Why the push at Region to close camps?

[jhankins]

Forgive me, I can't find the thread where we discussed the NE Region's policies to help councils close camps. After reading that thread, the question stuck in my mouth why Region would be pushing councils to sell land and close facilities.

 

I found the answer today:

 

 

The new Bechtel property is going to be a push for summer camps, not just high adventure and Jambos...

 

[Oak Tree]

That seems like a fairly cynical interpretation. I thought they already did summer camps there, although it certainly wouldn't surprise me if they were expanding. I would have guessed that National would be pushing councils to close camps because they are tired of having councils run out of money. If I were in charge, I'd certainly push councils to shape up their accounting so that they could tell if their camp was self-sustaining or not, and either get them to break even or close them.

 

The idea that National would want councils to close the poorly run, money-losing camps because it wanted less competition for the Summit - that's just not passing the common sense test for me.

[sherminator505]

I think that this policy was put into place to give cash-strapped councils guidance on doing what they have to do, properly.

[Eamonn]

I served on our Area Committee for a few years.

The main topics on each and every agendas were: Membership and Council Finances.

Here in SW- PA we have a lot of very small Councils.

As membership has gone down, so has attendance at the Council Summer Camp.

I know of one local Council that was down to only having 350 campers for the entire summer.

I have watched over the years as the Council I serve has cut weeks from summer camp as a way to save money.

The camp that has only 350 campers now has to rely on volunteers to come and staff the camp. This means that some activities can only be offered to the Scouts when Mr. Whatshisname gets home from work. Sending people to NCS is expensive and finding youth staff who will only be paid to work for about a month is next to impossible.

Last time I visited the SE was on a tractor mowing the grass!

Even though I sat on our Executive Board for a number of years, I was never really able to find out how much our camp really costs to run.

This was in part thanks to the stupid way the BSA (Read Scoutnet!) Has things set up.

Camp Staff wages are in with the wages paid to everyone in the council. Maintenance can include anything from changing the oil in the SE's car to fixing a building at camp. A new item such as a fridge for camp can be listed as a capital purchase or as part of the Council budget.

We have about 1,100 campers per summer. This year the cost is $275.00 for a week ($302,500.for the summer.)

The camp has a staff of about 60. The Staff arrives a week before the campers and is there a week after them. Wages eats up a lot of the income.

The camp pool is an old and a couple of years back needed sand-blasted and repainted at a cost of over $100,000.

Trucks at camp seem to have a very short life-span! I'm not sure why? A tractor a few years back cost over $60,000.

Food and feeding the campers and staff isn't cheap.

Worse still, is the fact that we don't own the camp. It is in a State Park and we lease the ground. This means that all the buildings that we have put up over the years and the improvements we have made (New water lines, shower blocks and so on) Could all one day be lost.

We have another camp, but it seems that we will never have the money to make enough improvements so as to make it attractive enough for campers.

While compared to other youth camps $275 for a week is not that expensive, many of our older SM's and people like myself remember when it was only $25.00 for a week!

Councils are really facing a hard time, money is hard to get and costs are rising. The hit we all felt when the market fell hurt Councils as well.

If camps are a drain on the resources of a Council? Steps have to be taken.

If Boy Scout membership falls, which having seen the decline in Cub Scout membership over the past number of years, it is expected to do. There will be less Scouts attending camps.

Some well to do Councils are spending a lot of money on camps that they own in the hope of attracting out of Council campers, which is going to hurt the Councils who are barely getting by now.

Ea.

[Twocubdad]

From what I've read in the other threads, through membership loss and council mergers, the northeast region simply has more Scout camps than it can support or use.

 

While that's not the situation in our area, I have a friend on the region camping committee. I've had a number of conversations with him and he believes some councils just should not be in the business of running camps. Much of it has to do with capital and operating resources, but also commitment. Some places just don't put a priority on summer camps. I'm sure lack of funding, maintenance, poor facilities and low attendance can be a downward spiral. But some councils just won't devote the time, money or attention camps require.

[NEPAScouter]

In reply to jhankins, here's the thread on the policy: http://www.scouter.com/Forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=265517

 

I also don't think the "reduce Summit competition" idea is behind the policy. The data on the NE Region's site is too detailed to escape the conclusion that the existing set of summer camps is too large for the number of councils and scouts in the region, as things now stand.

 

The key here is "as things now stand." The reason I posted what I saw on the region website was that, too many times, I've seen camps and councils blindsided with sudden announcements from the powers that be that a camp must close, without much of a rationale beyond "the SE says so," or, "although we never made an issue of costs before, suddenly this year the camp is just too costly." This time, the standards are public and uniform for everyone in the region.

 

There may be time for scouters to help some camps or councils change how things now stand and meet the requirements instead of being blindsided. There's a 2-year period involved, with the possibility of extended grace periods afterwards, if I read the policy correctly.

 

I'm not saying it will be easy or entirely free of bad feelings -- some camps will undoubtedly close, but I'm hoping the standards will encourage consensus-building among scouters and professionals on deciding which camps or councils are just too far gone, and which are still salvageable. It's much easier, in my opinion, for scouters and professionals to agree on how heroic of an effort is needed to meet explicit standards than to meet drifting whimsies of local executives.

[DeaconLance]

Eamonn,

 

Penn's Woods should never have sold Roaring Run. It was a beautiful camp with good facilities. That move never made sense to me.