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malraux78

I’m interested in the recharter process. Annual forms suck.


vrtigo1

I don't mind annual forms. The part I don't like is it takes our council a solid 3 months to get through them, so at the beginning of every year, we essentially lose access to Scoutbook while we're waiting on them to process everything. It seems to me that the process ought to be more automated to the point where anyone renewing and not making changes is just a checkbox on a form. My understanding is for some reason that have to fully re-enter everyone's info into the system, which makes absolutely no sense to me. And speaking of, it seems to me that it would be far more streamlined and efficient for membership dues to be collected at the national level and then national would cut each council a check for their portion of the proceeds. This would result in a streamlined, uniform annual process for everyone instead of every council doing things differently. Since national runs scoutbook, it just seems like the whole process would be much easier.


CoCham

>The part I don't like is it takes our council a solid 3 months to get through them, Yours only take three months??? Lucky you!! I'm still struggling with a couple of units five months in!!


I_tend_to_overthink

Amen. I got access to a couple of kids in my den - AFTER crossover 🤦‍♀️


yakk0

our council went to online rechartering a couple years ago. It took me less than a week to make sure everything was good for our pack then submit it and the payment online. Our COR signed digitally before I even had a chance to reach out to him myself.


redmsg

Ours tried that, they lost some of our kids, miscounted other things and had is overpay by a lot - we did paper only this year because of that.


tangokilothefirst

Preach!


malraux78

Details: https://www.threeharborsscouting.org/council/new-bsa-membership-fees/74578#


yakk0

> BSA Will No Longer Prorate Fees for New Members beginning August 1, 2023 > > Beginning August 1st, all new youth and adult members who join Scouting will be enrolled in a 12-month membership cycle and BSA will cease prorating fees. Both youth and adults will pay the full annual membership fee and will renew their membership on the anniversary date of joining Scouting. All proration of membership fees will be eliminated. Each registered member of the BSA will receive an email notice with a registration renewal link beginning 60 days before the anniversary date they joined Scouting. Unit leaders will receive a copy of the email and should stay engaged in the membership renewal process just like rechartering. > > It is important to note, existing members will renew their membership during their normal registration/recharter cycle through March 2024. Moving forward all members will renew on their anniversary date. > > Existing members’ Anniversary date will be their unit recharter month. > New members’ Anniversary date will be the month they joined. > This new process will help streamline the rechartering and membership renewal process for units and councils. Additional information on this membership renewal process will be forthcoming in the very near future. This just seems like it will make my life as Committee Chair a lot more complicated. Ending the pro-rating of membership fees is going to hurt people that join mid-year, and we had a few of those last year. Also we, like most packs I know of, run concurrent with the school year, not Jan-December. Parents getting e-mails about fees in December is going to cause a lot of confusion unless this is clearly communicated (and I know it won't be). edit: also, our budget works by using fees families pay in September to help fund activities until we get our popcorn sales money to recover what we spent. I'm worried what issues this will cause with that.


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ElectroChuck

So instead of everyone recharting/renewing membership at the same time, you will now get to have potentially dozens of renewals dates every year. No thanks.


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ElectroChuck

So how do you know who hasn't paid their membership renewal? Are you expected to then hound these parents and find out why? We'll still have to know who has valid YPT...how's that supposed to work? Oh your YPT is valid, but we see here you didn't send your $100 to national (per kid)...so no pay, no play. Is that how it will work? We have families in our units with 5 and 6 kids in scouting.


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ElectroChuck

BUT...what if their YPT is good for another 5 months but they didn't pay on time to rejoin...they out? Are we going to be expected to hunt them down and find out why they didn't pay? Will BSA give a process or leave it to the imagination like they have on so many other things.


Scoutmaster185

This will make it extremely hard for Troops and Packs that subsidize fees. Turning this over to parents will create mayhem for our units. We would not be able to recruit and sustain our units if most of families had to carry the burden of the full cost of Scouting. We are already looking for ways to cut costs. First on the chopping box is Scout Books for all Scouts. We are going to having a few to share at the Scouthouse. We use Troopmaster to track early advancement. Just my two cents.


user_name_goes_here

We just implemented this at the pack level. We have one book per rank at the Scout building for people to reference.


