Council finances

[vol_scouter]

34 minutes ago, gpurlee said:

Several years ago, an adjacent rural council raised the funds to construct a beautiful, large Scout center at its primary camp that was the envy of the area. It featured a nice Scout shop, conference and training rooms and and offices. Beautiful setting. However, it was an hour or more away from the major population centers,  Few volunteers wanted to make the drive there for meetings or supplies.  Its remote location meant that it was invisible to most of the community. A council merger with a shift of primary camps was the final blow. Within a fairly short period of time, it was abandoned and bulldozed due to a lack of utilization and the cost of upkeep.

The TCC concept of forcing council offices to camps will not be workable.  The council needs offices in the population center of the council.  

[fred8033]

42 minutes ago, gpurlee said:

Several years ago, an adjacent rural council raised the funds to construct a beautiful, large Scout center at its primary camp that was the envy of the area. It featured a nice Scout shop, conference and training rooms and and offices. Beautiful setting. However, it was an hour or more away from the major population centers,  Few volunteers wanted to make the drive there for meetings or supplies.  Its remote location meant that it was invisible to most of the community. A council merger with a shift of primary camps was the final blow. Within a fairly short period of time, it was abandoned and bulldozed due to a lack of utilization and the cost of upkeep.

Sad.  I can understand, but sad.  

Our council has at least three or four camps near.  At least two less than an hour from downtown.  Perhaps it's my view that the traditional scouting "office" building is not needed anymore.  Yeah.  Perhaps it's not the perfect answer.  Perhaps an concept adjustment is needed. 

The issue is the cost of the council office properties is huge compared to the number of scouts served.  I'm betting in my council, it's about $40 per scout given the pre-pandemic number of scouts ... not including staff.  

[fred8033]

2 hours ago, vol_scouter said:

People need to work together in person at least some of the time as we are social animals.  My state is several hours from end to end.  In person time would not be possible.

Small councils might need help but enormous councils are not the answer to better Scouting.

Administratively, districts could provide the face-time; as they do now.  Beyond that, the key face time is in the unit.  

[yknot]

32 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

The TCC concept of forcing council offices to camps will not be workable.  The council needs offices in the population center of the council.  

I'm just not seeing the need for a council office. 

[vol_scouter]

10 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

Administratively, districts could provide the face-time; as they do now.  Beyond that, the key face time is in the unit.  

The council does the recruiting, starting new units, assures that there are events (such as camporees), and organizes and operates summer camps.  Without those efforts, Scouting becomes a very small and limited hobby for few.  If you believe that the values taught in the Scout Oath and Law help young people become better adults (as research demonstrates), then it should be available to all youth.  
 

Councils are crucial to Scouting.  Volunteers are absolutely necessary as it cannot occur without them.  However, professionals provide much of what makes Scouting fun and memorable. 
 

 

[DuctTape]

25 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

The council does the recruiting, starting new units, assures that there are events (such as camporees), and organizes and operates summer camps.  Without those efforts, Scouting becomes a very small and limited hobby for few.  If you believe that the values taught in the Scout Oath and Law help young people become better adults (as research demonstrates), then it should be available to all youth.  
 

Councils are crucial to Scouting.  Volunteers are absolutely necessary as it cannot occur without them.  However, professionals provide much of what makes Scouting fun and memorable. 
 

 

I am not sure I agree with much of that. At least not in my area. Recruiting is done at the unit level, new units really aren;t necessary as there are so mnay already which can easily handle an increase in numbers of scouts. Camproees are done by district and IMO are good for the youngest scouits but after two or three the scouts want to do other stuff. Summer camp perhaps, but technicaly it is a stand-alone system; it can still operate without a council overseeing it. Volunteers at the unit level provide 99% or more of what makes scouting fun and memorable, NOT the professionals. Your area might be different.

[yknot]

42 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

The council does the recruiting, starting new units, assures that there are events (such as camporees), and organizes and operates summer camps.  Without those efforts, Scouting becomes a very small and limited hobby for few.  If you believe that the values taught in the Scout Oath and Law help young people become better adults (as research demonstrates), then it should be available to all youth.  
 

Councils are crucial to Scouting.  Volunteers are absolutely necessary as it cannot occur without them.  However, professionals provide much of what makes Scouting fun and memorable. 
 

 

Most of those tasks don't require a council. Summer camps could easily fall under some kind of regional oversight entity. Camporees to me have little to do with scouting. It's a bunch of people in a big field doing the opposite of leave no trace. The recruiting support we've gotten from council have been brochures and lawn signs. Those can easily be shipped out from a central location. 

I think we've gotten to the point where we have to look at what is really essential to keeping some form of scouting alive.  We don't need scout stores. We don't need some of these council events. I think we'd do a lot better financially if local units could fundraise from local sponsors. Frankly, I think council camps would be a lot healthier if they were overseen by a larger entity that was able to negotiate central purchasing discounts and maintenance contracts, etc., etc. 

