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As a Skipper for a ship that is connected with the people at national that run this because we are basically already running on our own. There isn't inventory for Sea Scouts, the amount that BSA pays for Sea Scouts is extremely small and basically purely volunteer run. I don't know what you have against Sea Scouts, but you should do your homework on us before you try to throw our program under the bus. Our manuals are all PDF's, uniforms are purchased directly from Dickies or 5.11. You aren't paying OUR bills, I am many others raise money and pay money out of our pocket to Friends of Scou

I wish that was the same for all the programs. I know materials have been moving that direction, but I'll be glad to see more and more move that direction.

OK I am going to venture into the Sea Scouting/Venturing mess. 1. Sea Scouting is the second oldest program in the BSA, being founded in 1912, because it is the second oldest Scouting program worldwide, officially being created in 1910 but BP mentions going on sailing expeditions with his brothers as a youth. As @mashmasterhas stated, Sea Scouting folks have been talking care of themselves for an extremely long time as they have been the red-headed stepchildren of the BSA since before I was a Sea Explorer in the 1990s. Volunteers have really picked up the slack that BSA dropped. N

I wish there was more focus on quality rather than quantity. The number of quality programs is probably a better indicator of the future then the number of current youth.

If you are signing up for Sea Base make sure your e-check payments actually go through. I made my 30 day payment 5 days early after the initial deposit. Everything looked fine. Got a confirmation email of payment. No problem. This week I wanted to check when our next payment is due and I noticed that I was overdue for my 30 day payment. It said the payment had been cancelled but I never got a notification of this. Contacted Sea Base and they said they would check and assured me my Crews were not cancelled. Called the bank and the funds had never been transferred but there were suff

That doesn't really explain it. That may mean BSA constructively owns Summit, but it skips any mention of JP Morgan. BSA may own Arrow, which owns Summit, but that doesn't mean Summit isn't encumbered to something like its full value by a JP Morgan instrument that's going to stand in front of any other claims. I could set up an LLC or trust to own my home, but if there's a mortgage close or equal to the property's value, forcing me to reclaim title from the Trust/LLC wouldn't make any money available to me or a creditor until the mortgage note is satisfied.

Read: "Yippee! Great for us. Great for BSA (though we don't really care about that.) We're getting out of this for a song and a prayer. Our butts are so far exposed on these ill-advised policies it's not even funny. Well, maybe it is. Jokes on you, BSA CSA victims..." "Prudent defenses" and "legal postures." Ha. Read: "Yes, we have coverage defenses, but we are by no means confident in the strength or weight of those defenses. This is a happy exit for Hartford!"

Okayyyy... but there is more than dollars at stake here. A lot more. We have a vanishing percentage of Americans involved in scouting. These folks are our friends, members, advocates and ambassadors. I wouldn't cut anyone loose who is in the scouting fold right now. Whatever thousands they are costing it is a drop in the bucket compared to the billions being discussed in this bankruptcy. I feel like we need to focus on the relevant stuff here.

When you see quantities drop like this, it is hard to argue we have a lot of quality units.

It must be nice to have the luxury to fret over a “might try” of anything. But since you asked ... Your committee chair does not have to let anybody sign on as an adult leader to his committee. If you have a parent or two who the CC respects enough to welcome into your unit, their needs come first over someone who has wrongly approached a parent. Scouts is not a social event for parents. It’s where we teach young people how to forestall death. Have some of us made life-long friendships that have outlasted our kids’ time in scouting? Yes! Would I call them out if any of them made any of

Each year, especially during late winter and early spring, the Iowa Department of Natural Resources (DNR) receives reports of sick or dead birds at feeder locations. Buckardt Thomas, an avian ecologist for the DNR, says unsanitary conditions at birdfeeders can lead to the spread of several diseases including aspergillosis,, salmonella, and conjunctivitis amongst birds that frequent these feeders. “Practicing good hygiene at feeder stations is the key,” she said. “Clean birdfeeders and waterers with a 10-percent bleach solution about once each month and make sure the feeder is dry before r

Forgot Scout’s Life. $235

This is no joke. This spring, during the pine siskin irruption and concurrent salmonella outbreak, online birding groups sounded just like online corona discussions. One I'm in had to ban "feeder shaming" when people who'd never seen a sick bird did not go above and beyond recommendations and remove all their feeders for a month. People posting old pictures of birds at feeders felt the need to qualify their descriptions by explaining that the photos were not recent. Lots of ugliness.

