PACAN

There is a place for a National HQ...question is what functions NEED to be done there. If they have downsized as much as skeptic says, what aren't they doing that needs to be done and what are they doing that doesn't need to be done. Companies downsize and shrink everyday, some eventually fade into oblivion. The BSA has about 250 councils....over 50 have less than 1000 youth and another 50 less than 1500 youth. Lots of infrastructure and costs associated with maintaining this structure. My understanding is that national has no real power to force mergers of LCs The overall membership is at its lowest level in the past 75 years. Less customers would seem that it's time to evaluate the infrastructure needed to support a lesser customer base. Hope springs eternal that membership will return but if it does, then you react to that. The UMC sponsors about 20% of all units and probably about 20% of the remaining membership. With the church decision to no longer sponsoring units, what is the impact? How many units will be able to fins a new sponsor and I've heard no one who thinks being sponsored by their LC is a good solution. Any of you heard of how/if your LCs are going to do this? All is, as always, JMHO.

@gpurlee Thanks for the education. I would have thought that the FAQ would have been released with the agreement notification (oh well) I'm unclear how the UMC would avoid any lawsuits if they had any involvement associated with scouting (even providing space). The lawyers might say you are still involved in scouting and not being a sponsor now doesn't alleviate prosecution for a lawsuit when you were a sponsor. Will they take the same approach for all their youth groups? Also the UMC must know where the abuse was/is and take action on those churches not indict the entire UMC. Maybe #5 option is to merge with another unit if #1-4 don't work. JMHO...we will see how it works out. Hopefully the best for the scouts as they should be priority #1.

Just was sent a Facebook link to a umnews.org article. one statement was interesting that said they hoped to continue scouting in the UMC. Funny way of going about it.

@skeptic That's great, and they should be proud of you guys, but I don't know if your Minister gets a vote. I'm not sure how the overarching UMC has "control" over the entire UMC churches. Your Minister knows the politics involved I'm sure. The Council will be your sponsor which means in the BSA that they control all your assets. We have seen lots of posts asking "who owns the trailer" etc and the sponsor does. If your "council sponsor" decided to use the units assets, they can. Good luck!

@Eagle1993Wouldn't it be nice if the true customer (the scouts) had it better than the LC or the UMC for once. Any feedback from the UMC units would be of interest to the group.

IMHO, The losers in this agreement are the units. Give us your money and equipment, pay us for the insurance on your gear and the LC will sponsor you!

@vol_scouter and neither do the councils. IMHO...the only group that benefits from this is the UMC washing their hands of their units some long time ones.

@MikeS72 Thanks...I found a 2013 list where it showed 10K units and 350K scouts. Clearly that is not the case now but how in the world are councils going to sponsor even 2000 units unless they provide the same oversight (read slim and none) oversight to them. Another example where National is pushing workload to councils with no resources.

How many units and scouts are affected by this decision? A friend of mine thought there were around 50 units in his council.

Back from summer camp. I did a very unscientific poll of UMC units while there. Sample size small. None of them had heard about this, not surprising. All said that if they had to have their councils be their sponsors, they might as well shut down and find troops for their scouts to transfer to as this would be just one more thing their council couldn't handle. That was sad but they only had 10 scouts.

#3 sounds great until they decide your reasonable definition is different than theirs. #4 So the sponsor used to have insurance on the property they owned. Now the council owns the property as the sponsor and the unit has to pay the council. What a deal! The unit will also have to pay the council for the annual audit of their accounts. What another deal! Maybe subtract these fees from FOS. Proofs in the pudding. Who has the agreement they could PM me? Catholics....not managed like the UMC. Dioceses are separate feifdoms. Pastors have a lot of say on their own Parish's youth ministries. A number of them dropped units when the gay decision was made and started trail life. Given the almost 50% reduction in membership, I'm guessing a number of other sponsors have dropped their units as well. Anyone seen a list of membership/units by sponsor. Last one I saw was pre LDS.

@1980Scouter The Catholic Church through the National Catholic Committee on Scouting continues to support the chartering of scout units (both Boys and Girls) in individual dioceses and parishes. Of course they are free to choose not to or not to continue to charter. @MikeS72 There is the assets question. Will the individual UMC still allow storage of gear they don't control on their property? Will that stuff be insured by the church? If the trailer hits a car in the parking lot, do you sue the council? Will be BSA as the sponsor rent a u-store it place for each unit they inherit. Some units not only have trailers but some have their own motorboating and cabins. On the cash side, LCs are at least 30 days in paying bills. How does that work for unit expenses? Collect the fees for campout food, deposit it with the council and send them the bill from the grocery store? O the humanity!

All that follows is JMHO. UMC units will need to make a hard decision. I'd like to see the FAQs. They will not likely get any help from their church. I have no say in the matter but it's unfortunate that the church didn't seem to have the scouts best interest in giving the BSA control over their parishioners sons/daughters scouting experience. Some smaller units will try and get their scouts into other units. Some larger ones with longevity will decide if they can find another sponsor. If any move to BSA control, I hope they move over with minimal resources since LC will "take over their assets." Like was stated before, units that folded took their treasury, divided by the number in the troop and gave the money to each of them. They also gave away much of their equipment to other units. I wish them all well.

@skeptic @skeptic Please fill us in on what is covered at the webinar. Thanks @Eagle94-A1 I know of another unit that did the same thing. Divested all their $$ and gave all their gear to another unit. @Inquisitivescouter @InquisitiveScouter I think what he meant was no matter who the sponsor is, the council gives the same lousy service

This will be interesting to see how this is executed. BSA National pushing more workload on the LCs without any resources. Will they hire more staff and spread the cost to all units via "we need more FOS"? LC will now "own" units and will they have to have LC approval to spend a nickel? I wonder if this was "you take the UMC units or we will LDS you" ? One UMC church stopped sponsoring their troop and pack and they got an new sponsor with the American Legion. Lots of issues.. Just my thoughts.

@ynot Can you find the march membership numbers you referred to? thanks.

From TM: When BSA initially released the new badge is was just a regular badge and was going to become Eagle Required beginning in June but they have changed it a little bit to allow it to be used on Star/Life before June so we had to make an update to the badge placement routine to allow for this. If the system isn't placing the new badge under Star, you may not have the latest version of the program. You should download the V5.05 version from our website and install this to bring the program up to the latest version. To move the badge, I viewed his Merit Badges, clicked Edit for the Cit in Society badge and then clicked OK on the badge edit screen. This then placed the badge under the Star rank.

Anyone seen a statistic on what percentage of AOL scouts crossover each year and how many are still in scouting a year later.

Whoopie do! A 10 year old can join on 1 March instead of in three months when they finish 5th grade. Is this change a retention issue?

Maybe the title of this post should be U.K. Scouts not just Scouts. JMHO

Other than I have a contact at the NCCS who may be interested and able to assist

If you don't want to post your diocese please PM me separately

650000! WOW! Was there any breakdown of this number on the slide? At one time there were comments that there were more scouts than cubs.

No it's right there on page 8732 of the most recent court document! Happy Easter!