Chartering Organizations

[HiLo]

Twocubdad tells us "our Scout Executive's standard stump speech ended with the line "Scouting's values are not for sale!" I always chuckled to my self that they're not for sale because we've already sold them."

 

I like that view, partly because I've only recently discovered how true it is for Scouting in the USA. As a non-American, the concept of chartering organizations has been the thing about American Scouting that I find hardest to understand, and to fit in with what I've always understood Scouting to be.

 

As for Youth Protection policies, what's the issue? I'd reckon Scouting needs to do everything it can to always be AND appear totally squeaky clean on that front. WAKWIB, was the UMC church asking for anything unreasonable, or was it just the extra training time that was the issue for the complainers?

[WAKWIB]

HiLo, I think there was a bit of perception on a part of the troop adults who caused the ruckus, that the presenter of the church training was minimizing the value of BSA YP and somehow we were under-trained. This apparently got things off to a bad start. I was not in that class session so I'm relying on reports from one of the angry troop leaders (who has a tendency to make mountains out of mole-hills), and from our COR who spoke to the issue at a subsequent committee meeting. There was some confusion about the reporting of incidents. BSA YP insists that any suspected incident is reported to the council SE pronto. The Safe Sanctuary training wants the pastor notified pronto. The dilemma that seemed to get the troop folks in a knot was their notion that ONLY the council SE be notified and no one else. According to our COR who spoke with the second-in-command professional at the council (his official title escapes me at the moment) the right thing to do is inform both simultaneously.

What happened was a momentary clash between a training presenter who had no clue of BSA's Youth Protection program and policy, and two of our troop committee members who, frankly, have a history of getting worked-up easily and were a bit territorial when it came to their view of how the troop should work.

In the end, the issue was worked out and forward motion continues.

[ace4au]

Our CO has a couple of stipulations that affect the way our troop (and pack) work and are structured...

1. All registered adults (Scoutmaster, Asst. Scoutmasters, Cubmaster, Den Leaders, and Committee Members) have to be members of our church (the CO).

2. Since our Troop and Pack are considered ministries of our church, we're also hamstrung when it comes to fundraising.

3. We do get access to the church vans, which come in handy pretty often.