No. There are claims vs. lawsuits. Currently, there are over 900 sexual abuse lawsuits pending (meaning someone went into a courthouse, filed papers, and formally started a lawsuit against BSA National, a Local Council, a Chartered Organization, or some combination). There are currently 82,500 claims (roughly). These were documents filed with the bankruptcy court last November that claimed the person was sexually abused as a scout. The idea is that if you have/had ANY claim (prior to February 2020) that BSA owed you ANY money in ANY way, shape, or form, you had until November 2

EXACTLY! This is LITERALLY what they say during the YPT video: is it NOT your job to play investigator. It is your duty to report and let BSA handle it. I really, really do not understand why people are trying to defend/protect this behavior. I really don't.

But it is not our duty to make this determination. It is our duty to report it, and let those who are tasked with investigating do their job.

What on earth are you talking about? Proposition someone for a threesome is most certainly "sexual activity/discourse". I don't know how much clearer this needs to be for you. and

The scouter code of conduct clearly states you will not engage in harassment and nowhere does it specify or infer that is limited to youth. Nowhere in that document does it state that the harassment, or any other conduct requirements such as possession of alcohol or political or social advocacy, has to be observed by youth to be reportable.

We did the opposite. I have to charge $25 new scout signup fee + registration fees. We dropped our Pack fee for now.

It really is that blatant at this point. BSA and Hartford hit a sweetheart deal, in which the sexual abuse victims (either through their attorneys or at least the TCC) had precisely 0 input. And the two of them expect the abuse victims to just accept it. This was the same stunt they pulled when they reached an "agreement" with JP Morgan over Arrow WV/Summit.

I think it's going to be next to impossible to maintain program momentum and do any meaningful recruitment with numbers like this. Trying to recruit new Tiger leaders is tough without a lot of support. I also don't think things are going to magically rebound when (if) Covid is gone. Covid is not the only reason numbers have been declining although it's certainly been the most impactful.

The problem with this argument is we are, or were, dues paying members of BSA. At unit level, we were members of a licensed (ok, chartered) aka contracted organization. Council and National provided goods and services, we provided the last mile to the youth. IF we were in District or Council service, we were volunteers or employees of the local corporation. Think about camp staff. if we were in Regional/National volunteer or professional service, we were part of big BSA.

Agreed make that first year free, do some free or really cheap cub events

Do you have true March 2021 post recharter total numbers that would be an update of the December 2020 numbers? I've been looking for that.

I think it is a good option. The biggest problem is finding pants that fit our female scouts and leaders. We need 5.11 and Dickies to figure that part out

I think Venturing may fade away but Sea Scouts will remain fairly stable in or outside BSA. I see almost no value to them staying in BSA. When I talk with our local Ship, the leader spent an hour complaining about the BSA and that it provides nothing. I guess I question why stay in the BSA at that point ... create a stand alone organization without the burden of BSA overhead. On the BSA side, if they are not going to invest or do anything with Sea Scouts ... then why keep them? It is definitely concerning based on the comments above that leaders in BSA don't even know they exist. At tha

The current drop in Venturing and Sea Scouting is directly attributed to the fact that a lot of Crews and Ships stopped doing anything in person last year. The youth are mainly high school age and done with doing more online stuff. My son is in a Ship and a Crew. The Ship has been active sailing since last June and we have held steady on our membership, scouts aged out and we gained a few new scouts. If we didn't have to modify, I think we could have grown more. The Crew did online meetings and dropped membership by 50%. The youth are bored out of their minds for online meetings. Re

