Changing chartered organization

[gwd-scouter]

I was just notified by our Chartered Organization that they are moving the Troop again. We've been relocated a few times before because of their need for space. For the past two years we've been in the basement of a small house they own behind the church. No heat, no air, severe water problem causing mold. Still, we worked with what we had and spent several weekends fixing up the place to make it our own.

 

Now, we are being moved to a small bedroom sized room in another property the church owns. I was told we could only use that room for meetings, can't put anything up on the walls or store anything there. We can't use any other rooms, so we won't have any space for SM conferences, BORs, separate patrol meetings, etc. Even worse, we are about to double the size of our Troop with Webelos crossovers and we just won't fit in there.

 

Our CO has never given me the impression that they really want a Scout Troop - more like they just tolerated us. They have never helped us recruit leaders - not even the Chartered Organization Representative. We've reached out to them, offered to do service projects. They would only allow us to fix up our basement. We attend Scout Sunday every year but they do not acknowledge us there. I've asked them to at least post a link on the website to our Troop's site, but nothing. Whenever our guys do a service project and I send in an article to the newspaper, I always acknowledge the church as our CO. Every year on Scout Sunday I hear over and over from the members - we didn't even know we had a Scout Troop.

 

I've been told by a couple of our parents that there are two churches in our town that are actually eager to start up a Scout Troop. In talking with our leaders and parents, we've come to the conclusion that it's time to move. DE also knows about this situation and concurs that it's something we should begin to look into. Besides, if those other churches are eager for a Scout Troop, perhaps they will help start up a Cub Pack as well. Our current CO has always turned down the possibility of starting a Pack.

 

Have any of you changed COs? If so, what are some, if any, problems you encountered?

[scoutldr]

"DE also knows about this situation and concurs that it's something we should begin to look into."

 

IMHO, the DE is the one who should be brokering this for you. It is in his/her best interest to save the Unit and see that it has a proper Chartering Organization which is willing to uphold it's end of the contract. The DE needs to convince the CO to relinquish its ownership of the unit and its assets (if any), after HE has lined up a new CO. Ask him to do his job, or there will be no troop.

 

 

[mt_goodrich]

The CO is required by the contract they signed with BSA to provide the unit a safe meeting place. If this is not the case, then they have not lived up to their end of the deal and your unit should find another CO.

 

The bad thing is that if you have troop equipment, it belongs to the CO.

[Eagle92]

My old troop changed COs twice within a four year period. The first CO was a Catholic Church that had a large parish originally when the troop started. As the population in the town grew,other churches were built,and the CO's population demographic changed. GWD is lucky that all the CO has done is move you around. Ours not only moved us around, but used our brand new shed as a dart board, causing over $15,000 worth of damage to the shed and equipment. We looked into finding a new CO, found one, and had to get paperwork from the original CO saying that we could keep our unit number, transfer monies, keep equipment (there wasn't much left after the dart board incident), etc. and moved. Lots of paperwork, but with the COs signatures it was OK. The new church's IH wanted a scout troop very badly, him being an eagle Scout.

 

Two to three years later our new CO got a new IH with a very anti-BSA bias. Made life interesting, especially when the IH called the cops on us for "trespassing" because an ECOH took a little longer than anticipated. Luckily the cop that came out didn't realize that the 'trespassers" was the troop since the church owns the troop. He also just happened to be an ASM with the troop. So again the troop committee got all the paperwork filled out, and switched to another CO that wanted us as they already had a pack. We got to keep the unti number a second time, and made 25 years Vet Status when I got Eagle.

 

Couple of things to rememebr about switching COs.

 

1) you got to get it in writing that you can keep the unit number. Loose the number and you loose tenure towards vet Status.

 

2)All equipment, money, etc that the unit has legally belongs to the CO. So if they want to keep it they

can. Luckily the first CO destroyed most of our stuff, so that wasn's an issue. Ands the second CO had such an anti-BSA bias, they just wanted us out. But I bet if they realized how much money was int he accoutn and that they owned the equipment, they would have kept everything for themselves.

