Basically they’re putting it up as collateral to keep their credit lines open. Considering how much property the BSA owns I would have thought that they’d hold on to Philmont until the end.

https://apnews.com/277936941c824110ab626b9f3a1e68de

From the article:

In a statement provided to The Associated Press, the Boy Scouts said programming and operations at Philmont “continue uninterrupted, and we are committed to ensuring that the property will continue to serve and benefit the Scouting community for years to come. “

“In the face of rising insurance costs, it was necessary for the BSA to take some actions earlier this year to address our current financial situation,” the BSA said. “This included identifying certain properties, including Philmont Scout Ranch, that could be used as collateral .... in order to keep in place an existing line of credit for insurance.”

Disclosure of the mortgage comes at a challenging time for the BSA, which for years has been entangled in costly litigation with plaintiffs who said they were abused by scout leaders in their youth. Hundreds of new lawsuits loom after New York, New Jersey, Arizona and California enacted laws making it easier for victims of long-ago abuse to seek damages.

The BSA, headquartered in Irving, Texas, says it’s exploring “all available options” to maintain its programs and has not ruled out the possibility of filing for bankruptcy.

Losing 20 % of their membership when LDS split over girls didn’t help their cash flow....

Sorry.

But the real BSA is dead.

How the mighty may fall

I’m an Eagle Scout and my kids will probably not participate in scouting because it may not be around and if it is it will be a shadow of what it is even now

The liberal objective of destroying the once-great BSA is nearly complete.

Former scout here.  I yanked my son out of that crap 2 years ago.

We took our 10 yr old out once our troop was compromised by them letting girls in. Why they still call it Boy Scouts is beyond me.

Fuck be upon them

Girls can do what the boy scouts do and vice-versa, and they don't need to leave their respective troops to do it.

When it's only boys in Boy Scouts and only girls in Girl Scouts again, and none of this mixed-up mess, I'll send 'em money.

And not until then.

More like 80% and not about girls

Wow

The article also mentions their increased recharter fees. People in our Troop/Pack are losing their minds over it. A lot of our boys are from lower income families & it’s going to put a significant strain on them.

BSA could liquidate it’s undeveloped/unused properties and use the money to establish a foundation that would fund it well into the future, but that idea makes way too much sense.

But they made up most of that with a huge hike in registration fees for 2020.

They don’t. It’s now Scouts BSA.

My son is in cub scouts.  I don't get it.  But there are worse ways he could spend his time I guess.

Probably a bunch of behind the scenes BS going on.

Somebody knows somebody who knows somebody...

Then what? Rape scandals never bothered the LDS before

As an Eagle Scout, it pains me that my 9 year old cant have the same experiences I did growing up. BSA has fallen so far from its roots. I talked with our local BSA chapter before enrolling my son, and there was more crafting crap on the agenda than camping/outdoor style activities. I will just take more individual responsibility in teaching my son what I learned in BSA.

Maybe they'll win everyone back with a new Tricking Merit badge

So this is how it ends, huh?  Mortgaging the crown jewels generously entrusted to them generations ago, before even trying to clear the rot at the top responsible.

What does “BSA” stand for?

Nothing.

In several senses of the word.

Bisexual Adventures?

It’s not called Boy Scouts since 2018.

It’s Scouts BSA now.

Lot's of ignorance in this thread.

There is not a single girl in any of the 30 or so troops around me other than the dedicated girls troop.

Boyce wept

Move on. First there was the gay thing, than the girl thing.

Its just one more thing the commie liberals have ruined. They wanted it destroyed and they have succeeded.

Why bother.

Former Eagle here.  Yanked my son last year.  I tried it for 1 year.  It ain't the same...   ...at all.



I seem to remember a thread awhile back here where some were talking about the positive changes that were happening, and how the BSA (or whatever they call themselves now) are being proactive and keeping with the times.  About how us oldtimers are all bigoted.

How's that all working out?

zero fucks given

father, uncle and nephew are eagles

had our two sons in it for nearly 8 years

then learned the seattle bsa chapter was caught shredding documents relating to numerous sexual investigations
and the records they had kept about it

zero fucks given

Everything is happening exactly as planned.. they are being taken down from the inside.  

You know you can check out different troops right?  They are not all the same.

I've got a friend who's son is a scout leader. I asked him the other day about girls joining the scouts. Basically he's okay with them in the scouts if it means the scouts continue as an organization. Apparently he'd even be willing to drop the religious aspect of it (one of the founding tenants of the organization) if that's what it would take to keep them running. I also had the impression in talking to him he really wasn't woke to whats really going on (a lot of whistling past a graveyard going on here.) Also up near Grand Rapids there is a scout camp on the ropes but some anonymous donor has offered to match the money to keep the place open for the next 4 years if they can come up with a million bucks in donations.

meh FBSA

Quit that shit and joined the local 4H shooting club. Best thing to ever happen to me.

Maybe.  I'm willing to try different troops.  Probably will look into it soon.  I'm like an abused wife sometimes.

It's more profitable for the people at the top to burn down the org, obviously

Like all dying, top-heavy bureaucracies, they are convinced their size alone is the reason for their success, and appealing to leftist-run corporations the only path to sustaining it.

