Who gets to vote in a merger?

[rkfrance]

Can anyone please specifically clarify who can vote when councils plan to merge?

 

Also, does this process work in reverse if councils that have previously merged want to dissolve a council?

 

Finally, does any of this matter if Regional or National wants the action to take place?

[Trevorum]

I've not been involved in these procedures, but from what I understand, the executive boards of both councils vote on mergers.

 

The only case I know of where a council reverted to it's previous components was the short lived Massachussetts Bay Federated Council in 1976 or therabouts. Not sure how that worked.

 

I suspect that National calls the shots either way.

[nldscout]

For a merger to take place, both boards must vote for it. If they don't no merger, national cannot force a merger.

 

To desolve a previously completed merger, that would depend on the state you live in, as you are desolving a non-profit.

[baden]

I have participated in a merger of two Councils. The Executive Board of each Council must approve.

 

If you were reversing a merger, you would be creating a new Council. One Council would probably retain the Council number and one would be a new Council with a new number, perhaps it's old number, perhaps not.

[emb021]

FWIW, the councils in my state have been fairly stable since the 1940s or so. The only new council was when one was split out of another in the 1960s.

 

However, about 10 years back or so, another council went under. AFAIK, National shut it down, and the territory was turned over to another council (the new one that was formed back in the 60s). It was not a merger. The camp property became the property of the other council. The SE of the old council was fired, and the DEs of that council were put on notice (shape up or be out).

 

 

[willhi1979]

It's also important to note that Chartered Organization Representatives are voting members of the Council as well as the Executive Board. Most of the time they don't realize that they are allowed to vote on Council Business.

[BadenP]

Trev is the closest to being correct, California has been through many mergers over the years and National does initiate the process when a council becomes seriously in debt. The executive board vote is little more than a rubber stamp because the way it comes down is we can either merge your districts with another council or we can just eliminate the council and split up the territory between neighboring councils, losing all former identity. If a council is eliminated all the assets, camps, buildings, etc. are sold off to pay for the debt, any balance left over goes to National, while in a merger the other council acquires the assets and districts that are left after paying the former councils debt.

 

I was involved with this process with my former council and it was a very sad experience to say the least, to watch a camp torn down and sold that had been in the council for over 70 years, and to witness the council buildings being demolished to make way for a strip mall. The council that acquired the territory is about 50 miles away with no ties to the former one, they re districted the former councils territory and there is no longer any evidence that the former council which had been around for over 75 years ever exsisted.

[kb6jra]

My council merged, or whatever you would like to call it, in the past 3 years. Our old council was split among two other much larger councils. we had hoped to keep the council boundaries together but it didn't work out that way.

 

Here's what we had to do. Each council had to develop a team to negotiate the proposed merger. Each council has to seek approval from it's chartered organizations, via the COR's, before the Council's executive board can move on a merger. The regional BSA leadership would be involved in this process as well. Once all negotiations are finished, and the regional approvals have been had, the executive boards of the councils to be merged votes on the deal yea or nay.

 

Mergers suck, but they are for a good purpose. It's been 3 years and we still have some issues where the "new" guys aren't welcomed by the "old guard". This is getting better every day, but it's sometimes a struggle.

 

Our new council is much stronger now than both before the merger. Fund raising is up (or was until the economy tanked), membership is rising steadily, and trainings have taken on a great new err of importance. Those of us willing to work at making the new council a success are seeing great rewards as it relates to Scouting, but those that are still mired in the past are destined to fade away into irrelevance.

 

The small council will be a thing of the past as people realize the economies of scale to be had by merging. I would think we would have less than 275 councils in the BSA within the next 10 years. I think we're at about 305 now.