We have an important duty, and an incredible opportunity, to focus as an organization on keeping children safe, supported and protected, while preparing youth for their futures through our nation’s foremost program of character development and values-based leadership training.
Various media sources have reported that the Boy Scouts of America has hired a bankruptcy attorney to consider the costs of defending lawsuits. Our Chief Scout Executive, Mike Surbaugh, has informed us that the BSA has not made any decision in this regard nor is a decision pending. To ensure our ability to continue preparing youth for their future through the Scouting, national BSA is working with experts to explore all options available to ensure that the local and national programming of the Boy Scouts of America continues uninterrupted. Our motto is ‘Be Prepared,’ and we are doing just that, working with internal and external experts to explore all options available and will share information when we are able to do so.
What does this mean for The Spirit of Adventure Council?
Our Council is an independent non-profit incorporated in our area. We own and control our camps, council service centers, bank funds and investments. It is important to understand that this structure was specifically designed to ensure that council investments remain ours. They are ours regardless of what happens to the national organization. The same is true for our other council assets. Local units are owned by their charter organization, typically a community, religious, service or academic organization. Contributions made to the Spirit of Adventure Council by our donors stay local, and contributions made for specific purposes are used for those purposes.
We partner with the National Boy Scouts of America to deliver Scouting’s mission; leveraging tools, guidelines, resources and their network, while remaining independent.
We have an important duty, and an incredible opportunity, to continue to focus as an organization on preparing youth for their futures through our nation’s foremost program of character development and values-based leadership training.
As an organization, our focus must be to:
1) Build upon the momentum we have already experienced this year with new members
2) Plan and implement a successful launch of Scouts BSA to welcome boys and girls into the program in February
3) Support our fundraising efforts to ensure our continued ability to deliver Scouting to our communities