Leaderboard

@Parkman, I agree with your perspectives, but in the last couple days I've been doing a lot of pondering.... I don't think Congress has put much stock in the BSA's charter for a long time. It's probably viewed as another antiquated decision from yesteryear. I rather doubt Congress would intervene at all regarding the BSA's future. It's true, the camps, HA bases, history, and goodwill would be gone. But I'm starting to view the situation as we would a forest fire. The fire burns everything in its path, healthy and detritus alike. But what grows back is green and fresh. Oth

Another idea: What would it look like if the DE's could do what they thought was right, what they hired in to do, rather than chase numbers? I've met really great people that were destroyed by the get-money-or-die directives.

Speaking of DE's and the professionals. The local ones have had the bonus helping of BSA kool aid following the Chapter 11. Now the group is Dallas is "Our National Affiliate", let's distance ourselves from them guys. All is great, this Chapter 11 thingie is a good step, Council assets will not be part of this, they (assuming lawyers) will not come after local Councils, etc It's a tough sell, but really. Also if the discussion is membership and units, they all talk about how the year ended, adding girls, good growth..but no detail about how things shook out after recharter.

Scouting would be a stronger, larger program.

At this point, all we can do is what we should all be doing anyways, continue to provide the best possible Scouting experiences to our Scouts, try to build the movement locally, and wait to see what is going to happen to National on down.

This is a complete joke and insulting. Please, enough with your disdain of Professionals.

Frankly, I am very frustrated that the "natural" response from 90% of the commentators, Scouts, victims and Scouting volunteers is to automatically assert that the natural remedy to heinous crimes of abuse committed by, in some cases, people that are dead or long since removed from their positions within Scouting, is to take money from todays' innocent children and volunteers and give it to the victims. There is nothing moral about taking from the innocents of today, and the future, to give to victims of the past. Nothing moral at all. I get anger on the part of the victims, and a desire to

May I adjust your wording? Make American Boy Scouts Great Again. MABSGA!

I'm skeptical. In my 10 years of recruiting kids, never once have I heard - are you a member of WOSM? You hear lots of "I couldn't wait for my son to be a Scout like I was." "I remember when I earned my Eagle", "I was on Summer Camp staff and loved it.", "I was very active in the OA."

I found that mothers are the hard sell. You will have to explain the reasoning to me, but moms are very skeptical that patrol method does anything toward character growth. So, I learned to develop my sells pitch to mothers. Still, in most cases, they weren't sold on Patrol Method until they saw the results in person. They were Type A converts that were so passionate of what Patrol Method could do for scouts that they went out and marketed the program to their packs. We never had to go look for Webelos visitors because they called us to get our moms off their back. I have several experiences li

Look at this bigshot, being able to keep DE's for almost a year. What's the secret to your retention?

Concerning DE's and districts altogether how about look at the needs of the unit and let that drive how it's delivered. Different units have different needs. A few are really strong and don't need any support. They can do their own training and run their own program. Most are muddling along and some are new (we hope!). They need help maturing. The goal should be to grow the unit's maturity, just like working with a PL. What does that look like? The current model is training, turn-key program (just write a check and show up to a camporee, summer camp, or a high adventure base), and wise gu

The older camp was placed in a trust around 100 years ago. Council sold another camp before leasing the Corp of Engineers property around 20 years ago. I believe the lease is for 50 years.

When I evoke an image of what a "professional" is and what I hope it to be, is a person with knowledge gained through education and life experience. If we took the membership gorilla off our DE's backs, stopped treating them like they are endowment fundraisers, and let them have the time to get out into the real thick of what Scouting is, I could see them being able to lead (or at least be the coordinator for the volunteers who will be leading) training sessions several times a year, at different parts of their territory. The better pros I have got to know relish being able to go to a campou

I always liked the sound of Round Table. It evokes the feeling of a meeting of equals. Nothing top down.

