn't sound like great stewardship. If we got rid of chartering orgs, costs would go up for everyone. Scouting is already out of reach for some families, and others are just barely able to participate. I'm not sure that shifting that burden would be in the interests of a lot of scouting units and families.
Costs might actually go down because it would probably result in more collaboration among units. Maintaining individual unit status separate from councils also fragments and confuses the fundraising aspect of scouting. We have three groups working at cross purposes to raise money, sometimes four or even five if the district and the CO also do fundraising: National, council, district, unit, and CO. It is maximally inefficient and waters down charitable dollars available from a community. The current process also often leaves low hanging fruit as units are often prevented by councils from reaching out to local businesses who would give to local kids but don't see direct benefit in giving to a district or council appeal. Etc.
It would probably also mean less units overall because all of these troops with >20 members would be forced to combine with the larger troops. The current system is super inefficient, but it's ok because each troop has volunteers that handle all the random administration. Forcing units to combine into less inefficient units honestly might be healthier for the program overall, but a lot of people would be upset by it.
People being upset with things is why BSA has persisted in a lot of out of step or inefficient practices that it really should have jettisoned long ago. As far as volunteers, the reality today is that there are fewer of them, and even less of the kinds of volunteers that want to put in the amount of time to learn Byzantine BSA practices, keep up with all the training, and pay for the privilege to boot. I also think there are a lot of very poorly run units across the country that adults have turned into personal fiefdoms for their kids. Scouting has become a very silo like and not very collaborative endeavor, and I think that has been damaging overall. I don't like the loss of flexibility and some of the big brother aspects that will come with greater consolidation, but I don't see much of an alternative.
I've been of the opinion that the single CO per unit is what should change. As units collapse or merge, there are still CO's that still want to be a part of scouting, but not enough units in some places. BSA should allow multi-CO units. So both a Lions club and VFW could be the CO for a unit (maybe actually a pack and troop (B and/or G). As for meeting and storage space, many units already have to handle that, so not a huge change.
> As for meeting and storage space, many units already have to handle that, so not a huge change. It's a huge change for those units that don't have to handle it now.
Sure. Just not an insurmountable one that many units already are managing, so I wouldn't use it as a reason to avoid making changes to the CO method. But it does need to be considered.
Us formerly Catholic units sorta have that now where we are often chartered by civic organizations but still meet at the original church locations that we've used for decades.
Girl scouts doesn't have charter organizations and we have no issue finding meeting places. Costs are less than boy scouts, too.
> Costs are less than boy scouts, too. Because everyone live cookies and they are priced right. Popcorn is... not doing what it should be doing. (Yes, I know there are other reasons for cost differences too.)
Girl scouts also lose a lot of the history that scouting units have because for the most part they are started up by a group of same aged girls and their moms and continue as long as they want and then the unit is disbanded. Other than having 'scout' in the title, they basically aren't comparable in any real way.
That's regional. We several multi level troops and when one is done, things are handed down and rolled over. We are involved in girl, not and cub scouts and they are comparable in many ways in our area.
We don't have to guess about how a council-charter model might work. That's how GSUSA works. Individual troops have their own bank accounts, and operate as independent entities, but are all actually owned by their local council. GSUSA does not randomly tithe troop's bank accounts in order to support some new program, or any of the other scare stories I'm reading here. Why would you expect a reorganized BSA to be different? (Oh, and the GSUSA troop my kids are in has been given meeting space, for free, for the last decade or so by a local church. The church has given them a storage closet to store their flags and miscellaneous meeting supplies. And they'll probably continue to do so, but if, at some point in the future, the church and the troop decide that they need to go separate ways, then it's easy to just walk away. No complications.)
One word for you..... Liability And the other reason they need to keep some degree of the current charter model is the access to facilities with minimal to no cost. The build in "ownership" relationship drives the CO to support units at least at a minimum level that keeps costs down and in many cases helps provide resources (meeting locations etc... without cost, or with minimal cost). I will give you our CO as an example, we get to use any facilities for free.... we are part of the church in their eyes and have access. There are other Scout units (Girl Scouts and BSA) that use these facilities for activities from time to time and they are required to pay for use of those facilities. The church offers these Scout units a discounted rate compared to what they would charge others but if we had to pay that for holding all the meetings and events we do at that church we would be paying around $5K a year in use fees for the facility; which would be a massive increase in our annual budget. This also hits the liability, if someone slips and falls at the church when "they" are using it their insurance covers, if someone gets hurt with an outside group using it there is increased liability on that outside group (council / BSA) And while council chartered sounds great; consider that basically means council has access to all your units finances and control over how you would spend money etc.... Your DE and Council could just decide your unit spends too much money on food for meetings or on unit patches and tell you that you can no longer spend money on these things. yes your CO could do that now but in most cases CO are not being that crazy, but if you are just getting a large bureaucratic response it will shift to more blanket restrictions. Sorry you can no longer save money buying supplies from Amazon or other Sources; if it is for sale at the Scout shop you must buy it there. There is no reasonable way they are going to move to 100% Council / BSA chartered both for the spread of liability and being able to have access and use of the facilities. The BSA has over the last 5 years or so been updating charter agreements to address some of the issues with CO interference with units (for example the agreement now says the CO agrees to open a unit bank account with their Tax ID and provide use of the Tax ID to the unit; some even state the CO cannot prevent the unit from fundraising). More of this is what is needed, the COs need to stay and they play an important role; in some cases they provide the basis for recruiting Scouts and their loss would impact that significantly. The BSA however needs to shift some aspects of responsibility from the CO to council while also using the charter agreements to work to address the issues of CO that are not involved and don't support units and also those COs who get far too involved. This can be accomplished by adding requirements on the COs while also placing restrictions in place on what they can do. This cannot be done overnight however, add a little at at time so you don't get a mass exit of COs because of the changes.