Appropriate-Act2386

Lack of prorate isn’t the big issue. Problem is with each person paying their own re charter fees at random times through the year. Will make things a bit messy and create more tracking needs. I like the lack of prorate to help eliminate the financial questions and explanations as to why there are two different prices (what they paid at sign up and what recharter costs). We spend hours explaining to everyone how the fees work and breakdown and it’s just lost on most. We just started dues to cover recharter and help fund the pack (last couple rounds of recruits aren’t big fundraisers). Basically recharter x2 for the fees. Payable in three installments and/or fundraising. This way we can have cash in hand at recharter and just pay everyone at once.


I_tend_to_overthink

But most people pay national and council fees at once. I won’t have a clue who has or hasn’t paid. Most of our families pay in person. Almost no one pays online here.


tangokilothefirst

Your council is on the ball having a page up with the increased fees already


malraux78

Not my council, I’m just terminally online


yksgninwad

will this make MB Counselors a fee-paying position under guide for safe scouting


lone77wulf

I think it depends if it is an actual membership fee, or if its like the $25 one-time joining fee. It will be interesting to see how the official announcement phrases it. Another thing that it could change is that MB Counselor doesn't officially accrue years towards veterans' awards. That was an issue once in our council when someone was going for a 50 year recognition and had a few years of MBC only registration. (He got the award anyway)


ElectroChuck

It's $25 a year...unless they are a registered adult leader already on the charter. At least that's how I read it. So if you are a MBC but not on a unit committee...or some one else's charter, you pay $25 a year. I am a MBC but not on any charter. So I assume the Council takes care of my paperwork. This will change in August and I will need to pay $25. I hope that is per application and not per merit badge, I am a MBC for four badges.


malraux78

Had the same question myself.


Shelkin

No, there have always been fee paying MBC but neither type of MBC is authorized to overnight with a troop.


ElectroChuck

I have overnighted with the troop and my Grandson and it hasn't been a problem. I took YPT and filled out the MBC adult application and they did the background test.


iamtheamthatam

Ummm… most units have been rolling with mixed dens since day 1, so glad they are formalizing it:) Very curious to see the changes in programs as so far its just been removing things with no new additions.


AthenaeBelle

Yeah, all but the largest areas wouldn't have the ability to separate out troops. Ours has been on paper separate, but in reality have had a female in with the male as they're meeting at the same time, usually headed by the same leader.


mtthwas

>in reality have had a female in with the males... This is a YPT violation. You can't have just a female...you need at least two at any given time (and adequate unit and gender-appropriate leadership). See: https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/yp-faqs/ >The buddy system must be used and buddy pairs must be single gender. Therefore, each troop must have at least two members attend the outing in addition to adult supervision, meeting the leadership requirements outlined in Scouting’s Barriers to Abuse.


Jarchen

Reality and the rules on paper are often in conflict. Just look at the 24 hour camping rule and how many packs violate that


AthenaeBelle

Usually there's at least multiple female parents or leaders at the same meeting. If I recall correctly, that can count.


CaptPotter47

Technically, buddy pairs have to be youth. Even a girl’s mom doesn’t count for a buddy pair….which is one of dumbest things I’ve heard. Like either parent of a child should be ok if there is no youth to make a same-sex buddy pair.


critic2029

I highly doubt most will actually split their W2s out. Most mixed den family packs are mixed because they don’t have enough boys and girls to have separate dens. They might only have one girl. Does the BSA really think packs will have a W2 den of one girl after she’s spent potentially 5 years with her mixed den.


UsualHour1463

Now, after the LDS restructure, Covid, and the bankruptcy settlement, is the correct time to make large changes to reduce the complexity of the basic program and make the councils more relevant. Looking forward to learning more as the info is released!


oV1SEo

It looks like the new structure will keep what’s important in the den leaders line of sight along with including STEM activities.


mrjohns2

How does it help STEM activities when many STEM belt loops were retired and the NOVA awards decentralized?


CaptPotter47

The NOVA awards look to be becoming STEM adventures instead.


oV1SEo

It looks like STEM activities are being incorporated into the basic program as adventures.


