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The changing face of the Boy Scouts https://www.cbsnews.com/news/the-changing-face-of-the-boy-scouts-of-america/ Interesting piece. No new info, but always interesting to see this new policy in action.

That article ends What we owe all people, including women, is to listen to them and to respect them and to take them seriously. But we don’t owe anyone our unthinking belief. “Trust but verify” may not have the same ring as “believe all women.” But it’s a far better policy. Sounds fair.

@Pselb I guess I’m more worried about the next Jerry Sandusky or Larry Nassar. Both were accused and their accusers were ignored for years.

There is a lot of real anger and hysteria in America. I think trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient,... scouts and Scouters are part of the solution. My $0.02

In our pack, we always wanted the den leaders to attend. So much of what we covered involved them. Pack meeting plans, campout plans, join Scouting plans, advancement, etc. These always had some impact on, and needed the involvement of, the den leaders. So, we were glad to have them. If your pack is organized in a way that you cover this in a different forum, then it may be less important.

Both the BSA and GSUSA have seen significant membership declines. Some of this is undoubtably societal.

Wow I thought this was a joke at first ... As a den leader, I would be appalled if I wasn't invited into the monthly committee meetings. In fact all parents, den leaders, and interested parties expected to be at our committee meetings, and we have a great program going. But I would hesitate to be part of any program where the den leaders, the very core of the Cub Program, are not welcome.

Saw our CSE, interesting comments from him. Apparently the drop in numbers for BSA is all about the change in families "And you think about how families then, in the '70s, '80s and '90s, started to change," he said. "More pressures on the family. More activities for children. Moms now are in the workforce. But because we didn't adapt our program design, we just had a slow, steady erosion." Partially true, but unless an organization / business / group really, well and truly, understands the issues, they will no doubt repeat them. Basically CSE is blaming the decline on influences ou

“”I'm still struggling with the "masculinity" part of the equation. For starters, I never felt like cultivating masculinity was ever a keystone of Scouting. The whole "turning boys into men" thing, I know that's the ultimate goal of Scouting for some folks here, but officially it's leadership training and character development, as it has been for ages. Two things that are gender-neutral and not dependent on masculinity to achieve. “” This was the first mention of masculinity as a scouting goal. It fueled any following post that referenced masculinity as a goal. You have been clear t

If you’re not a proficient swimmer then skip Seabase. Any of their programs require being. Good swimmer and being able to demonstrate it.

How many innocent men have been caught up in this? Anyone know? I have yet to hear of one. I just wear a body camera at work to protect myself. Kidding of course. But on a serious note, if it's a concern for anyone in their workplace, maybe ask your employer to install cameras if they haven't already. Technology could pretty easily put an end to this, at a cost to employers that would surely be less than any possible lawsuit that arrises. Not hiring women is not a good solution. That will land you with a different kind of lawsuit.

All of the adventures are different. We did the Bahama's trip last spring and snorkeled 4 or 5 reefs while sailing all over the Abacos Islands. Like Quazse mentioned, you don't have to be a great swimmer to go. They provided life vests, mask, snorkel and fins. We had 2 adults who didn't really swim and after the first reef, they were the first to be suited up and ready to go. We fished off the back of the catamaran all day and night. Most of the fishing was catch and release, but we kept the big ones. We got rid of the barracuda, he looked to mean to eat. The Captain took us to an area

What dynamic? I understand the concern of false accusations but I haven’t see waves of men fired unjustifiedly. I have seen bad men finally loosing their jobs and freedom after years of ignoring their previous accusers.

Nobody says six consecutive consecutive weeks!

Well, if they've never done any kind of boating on the ocean, there's no comparison. But, yes, every day of every adventure is on water. Some, like Bahama's adventure, involves island exploring, others, like scuba, bring you back to base in the evening. You don't have to be a collegiate swimmer, but you have to be comfortable swimming a couple hundred yards ... in rather deep water ... with heavily-toothed critters scuttling below out of sight.

Not always. Some issues should be handled in a closed session.

Actually, to be fair to the groundhog, a prediction by a human meteorologist about what the weather is going to be six weeks from now is worth about as much as the groundhog’s prediction.

I know many guys at college who won’t just hang out with girls anymore. At least not alone. And we won’t have just one girl hang out with.a group of guys either. I’d not hang out alone with a girl. Too many accusations going around.

I also found one that many seemed to like, you can probably easily change it to be used as a Troop spreadsheet. https://www.dropbox.com/s/xauvw78j932bkax/!Finance_Spreadsheet 201x.xlsx?dl=0

https://www.scouting.org/programs/boy-scouts/program-planning-tools/ There are spreadsheets that can be edited for packs/troops for budgets. Hope it helps!

Any time I have done books for an organization, I ask what they want and then develop an Excel document that easily gets to that. I use Excel for everything I want to track. All my grading (I'm a teacher) is done with Excel and any organization I worked for I've done the same thing. Get a copy of the current report, create a tab of just that report. Everything else done on other tabs totals into that singular report. The Report Tab is what gets printed off for the meeting. Anyone needs to see detail, that is a print out of the tab in question. In my case each student's grades ar