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2012 Family FOS Brochure

In the next few weeks, your unit will be receiving a phone call requesting that you schedule a time for a member of our district Friends of Scouting team to visit your unit to discuss our Friends of Scouting campaign.  We would encourage you to schedule a presentation at a Blue and Gold, Court of Honor, our other unit meeting where the majority of parents are in attendance.  We only need a few minutes.

Why should my unit or I participate in Family Friends of Scouting?

Here are a few ways your participation helps:

• Friends of Scouting and other individual gifts provide over 20% of the revenue necessary to bring the Scouting program to over 8,000 young men and women in our council.
• Friends of Scouting allows us to keep the registration fee for summer camp reasonable.  Without it, we would have to charge over $450 per week for summer resident camp.
• Allows the council to continue to provide accident and sickness insurance (at no cost to the unit) for every registered youth and adult member.  This equals a savings of over $200 for each unit.
• To enable us to own, operate and maintain 3 camp facilities.
• To allow the council to maintain liability insurance for each registered leader.
• To enable us to provide training at little or no cost.
• To allow us to have two dedicated Quality Program Executives and other staff members.
• To allow us invest over $20,000 in new programs supplies in 2012. 

Common Questions

Wait, I already pay my $15 annual registration fee.

We realize that you pay $15 per year to be registered. However, that fee is sent directly to the BSA National Office.  It is not retained by the Revolutionary Trails Council.

I heard that our council has an endowment of $5 million.  Why do they need my donation?

• You are correct, our council had an endowment of $5 million prior to the recent financial crises.  The endowment is our council's savings account and its use is restricted by our donors and our board meaning that we can only use the earnings on an annual basis.  These earnings provide the council about 17% of its annual operating budget.  It exists to ensure that we are around for another 100+ years.
• As of October 2011, the endowment is worth around $4 million.  Over the past few years, it has been reduced by the loss of value in the stock market, normal spending and an emergency road repair at one of our camps.   

OUR THANK YOU.......EARN FREE RANK ADVANCEMENTS IN 2012!

Here's how:  If your unit participates in the 2012 Family Friends of Scouting program and achieves your unit goal and participation goal, you can receive free rank advancement patches for all your Scouts until December 31, 2012.

This includes Bobcat, Tiger, Wolf, Bear, Webelos and the Arrow of Light patches/certificates for the Cub Scout program. Boy Scout patches and certificates include Scout, Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life and Eagle (excluding the Eagle Kit). Awards for the Venturing program are the Gold, Bronze and Silver.

Figuring Your Unit's Goals: Multiply the number of families in your unit by .40. Then multiply that number by $120. That number equals your unit goal, or... 10% more than the total amount of Family Friends of Scouting dollars your unit raised in 2011.  Whichever is greater will be your unit's dollar goal.

Important Note: Families are defined as youth members at re-charter (i.e., a Pack with 30 boys at re-charter would have 30 families). In the instance of brothers from the same family (2 or more youth from the same family) that family will  count as 1.