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Massive Cuts Coming To Scouting?


Midwest Scouter

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We had a meeting last week about several councils in our state merging.  One of the explanations for this was because UW had decreased funds to scouting significantly.  Because of this and other problems, some councils are unable to support themselves.  UW wasn't blamed for the merging.  I got the impression that the UW changes had been recent but after reading everyone else's posts, they may have been in the past and were only mentioned as an example. 

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An inconvenient truth, merging councils does not grow total membership.Three years later, the membership sum of that geographic area will be less than the membership of its original parts.

 

Merging councils is not the cause of membership drops.  It's a way to reduce infrastructure cost to survive membership drops.  

 

Plus, things have changed.  Technology has improved making it easier to serve a larger group.  As such, not merging wastes money on infrastructure that could be better spent directly impacting the scout.

Edited by fred johnson
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As always, "follow the money".   

When the  leadership forgets  the purpose of Scouting (Game with a Purpose), and goes for Numbers and Profit (pay level), Camps will be sold, Councils will merge, Districts will lose their focus. 

So many CEOs, whether in corporate world or non-profit, go for the cachet of the income level, for the comparison of "you " versus "me" in the CEO list.  Corporations suffer and die, but the CEOs move to Aspen.   

 It is the definition of the Council's organization that needs to be remembered and enforced (is that the right word?)   Each Council is a franchised, separate corporation.  It's Board of Directors, with defined fiduciary responsibility are the Charter Org Reps.   Our friend above mentions Owasippee.  That case had to go to the Federal Court and newspapers to be settled.  Irving was not pleased.  The "good ol' Boys" network of Chicago Council was not pleased, but the  camp was saved, for the present.  Same for a Camp in Massachusetts, yes?  Talk to your CORs. 

 

Tomorrow,  Sunday, I will be Range Safety Officer for Archery at a "Rocket into Scouting" event (Saturday canceled for rain).  Cub Scouts will have fun, Rockets will be launched.  Some new recruits to the "Game With A Purpose"  will begin their journey.  Bows ready, take your stance, aim , fire....

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  • 3 weeks later...

As always, "follow the money".   

When the  leadership forgets  the purpose of Scouting (Game with a Purpose), and goes for Numbers and Profit (pay level), Camps will be sold, Councils will merge, Districts will lose their focus. 

So many CEOs, whether in corporate world or non-profit, go for the cachet of the income level, for the comparison of "you " versus "me" in the CEO list.  Corporations suffer and die, but the CEOs move to Aspen.   

 It is the definition of the Council's organization that needs to be remembered and enforced (is that the right word?)   Each Council is a franchised, separate corporation.  It's Board of Directors, with defined fiduciary responsibility are the Charter Org Reps.   Our friend above mentions Owasippee.  That case had to go to the Federal Court and newspapers to be settled.  Irving was not pleased.  The "good ol' Boys" network of Chicago Council was not pleased, but the  camp was saved, for the present.  Same for a Camp in Massachusetts, yes?  Talk to your CORs. 

 

Tomorrow,  Sunday, I will be Range Safety Officer for Archery at a "Rocket into Scouting" event (Saturday canceled for rain).  Cub Scouts will have fun, Rockets will be launched.  Some new recruits to the "Game With A Purpose"  will begin their journey.  Bows ready, take your stance, aim , fire....

I think the nearest we have to a scout council in the UK is a scout county. My county, until 3 years ago, had a small campsite called Little Abington. It was small, about 8 acres, but well loved. It had a toilet block and another small building with a kitchen that needed repairs. Rather than repairing it they sold the whole site. Our county now has no campsite. There is a small site owned by a district within the county but it is right next to a river that floods regularly, it's simply to unpredictable to plan to use.

 

Our neighbouring county to the south has spent money on theirs and has 5 in their county plus own another in the Scottish highlands for what you would call high adventure trips. They seem to have remembered what they are there for. Our county meanwhile has a large bank balance.

 

Sad times.

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  • 2 weeks later...

Recently, we were informed of massive cut's coming to scouting because United Way has decided to no longer donate funds to the scout program. 

 

United Way in our area stopped funding Boy Scouts in 2000 after the Dale decision.   Before then we got massive amounts of funding from them.  In the past 15 years we got almost nothing.  So we faced this issue 16 years ago and managed to survive.

 

With the recent changes in membership guidelines, United Way has slowly started to give us funds again.

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