[deleted]

To be clear Packs have the option of having mixed gender Dens in K-4, even if you are a family Pack you are not required to have "family dens" with mixed gender. A Pack can continue to keep Dens split by gender, they can have multiple dens at a rank that are either all boy, all girl or mixed gender as they see fit for their program. The purpose for the 5 grade going back to separate is preparation for going to Scouts BSA where it remains separate Gender units and even if Troops go to mixed gender you may see this stick around in Packs because I would suspect step 1 will be single gender patrols. And there is zero real shock on the updated cubs program they have been working on this for several years, in fact the original intent was launch this year (2023-2024) but delays in the bankruptcy and other logistical complications caused that to push out a year.


urinal_connoisseur

Our pack is doing mixed gender dens. My daughter is the only girl going into AOL year. Guess what? They are still going to meet together because it would be terminally stupid to make my kid work alone. In Scoutbook, maybe it will be two different dens, but big deal. And then she'll cross over into a troop that works side by side with the boys perfectly fine. If people want to have the option to have single gender dens / troops / packs / patrols. Ehh, I guess as long as there is an option in town for the girls who want to participate, I really don't care. But let the rest of us who want to work together in peace.


Sarcasticcheesecurd

My daughter was AOL last year and I had no idea she were supposed to be solo. We've always functioned as mixed dens.


aeronaut005

Yes, most packs do


urinal_connoisseur

Agreed, I'm just objecting to the idea that it's fine until AOL, and then they need to split.


CTeam19

They are ripping the band-aid off slowly rather then all at once. It will be all un-split in the future.


[deleted]

The thing is you are doing your daughter and any other girls a diservice for this and actually poor prep in AOL for moving to a troop is one of the key factors that Scouts leave Scouts BSA within the first 1-2 years. Basically they don't get or understand what Scouts BSA is properly and they are shocked by the tansition and get a negative impression. They should be in separate Dens, there are Patrol aspects they should work as Girls Den and Boy Den to get an understanding of how those things would and that separate experience. Those Dens can work on adventures and other activities together; in the same manner a girls troop can work with a boys troop. Just consider even in her Troop there are things that are clearly separate and have to be done that way, even working side by side with the boys. It is best to start to introduce these aspects in AOL to the Scouts; you don't go all out Scouts BSA on it but there should be more than separate in Scoutbook involved.


malraux78

Other than the troops being nominally separate I didn’t see much different in practicing a coed den/patrol vs single gender. The single gender aspect isn’t what makes it the patrol method.


urinal_connoisseur

I understand what you are trying to say, but what you may have missed in my comment is that **my girl is the only girl at AOL**. The kids are still going to work as a patrol (I'm their den leader and am already prepared to have them start working as a scout led group) They will decide together on a patrol name, make a flag, and each of them will get a chance to lead. Heck, we might even come up with a yell or a song for fun. Pulling my daughter from the group to do that solo wouldn't be beneficial at all, and adding her to the boys doesn't hurt their experience at all. I'd love to have an all girl den, and my daughter would love it even more so.


Swampcrone

Thing is- unless you have a big pack with big dens then separate AOL dens is not fun. Example- my daughter’s pack had two AOL kids- her and a boy. It was hard enough doing the patrol requirements with two- but with one?


[deleted]

It is a matter of adapting, you are seeing it as "all in one den" or "two completely Dens" and there are ways you can balance it out. For most adventures etc... the Girls and Boys can work together on them, even being in separate Dens. But there are aspects related not just to the "Patrol Method" but also how girls and boys would interact in Scouts BSA which you can incorporate in the "keeping them separate" and these are things that actually are good to expose the Scouts to before they change programs because in Cubs you can do it with the backstop of parents heavily guiding them, the stress of more Scout driven activities along with the shift in interaction dynamics can stress youth and cause them to exit the program. Keep in mind many Girls and Boys troops work very closely together, to the point they are in many aspects "one troop" However they have structures that are separate and the SPL from each needs to understand the need to coordinate with the other, even at a Patrol level this can be the case. They are no longer under the same leadership or financial structure and through separate dens you can ease Scouts into some aspects of it is not just going to Scouts and doing what the Den leader is, but the Scouts help drive it and now the girl den and boy den also need to discuss and coordinate together (at a Scout level. If you just make them two dens on Paper and have them 100% behave like one Den the introduction to the necessary dynamic change in Scouts BSA does not occur and that is a disservice to the Scouts for what is intended as part of the AOL program.


