How Supportive is your Charter Organization

[OldGreyEagle]

After seeing recent posts, I thought this would be informative so here goes, Complete this sentence;

 

Our Chartering Organization is:

 

[evmori]

Our CO is willing to help us in any way needed.

 

Ed Mori

Scoutmaster

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[mk9750]

Can add another answer?

 

Our CO is barely able tolerate us.

 

Sound weird?

 

Our CO is is a Men's Club at our Church. They were chartered originally to be a booster club for the sports programs. Somewhere along the line, we were given to them.

 

For years, starting way before I ever got involved, we were very autonomous, and the only contact between the two organizations was tracking down someone to sign the paperwork.

 

As I have mentioned before, about 10 years ago a new SM came aboard, and he took it as one of his personal missions to make them more aware of us. He always complained that that the sports teams were handed everything with no effort on their own, while we did everything for ourselves. In addition, it always seemed that the school's boys almost were encouraged to mock the Scouts, because choosing Scouting in this parish means rejecting sports, because you can't play unless you give 100% (that's been discussed in other threads, too).

 

Actually, I do have to admit that things are getting better. The sqeaky wheel method took a long time to pay dividends, and it was aided by a change at the top of the Men's Club. But they now seem to be trying to help more. Unfortunately, the eaiest thing for them to do is throw money, which we really don't want, as it makes our boys less responsible for the decisions they make (want to have a kayaking program? figure out how we'll outfit your patrol with kayaks...).

But at least there is more of an attitude of cooperation there. It probably helped that my son insisted that his Eagle project would benefit the CO. He understood the politics that were in place, and felt his effort might kill two or more birds with one stone. He's a pretty smart kid that way, 'cuase I think it's working, or at least helping.

 

Mark

[KoreaScouter]

I clicked on "very supportive", but I suppose that depends on your definition of "supportive". I think they are because they (a VFW post) invite us to participate with them in patriotic events and Post activities, and pay our annual recharter fee (including BL subscriptions for all our Scouts). They also turn leadership applications very quickly, in my opinion.

 

KS

[matuawarrior]

My Charter Organization is highly supportive. They really have no choice in the matter, especially when I own the business.

 

 

Matua

[Bob White]

The Pastor of the church is also the troop Chaplain has completed basic scout leader training and wears a complete uniform.

 

BW

[eagle90]

In my experience, churches and fraternal organizations are much more supportive than schools and PTA's. Our sponbsor barely knows we exist. They provide a meeting place and nothing else. In fact, we support them with a $200 donation every year instead of the other way around!

And in most years we do not even receive a "Thank You" from them!

[OldGreyEagle]

Eagle90,

 

how about next time you make your donation you do it at a Court of Honor, make the presentation, take a picture and run it in the local newspaper with a caption Scouts help __________?

[LauraT7]

We are blessed with not only a strong charter org and it's staff and facilities, but it's continued support by the same church congregation since pre- 1911 - when our "troop" started it's own scouting movement and joined BSA National as soon as it became available in our area. Our Charter rep has been active in scouting for over 30 years, and the minister of the church takes her interest and responsibility to the troop very seriously.

 

We can never say enough "thank yous" to the Methodist church in general, for it's long support of scouting, and to First United Methodist of Woodstock, IL , our CO - in particular.

[SagerScout]

Our CO, a homeschool support group, is "morally supportive" but is a shoestring operation itself run by and for people who are for the most part struggling to get by. Contrary to popular belief, homeschoolers are NOT usually independently wealthy, many if not most are one-modest-income families rather than one-good-income families. My family is not the norm as we have one-and-a half incomes and one of them is pretty good, making us positively wealthy in this outfit.

 

So while they hold the charter, they are not chipping in with change or recharter fees or anything like that.

[SR540Beaver]

Since we are discussing CO's, let me throw out a question I have. I have been Southern Baptist all of my life and even graduated with a degree in Religion from a Baptist University. If anyone should be able to answer this, it should be me, but I can't. Does anyone know of any Southern Baptist churches that serve as CO's? I know that Methodist, Catholic and LDS churches are very active as BSA CO's. I don't know of or remember ever seeing a Troop out of a SB church. Southern Baptist churches are autonomously run and have no hiarchial council over them. They tend to prefer their own programs over outside programs. That is the only reasoning I can personally think of as to why they are not active in BSA. Does anyone else have a perspective on this?

 

I will say that there are many Baptists in scouting. When I was a youth at my church, there were a number of men who were in adult leadership positions and about 5 of my friends who earned their Eagle.

[NJCubScouter]

Our pack's CO is the parent-teacher organization for the school where the pack meets. Every year, someone from the pack puts the charter paperwork under the nose of one of the co-presidents of the PTO (one or both of whom often are parents of boys in the pack), and it gets signed without question. That's about it. The PTO obviously does not own a place to meet; they and the pack are both considered "school connected organizations" and have the ability to use the school for free, during the week and for a certain number of hours on Saturday before custodial overtime would kick in. The only time that the relative positions of the PTO and the pack come into play at all is when there is a scheduling conflict for use of the school cafeteria. When that happens, it is understood by all that they win, though there are probably only a few who understand why. In fact, on 1 or 2 occasions the PTO has simply crossed us off the reservation list, and then told us about it. But when we asked the principal for permission to store our pinewood derby track in the school, rather than shuffling it back and forth between peoples' garages, and having to move it every time the store-er's son graduates from the pack, the principal said yes. So, although the relationship between the pack and the CO is not exactly what the BSA has in mind, it is a mutually beneficial relationship and nobody really has a problem with it. The PTO leaders have enough to worry about, and in fact the only way they even realize they have a connection with the pack is when we tell them. I am not sure how this is possible. The person listed as the IH must get Scout-related mail, and one would think they know why they are getting it. Nevertheless, this year when I was signing up Tigers, two of the parents were the two co-presidents of the PTO. In speaking with them, it was clear that they knew nothing of the fact that the PTO was our CO, or what that meant. I told them we would be bringing some papers for them to sign in the spring, and they said fine. It is sort of ironic, they are "just" Tiger parents and yet one of their names is at the top of our charter.

 

As I said, I know this is not how it is supposed to work. But I honestly don't see how the pack would be any better off if the PTO took a more active role, and they don't really want a more active role anyway. They get their funds the same way we do, dues and fund-raising, and they have many demands on their funds, so it is not like they have any financial assistance to provide. And, in the past two years we have managed to get our own finances and fund-raising in order, so we don't really need their help.

[eagle90]

OGE -

Good suggestion. We will definitely

bring that up when it is time for this year's donation.

 

 

[scomman]

I put my answer as very supportive due to the fact that my troop is chartered to The Salvation army and they have in the past given us a donation every year for our budget in return for us doing several projects for them throughout the year. We are also a successful program for them to reach out into a very transient neighborhood to be a force for good. They appreciate us and we appreciate them

[Twocubdad]

Our CO is both very, very supportive and not terribly active -- best of both worlds, I think. All the ministers at the church are either Eagle Scouts or GS Gold Award. I think their attitude is that as long as the program is running smoothly, they don't need to be involved. Our pack is also fortunate to be in a position that we, too, make a contribution to the church, ususally when we do our charter presentation.

 

KWC -- having worked with new unit recruitment at the district level, I can tell you your observations are correct. While Baptists churches aren't "anti-Scouting" many feel Scouting will detract from their Ambassador program, or at least duplicate it. We have a number of large Baptist churches we've been trying to crack. Our "nose in the tent flap" is the number of Baptists boys who are already Scouts. We're making some progress, but new unit building can be a long-term process.