New BSA Dues on Anniversary Date

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1

How are troops handling the new way that BSA is collecting dues?

We used to collect dues for everyone around our re-chartering date. But now BSA wants to collect a full-years dues on the date a scout joins and then on their anniversary date in each subsequent year. We’ve also been told different things from our council (scouts will pay dues direct to BSA on the scouting site vs. troops will collect dues and then pay council).

This year I just set up an event to collect dues before our recharter date and it worked fairly smoothly (other than when I had to put on my bill-collector hat and chase down the 3-4 parents with repeated emails :face_with_diagonal_mouth:).

But If I have to manage collecting dues from different scouts at different times of the year, I am trying to think through how I would set that up in TT. I could theoretically see setting up an event at the beginning of every month and just inviting the scouts that are due to pay that month to each event. And then I can copy that template for each year, and then I would basically have a record of when each scout is due each year. It doesn’t sound like fun, but it’s the only way I can see it working so far.

So my questions are:

  • Have any troops here switched to paying dues directly to BSA on the scouting site? As much as we’ve been told by council this is the way things are headed, I do not know of any troop that has switched to this method. And if you have, how has that worked out so far?
  • Have any other troops using TT set up a protocol for collecting dues at different times of the year and if so, how did you set up TT to do so?
2

This is all so new I am not sure anyone has actually had to deal with it yet. I believe BSA went to yearly on anniversary in August of 23 so we have not reached a year yet. From some of the communication I have seen the plan is for BSA to start reaching out to participants directly for payments before their anniversary date. At this point I am hoping we won’t have to worry about it at all but when has that ever happened with BSA.

3

Based on what “we think” is going to happen, here is what I am planning.

  1. BSA national dues are paid on the anniversary date by the families directly to the Council. The vast majority are at recharter anyway. It is possible our families will prefer this because they will not have to pay the Paypal fees…unless there is a cc convenience fee tacked on by council. All of this is speculation.

AND

  1. set up a TT event to collect troop dues at the end of the year and cross-over dues.