Chartered by a business ?

[zsdad]

Hello all first post (besides my intro).How many of your Troops/Packs are Chartered by a business ? Not a church or school or even a non-profit. If so what do you do for them and what in return do the do for you ?  We're Chartered by a big business that used to be a family style place to work now it's all about the bottom line. They've been our CO for 80 years we are the oldest Troop in town but every year it seems like we are more and more of a burden to them. Anyone else in the same boat ?

[NJCubScouter]

I have never been involved with one nor do I know of any around here.  According to the table I just looked up, about 3 percent of BSA units are chartered to "business and industry."

 

I would add that the description, "every year it seems like we are more and more of a burden to them", probably applies to a lot of units, with all types of CO's.  My troop is chartered to a church, and while they are very accommodating to us in some ways, there also have been annoyances over the years, like losing most of our storage space.

Edited January 17, 2017 by NJCubScouter

[Eagledad]

Many of us have found ourselves in this situation. We handled it by asking for meeting with the leaders and laying out the concerns. In many cases, the charter leaders typically aren't the individuals who work personally with the troop, so they don't have an opinion one way or the other. The solution for us, and several other charters in our area with the same circumstances, was changing the charter individual responsible for the troop to someone who is more pro BSA. Also, ask your DE for advice as well. They deal with this situation more often then they would like to admit.

 

Barry

[DuctTape]

That is unfortunate. What is odd is how many businesses (big, small, non-profit...) fail to see how these types of partnerships are a benefit to their bottom line. Usually the small family owned businesses understand, because it is necessary for their survival.

[Melgamatic]

In the past few months we have started a number of Venturing units chartered by businesses.  The latest is a culinary arts-focused Venturing unit that is chartered by a local gourmet food and cooking instruction business.  I think the most common for-profit chartered units are chartered by businesses like scuba stores and bike stores.

[SSScout]

Our District has one Cub Pack chartered to family owned hardware store.  I have never heard of any issue there.   They sign the papers, the Pack does it's thing, meets in a church basement.

[zsdad]

We seem to have a revolving door for Charter Reps. It's a position handed to the next willing candidate . They don't seem to stick around long enough to build any kind of relationship with. Another problem me and 2 other leaders see is that our outgoing Scoutmaster is employed by the CO and doesn't want to make waves so to speak. Our Pack meets at the nearby Elementary school the parents refuse to let them come to our Scout room... We meet in the basement of the main office building of a meat packing plant. Not really a place  I want 6-10 year olds at either. Picture a door with an asbestos warning poster on it not to mention black mold and mildew on things in the basement. Our DE is on our side he doesn't want us meeting there either. He feels that maybe they aren't the best fit for a CO anymore.

[gumbymaster]

I believe that we have a unit in our district chartered to a plumbing supply store, but don't hold me to that, I've never seen the papers.

 

Keep in mind that when they indicate units chartered, this is not only Troops and Packs, but also Posts, Crews, and (do they still use?) Teams.

 

For some businesses, they might charter an on-topic, career/vocational focused, post/crew and there are several ways beyond just goodwill that this could help their bottom line.  For example, if they commonly use summer interns (or young adult hires when they reach maturity), this would be a great way to check out and train potential candidates before you have to hire them.

 

Or maybe a camping/outdoor/sports supply store wants to drum up business, a high adventure (or similar) crew that runs lots of "recruiting events" that are open to the public would likely increase their overall bottom line, at least compared to the actual cost of sponsoring the crew.

Edited January 18, 2017 by gumbymaster