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For being a joke, I have a couple of great nephews who TL/USA helped guide into adulthood. The BSA troop’s available to them were inadequate.

Thanks!  Like I said... not my forte. Also, I was pointing out the inconsistency that BSA has no Training required for BSA unit leaders to supervise an activity here.  Just the statement in G2SS, "All shooting sports activities held outside of a council’s camp will follow the program as outlined in the BSA National Shooting Sports Manual (www.scouting.org/outdoor-programs/Shooting-Sports)."   

While some of the article is questionable, there are some truths. Trail Life does clearly define who they are, what they do, and what the benefit may be.  One has the right to disagree with their messaging, but it is clear. BSA (SA??) has an extremely broad message about what they are.  The current focus seems to be all things to all people.  Not sure you can excite and entice people with that.  There may be confusion in that all are welcome seems to mean BSA (SA??) will do / provide whatever you want in it's program.  IMHO there is a Balkanization of what BSA (SA??) provides in that there are many constituencies that rather than benefiting from the larger group they are laser focused on their specific benefit they can get.  While good for them, that may not build a cohesive organization.  Also as BSA (SA??) units can be almost a franchise what one gets from unit to unit can vary. The organization needs to welcome all BUT needs to clearly define what the organization does and how it does this.

Trail Life is a Scouting program. Scouting is the movement.  BSA is a business.  You should really separate the two in your thinking. Otherwise, you miss the point of the article.

This is why there needs to be a doctrinal pathway to complain to district/council advancement about bad leaders adding to the requirements; that SM is going rogue. I see what you're saying, I think it's more of someone without guidance trying to get trained and figuring this out is facing a huge uphill struggle. On the other hand there's something like this: There's a parent in my unit that said he won't do the adult training unless he's paid to do it. We're trying to spoon feed the adult training and everything that goes with it to him and we can't get him to buy in.  For sports it's definitely more that just showing up with a couple soccer balls. My daughter is in soccer right now(school team). We had a $200 registration fee, uniform/jersey deposit of $20 (will have to pay full if uniform is damaged in any way). $40 shorts, $10 a pair special socks, $100 outdoor cleats, $100 indoor cleats, $40 for recommended/pseudo required specific shin guards, they practice at the school field but play home matches at private field 30 miles from my house; the nearest away game has been 35 miles away, they play 3 matches a week(a mix of conference and non conference matches). We're currently in month 3 of the 4 month season. She's on the varsity team and we're expected to participate in club play (current estimate is cheapest league is $290 registration with regional travel each weekend) in the offseason and do soccer camps on top of that if she wants to maintain her varsity position and have a chance of starting in the future (she's a freshman).