xray10

I thought I would give you a little background on how the Boy Scouts inflate their membership numbers. As I know you are aware,every Scout unit is granted an annual charter. It can be from 6 to 18 months. Most are 12 months long and usually end in October, November or December. The BSA runs on a calendar year, so all membership figures used are from December 31 for united way, grants etc. A Scout unit will have, (X) amount of boys when it starts and then boys can join throughout the year and the membership fee is prorated for each month. It cost $10 per year to be a member of the Boy Scouts or .84 per month. So a scout unit accumulates boys throughout the year. Lets say you start with 30, 20 join and 15 quit or drop out. The Boy Scouts will report 50 even though there are only 35, because they will carry them through until a unit recharters or renews then all boys who have not paid their $10 registration fee are dropped off. Now this is how the BSA can and does manipulate the membership: A council and/or its professional staff will add names to a scout unit in its last month before it renews. For example you could add 20 youth to a Scout unit that renews in October for .84 each instead of a higher prorated fee earlier in the year and be able to count that membership on 12/31 because, most councils will not renew an October, November or December Scout unit until January 1, because they dont want to lose the membership before the end of the year. A unit goes into a lapsed state for 60 days after its charter month. So an October Scout unit can be held and you can count the membership through 12/31 and artificially inflate your numbers. You do this to 50-100 Scout units and you are talking about a possible 2000 kid difference in your end of year numbers in a small council, much larger in a metro area. Most of the time the registrars know the membership is questionable, so they usually dont even print and mail membership cards or if they do the executives will say they will deliver it and toss the cards, the unit recharters on Jan 1 and the unit leaders never even know the kids were added. This is a very, very common way to manipulate numbers. The Boy Scouts call it Membership Management. The next way they manipulate membership is through their Inner City or Scout Reach Programs. Most sizeable councils have a Scout Reach person, who is a Para-professional that works exclusively with inner city youth. These guys go into inner city neighborhoods and sign up every kid possible. 90% of them never even know they are in Scouts. Councils usually pay for the membership, the United Way loves it, and they think they are doing a good deed, but they are really helping the councils inflate their membership. They never ask to see if a unit is earning advancement. That is a sure way to tell a fake, ghost or inactive unit they dont earn any advancement. I have seen Scout reach guys ask how much membership do you need, and then bring it in 4-5 days later. It is free for the kids, even though they may never go to the first meeting. Exploring the Co-ed Career Education Program for high school kids is another area. #1 the BSA runs surveys in the schools where kids choose careers they would like to learn more about. The survey requires: Name, address, City, St, Zip, and Tele & Date of Birth. Everything you need to put them on the Exploring registration list. No application is required, just a BSA form. BSA Execs have literally tens of thousands of these at their disposal to add to units at the end of their charter dates, usually October, November and December. Another thing BSA execs will do is go sit in the cafeteria to promote Exploring, tell the kids it is free, pay for one month of their registration at the end of the year then never bother to really get them to join. How is this funded? Several different ways. Some councils that are flush with cash and just run it through a specific assistance line item in their budget. Others are not and the executives must be creative, so they skim cash off of camporee fees and other activities and rat-hole it away to pay for the membership. It only takes $84 to add 100 kids to your year-end numbers, so a lot of executives do it; some even pay for it themselves. 100 kids can make the difference between a 2% and 10% pay raise for a district executive. What is the motivation? Pressure from your boss. #1 Pay increases for reaching your goal Peer pressure Laziness Some other interesting facts: The Scout Executive (Executive Director) is well paid. A Scout Executive can make in the neighborhood of $100,000- 250,000+ a year, on top of that - benefits, company car, liberal expense account, company credit card etc It is way out of wack for a not-for-profit pay scale. The general contributor, blue-collar guy who gives $50.00 to support Scouting has no idea they are paid this much. If you review United Way applications from the BSA they hide this by using what they call a fair share. Say you are applying for funding from the United Way. It will ask what administrative salaries are. The Boy Scouts take the membership in that county and divide it by the total council membership and come up with a % and they will divide the Scout executives salary by that % and show only that amount. They will not come out and say that the Scout Executives salary is $250,000. Scout Executives work for the executive board of the Council. Most of which were chosen by the Scout Executive. So he surrounds himself with people he chose and usually they only hear his side of any story. The SOP will be to find lower-level executives to place the blame on and produce Membership Validation agreements signed by every executive that says they will uphold the membership standards of the BSA. And claim they had some bad apples doing the inflated membership, when it has been a part of the corporate culture for decades. How To Spot a Fake Unit: Usually has only 5 members Minimum number of adults registered, usually 4 for an Explorer Post, 6 for a cub pack, 5 for a troop. Adults are multiple registrations. Which means their primary registration is in another Scout unit and either a copy of their adult application has been used or filled out by a BSA staff member No advancement earned within the unit Professional staff members appear as adult leader on the rosters. Youth with same addresses or birth days. Leaders never attend roundtables. Unit never visible at any district events. Long-time Scouters never heard of them. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------