rubixcube

Thank you everyone for the replies. Good advice in all of the posts for me to consider. Answers to some questions that people asked: The boat appears to be worth around $20,000 based on my limited online research on what similar used boats are being sold for. The boat’s engine simply broke down. The mechanic who looked at it recommended replacing the entire engine (the $4,000 cost) as he said that the engine was far past its life expectancy. It was just a coincidence that it happened to stop working on the scout trip. I don’t think there is any interest in selling the boat since the boat is mostly used for personal use, and they don’t want to give that up. The committee members know that the parents are not happy, but I honestly believe that they just don’t care. And yes, I fully admit that having a group of highly experienced troop committee members with strong connections to council was a big reason why we chose this troop in the first place. But they just have this smugness where they believe that they know what is best for the troop, since they have been involved in scouting for so long and continue to be involved despite their boys being long aged out of the program.

TLDR: The “old guard adults” (parent’s whose sons have aged out of the troop) basically run our troop committee and just voted to spend a large sum of money. The parents with scouts currently in the troop had basically no say in the decision. Just a quick backstory here. Our troop owns a 21-foot motor boat that that was donated to the troop several years ago. This boat is stored at the house of one of the old guard adults (I think he officially owns the boat as well). We take the boat on troop outings maybe once or twice a year. I believe that the rest of the time, the boat is used for personal use. Recently the boat stopped working on one of our troop outings. The old guard adults somehow think that the issue was due to the scouts misuse of the boat, but in reality, it was simply due to age and wear and tear. So at our last troop committee meeting, the committee just voted to spend $4,000 from our troop account to fix the boat. Most of the parents did not even know that a committee meeting or a vote was taking place to spend this large sum of money. The committee chair is one of the old guard adults, and our troop committee is mostly made up of old guard adults. Invites for the meeting where only sent out to troop committee members. And all of parents with scouts currently in the troop who did show up (like myself), are serving as ASMs, and were not allowed to vote (even though I have 2 son’s in the troop and most of the voting committee members no longer have any kids in the troop). The money being spent was money raised by scouts in the troop through fundraising. I have had some informal discussions with the parents who have scouts currently in the troop, and most would rather see the money used towards other things that would more directly benefit the scouts. So what can we do? I know that this issue should be brought to our chartered organization, except that we don't have a charter organization. On paper, we are charted by a local church, but the church has actually been closed for about 10 years. I think we have the former pastor sign as the COR, but he has zero interest in anything that goes on in the troop. Also as far as going to the council, the issue there is that many of the old guard adults are really involved in the council, and I doubt that we would get fair treatment there. I know at least one sits on the council board. Even more significantly, many old guard adults have donated large sums of money to the council (several of them wear James E West award knot). And that is what makes this whole situation even more annoying, since they obviously have the money to fix the boat themselves, without needing to take it out of our scout's program funds. In my opinion, they just want to "teach the scouts a lesson" on respecting property, but like I said above, it wasn't even the scouts fault, just simply wear and tear. Many of the parents with scouts in the troop are ready to break away and form our own troop. But we would like to at least get funds that our scouts raised as well as the troop camping equipment (we could care less about the motor boat).