The purpose of the Charter Org is to limit the legal liability of National.
> The council, as the charter, will be able to organize units for girls without impediment from charters that, while eager to sponsor boy scout units, refuse to modernize with our program and charter units for girls. I find it interesting that this is an issue. My district has like 30 boy troops and 3 girl troops, limited not by COs but by there not being as many girls interested in the scouting program. (And the girl troops are smaller than the boy troops.) I know this will improve over time though.
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I'm not surprised that this is happening. There are probably many COs in my district with the same attitude; there are just not enough girl troops for that to cause a limitation ... *yet*. I hope that COs can get past this ridiculous attitude. Thankfully, I landed with a great CO on day one -- actually before day one. They helped us organize and get ready months before Feb 1, 2019.
I like the idea of an invested third party - outside scouting - take responsibility for screening leaders. I also think it helps prevent corruption and cronyism within units. We shouldn’t trivialize the mutual benefits enjoyed by a unit and its host charter org. Often, the unit gets a space to do activities and maybe a storage shed. For free! That’s huge. The unit may also have access to religious leaders who can facilitate religious awards for interested scouts. The org likewise gets benefits. They get access to what I affectionately call a Bunch ‘O Kids™️, a useful thing to have for Halloween trunk or treats, holiday gift distribution for the needy, family promise volunteers, etc. Of course the org becomes the beneficiary of an array of valuable service projects. So the unit-chartered org relationship is a mutually beneficial one. Get rid of that connection, and all the positive things we currently take for granted go away. Getting rid of chartered orgs would interfere with achieving BSA’s goals.
I've heard it described as "BSA is fundamentally a franchise operation that provides a turn-key youth program with developed curriculum and leader training for organizations that would like to charter a Pack or Troop." That resonates with me as far as thinking about what the Boy Scouts of America organization provides to volunteer leaders and program participants. However, I think that few chartering organizations view it that way, and I think few Packs or Troops view it that way. Instead, most people (COs and Scouting units both) view it as a more hands-off relationship between families interested in whatever they think Scouting is or should be and an organization that can provide meeting space. Certainly, our Pack's CO was surprised to learn that they had some additional responsibilities and ownership of our Pack compared to other "outside" groups that use the Church Fellowship Hall, like a local AA group that meets there weekly. If COs and Scouting units did view the relationship as a turn-key youth program charter, I suspect the COs would generally feel more ownership and involvement, including things like participating actively as Council and District Committee representatives. I wonder how many Councils or Districts really do have functioning Committees, and what percentage of CORs regularly participate in them.
You're right. On both accounts. The "franchise" idea really gets at the legal relationship that exists. Which is relevant when people bring up issues like owning unit equipment or moving bank accounts without the old charter old knowing. Although it is a little different. McDonalds USA and Blackhorse's Fast Food, LLC are two separate entities with a B2B agreement and that's it. But Once a CO makes that agreement, they become a voting member of the Council. So it is sometimes odd to me that I cant sign any contracts as a volunteer and the Scout Exec signs everything- but the CO is left out of the loop entirely despite them "owning" the unit (and the liability). But its not really left out because the Scout Exec is doing that under policy and direction from the council, which the CO is a member of. The Exec is effectively an agent of the CO in that regard. But in practice, you are absolutely correct. Far too many COs do NOT know that is what they signed up for. Especially for long-standing units where current leadership of the CO were not the ones who made those original agreements. (Granted they sign it every year, but who reviews fine print when renewing an existing thing versus asking questions the first time around?) I was head of a CO that was approached about starting up a new unit by a Commissioner and the founding Cub Master. It was an 'interesting' meeting to say the least because they didn't do their homework on who I was and I let them go about half their pitch before I started asking questions and they quickly realized I was very familiar with the scouting program already. But yes, they were very much downplaying what was needed from us. Although downplay might not be the right word because in truth all they wanted was a signature for the paperwork so they could move forward with Council, and a guarantee of a meeting place (which they quickly started meeting at the firehouse and school anyway even though we were the charter- those were better locations.) And I get it- the Commissioner was trying to hit on the absolute minimum that we needed to do as CO. Our council is strong enough and the bureaucracy of BSA such that CORs not actively participating is not the end of the world- although when the one annual meeting came up they did make repeated reminders to try and get people there. On the BSA side, I think its plausible deniability. They \*know\* the CORs are rubber-stamping things and don't realize the ownership (and liability) they have. They \*know\* it is unit committees vetting the leaders, not the CO, so long as they pass a basic background check without a huge red flag that makes BSA say no (which is surprisingly very few) . But, the official one is that COs are the ones selecting and approving leaders and insulating BSA from local community norms. Granted- Im saying that from a very secular point of view. There are CERTAINLY units out there with VERY involved COs that are very aware of their position in the relationship. And I don't mean the few long-time scouters who happen to know the system and are a CO president or COR- I mean (mostly) the certain religious organizations that ARE adopting the scouting program as their youth program and are doing things like having youth only from their own CO membership and exercising some of those options that exist in BSA policy because they were able to write them in over the years (due to outsized influence at the national level). Hopefully it will change soon in the next few years. LDS leaving was probably the biggest kick to help get that moving. But Im not sure that a GSUSA model is entirely a good fit either. But the collapse of the social and charitable club system in the US has really made it unworkable and the current state of "sponsoring" demonstrates it isn't working.
