Leaderboard

Too many Americans have been staking out absolute positions and daring others to cross a rhetorical line. Sometimes the rhetoric on even this site has trended in a similar direction, with folks just not showing respect for reasoned but differing views. The divisions that evolve reduce our confidence in our nation's Constitution, and similarly in the fundamental approaches in Scouting. The WWII combat veterans who were the Scoutmasters and Skippers of my youth were not that way. They fought hard in a war to ease my way through life, and Boy Scouts and Sea Scouts helped make me what I hope i

I believe in the ideals. It's the people who work so hard at tearing them down, who seem to be gaining in influence, that erode faith... I, for one, am standing in the gap as best I can.

Here is the answer to the question regarding whether BSA professionals/retirees would have an economic incentive to favor liquidation over reorganization. If the pension benefit guarantee fund were to take over the account, the longer-time and higher-paid employees will have their monthly payouts significantly reduced. Some of the monthly checks would get cut from the 15K-20K/ month range down to $5K/month. So they overwhelmingly favor reorganization. For lowest-paid or short-term employees there is not much of an issue.

And unit admins can approve any rank advancement stuff, too. This is a design flaw of scoutbook.com This makes it imposible to tell whether the person who marked it "Leader Approved" was the person who actually approved the work., or merely the person who is transcribing the information from the scout's properly signed (paper) blue card or (paper) scout handbook. Sometimes you can tell if you know the troop: Mrs. AAA and Mr. BBB are the paperwork lteam and never actually approve scouts work, but have been given permission so they can transcribe stuff into scoutbook. But what

Many councils are moving to this: not only must MBCs be YPT/registered they also have to be position trained (the 35 minute course on training.scouting.org) I expect that will be the next wave of unregistered MBCs going below ground (or staying there). But it also upend MBCs. MBCs are suppose to be a) district positions that are d) district recruited and c) subject matter experts. Not already burdened unit leaders pressed into service. Of course, that ship already sailed...

What do you all think about an auto-eligibility for any adult who is registered in any other position (besides MBC) and completes YPT (and whatever other state-mandated paperwork is required)? I could imagine an E-memo going out from a district inviting someone with completed paper work to take a few more steps involving watching a MBC-specific training video and filling out an online form asking which MB's they'd like to counsel. The memo could be sent to all eligible scouters or Key-Three could be sent a link to the list of eligible adults in their unit, and they could check off who sho

Well the wife and I got an automated notice stating: I contacted the registrar about the issue, especially since I will work with any Scout in the council and not just my unit. Registrar stated this happened automatically to ALL registered MBCs in the council. She is working on fixing the problem, but it will take some time. Wife is absolutely furious over this, and has decided to do #2 approach at the moment. Remember she has had registration issues in the past. This is the Scouter who has completed and submitted 6 applications (one of which was hand delivered to the cou

Refreshing, although dated... https://thisibelieve.org/essay/16630/

BSA is quoted as saying they are deeply sorry for the abuse and expects that any irregularities among claims will be addressed as it works toward a settlement to compensate survivors. My guess is they take the path as #1 as I don't see the settlement changing at all. Basically, BSA will give everything it can (or is forced to) regardless of the numbers we are talking about.

Here's why liquidation hurts plaintiffs who want money, not vengeance. Folks like Kosnoff want BSA dead, liquidated, and gone. That's great on the "vengeance" side, but it is lousy in terms of maximizing the amount of any Victims Settlement pool. Let's play with some numbers. Right now, there are $4.3 BILLION in claims against BSA. BSA has total assets of $600 million to $1 billion (depending on who you ask and how you count it). In the event of liquidation, Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation is first at the trough and eats whatever of that $600 million is needed for

The kids in the Southern contingent of our family address all adults as "Sir" or "Ma'am". Reunion visits tend to make you feel as if you've had a sudden promotion to something ...

Right, this is why my Council Key-3 told us: the plaintiffs (or most) WANT a settlement that leaves BSA alive. Liquidation means Pension Benefit Guaranty Corporation comes to protect the BSA retiree/pensioners and they re first in line and plaintiffs/their attorneys get the scraps of whatever is left, which won't be much.

The claimant's attorneys want the largest possible amount placed into a Victims Trust Fund, so they have the economic motivation to file as many claims as possible and argue that, within the totality of claims filed, all are valid. The insurance companies want the lowest possible amount placed into the Victim's Trust Fund, so they have the economic motivation to uncover fraud and other facts that would diminish the value of the totality of claims filed. In a way, the BSA is somewhere in-between, because it wants to see justice done for victims via payments, but also wants to retain sufficien

What WOULD stop that, would be a requirement that a MBC include a valid BSA registration number along with their signature on a blue card in order for it to be effective.

No. Scoutbook allowed units to name ANYONE an MBC. This was a residual aspect of Scoutbook; it was originally a UNIT management tool. BSA just bought it and is attaching it to Scoutnet piece by piece. As such, the unit management software allowed units to identify certain people as MBCs. The example was this. 1) Troop 123 has a scout that wants to earn Reading Merit badge BUT they have no reading MBC. 2) Troop 123's scout reaches out (after getting a blue card of course and the name from the SM) to Troop 456's Reading Merit Badge counselor based on the list the SM got from

There is a famous statement, I forget who said it, but it goes something like "debates and discussion are intended for the purpose of learning, not winning". I remember back when the BSA started requiring MB counselors to register; the explanation was the new policy was to protect the counselor as much as the scouts. So, I personally don't believe only protecting scouts from abuse ends the discussion. This is a complicated situation that forces the a look at the intention of the MB process as well of its benefits in the present day. The subject has to be discussed with some depth, a