Time to open the mailbag and answer a couple more of your questions.
First, from the chartered organization representative of a Cub Scout pack:
We’re chartered by the Parent-Teacher Association of the elementary school that we serve. Up until now, the PTA has been a affiliated with the school, but they are separating and the PTA is becoming a separate entity. They are filing to become a non-profit organization with the IRS. Do we need to take any action or file any charter paperwork with the council?
Continue reading “Q&A: Chartered organizations, adult training”
To err is human, said the poet Alexander Pope over three hundred years ago. Everyone makes mistakes. Scouts make mistakes. In fact, the Scouting program is built partly to allow young people to safely make mistakes and learn from them. In the words of Samuel Beckett, No matter. Try again. Fail again. Fail better. 
With fall comes our surge of new members in the Boy Scouts of America – mainly in the Cub Scouting program – and with it comes the paperwork. The BSA membership of our current members gets renewed at recharter time, but those new to Scouting or new to our units (including transfers from other packs) need to complete a membership application. And of course, this means both youth and adults.
Sometimes I wonder what we ever did before email became ubiquitous. I remember having phone lists and calling trees, phoning the pack leaders to let them know about an important item or change, and calling all my den parents to remind them about the upcoming den meeting or outing. We had printed newsletters, calendars and activity handouts, which got revised frequently resulting in lots of paper thrown away or recycled.
It’s still summer across the country and we’re mostly in that mode of thinking – summer camp or day camp, pack picnics and bike rides, hiking and weekend camping. Families are enjoying vacations, relaxing in the back yard or at the lake, working in the garden or taking in the splendors of summer.