Ventures/Sea Scouts are fading away on their own regardless of what National does or doesn't do. V/SS have less than 14K and E less than 17K youth. More disturbing is that the numbers show that there are more Scouts BSA than Cubs. Mergers might work some but as long as Exec Bds have to approve them, no one is likely to want to merge with a failing (cash poor) council. An ever growing number of councils have less than 1000 youth. Some parents are hesitant to join as they hear about the bankruptcy and may be waiting it out to see what happens.

I think the money is not the reason, but spinning off non core programs still makes sense. My personal experience... several years ago my organization had a lot of variety of products with low volumes. Even the low volume products made money, but they distracted our sales and R&D teams from our core products. We ended the non core products, focused our efforts on the core ones and are growing. I don’t expect this will happen, BSA is more likely to fade under a slow moving bureaucracy than take the aggressive actions needed. They are making good choices to reduce number of laye

Social distance, flatten the curve.

Some Wisconsin numbers (not a big LDS state)... 2018 63,283 Youth 830 Packs 652 Troops 128 Crews 18,576 Adults 9,567 Learning for Life/Explorers 2020 33,457 Youth 641 Packs 658 Troops 79 Crews 12,560 adults 2,178 Learning of Life/Explorers The loss of Packs is concerning as is the ratio of Packs to Troops. Venturing is dying. There is no pipeline that feeds the program. I also think that adding girls to Troops likely cut off some of the interest. I hope the 2020 numbers are post recharter. If

That was a LONG document. I reviewed the redline a bit ... looks like the major changes $1,500 payout option for those that select it (if the plan is approved). Updated dates Clarified process for firms voting for their claimants. BSA will need written evidence for each claimant that they agree to have their legal representative vote for them or BSA will send the ballot directly to the claimant. (Before, it appears they would have allowed the firm to sign a document stating they have approval to vote). Tight timeline to submit those documents to BSA as well.

Your troop and paperwork is much more than any unit I have ever been involved with or even visited. And that number is a pretty large number. Also, all those units would let the visiting scout join in the reindeer games. If I may ask, What type of organization is your charter?

I would still call HQ that you have heard some things which are concerning. Let them investigate. Not our job to seek out or wait for evidence, that is the purpose of investigating. We report concerns.

That’s not “creeped out.” It’s patently offensive (even among sexually permissive circles) to assume that a single mom would be amenable to polygamy. Stick up for your moms. Reject this guy.

No YPT issues here. The only issue would be if they were camping and he tented with a scout 2 years older than him. But at meetings nothing that I can think of. The only guide to safe scouting issue would be if they did an activity that isn't allowed for his age group, like shooting shotguns for example. It all good, welcome to the forum!

I don't see any rules or in fact any problems with this. The boy got to do stuff with the older scouts and hopefully had fun. Maybe that will excite him to join the troop when he is old enough. It would have been worse if he attended and didn't get to do anything. He might have decided Troops are boring and don't want him. I don't understand the point about why they should have informed you. Any of your scouts should feel comfortable visiting any troop at anytime, not just when there is an invitation. My advice would be to let it go, it is all good.

Yes. 2021 March KPI report that the summary page numbers were shared with me. March 2020 to March 2021 comparison. I'm guessing the 2021 numbers are post rechartering. Cubs Scouts BSA V/SS Explorers Total 2021 348738 369716 13832 16787 749073 2020 641939 417360 25399 58311 1143009

Society has made propositioning for this thing not fall under "sexual activity/discourse." This might be unacceptable in your your scouter-verse, and for good reason. But if a complaint went up the chain, this guy probably argued a "I didn't realize that's what they meant ..." clash-of-culture defense. Bottom line: if youth didn't observe it, you'll be hard-pressed to call it a YP issue.