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LATEST POSTS
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I don't think councils care about GTSS. In my experience it's all about not having a near miss or reportable YPT incident. Units can basically do whatever they want as long as no abuse happens. I got pulled into some non-sense with a unit last year where they were repeatedly violating the GTSS. Event with parents and leaders asking me for help and guidance the key leaders of the unit wouldn't take any suggestions. I escalated the issue to council because I could see the situation spiraling out of control. Nothing was done, I started getting the cold shoulder at district and council level and meetings were always "we'll set that up later". Then a serious incident that pulled national in happened; that's the only point that anyone from district or council cared about GTSS. It takes a professional scouters job being on the line to bring GTSS compliance. -
Let me start with I think there is unfortunately a lot of leeway going on because so many councils are in life support mode and don't want to risk a whole troop or pack dropping from the rolls. It is the wild west out there because membership numbers are so important right now and the paid scouters seem to want to keep their job more than running a quality program. We have a unit in my district right now that we all know is a paper only unit that the CO is trying to keep alive for some reason. A member of the key 3 was removed from scouting for committing and being convicted of a felony. No one is trained. No program is being provided. We're not even sure if the scouts are real; all we know is that the CO pays for 5 adult, 5 youth memberships and a recharter every year. The unit "meets" out of district. The unit never attends any district or council function. This is a prime unit for charter revocation, completely not running the program or even trying, yet nothing is done.
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Unless BSA has trained professionals leading every Troop you will see a wide variety of quality. Make sure YPT and G2SS is followed, there should be no exceptions there. Many Troops could improve on the Patrol method, most on uniform. Provide some guidance to the leaders and let them run the show. If there is a really strong, well run Troop in the area, perhaps try and schedule a visit. There has always been quality differences between Troops, it is a tough decision to determine what is good enough. -
There's two things here, maybe related, maybe not. As an outsider with few years dealing with BSA (not involved with the settlement at all) I see things more from a corporate and legal lens. I agree with the assessment that doing the settlement fund piecemeal (going after councils, CO's, etc ... ) would have created a vast array of have and have nots. So many guilty parties (councils, units, charter orgs, perps) no longer exist, which would have prevented victims from seeking any restitution. I still struggle with these funded vs hypothesized fund numbers. What I know of nationals resources and debt and the councils local to me is that there really isn't much money out there, especially at the councils whom are mostly operating hand-to-mouth. To the discussion of Scouting America being around in the future; I have no doubt that Scouting America will be here in 100 years. I do think Scouting America will look a lot different, a lot more like how I understand scouting was 100 years ago. I think national is going to have to divest itself of a lot of physical property in order to get out of debt; maybe only Philmont surviving. I think the number of councils is going to shrink down to less than 100 (I think this will happen in the next 10 years). I think the number of council owned properties (camps) is probably going to shrink down to around 50 and start to get run more by professional adult camp staff and less by summer volunteers on a 4 season operational plan (the days of 7-9 weeks of summer camp run by barely paid OA seeking volunteers is coming to an end).
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Don't forget about that balloon type of payment liability that matures. As I recall it depends on the performance of the pension assets, and thankfully the stock market is at record highs, but it may not always be so. Agreed on your other points. I question whether Scouting will ever be as popular as in the 1980s, just as we will never go back to having three television networks plus PBS. Be Prepared
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