In reality, they'd only need to enrapture a single billionaire & his sons to reverse their fortunes (and is how they acquired these big camps in the first place), but they'd rather suck up to the coastal lefties that run Proctor & Gamble or GE.

I guess we can add "elite youth outdoors & development organization" to the list of NRA missed opportunities

In before the guy with the eagle knot avatar tells us how much better scouting is now.

Why don’t we just start a new one

How can anyone not see this for what it is?

Trail Life USA looks interesting, but it doesn't have the brand recognition.  Maybe that's okay.

This was the left's plan all along. People like Ted Turner and Warren Buffet really wanted all the real estate the Scouts own.

The lawyers had to get it on, man. The Scouts were full of toxic masculinity.

My son is in a small troop of about 10 kids. Just getting the kids going on the outing to arrive with proper clothing is a challenge. Most of the parents are clueless what the hell camping in a tent during the winter actually means. I think some see it as a baby sitter. Just like summer bible schools in churches.

Not quite dead, but on life support.

They have been closing ones in NYS left and right.  Consolidated they say while selling the excess lands,   Those were council owned iirc.

We are on our 2nd troop and it is really easy to switch.  We went from one a mile down the street to one a mile up the street.  All the records stay the same, we as parents just change who can access them.

It wasn’t that high, but it wasn’t 20% either.  The 20% number has been thrown around to downplay the impact of the departure of the LDS Church.

Currently, it is 20%, but that number just represents the cub scouts and scouts aged 11-13 that are still under the charters.  In 2017, the LDS Church pulled all boys over 13 out of the charter unless the scout specifically wanted to stay in.

Prior to that 37% of the entire membership was from the LDS Church and around 45% of the actual chartered units were LDS.  The LDS Church also donated substantial amounts of money above the cost of the charters, and even more at the district levels, especially for maintenance of the numerous scout camp locations it used.

What’s worse, is revenue from the annual friends of scouting drive has dropped off.  Parents and other church members donated heavily to the BSA through it, however, as members of the LDS Church became at odds with BSA policy changes, they started to cut off their donations.

The LDS Church heavily subsidized funding of the BSA on a per scout basis.  Compared to before their radical policy shifts, the BSA will have lost 40% of its membership and half its funding to the exit of LDs troops alone.  Then there is the departure of numerous other scouts and charters, not because of the LDS Church, but because parents of scouts have become at odds with the organization.

Scouts USA. Is no doubt trying all they can to hide the real impact but it’s recent actions can’t hide the facts.  The LDS Church isn’t renewing their charters and all funding from it is grinding to a halt.  Their membership is dropping drastically, they have closed numerous scout camps and terminated leases, and now they are mortgaging their crown jewel to try to stay afloat.

Make no mistake, they are in their death throes.  I would not expect the organization to last more than 5 years before they become insolvent and cease operations.  I am an Eagle Scout and it has pained me to see this happen, but as far as I am concerned, the BSA died years ago.

Robert Gates’ legacy will be having killed off two great American hallmarks; the Boy Scouts of America and the F22 program.  What an asshole.

This has been my experience.

That and covering up for scout masters ass fucking boys didn't help the bottom line either. They ain't the Catholic Church, who can say "sorry we raped children. It is now a sin to ever mention it again, burn in hell, literally, if you do". What other lessons can be learned here?

Same here.  My wife has asked about putting my boys in cub scouts but I'm not home enough to be an adult leader and refuse to put them in if I'm not involved with them.

The Koolaid drinkers never see it for what it is.

My troop's council dissolved and it got folded into the one based out of Los Angeles, which promised not to sell the summer camps and other property owned by the council, which had a lot of nice facilities.  First thing it did was sell them all off to pay off debt from building a new multi-million dollar headquarters for the council bureaucracy, as it was financially underwater.

Last weekend, I attended what is almost certainly the last Eagle ceremony the troop will ever have.  The troop has shrunk to 4-5 boys and will most likely be disestablished at the end of the year.

The combination of women being allowed to be adult troop leaders (and excessive involvement of moms), helicopter parenting, lack of adult volunteers in general more recently, the watering down of the Eagle Scout requirements, allowing girls to be Boy Scouts, and in general watering down the moral aspect of scouting (such as by allowing gays), among others, plus excessive bureaucracy, the assaults by the Left and the media (made easier by the sex scandal stuff), has ruined scouting.  It's a sad shadow of itself.

I was involved in Boy Scouts for 21 years of my life, as a Webelos, Boy Scout, Venturer, and adult leader (Assistant Scoutmaster and Committee Member) and I'm an Eagle Scout, and at this point I don't really want much of anything to do with the Boy Scouts absent a viable and properly-oriented reform movement (which I doubt will arise at this point).

BSA began to die in the 1990s when BSA leadership began to actively downplay Boy Scouting’s military roots.  And women should never have been allowed to be Scoutmasters or Asst Scoutmasters.

At the Troop level, It is an experiential learning and leadership development program for pre-teen/teenage boys to learn Western Civilization’s values  under the tutelage of men.  Boys at that age don’t listen to moms, especially around their peers.

Too many people think it is just “camping club” or “knots and forst aid youth group.”  It was one of the best things about 20th Century US culture, and National HQ slit its throat in the name of Diversity and Inclusion to keep corporate donations rolling in.