[fred8033]

47 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

The council does the recruiting, starting new units, assures that there are events (such as camporees), and organizes and operates summer camps.  Without those efforts, Scouting becomes a very small and limited hobby for few.  If you believe that the values taught in the Scout Oath and Law help young people become better adults (as research demonstrates), then it should be available to all youth.  
 

Councils are crucial to Scouting.  Volunteers are absolutely necessary as it cannot occur without them.  However, professionals provide much of what makes Scouting fun and memorable. 

Yeah, I don't believe it.  Units recruit.  District execs start new units and support unit recruiting.  Councils fund raise, plan and advertise summer camps, etc.  Councils are extremely valuable, but the concepts of the past need to be rethought and resized.  

[Jameson76]

9 hours ago, SiouxRanger said:

Are Council financial statements prepared in compliance with GAAP?

Anybody seen council financial statements prepared in compliance with GAAP?

I have not. 

Look for your councils IRS Form 990.  That should have the wealth of information.

[vol_scouter]

3 hours ago, fred8033 said:

Yeah, I don't believe it.  Units recruit.  District execs start new units and support unit recruiting.  Councils fund raise, plan and advertise summer camps, etc.  Councils are extremely valuable, but the concepts of the past need to be rethought and resized.  

Scouts BSA units recruit from Arrow of Light units in nearby Cub Packs.  Cub packs usually have professionals who do most if not all of the recruiting.  Cub Scouts provide the overwhelming majority of all Scouts BSA.

[yknot]

25 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

Scouts BSA units recruit from Arrow of Light units in nearby Cub Packs.  Cub packs usually have professionals who do most if not all of the recruiting.  Cub Scouts provide the overwhelming majority of all Scouts BSA.

I don't think that's at all usual. I've never seen cub pack recruitment done by a professional in the several councils I am familiar with around here. It's possible that professionals may run a council recruitment event in the spring or the fall but any significant cub recruitment is usually handled by the units around here. Council provides you with brochures and lawn signs. Frankly, I don't think that would be a good use of professional time because the relationships that drive recruitment at the cub level are local -- friends, friends' parents, school contacts, community involvement, etc. 

[fred8033]

12 minutes ago, vol_scouter said:

Scouts BSA units recruit from Arrow of Light units in nearby Cub Packs.  Cub packs usually have professionals who do most if not all of the recruiting.  Cub Scouts provide the overwhelming majority of all Scouts BSA.

I think we going back and forth over nothing.  DEs help unit volunteer scouters and those unit volunteers do almost all the work.  Council professionals help at the more indirect level of advertising, assembling materials, mapping out which areas are served, etc.  The DE may help start a unit with a few meetings such as visiting the principal or a pastor; holding a recruiting night, etc.  Beyond that, the local scouting is all unit based volunteers with the DE being the face of the council.

Large councils tend to have more resources to staff the indirect level and the location of their offices is just not that important.  

[fred8033]

3 minutes ago, yknot said:

I don't think that's at all usual. I've never seen cub pack recruitment done by a professional in the several councils I am familiar with around here. It's possible that professionals may run a council recruitment event in the spring or the fall but any significant cub recruitment is usually handled by the units around here. Council provides you with brochures and lawn signs. Frankly, I don't think that would be a good use of professional time because the relationships that drive recruitment at the cub level are local -- friends, friends' parents, school contacts, community involvement, etc. 

I've seen several of our council level recruiting events.  They bring in tens of scouts.  A hugely successful event brings in a hundred.  Usually the new scouts that were already going to join.   They attend because they are aware of the event by having brothers or sisters or neighbors already in cub scouts.  

[yknot]

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

I've seen several of our council level recruiting events.  They bring in tens of scouts.  A hugely successful event brings in a hundred.  Usually the new scouts that were already going to join.   They attend because they are aware of the event by having brothers or sisters or neighbors already in cub scouts.  

That's my experience too. They will run an event that will get a handful of kids, sometimes more, but it's generally people who have already been recruited and are attending to get their free rocket or fishing pole or hot dog or whatever they are handing out. 

I don't want to come off as anti council because I know these are peoples' jobs we are talking about. However, the reality is that structure is built around a much higher membership level and it is also built around a dysfunctional structure that no longer works present day. Something different, something more efficient and more effective and economical, is needed. 

[MattR]

16 hours ago, vol_scouter said:

You are so correct.  Not to mention that camps do not have office buildings so you are going to make a cash strapped council build office buildings and take on another million or more dollar debt. 

Sorry, but I'm still stuck on the million dollar building. I went to the county records to see how much our council office is worth because it is not anywhere close to a million dollars. It is a very old house that had some interior walls moved around.  Anyway, it's worth roughly $1000. Five years ago it was about $2000. Sounds more like the principle on a loan but this is the county property records. Using the gis tool I found it's wedged into a corner of a city park that's worth over $12M. I suspect it used to be the caretakers house for the park.

Anyway, I still don't understand the need for a big scout office.

More importantly, I don't think the size of the office nor the size of the council is nearly as important as the people that are hired and their motivation. Hire good people, give them the motivation to make a quality program (as opposed to getting gold epaulets) and let them figure out what's needed.