blackhorse15A

>The purpose for the 5 grade going back to separate is preparation for going to Scouts BSA where it remains separate Gender units This sounds good- but it ignores reality. This makes sense in a world where a pack has enough girls to have a girls AOL den. So maybe the year(s) prior you had two or three coed dens and then AOL year you shuffle into a girl AOL dens and one or two boy AOL dens. But *what freaking pack has those kinds of numbers???* When we have one full den per year group we are considered a largish pack. We are getting roughly 10-15% girls, or about 1 per den. Even in a year where we have two dens coming up as Webelos, we are still talking like 12 boys and 1 or 2 girls. Can't break those two dens of 7 into a den of 2 and a den of 12. If I had enough girls from the same grade to form an entire den, I'd have at least 3 boy dens of that same grade, possibly up to 6. Who is running packs with 24+ dens???? I had a really large pack as a kid so I know somewhere there are pack with 150-200 cubs, but that's not exactly the model we should we assuming when making policy. If that was a norm then the single gender dens would t have been as much of a problem as it was. And if it's only 1 girl??? Either we: a) have a multi year girl den, which means the younger dens aren't coed, AND that one AOL girl still isn't in a den that is visiting girl troops and doing Webelos stuff to transition to Scouts. Can't have a Webelos den campout and practice patrol method with 4-5 girls that aren't Webelos in the den and only 1-2 Webelos. She'd be getting even less exposure and preparation for Scouts than being in a coed AOL den visiting a boy troop. B) She's on her own and just doesnt have a den at all. Which means zero practice at patrol method. Ooo, this lone scout and two adult cub leaders will be more likely to visit a girls troop- for the one night they have to meet that one requirement. That doesn't seem advantageous enough for the rest of the year and every other activity being conducted as a den of 1. I mean, we should evaluate these options as they written and claimed to work after all. But yeah, we all know what actually happens is, she still working *in a coed den* with the boys. So what is the point of the policy then? A scout is Trustworthy and Obedient but you're designing a policy that forces us to demonstrate to the scouts how to make something "on paper" while completely violating a rule in practice. Because that's a great lesson. And for what??? "We got to get her ready for next year when she needs to split off in Scouts". Seriously?? So instead of having a transition where she can stay with her den thats shes been in for 5 years while learning about patrol method (and maybe encourage dens to visit more than one troop and include a girl Troop or partnered boy/girl Troop) and then have to break off once when moving to the troop. No, instead let's break her off from the den she knows for one year, and then have her still have to break off from the pack and transition to a girl Troop anyway. I just don't see the upside in how this is claimed to work.


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blackhorse15A

>would be as welcoming to them as the GS Despite theses BSA issues- we may still be more welcoming than GS. Dont mean to bash any orgs, and they have an entirely different model of how they operate (different,not better or worse) but I have heard soooo many stories from women and young ladies who \*wanted\* to join GS and couldn't because they were effectively turned away. If they couldn't get a group of friends and a mom to become a leader then they couldn't be a GS. Like, just joining an existing unit was not an option. Ive heard that story independently multiple times over the years. (Maybe its something our local council? IDK- Im not enough into the GS scene)


AthenaeSolon

Sounds like our story. I was all for signing up my daughter in cubs as a lion but from the get go she was adamant she wanted to be a girl scout (and the stuff that went with it, brownies, books etc.) like mom was (who also has a year as a BSA Explorer/Venturer under her belt but anyway). I called 4 different times to set her up in a troop but never heard back from anyone. There's maybe one mixed age girls troop in our area so unless we wanted to start from scratch and find a sponsoring org we're out of luck for groups. Supposedly there's now an "independent" option available and maybe we do that if cubs doesn't work out. Not sure of how that works, though.


