Parents at committee meetings

[EagleInKY]

First, committee meetings have to be open. BSA prohibits any "secret meetings".

 

Second, we encourage parents to attend. It's a great way to get information out and for them to hear what is going on with the troop, first hand from it's adult leaders. While we hope the boys communicate effectively to the parents, this gives us a second method to ensure communications gets through.

 

Third, if a parent begins to attend and take interest, sign them up! It's a great time to recruit parents to be part of your committee.

[Beavah]

First, committee meetings have to be open. BSA prohibits any "secret meetings".

 

Nah, EagleKY, you're readin' the wrong book. In Guide to Safe Scouting, under the section on preventin' abuse, there is a prohibition against "secret organizations". That's a restriction only on youth activities, meanin' if their kid is there, you can't keep the parent out.

 

It doesn't apply to Committee Meetings. There, the Troop Committee Handbook limits committee meetings to committee members, and to occasional invited guests.

 

Committees may often have agenda items that are confidential - how to support a special needs boy, campership support for a family of limited means, someone behind on their bills, a youth behavioral incident that needs to be discussed, etc. etc. There is absolutely no BSA requirement that Committee Meetings be open, and some very good reasons why they should not (always) be.

 

Yah, now that havin' been said, there are quite a few troops who have fairly open meetings, or who even sign up every parent as an MC. That can work just fine, in some communities, with a strong CC and a common vision.

[eagle90]

I agree with EagleinKY. We invite all parents to attend our Committee Meetings. A great place to get to know them, get them interested, and soon, sign them up! We also have a good time after the meeting over a brew or two. I think we get too hung up over titles, heirarchy, parents, committee members, ASM's, etc. and who can do what. We should all be there for the same purpose, to provide the best possible program we can for our scouts.

[Aquila calva]

Beavah -- Your post on 9/27 in this thread was really excellent. Thank you for your insight. I would like to ask you about your post yesterday.

 

"Where paperwork calls for a CC's signature, he/she is representing the committee not acting solo. So the CC's signature on a leader application represents that the committee has approved the leader application. The CC may even have voted "no." But he signs to reflect the committee's decision, eh? Same deal on an Eagle application."

 

Can you tell us where this came from? Certainly, this would be the best situation, but there could arise situations where the committee chair would not feel morally obligated to sign something even if the rest of the committee said "sign it." There are too many incidents in the news where the heads of corporations got into big trouble and then claimed they were acting on the recommendation from the corporate board. (HP comes to mind today. And she said she had checked with lawyers before acting. At least that is the latest report in this pretexting scandal. In any case, she is no longer chair of the board.)

 

If a CC feels so strongly about something that he/she can't sign it, then the issue probably needs to go to the chartered organization. That is often a dead end.

 

We need to teach our scouts that no one can "make" you sign anything. Including the troop committee.

 

[Beavah]

We need to teach our scouts that no one can "make" you sign anything. Including the troop committee.

 

Sure, dat's true, eh? We don't disagree.

 

Most of the time, our ethical obligation is to honor the process. The Speaker of the House has to pass the bill along to the Senate, even if he didn't vote for it and doesn't agree. Civil society is maintained and strengthened when individuals who disagree nonetheless support the decision of the group. We always expect the committee members who voted "no" to support the decision of the group, don't we? Just like we expect the boys who didn't vote for da SPL to support the SPL who was elected.

 

Naturally, there can be issues where the decision of the group is so destructive that there is an ethical responsibility to oppose it. Hard to imagine such a case in Scoutin', of course, at least at the committee level. Mostly it's tempests in teapots. But in such a case, the responsibility of the CC is to refuse to sign, and to tender his resignation because he can no longer fulfill his duties as chair.

 

Amounts to the same thing as you suggest, since the Chair's resignation goes to the COR, yah? So then the CO has to make a decision whether to keep the chair or keep the committee. Da hard part is when the CO isn't "real" or active. That's when Scoutin' is least fun, and the adult squabblin' gets in the way of what we're doin' for kids. Makes a good Commissioner cry, that.

 

So almost all the time, the CC should sign (only) as the committee directs, eh?