Leaderboard

There are a lot of theories and ideas being tossed around. When the BSA announced the bankruptcy they clearly stated that they national organization did not own the individual councils and that they were administered by their own bord of directors. That statement tells me that the BSA owned 4 campgrounds, an office, and a brand. Issues concerning merging or combining councils are the responsibility of those local boards. Units should be responsible for their own business with the help of their local council. I see little need for monitors or policy enforcement professionals or any of the o

Nearly everything is automated anyway. YPT, advancement, training, and rechartering are all automated. I sometimes think that those positions that have "region, area, or national" are no more but honorariums and are given out just to stroke individual egos. What do these people do to positively support individual units? How is someone from Connecticut going to tell people in Georgia how to conduct the Scouting program? These are the ones who like to say "you can't do that" or "that is not proper uniforming" and expect you to take their word for it. I think that those who are "above the

Well said, @Mrjeff. I've watched the professional levels of the BSA over the decades become more and more distant from grass roots scouting. Same with the council and National committees.

I think that is curious that BSA Scouters often quote Baden-Powell in remarks concerning BSA. There are many references made about a letter that BP wrote to the Scouts, especially during Woodbadge courses. I often wonder why the other letters written by BP are excluded. In the book Two Lives of a Hero there are a couple of other letters. One makes reference about not letting the Scout leaders becoming a corps of professionals because it will diminish the fact that Scout leaders are civic minded individuals who are concerned about the youth in their communities. Hmmmm.......let's not talk a

Schedule of Assets and Liabilities of BSA https://casedocs.omniagentsolutions.com/cmsvol2/pub_47373/812006_375.pdf Over 1000 pages of approximate?, best-guess? assets and liabilities of BSA. Recommend one take some aspirin before skimming as I now have a migraine. Note pages 144 thru 185 (42 pages!) list all BSA registered internet domains with "undetermined" value. The domains are in alphabetical order in small font, roughly 31 domains per page. 31 x 42 = 1302 domains more or less? The BSA even registered scouter.org (expires 2021-10-16)! What a waste of money! Artwork,

It would certainly be more hygienic to end the handshake in general, not just scouts. As society learned about germs, we made changes to reduce the spread of disease. Civil War "doctors" didn't sterilize their saws when doing amputations. We learned that was a bad idea. It's not unreasonable to discuss ending the handshake. There are people in my office who don't wash their hands after using the bathroom. Some think 2 seconds of water and no soap is good enough. There are many people like this. Do you want to shake their hands?

Domains are cheap generally, and they assert some level of defense over a trademark. Maybe more importantly registration of a domain prevents someone else from registering it and doing something unscoutlike with it. Better to own the registration on scouting.xxx, .sex, .adult, and .porn than to leave it to chance. There were something like 600 TLDs the last I cared to look, so it takes a few registrations.

ah. We agree on this. The more time I've spent around national Professionals, the more and more I don't like them.

@RememberSchiff, thanks for being lead blocker on this research! Those domains are definitely of "undetermined" value. Many are near duplicates. Just as many are obscure. Most of them probably aren't worth anything close to what the BSA paid/pays for them. Just a jumble of stuff. All over the map.

1. At this point I think that professionals above the council level have become damage control specialists, rule enforcement specialists, political correctness barristers, and money collectors. Anyone, professional or volunteer, outside of the individual councils dont have much to do with the success of the individual unit. If the resources expended to support the BSA had been used by councils and districts to assist the individual unit we wouldn't be in the shape we are in. Jeeeees, how many times does Woodbadge have to be rewritten? How many different ways can training be revamped and pr

To be fair, the Professional has always been that way. That was by design by Mr. West himself.

This could be spun off into a delightful issues and politics thread. This virus has been a multi national failure of multiple governments and health agencies, trickling down to local leadership being unprepared or in denial.

I have seen some troops do various participation beads as well. Every night camping gets you a red bead, if below freezing a blue or white one, without a tent clear, etc.

Your grandfather's volunteer legacy can help us all! Please tell us more. From Boys Town Alumni, Joseph Edward Wherry (1948-2014), ...the epitome of servant leadership. Boys Town alumnus, US Navy Vietnam disabled veteran, long time Scouter, national service officer for Veterans Association... Scout Salute and farewell.

Someone needs to keep diluting the fun in the requirements? Prevent us from abusing squirt guns? I think the idea of competition would be good. That would require some flexibility in the program. I'm just not sure the 20 super councils is the way to do that. The only reason some councils are doing well is because they're in large metro areas with plenty of companies that can still donate lots of money. That's a model that doesn't work past the town those companies are in. 20 super councils corresponds to roughly 14 current councils per super council. The biggest cost of councils is p

I don't know if any of you still use this site, but I did have some info about my grandpa Joseph Edward Wherry l, who was the youngest at 36 years old and received the Silver Beaver Award in 1983. Granted that was a long time ago, I haven't heard about anyone else younger. I feel like this probably would've been beaten by now but I just wanted to put this out there if this could help anyone out.

@BPPatrolonaRoll, welcome to the forums! It takes time to get to know your youth. It sounds like you've realised that your scouts are into an activity that gets them a medal or a patch after a day's work. So ... you need to look for state/national parks that offer such things. Or, call your fire or police department about small awards they may offer. You may have to talk to your SM about budgeting for such things. Your troop can also make totems that would travel from patrol-to-patrol for things like "best uniform", "favorite skit", "first aid champion", etc ...

I think it's irrational to believe that this pandemic spells the end of such basic parts of our culture as hand-shaking. For a season it may diminish in use, but only for a season - when we finally have this illness beaten, which we will, I believe the handshake will come back with a vengeance. Until that time, I am strongly encouraging all Scout leaders to salute each other - it's just as much a means of salutation as the handshake, and in many situations I even prefer it. Why don't we salute each other more? lol.