Major Change in Chartered Organization Relationship

[yknot]

53 minutes ago, PACAN said:

@vol_scouter and neither do the councils.

 

IMHO...the only group that benefits from this is the UMC washing their hands of their units some long time ones.

I think you're right, but it's because there is no point to the UMC going bankrupt along with the BSA. 

[RememberSchiff]

On 6/27/2022 at 2:50 PM, yknot said:

A letter from the National Elks organization went out in December telling state chapters not to recharter scout units. Some states ignored it, some individual lodges ignored it, but many lodges did choose not to recharter. Last I heard, there was possibly an effort along the lines of what UMC is negotiating to allow some kind of limited involvement again with scouting but I have not heard that officially or seen any update. Maybe someone else on here knows more. Around the beginning of the year, elks.org removed any reference to boy scouting from its site, as did my state chapter and several other nearby surrounding states. 

I don't doubt you regarding a letter sent by Elks. I read this today, probably the award was already in process or maybe the National Elks are reconsidering?

ATLANTA, GA - Not everyone in East Brunswick knows who Anthony Buccigrossi is, but dozens of local Eagle Scouts do.  The East Brunswick Elks also know him.  So do the veterans. Buccigrossi has been an active community member in East Brunswick for many years, helping lots of kids achieve in a venue - scouting - that is less about competition than it is about personal growth, public service, and Americanism.  This month, he was recognized by the Elks at their 2022 National Convention in Atlanta when he received the Marvin Lewis Award for Scouting. Buccigrossi represented the entire Northeast region as one of only four recipients of the award.  (Sorry, I have not found the other recipients.)

More at Source:

https://www.tapinto.net/towns/east-brunswick/sections/giving-back/articles/east-brunswick-s-anthony-buccigrossi-receives-natsonal-honor-from-the-elks

Edited July 20, 2022 by RememberSchiff

[RememberSchiff]

Elks end affiliation with Boy Scout Troop after 50 years

The Frederick Elks Lodge (Maryland) notified the troop in March that it would no longer charter it due to direction from the Grand Lodge of the Benevolent and Protective Order of Elks.

In a March letter addressed to all local lodges from Grand Exalted Ruler Bruce A. Hidley, the fraternal organization announced that it will end its official relationship as a charter organization with the Boy Scouts of America.

“After nearly two years of discussions and negotiations with the BSA, at every level, our exhaustive efforts to secure adequate insurance coverage have failed, and our attorneys and insurance broker, Gallagher, have advised that the insurance offered by the BSA falls far short of that needed to adequately protect our Members, Lodges, State Associations and Grand Lodge and will likely lead to future disputes,” the letter stated.

...The Elks’ organization had been assured that they were covered under the BSA insurance program as an “additional insured” until a few years ago, when they realized this was not the case as they were denied coverage in a lawsuit, Hidley wrote in the letter.

...

Although lodges can no longer serve as charter organizations for troops, the letter from the Elks stated that local lodges can choose to provide troops use of their facilities like they would for other youth organizations.

The Frederick Elks Lodge will not do so, as it decided to cut all ties with the scouting organization, Gregory J. Glover, the Maryland, Delaware, DC Elks State Association Scouting chairperson, wrote in an email to the local scouting council and the chairpersons of the relevant troops.

He added that the Elks will begin to use its junior Elks program, the Antlers, for youth development (ages 12-21) in addition to other youth activities.

More at Source:

https://www.fredericknewspost.com/news/lifestyle/culture/a-last-hurrah-elks-end-affiliation-with-local-boy-scout-troop-after-50-years/article_75e58176-aa7c-5432-8405-618b38fc66d1.html

 

[Eagle94-A1]

4 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

In a March letter addressed to all local lodges ... it will end its official relationship as a charter organization with the Boy Scouts of America.

“After nearly two years of discussions and negotiations with the BSA, at every level, our exhaustive efforts to secure adequate insurance coverage have failed, and our attorneys and insurance broker, Gallagher, have advised that the insurance offered by the BSA falls far short of that needed to adequately protect our Members, Lodges, State Associations and Grand Lodge and will likely lead to future disputes,” the letter stated.

...The Elks’ organization had been assured that they were covered under the BSA insurance program as an “additional insured” until a few years ago, when they realized this was not the case as they were denied coverage in a lawsuit, Hidley wrote in the letter. (emphasis added)

The first paragraph really concerns me. How many other COs will drop us?

The second paragraph infuriates me, hence the emphasis. Either my superiors lied to me about this, or they were lied to by others. But when I was trying to start units This was something I was told to tell prospective COs to help alleviate their litigation fears.

This is why I stated the COs needed to be part of the settlement, BSA did indeed make promises to protect COs.

[InquisitiveScouter]

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

The first paragraph really concerns me. How many other COs will drop us?

The second paragraph infuriates me, hence the emphasis. Either my superiors lied to me about this, or they were lied to by others. But when I was trying to start units This was something I was told to tell prospective COs to help alleviate their litigation fears.

This is why I stated the COs needed to be part of the settlement, BSA did indeed make promises to protect COs.

Many existing CO's are watching these developments intently.  I had conversations with two different COR's yesterday regarding this very issue.

Both have said their CO's are on the verge of walking away, due to what they perceive as a lack of integrity and trustworthiness from local council and national BSA.

After the sexual abuse scandal/bankruptcy, this is the next shoe to fully drop...  

Might the individual registration requirements be a move toward dropping the CO structure?