 

More later

[Lisabob]

I agree w/ scoutldr about the DE doing his job. We ended up not making the switch but we did look into it in some detail. Our CO does not provide us much support except to pay a portion of our recharter fees (and while we are grateful and that's no small thing, it has often been done quite grudgingly in the last few years). A couple of years ago it got really ugly when we told them our scouts could not stand in front of stores, in uniform, and fundraise for them. So we looked around a bit. At the time we had a very experienced DE. When we talked with him, he became very alarmed and immediately offered to meet with the CO to clarify the relationship between CO and troop. His main concern was keeping us with the CO, but his secondary was ensuring that if we did move, it happened as smoothly as possible so as not to break up the unit. We also have significant troop assets in terms of gear and memorabilia (the troop has existed for 70 years) and we didn't want to lose it.

 

One thing I learned from all of this is that (at least in our council) the CO is not required to provide an actual meeting space. They are only required to help procure a suitable meeting space. Consequently, the fact that we meet in a public school cafeteria and that storage is our problem (thankfully a couple people have barns) was not considered an issue. And honestly our CO didn't even help us procure that - we did it on our own. It sounds like you are in a similar spot.

 

In your situation, I see two possibilities based on what you describe. One is to get your DE in as middle man to ensure as smooth a transition as is possible. If you go this route, make sure you and all the other adult leaders (treasurer especially) have a very clear understanding of what can happen with "troop" property before you even begin, and for that matter, what belongs to the troop vs. what's on long-term loan from friendly troop leaders. Might be a good idea to have the DE come in and talk with your committee about it, in fact. The other is to start working your church membership from the ground up. If the membership WANT a scout unit, ask them individually to let the church leaders know it. You, by yourself, are just one voice. Your scouts may not even be members of the church. Get some support on your side and start lobbying.

 

By the way, roughly how big is the congregation of this church? And roughly what percentage of your boys (incl soon-to-be cross overs) are members?

[Eagle92]

Back to where I was, and this is all based upon my experience. Most COs don't care what the troop has and willing give it to the new CO, or another scout troop if the troop is merging. Since they really do not get involved with the troop, they don't really care about the finances and equipment.

 

However I do know of one unit that "sold" all their equipment to another unit for $50. And we're talking brand new equipment because the troop was folding after about 2-3 years. That same unit also distributed all the money in the "scout accounts" to the members, with significant "interested" going to the scouts so that the CO wouldn't try and get the money that they raised on their own. Smart move as when the troop folded, the CO kept the money, about $100-$200 after all expenses and distributions were made.

 

Also a very sore point in my current district are some canoes that a folded troop had that the CO has kept for their youth group. Originally the canoes were donated to the scouts in the district, but to keep the council's hands off the canoes, the folks who organized the donation arranged it so that a troop and its CO owned the canoes, with the stipulation that every unit had access to them. When that troop folded,

the church kept the canoes and trailer, since it was legally theirs, and now their church group uses them. plenty of people are upset b/c the church will not allow anyone else to use them.

[scoutldr]

Good lesson here. When you donate something (cash or equipment) to a Troop, you are actually donating it to the CO.

[Eagledad]

There are some minor risk involved that are being presented here, but if you know of some churches that want a troop and possibly expanding the scouting program, I would go for it. I been involved in few of these things and if the DE thinks it is a good idea, it is very likely the right thing to do.

 

In my experiences, threatening to leave was a wake up call to the CO and they changed their attitude toward the scout units.

 

BArry

[ScoutNut]

While it is the DE's job to add new units, that is not really what is happening here. You already have a unit, and a CO. It is YOUR Troop's decision to find a new CO.

 

To state that it is the DE's job, and that all you should have to do is call the DE and tell him to do all of the work and to simply let you know when he finds you a new CO is not fair at all. It is especially unfair if you follow scoutldr's suggestion and tell the DE you will dis-band the Troop if he does not find you a new CO.

 

Your CC, SM, and other Troop leaders, should work TOGETHER with your DE to find a CO that suits YOUR Troops needs.

