I had ten scouts who last January approached me as Charter Organization Rep to see if they could start a crew. Most of their parents were registered, trained adult leaders in the troop. There were eight adults willing to be leaders in the new crew. Their actual goal was to remain as youth in scouting. When the application for a new unit was submitted, it was rejected since no new youth were joining. I was told that they needed two new youth to create a new unit/crew. How should we retain youth after age 18?
As I understand it, they donât have to be new youth, they simply need not to be in another unit as well. Any of the youth who are over 18 would be able to be solely in the Crew (since they are too old for a Troop) and therefore meet the criteria. We have a Crew associated with our two Troops and each year in December we have to find 5 Scouts who have already earned Eagle and still want to continue with the program in order to keep our Crew going. (After it is a new unit, our council requires 5 members who are not also in a Troop).
Since our Scouts want their Eagle rank to have been earned in the Troop, itâs a bit of a struggle to find 5 each year who are done with Eagle and havenât moved on from Scouts. So far, we havenât had much interest after senior year of high school.
I would touch base with your councils again. I had always understood that this was not necessarily about it having to be ânew to scoutingâ youth or youth who were not also in another unit, but rather a minimum number who had to have their primary registration with the crew, rather than with another unit. The remainder of the crew could be made up of any combination of youth who were either primarily- or solely-registered in the crew or multipled-in from other units where they have their primary registrations.
Unfortunately, we hashed this out quite a bit in December. Our registrar is adamant that we need 5 members who are solely in the Crew. I quoted the BSA page to them which has since been edited, "Step 1- Get Your Minimums
- A crew needs at least 5 youth members that have common interests.
- There must be at least five youth primarily registered and paid in the new crew. Other youth may be multiplied from another unit."
When I quoted it it said 3 youth. It now says 5. I was trying to get us able to have only 3 youth who were only in the Crew.
The registrar said that special permission was required for 3 or 4 youth instead of 5. They werenât willing to get special permission.
I have to say the way this reads makes me think it is more like what you said @CharleyHamilton
I would love to get national clarity on this issue. This reads as though the primary members just need to pay the Crew and can multiple into another unit.
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Thatâs the document I was thinking of. :â ^â )
You need two scouts to pay for primary membership in that crew. They can be scouts that are rechartering in BSA but they pay membership into the new crew. They can multiple back in the troop as well.
The Document you are looking for is the âRegistration Guidebook of the BSAâ. It can be found at: Scouting Forms from the National Council | Boy Scouts of America
It is the only link under âRegistration Resourcesâ.
This 88-page document has not changed since July 2019! The complete answer lies on page 19 (PDF page 21). It is the last paragraph under âUnit Position Requirementsâ.
The key phrase is - (A transferred membership is considered a paid registration). Here is an excerpt from that: I hope this clarifiesâŠ
"There must be at least FIVE paid youth members in a pack, troop, crew, or ship. If special circumstances exist, the Scout executive may give permission to allow a unit to register with as few as two paid youth members.
A transferred membership is considered a paid registration. *
No unit can register with fewer than TWO paid youth members. Units with more than 100 or fewer than five youth members at registration must be approved by the Scout executive"âŠ
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I first experienced this problem several years ago. We werenât starting a new Crew, but attempting to recharter an existing Crew with 12 youth.
At the very end, the on-line Rechartering system would not allow us to âFinal Submitâ the recharter because all 12 youth were âpaidâ registered in a Troop, and âmultipledâ in the Crew. The payment page of the recharter paperwork only had the basic ârecharterâ fee (at that time was $40). The system was set to look for âPAIDâ youth.
Our Council registrar explained that if we had 2 paying youth the system will allow us to submit the recharter. We then removed 2 of the youth from the Troop and made them paying members. I assume that the CSE was somehow involved in approving this after the fact (out of sight of our involvement).
We were then able to recharter the Unit and everyone lived happily ever after⊠Sort of.
Tragic Spoiler Alert - - The Crew folded three years later.
There is of course no reason that the youth needed to remain in the Troop to earn their Eagle.
As long as they had earned their First Class in a Troop, and became of age, they can finish earning all upper ranks in the Crew.
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