Please help our pack!
Our new pack (1 year old) has thrived with great success not only in our community but leadership as well. The boys are best of friends and we continue to grow. The Scouts have been publicized for all their community involvement and also offered many opportunities, donations and accolades from the neighborhood.
I started this pack after leaving a previous pack that let their personal problems enter the group setting with children around. Their morals and values did not align with my own, or the way I wanted my child to be raised. Myself as well as all our leadership worked very hard to develop and maintain the phenomenal pack we have today. My dedication does not falter as am in this for the long run. I am looking to start a Troop as well.
With this being said, our pack now has a problem, and it's scary:
We are chartered by a Church that has very recently merged with another church (after our annual charter renewal). This new church has a known reputation within the lutheran hierarchy (the synod) of 'does not play well with others'.....{exact words of the synod representative}.
Our original charter has never participated in any meeting, conference, planning, or training in regards to their charter agreement. We do have a charter representative, an elderly man who has never come to a meeting and to my knowledge does not have proper training either. Our pack continuously requested appearances and assistance from our charter and were never assisted. Our Pack had no problems, however we did want to include our charter with our Pack (as I was told from our local BSA council 'should' happen in accordance with our charter agreement). Our Charter was always hands off with us, but we managed with what we had through our Pack leadership.
Our pack has thrived very well on its own this last year until the new church moved in. We were trusted with the use of property and given keys as well. The new Pastor, without ever enteracting with the pack or meeting our leadership, had composed, signed and sent out a letter stating that the Cub Master, Committee Chair, and Treasurer were deemed unfit at creating a healthy environment for the pack and were to be removed from the pack and banned from all scouting activities effective immediatly.! THE PACK I STARTED!
I understand that the charter organization technically has ownership over the unit (sadly in this situation), however I am begging anyone out there in scout land to please help us. The whole pack wants to move elsewhere and our charter (whom has been absent since the beginning) now has new, very intimidating leadership that wants to wipe the slate clean and insert their own leaders, rather than start their own pack. Mind you that the incredible community popularity is what attracted the new pastoral team to "keep" the pack, including the unit number that has such significance to us, rather than release us......My only option is to try and find another charter for this fantastic group of children and their parents...but the pastor also refuses to give up our unit number to create his own! He has also tarnished the names and character of the all our leadership that he has never met, by giving off the perception of wrong doing or inadequacy on our part. And the perception a current scout parent, or perspective family has of us, as leaders, is so incredibly important as we are the adults taking an oath to do right by their children. To this day no documentation of wrong doing has ever been presented to us as a reason for the charter's decision, only the statement that they 'can'. This is going to be so hard to recover from. It is also my fear that even though our boys have been so stellar and Leadership has abided by all rules and done no wrong, that our charter has tarnished our name so much that BSA might not allow us to start another Pack elsewhere.
I don't know what to do, I feel like we have been hung out to dry when all we have ever done has been something good.
I have already contacted our District Executives and been told that there is not much that can be done due to the BSA rules and regulations as far as who technically 'owns' the Pack. I am at such a loss, so are all my families. The children are not aware of what is going on, and should not be involved. It is also the beginning of our school/scout year in exactly one week and I have nine new families waiting to turn in applications, AND attend our beginning of the year Rain Gutter Regatta!
My fear is that ultimately the Scouts will hurt from all this as they either taper away due to inactivity while waiting for a solution, and or our new families/scout friends will be scared away due to unnecessary conflict and inconsistency created by our charter.
Yes they 'can' do this.....but is it morally right? No.
So I am asking for help; anyone...please... Can you tell me if our charter agreement with the church can be voided due to their non compliance with training, communication, participation and not conducting themselves by the Scout Oath and Law as stated in the contract?
Also, could the new merger of churches also void the contract?
Anything will help our boys. Thank you so much for your time.
Denver Colorado Cub Master