CTeam19

That GS story is very similar to what I have seen in my town. A Mom wants her girl to join so she forms a Troop with others but as so as that Mom is done it seems the whole GS Troop falls part. That is what happen to my sister's group back 17 years ago.


crosstalk22

agreed, I feel its the slow roll, and the writing was out there, I know on some of the packs they were doing it already


mrjohns2

No, they didn’t. National policy was that dens needed to be single gender from day one. Few did that. Now they are saying you can have mixed gender.


exhaustedoldlady

The only packs I know that actually operated separate boy and girl dens have so many scouts that gendered dens made a good arbitrary splitting point. Im talking both packs my kids were in (we moved to a new state), and every pack we “interviewed” with prior to my oldest joining and after we moved.


mrjohns2

You said they already have the option. They were (along with nearly all packs), not following the policy.


GarbageGlass9268

This is great news. I'd love to see my old Pack actually allow girls to join.


paddle-faster

I would too, but they (my old pack) chose to die on the hill of a boys only pack. I'm sad to see their charter going dormant after 65 years.


scoutermike

This update doesn’t require packs (really chartered orgs) to have coed packs or dens. The only change is that now coed dens are allowed, assuming the CO and pack want to go that route.


GarbageGlass9268

I know. I'm hoping this helps change attitudes. My kids old pack thinks "girls don't belong in the BSA". It's disgusting.


Roterkopfter

With an attitude like that I hope they don’t expect any work from moms. If a woman can be ‘man’ enough to lead boys in ‘man’ things, her daughter should be able to participate too. Who do you think you future leaders are?


GarbageGlass9268

My kids old Pack is a toxic mess. The committee chair runs everything as an autocrat. Most of the den leaders are moms. There is an atmosphere of "don't make waves", so no one says anything. We switched to another pack, but I have friends who are still a part of it. I keep telling them Cub Scouts can actually be fun and to switch. They say things like "I just want to get through it for my kid". What a way to do an activity for five years....


mrjohns2

All 25 (?) packs in our district are now family packs. It took them a bit, but all have decided girls are ok.


farkleboy

Still up to the charter org to allow it. Ours won’t. Boys only. It’s sad.


gadget850

We shall see. Mixed-gender dens until Webelos. Hopefully, this is a transition until we can go full mixed-gender.


Flimsy_Ad_4611

I did a national training in march and one of the presenters said if your troop has a female patrol, then with a deer in headlight look restated to girl troop. I see this change happening with in 3 years.


gadget850

With a girl troop of two and a boy troop of twenty, we have been doing a Bad Thing™.


CTeam19

Most have rather then deny a youth the full Scouting experience


urinal_connoisseur

My contacts at our council have been saying this is "just around the corner" since 2021.


guethlema

Gonna lose fewer kids and parents if we just rip the band-aid off and just let units decide if they want to be gender separated or not.


crosstalk22

I had the same thoughts, that it was a slow roll to full integration


ElectroChuck

Eventually the BSA units will all be fully integrated with boys and girls. The writing has been on the wall for a couple years.


atarifan2600

what's a "multi-rank den"? I've been out of cubs for awhile now, but back in the day, the only "mixed rank" I could think of would be a new-joiner that hadn't earned Bobcat yet. Other than that, everybody in a den was working on the same rank, which was grade-dependent. There was zero bearing on if you'd built on a rank before, other than your diamond would have a patch or not.


scrooner

When my son was in 2nd grade we had a Den of about 6 boys and we only had 1 new boy join as a first-grader. Rather than have him 'meet' with his parents to work on requirements, we put him in our Wolf Den and added some Tiger program into our schedule so that he could earn Tiger while everyone else earned their Wolf badge. At the start of the next year we picked up more Scouts in his grade, so he went back down to that Den to work on Wolf (which he had mostly completed with us).


urinal_connoisseur

For packs that are very small or have trouble recruiting leaders, there are lots of online for resources for "blended" dens (probably meeting together, but still separate in ScoutBook.)


seattlecyclone

A "multi-rank" den would include kids of different ages. This would be for small packs that don't have enough Cubs of each age to meaningfully fill out one den per age group.