I do remember reading that one. My thought wasn't even as radical as what you're suggesting. As a name - I don't love the idea of a district committee. I think it's too heavy handed a name. But, I do think there is a role for some kind of "Scouting Community" at what approximates a district level. I've been involved in a couple of districts in my time. What I generally see in the functioning ones is that there is a core community of Scouters who form the backbone of what happens in that area. Most have some sort of district role - but others might be in roles like a long t

NotNot sure this was discussed and it covers a couple of these threads, but there's an important question that needs addressing. If the BSA membership drops to between .5M and1M, what will the program and structure look like? I'm not saying it will go that way but it could get ugly. And even if it doesn't get that bad it would certainly help make the BSA stronger if it could deliver a good program with fewer resources and fewer people. Random thought spewage: Fewer DE's covering the same territory. Fewer units will be near each other. All those units in rural areas will be typical. Neighb

BPSA It was started in the US in 2006 and in 2016 had 1,600 members. This is exactly my point.

Patriot Scout? There is something about "Eagle Scout" that has gravitas. Continuity. History. Legacy. Association. It's like saying RC Cola is the same as Coke. Personally, I like the taste of RC Cola, but it's not Coke.

Well, I'd have to argue that there wasn't much of any "covering things up" in the vast majority of cases; they just weren't advertised. And a big part of that was that the thinking back before the 80's was very different about "the best interests of the child". The general belief was that the social stigma that would come from a public accusation and arrest and trial would cause more harm to the victim than just "moving on". I mean, let's keep in mind that any of these instances that went unreported to the police could ONLY have gone unreported with the agreement of the child's parents.

Just to add another way of what @Eagledad and @yknot seem to be saying, scout led doesn't mean adult ignored. Ask questions. Keep them out of ruts. Keep them about the law and oath. One size of adult participation does not fit all, it really depends on the maturity of the scouts.

The patrol method works in troops where the behind the scenes adult leadership is good. If it is, the scouts learn how to lead and manage their affairs through osmosis and observation of good leaders without a lot of direct influence. If that background doesn't exist, however, the patrol method doesn't work as well. If leaders aren't organized, planning ahead, or resolving interpersonal issues well among themselves, then the scouts will have a harder time figuring those things out because they have no one to learn from. The patrol method isn't an absence of adult leadership or mentoring but t

If the local councils get pulled into the Chapter 11 some such as my local council might be able to survive. The reason I say this is that my local council only owns the local council office building. The two camp properties that the council uses are not owned by the council. The main camp is leased from the Army Corp of Engineers and the other older camp property is in a trust that cannot be sold and would revert to the local community only if the scouts abandoned the property.

Let's not conflate our personal frustrations with the organization that is the BSA with the public policy issue here. The United States Congress chartered the BSA as the organization tasked with bringing Scouting to boys in this country. If the BSA dissolves, something will take it's place - but it will be with vastly diminished membership and resources. 15%-20% of kids at best in the new organization. Summer camps gone. High adventure bases gone. Historical good will gone. We'll be set back 80 years in terms of infrastructure for the program. Today buying large camp properties is

Right. But, from a public policy perspective, do we as a country, really want to dismantle Congressionally chartered non-profit organizations where the entire staff and leadership is different today than when the offenses happened? We're not talking firing the Executive Board and replacing the professionals. Those pursuing these cases are talking about ending the BSA. We all think our packs and troops are safe and our councils will be fine. I don't buy it. I expect that those pursuing these cases will find a way to argue that all councils are really part of the same master organiza

It seems to me that much of this problem, not only with the BSA, but the Churches and those youth entities that are waiting in the wings to have BSA and the Catholic Church drained before they are drawn in, is that we have the false idea that you can fix the errors of the past by dragging them into the present. It is like the idea of preparations for Slavery. How deep and how far back do you go to find the victims, and how do you distinquish who gets the reparation today? Something that is not too often noted in the Slavery issue is that many of the ones doing the selling were tribal

Like my Pakistani buddy tells me, "You Americans won't believe anything unless it's on a piece of paper." So, that youth-run troop needs to put something into the hands of those Webelos. So, that might mean: A calendar. Ideally, it would be one with the dates of the entire year printed on one side AND scheduled activity days and meetings circled or stamped, then the names of the activities, hand written, by the scouts on the other side. A follow-up card hand-written by a scout mailed to each prospect who visited the troop. It doesn't have to say much: "Thanks for visiting. I h

Our Troop will participate in our Charter Organization's service on Scout Sunday. My church holds their own Scout Sunday and the Scouts are the altar servers, lectors, ushers, and gift bearers for the Mass. Last year we had 100+ Scouts. We attract Scouts from other local communities because their own churches do not hold Scout Sunday services and because our religious emblem recipients should be recognized in a church setting.