Leaderboard

Quite right. There are definitely some advantages to doing the "fair/blitz/midway/university/weekend"....and as long as the event is well organized and MBCs are encouraged to put on a quality class, then the scouts can benefit greatly by being exposed to something they might otherwise not be able to do. A few things that I think could improve MB events: more time: Some MB events have classes as short as 2 hours. Aside from Fingerprinting, no MB can be adequately covered in 2 hours. 6 hours (or perhaps longer) woiuld be good as the "standard" time for a MB class. more "D

Somewhere or another I recall something about a philosophical construct centered on "morally straight". Kinda wonder where I heard that at?

If National or Councils want confirmation every year the least they could do is just offer a recert test. Pass the test and move on. No reason to sit through the same two hours of videos year after year after year.

Even when we forgive, there are still consequences.

This is my take too. That he could have a impulse to swat a female he doesn't know on the bottom certainly suggests that he has some inappropriate views towards women. What gets lost here is the enormity of what he did. Cat calls, sexist remarks, swats on the rear end. Yes, the physical impact is minor - but what they mean is the big deal. That this man felt so empowered to assert himself on this woman is the big deal. Any offense of this magnitude needs some response beyond "it's okay because he said sorry."

So...with that type of logic, and in that world, I can be a leader, taking youth on outings and adventures, doing all the Scouty things one does, then...suddenly....on December 6 I will (I guess like Mr Hyde) transform into some sort of raving lunatic endangering youth? Better solution is for BSA to figure out the calendar foolishness, because either it's good at the time or recharter or it's not. It is up the the Scouter to be current when the annual recharter rolls around. Remember...BSA does not exist just to support and promote YPT training, this is just part of the overall prog

I'm struggling with scouts. Recently a few things have made it clear to me what that struggle is and I'm wondering if others have the same challenges. The paradox is simple. On the one hand when I see a scout that grew, or had fun, or helped another scout, or just did something that showed our goals were being met, it's great. It encourages me to go on. It's pure heart when a scout says "I get it!". On the other hand, the BSA program has become a set of trigger words that just scream bureaucratic pain because none of it seems to be really helping me or anyone else help scouts. A few exam

When last I checked, Canada, the UK, Australia, South Africa, Mexico, the Philippines, and India recruit adults directly, and I was reprimanded for doing it in the U.S. (Contacted Eagle Scouts.). It may be possible to cure incompetence, but low IQ is tougher.

Do or do not, there is no try. - Yoda Are expectations lower for Girl Scouts than Boy Scouts? Could they be better motivated to excel with a few small tweaks to their oath and law? One writer thinks that because the Boy Scouts use language like "I will" while the Girl Scouts use language like "I will try" that we're collectively implying that we don't really expect Girl Scouts to succeed, but hey! trying is good too. Here's the story: https://www.nj.com/opinion/2019/12/why-is-it-that-boy-scouts-will-but-girl-scouts-try-change-the-promise-please-opinion.html

I strongly suspect that has to do with the increased cost of registration. I know that when registration jumped up to $33 per scout, many of the troops in our area started purging the rolls of scouts who were inactive. Where the year before the discussion was "These 7 scouts are still registered but we haven't seen them in 8-9 months, lets keep them on and hope they come back" that year it changed to "These 7 scouts haven't been seen in 8-9 months, lets go ahead and drop them, they can always re-register". I don't think it was really that the burden of the extra $9/yr was a problem, it

Agreed. The possibility of a lack of consequences in this case is what concerned me most. Imagine if this guy got a pass and nothing happened. That would validate the notion that this behavior is ok, that the reporter put herself in the "line of fire" as some of Callaway's supporters have suggested. No female reporter could stand with her back to a crowd, since we've now given men the "ok" to slap/grab without consequence. I know this isn't the case, and he's facing serious consequences. As I believe he should. I just don't see the other side of this, how we (collective society) could jus

I certainly agree that the mindset is wrong at national and in the council staffs. It feels to me like they think of units and unit volunteers as entities to managed. Your YPT percentage isn't 100%, you're not advancing enough, you're not recruiting enough. I believe it would do the BSA well to adopt much more of a service mentality than a management mentality. Yet, on this specific YPT issue I can't get too worked up. I too have chased volunteers to get this done. It's a royal pain. The BSA could simplify this immensely by adopting a policy of: - YPT certification is good for

This is a significant misapplication of that verse. Jesus is not telling us that social judgement cannot be applied by the sinful. The verse is in context of a situation manufactured to trap Jesus in conflict with either Jewish or Roman law (because the laws themselves conflicted). We can certainly discuss if this man should continue to be a BSA leader or how we believe the justice system should act. We are not the ones administering judgement here so no one is actually casting stones. Don't water down that analogy. Jesus didn't mean figurative stones. The men in that story were try

@awanatech, conflating YP (which is a modification of aldult association) with advancement gets us nowhere. Better to just say local impositions that are neither important to National nor mandated by the state make it hard for volunteers to do their job well.

How is it that BSA can emphasize that neither local Councils, units, leaders nor anyone else can add requirements, take away requirements, nor in any other way modify the requirements that the youth are to meet in order to advance, yet all of these Councils are able to require YPT annually when BSA has established it to be valid for 2 years? Isn't that changing the requirements for our adult leaders beyond what BSA has put in place?

> kneejerk reaction I suppose it appears that way, and "tone" is a challenge in written form but there's more to it. Having spent four decades in the largest bureaucracy on earth I am used to putting with things i think are stupid. But if you build an organization around free labor you have a responsibility to nurture that labor force. We spent all of the Fall rebuilding our pack and raising money. My goal was that no parent would have to pay more than $30. This is a poor community. We almost lost the whole pack last year because we were led by higher income people who di

I think Venturing is the canary in the coal mine because it really relies on youth leadership and there is much less incentive for adults to fix things. What I saw of venturing was really poor leadership and teamwork skills resulting in a loss of interest. The few crews I've seen were run like GSUSA troops in that it was a few adults that held it together until they aged out and the crew collapsed. I'm sure some were/are great, but not what I saw. I'm not at all surprised by those numbers. I think it's entirely because the youth have less opportunity to learn people skills outside of scou

'Base "performance' on numbers, and someone will cheat.' I Agree. One example... When I was a District Commissioner I had a ongoing disagreement with some professionals about "quality" versus "quantity". I considered it an achievement when the Scout Executive agreed not to re-charter some Ships and Troops that added membership, but were really military cadet groups. Membership numbers are not an absolute criteria for performance, but is an indicator. Membership changes due to many factors, including the performance of the CO and their adults offering a quality program.

The CC bangs his gavel and says "The Meeting will come to order"....

So by March, or so, we should know the size of the decline in youth membership.