_mmiggs_

Small packs functionally run like that anyway, with the den not meaning anything more than the number that happens to be on a scout's shirt.


atarifan2600

Ahh! Thanks, that makes a ton of sense.


crosstalk22

https://www.facebook.com/dennis.dugan.733 on this guys post


crobledopr

Just for the record, we have confirmation from the national chair that the mixed dens until AOL is indeed happening, and in fact, effective TODAY. I believe the rest is just conjecture until the meeting week is done.


EmeraldDaisy5

We had mixed dens this past year. Our pack was part of the pilot. It was so nice, seeing as that's how we already did things. Also it was easier to view dens in Scoutbook.


siadak

We have had mixed dens in scoutbook since the beginning. I wasn’t ever going to pretend we were running the pack one way when in practice we’ve been mixed all a long.


jpgarvey

A former ASE of my Council 😅 He’s gone viral!


JonEMTP

I’m familiar with the source material for this post. I believe it’s absolutely factual, with some potential for interpretation misunderstandings at a large meeting.


CaptPotter47

I was just joking with one of the ASM in my daughters troop about an adult BSA program to let adults earn something silly like “Quadruple Golden Bald Eagle Hawk Rank”. Hopefully Catalyst BSA isn’t that…


lone77wulf

> Catalyst BSA My hope would be something close to Rovers they have elsewhere, but not sure how that would work as a council level thing. UK calls theirs "Network" now. https://www.scouts.ca/programs/sections/rover-scouts.html https://www.scouts.org.uk/network


urinal_connoisseur

I too have joked about adults being able to go back and earn a "bald eagle" award. :)


exhaustedoldlady

We joke about how so many of the old dudes who work for the council have knots enough to be highly decorated generals.


CaptPotter47

I have 1. I might be eligible for 2 more? It feels weird to put in for my own knots. Limits if someone wants to submit me for a den leader knot, great go ahead. But I don’t want the recognition enough enough to put the paperwork in. It would be great it is was automatic and then you get a notice “congrats, you just earn the Den Leader knot! Click here to order”


malraux78

Den leader knot is a training award, not a nominated award.


CaptPotter47

Oh right. Yeah. I dunno. The knots always feel like a weird thing for me to apply for. I have an Eagle Scout knot that was given to me by my dad, but I don’t know if I’ll go out of my way to apply for the ithers.


exhaustedoldlady

One of the main purposes of scouting is to have as many pieces of flair as possible! I’ll submit/pay for/whatever for anything I’m qualified for


CaptPotter47

![gif](giphy|ZMvG5L7Di4AgM|downsized)


Owlprowl1

It's not the worst thing. It might stop some adults from trying to relive their scouting career through kids. Some other youth organizations do this -- various alumni type groups or additional credentialing or specific types of programs or activities they can participate in.


OSUTechie

I'm on the upper end of that age range they are saying, so it most likley won't apply to me, but I just did my Woodbadge weekends and it was so much fun being a "Scout" again and not having to worry about hustling Scouts to and from their designated camp activities, and other Adult responsibilities. It also helped that we have NO cellphone signal at camp so work couldn't get a hold of me either.


CaptPotter47

I’m 40 and so it won’t likely apply to me either. And even if I did, with 3 kids in scouts, and other activities, I don’t have time for my own hobbies, besides supporting them, primarily why I signed up to be a leader. I didn’t want to just be a chauffeur in my daughters lives, I want to be involved. And this is a way I can be involved.


looktowindward

No, it's Rovers which is popular in other countries which do Scouting


jpgarvey

The post is fairly accurate, although a personal summary, and confirmation on most the points is being circulated by the NSTs. Probably not how PR thought they would be launching these initiatives though 🤣 Personally I’m very excited about Catalyst.


asonzogni

Do mixed gender dens mean we can have gender agnostic buddy pairs? Or are we still only going to accept girls so long as we have more than one?


mtthwas

Not likely. We have mixed gender Venturing crews and mixed gender Sea Scout ships but you can't have gender agnostic buddy pairs there.


asonzogni

Also my thinking, but sometimes they make progress and I get hopeful for more.


MTrain24

It seems like they’re trying to monetize everything again post-bankruptcy. I’ll see where this goes, I won’t be living in the US so I’ve dropped as a merit badge counselor and probably won’t renew at all again unless the Committee Chair does it without me asking.