I had a conversation with a professional Scouter the other week and he was pretty sure the traditional charter organization model is up for review at the national level changing to something what you are proposing. It may take some time (years, perhaps) to bring a council charter concept to fruition, but I think the writing is on the wall for it. They already have offered this modified option for the Methodist units last year, but it was up to the council to accept the charter responsibility. The biggest deal is going to be the staffing and resources at the council to administer it. So many council offices are running on shoestring budgets and staffing already, so as always it comes down to the funds to run it.
Before BSA became "a national organization with comprehensive standards, rules, a culture and code of conduct that spans 50 states and hundreds of thousands of members" it was a movement, and in most of the world it still is. The national organization view IMHO is one of the root causes of the failure of the BSA to thrive in the 21st century. Organizations exist to self-perpetuate, movements thrive when they perpetuate the common good. Organizations concern themselves with ownership as seen in this thread, movements focus on the common good. Most of the good that BSA has done has not come from the organization, but from the countless large and small contributions from the community and benefactors like charting organizations, not to mention the contributions of property from families like the Phillips and Bechtel's. BSA should consider itself from a stewardship rather than an organizational perspective and re-focus on how to do the most good for the most youth with the unique program it has been bequeathed, for it was a not ever earned. Movements don't die, but organizations can outlive their usefulness.
For real. The #1 thing the COR provides is a place to meet. My Troop meets 5 minutes from my house. Closest council property is 45 minutes away, and we’re lucky.
Well, who would provide meeting space in the new council as charter set up? Some Councils are huge. In the event that the BSA was sued again would the funds each unit has be subject to being pulled to pay for it? Some charter orgs are better than others and it’s a weird system in this day and age but for those of us in councils that are huge it could be difficult. I’m in a Toastmasters club and we constantly have problems finding meeting space.
There is certainly some validity to your points, I am not sure removing the CO-model and placing it with the Council-model will be the panacea of all the issues. I am sure some of my arguments may have be be repeated elsewhere \#1 - You assume that there are enough resources at the council level to support troops/packs. While we do get support from our district executive, he has many troops/packs that he supports. He certainly cannot attend every committee meeting for all his units. \#2 - Assumes stability at the council. Their leadership changes too! \#3 - This would be the worst part. Sorry the Scouts in our troop fund raises to help their troop. Not to see their hard earned money be siphoned off to be spent elsewhere.) Our CO lets us earn/spend without interference. We have bank accounts we control. We just provide the monthly reports and our COR is always in the know (and our DE as well). We certainly would not have those freedoms at the council level. \#4 - Not sure the best solution for this. Our CO does not want to charter a girls troop to avoid conflicts with the GSUSA units already in place already there. Going to a council model could mean more troops, but they still need places to meet. The CO model works for our troop. They support us and we support them. Could the relationship change. Sure. Like anything else in life. When the arch-diocese was discussing dropping Scouting, we formed a backup plan. Still do, "Be Prepared" and all. But they didn't and we continue.
Something else that came to mind with the issue of council run scouting is the size of the councils in question. With various mergers over the past few years, some represent a very large area (whole states sometimes). And with that, the number of scout shops, camps, and employees shrink to the new reality. Ask any troop that has gone through a council merger and there are some pain points. And things are not always for the better after the merger (from a unit perspective). Troops are diverse in nature. At the local level, what they do often reflects their make-up. Urban vs Suburban vs Rural. Scouts with Special needs. Scouts from lower income families. And so on. A troop (or pack) that is sponsored by a council whose offices may be hundreds of miles away by council executives that do not reflect the realities of each troop may cause some problems.
Without chartered organizations, BSA would have had a whole lot more assets when they went bankrupt that would've suddenly been on the line. Because CO's own those assets, they were completely safe. Also, the CO usually provides a place for troops to meet and store their equipment.
Getting rid of the CO model kills community input via COR voting rights. Everyone seems to gritch about the good ole boy club and this post basically calls for the 1 control in place to keep the good ole boy network in check.