[Lisabob]

ScoutNut, I can't speak for scoutldr but I did not read anybody's comments here that way. I do think it is the DE's job to help maintain a healthy relationship between CO and unit, in that DEs are supposed to visit each charter partner at least once a year. I know for a fact that my DEs (past and present) didn't/don't do this because they haven't got the time. But when it comes to a point where units are shopping for a new CO, the DEs tend to be very concerned and will make the time to try to help. The fact of the matter is that DEs are judged on the overall increase in # of units, and if a unit is dropped then they have to scramble twice as hard to get ahead. And realistically, units who move or split up probably are more vulnerable for a period of time after the move occurs.

 

So yeah, I do think the DE ought to be involved and I do think any DE with half a brain will want to be very involved. That doesn't mean it is entirely their responsibility but they're the only ones in this equation getting paid for maintaining a certain # of units.

[scoutldr]

Yeah. What Lisabob said.

[Eagle92]

Scoutnut,

Yep the committee and leaders need ot have a talk with the CO, but sometimes the "big guns" to help out, and that's when the DE, UC, and District chair may get involved. As a DE I know I had to get involved when a unit asked me to intervene with their CO. The CO was concerned about the Dale case in the SCOTUS lineup at the time. They felt the BSA was going to lose, and were adamant that they did not want gay leaders in the unit, nor working with the youth they were responsible. So instead of a scout troop, they wanted Awana or Royal Rangers instead. even after explaining that THEY are supposed to approve the leaders, they still said no, their decision was already made

[moxieman]

You know, we seem to have this topic come up almost once a year or so it seems to me. I just did a quick scan of topics for the past year and I guess I'm wrong, though there have been two on how to improve your relationship with your CO.

 

Others have covered this pretty well, there is little for me to add.

 

I have been in the position of a folding unit once. Adult leadership had dwindled to two college students, I being one of them. We approached our CO to explain the problem. CO decided to fold the unit rather than rebuild it because they didn't like the fact that the two remaining leaders were not members of their church and not about to join them. Sad, considering they were one of the larges churches in that city, with a congregation of several thousand. Surely, they could have just as easily kicked the two of us out, recruited from their members and kept the troop going, which at that time had been the second oldest in that council. We got no help from the DE. He was aware of the situation, but too busy to get to us in time. This is another good reason to make sure your unit keeps contact with the CO. It turns out that in this case, the CO had forgotten it had a scout unit. I haven't a clue how they got their paperwork signed every year. I happened to join the unit 6 months before it was forced to fold.

 

At least we found another unit to transfer the youth to. Soon afterward, the other college student transferred to a different college. The CO of the old unit would not allow us to take any equipment to the other unit to help them with the additional scouts. I was very disgusted with this. The folded unit had enough wall tents to supply three campsites at the local council's summer camp. I do not exaggerate as I did the final inventory--48 wall tents and 6 brand new backpacking tents the unit had bought that spring. They would not have missed 3 tents. Interesting that the new tents vanished right after I took inventory and put in the request for three tents. I also reported that said tents went missing to the CO. They admitted they had moved them in a tone to imply they didn't trust either of us leaders to respect their decision to not share equipment. We are both Eagle Scouts. Sometimes, I wonder if it was because I was a "Damn Yankee carpet bagger" in West Texas at the time as much as I was Catholic/a college student and not a member of that particular Protestant Church.

 

But that's how it goes as the CO owns the unit number, equipment and checkbook. Being college students who didn't know all the rules in details, we bought each of those scouts a complete uniform with what little was left in the troop treasury and held one last camping trip (to the local scout camp) with food covered by the troop including a steak dinner for everyone before turning the checkbook over to the CO. It probably would have been less expensive for them to give the three tents. Looking back, I'm thankful they didn't catch on about the uniforms. They probably would have demanded them turned over to them.

 

In the two years I remained in that place after this incident, said church never restarted the unit. For all I know those 48 wall tents are still sitting there in storage dry rotting now some 16 years later.(This message has been edited by moxieman)

[scoutldr]

Another example of the DE not doing his job.

 

I have posted the BSA Rules and regulations chapter and verse here a couple of times before, concerning the folding of a unit. In a nutshell, the DE is supposed to meet with the CO...if there is a commitment to restsrt a unit, the CO can retain everything. If not, the Unit assets are to go to the Council for the good of Scouting.

[nldscout]

I sure wish people would quit repeating the myth that a CO own the money and equipment, because its not true.