[fred8033]

9 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

He added that the Elks will begin to use its junior Elks program, the Antlers, for youth development (ages 12-21) in addition to other youth activities.

I've seen this before with Knights of Columbus and their squires program.  KofC Squires or Elks Antlers are too niche without broad visibility.  Heck, I know zero adults who are Elks.  I know far more that are active in KofC, but I've never heard of a youth using Squires.  IMHO, Antlers and Squires are not a BSA replacement.  Also, Elks (like many fraternal organizations) has membership issues of their own.  

PLUS ... if Elks' Antlers program was successful, it would be facing much of the same liability issues that BSA has had. 

IMHO, the issue is insuring a massive scale youth program.  

[skeptic]

We continue to return to the messed up legl atmostphere here in this country, and also the lack of much control of insurance companies that choose to at a whim much of the time to have excuses to NOT pay claims, or if they do, to cancel or raise rates so people cannot afford it.  All you need do is look at most of the insurance "bigs" and their corporate profits to see how much is being paid to stock holders and so on which could be paid to coverage at more equitable rate.  I get so annoyed at the excuse "act of God" so we will not pay, or pay limited amounts.  Much of the time the "act of God" would not have occurred if the insured had done proper maintencance.  The utility companies are now feeling that coming to haunt them.  It surely would have been less expensive to do regular and proper maintenance on lines within forests and such so they would not get out of control in a fire, or at least be less of an issue; but they chose to not pay, but rather put more profit in the holders' pockets.  So, what can they say now?  

 

[T2Eagle]

There are hundreds, probably thousands of youth summer camps across the country, for profit, non-profit, Church affiliated, that look at least at first glance as if they would have the same liability issues as a scout organization.  It does not appear that they are being driven to extinction by an inability to properly insure themselves.  This makes me wonder why the BSA/COR model looks so different.  

Maybe the camps insure themselves to the extent that they can, and then accept the risk that claims could drive them to bankruptcy, and that's acceptable to them because the camp is the core business and so it's fold the tents now or hope that they just don't get unlucky?  This is a different view than that of a COR, where however much they value scouting, it's never their core mission/business and so the risk of losing it all is just too great for the benefit of supporting scouting.

Maybe something about scouting is inherently too dangerous to be run in a financially safe way.  This doesn't make intuitive sense to me, but I could be wrong.

Generally you can insure yourself against virtually any risk, it's just that the cost of the insurance goes up with the level of risk.  What we seem to be seeing now is that adequate insurance isn't available at any cost.  Maybe, and I think this is likely, the recent bankruptcy and looming settlements have just made scouting too unpredictable for insurers to accurately price the risk.  It's not that no one wants to provide coverage, it's that no one knows how much to charge and so no one will.  If this is the case we're in for a long painful time. 

It may be a long time before insurers are comfortable that their pricing models are accurate.  They will probably want years of data to see what the actual risks of modern scouting are, and how much they cost financially.  The likeliest outcome then is going to mean CORs fall back, and BSA becomes effectively the COR for everybody, and has to run like the youth camps I described above: insure to the extent that you can, and hope you don't get too unlucky.

[gpurlee]

When I started this thread on December 4, 2020, I did not envision it would still be active two and a half years later. I did sense at that time that major changes were likely to occur in the relationship with chartered [partners. A two billion dollar plus lawsuit leaves a lot of wreckage in its wake.  And I suspect that we will continue to see a lot of damage to long established relationships. 

In our case, our United Methodist Church had chartered a troop continuously since early 1911. One of the oldest units in the nation.  We were a Scouting congregation with deep roots. It all came to an end at the beginning of this year. It was pretty clearcut to our church board when the conference legal representative advised that we sever the charter relationship not just due to liability issue but also the inability of our aging congregation to provide the high level of oversight needed. We were cautioned that a defense against even a fraudulent claim in the future could cost up to $500,000 and would be very energy and emotionally draining for the church to endure.

The good news for the troop is that it continues to meet in the facility and that little has changed in terms of what the Scouts experience. We are a supportive and benevolent landlord.  However, the Cub Pack soon collapsed and was incorporated into a neighboring pack which our troop has a good relationship. 

I heard that the negotiations at the national level were difficult and adversarial at times between the BSA and the United Methodist Church. I sense that a lot of trust was lost in the process that may take a long time to regain, if ever. I think that the local councils and congregations were essentially spectators in much of this process. I wonder if the chartered partner relationship will survive over the long haul or if we will totally shift to a new model.

It has been painful and heartbreaking to watch as this situation unfolded. For everyone involved.  And especially for those who were abused.

 

 

 

[fred8033]

21 hours ago, T2Eagle said:

There are hundreds, probably thousands of youth summer camps across the country, for profit, non-profit, Church affiliated, that look at least at first glance as if they would have the same liability issues as a scout organization.  It does not appear that they are being driven to extinction by an inability to properly insure themselves.  This makes me wonder why the BSA/COR model looks so different.  

Maybe something about scouting is inherently too dangerous to be run in a financially safe way.  This doesn't make intuitive sense to me, but I could be wrong.

#1  Size & deep pockets. 
#2  Long-standing, history of being insured at the national level.  

From what I've seen, church-based youth camps DO have the same issues. 

I'd be surprised if hard, difficult cases like the BSA liability case get resurrected for an individual camp that might have 5 or 10 cases from 30 or 40 years ago; especially as most youth camps barely make money and the affiliated churches are not cash rich either.  

Simply put, lawyers need big cash incentives to get involved.

Edited June 16, 2023 by fred8033