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Ok ... moved the National Annual Meeting discussion to the NAM thread here: I also created a new discussion regarding LDS Abuse Handling. It seemed to start a bit related to CH11, but then diverted a lot and may be missed by others who are interested.

The Mormon Church has long thought of BSA as a subsidiary of LDS, Inc., and for good reason. The Mormon Church goes back to the beginning of BSA, actually before BSA. LDS was the very FIRST Chartering Organization. The Mormon Church folded its Pioneers scouting program into BSA in approximately 1917. It became the largest CO with over 40% of all troops. It approached scouting differently than other chartering organizations. It used its association with BSA as a way to mainstream away from its terrible public image coming out of the polygamy criminal prosecutions and near forc

Specifically, it means Jerry Sandusky. Absent this, the original statute would not have included his colleagues. But generally it means any volunteer who works with youth. (I think that includes youth themselves. Our church puts high school students who volunteer with younger youth through mandatory reporter training.) Our councils here have not split hairs. Every adult leader is to act as though they are a mandatory reporter.

I think you would find the discussion surprising. When we were involved chaperoning, attending and transporting youth in church, school, sports and so on, we found their youth protection polices very limiting compared to the BSA youth protection, if they had any guidelines at all. Often the on the spot ad-hoc policies came from scouters who were used to the BSA youth protection. My wife was always the most nervous youth getting hurt when she chaperoned the annual school group to New York City. But the teacher who led that activity many times took the concern in stride because she never ha

While it is of great concern to many on this forum, and for obvious yet different reasons, the BSA and LC assets are only one piece of the pie and probably the smallest. The biggest is the insurers. Claimants will have to consider the "whole" pie.

I think discussions about youth protection in the context of the religious institutions that have been involved in scouting, of which LDS is certainly a dominant one, are perhaps some of the most relevant discussions on this forum. Trying to understand the differing attitudes among all the players involved regarding youth protection policies, training, reporting, etc., has been central to this our greatest crisis and will be exquisitely relevant to any future survival of the BSA. We have to be willing to be brutally honest that we have had attitudes, policies, beliefs, and procedures that have

I took the time to re read my own comments to make sure I did not inadvertently say anything that could be construed as emotional or offensive because I would not want to do that. I did not. Virtually all my comments are factual -- stating state laws and resources, including ones that are used by BSA, and in some cases providing links. When I have disagreed with you and have been unable to follow your logic, I have clearly said so and been respectful in doing so. Frankly, I think you and others are having emotional reactions to statements of facts or opinions you don't agree with. I can under

I didn't. Don't ascribe to me words written by others.

Thank you, Latin Scot for you prompt reply Happy scouting Hamish

Perhaps because for almost the entire history of BSA, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints Was the single largest chartering group, bar none (the Methodist Church, collectively, came in a distant second). Exercised an enormous amount of influence over BSA policies and procedures, some of which remain to this day despite the departure of The Church. Because those religious practices bled over into Scouting. Some were mundane: No raffle tickets for BSA fundraising? Put in by leaders of The Church due to objections over gambling. Some were less mundane. The Church's p

So, as a member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, I have just a few things I want to address: 1. Please do not refer to our religion as "the Mormon Church." That name was first used as a derogatory term by mobs and persecutors who actively sought to harm and exterminate our people, and though its use has come in and out of vogue (even amongst our own), it is no longer the proper way to address our faith. We are The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. You may shorted it to "The Church of Christ," or "The Restored Church of Christ," but "Mormon" is not the correct

Yes, I do tend to put a lot of thought into policies of this nature, trying to consider the viewpoints and needs of all the people and organizations involved because I know that compliance only works when people buy into both the reasons behind a policy and the procedures required to comply with it. Furthermore, I think avoiding unintended consequences is fairly important with laws and policies involving sensitive issues because it can be significantly harder to fix problems after the fact than it was to establish the law or policy in the first place. And of course there is the fact that dec

I think you are overestimating how widespread the knowledge is. I think everyone is aware that Nurses, Doctors, LE officers and the like are mandatory reporters, but those designations get updated sometimes without a lot of fanfare and it would be easy for some of the less common reporters to not realize they'd been so designated. Kinda like the state that designated all "Independent Contractors" as mandatory reporters. This line of discussion started because you were implying that XYZ church was doing something either illegal or immoral or just wrong by instructing the priests to co

Also, some fine print that scouts and scouters find useful: What that means: not everybody has to sign off on requirements in the order presented in the handbook. One scout might want to master lashings, another map and compass, another cooking. You might find one of yours has forgotten all of the memorization. Tell her, “That’s okay. We’ll come back to it when you want ovals to sew on your shirt. For now, is there some other skill in the handbook do you want to master?” Get your adults focused on skills. The advancement will follow.

THIS is why hate having advancement as the focus of the program instead of FUN AND ADVENTURE!. And after my two older sons' experiences with First Year camper programs, I will not force a Scout to do it. Oldest was helping Scouts in his "patrol" out at FYC. Camp middle son went to divided their program into a Tenderfoot & Second Class session and a First Class session. He and his buddies were bored with the First Class session, but the new guys from the other pack were overwhelmed. Summer Camp, as it is currently done, needs to be individualized to the wants and needs of the S

I heard this exact thing talking to people at the Induction cracker barrel last night. I am the Scoutmaster of our Troop and I would never think about denying any Scout the opportunity to be in the Order of the Arrow. Very unfortunate for the Scout in question.

No. BSA requires that the crossover Cub Scouts (AoL is a RANK, Webelos is a DEN), now Scouts, BSA scouts, demonstrate all the elements. The first words of the Scout rank requirement are. That said, the key to the two-year Webelos program is that 80-90% of the program is repeated in the first three ranks of Scouts, BSA. Scout Rank = Scouting Adventure + Outdoor Adventurer (Outdoor Code) + Cyber Chip Tenderfoot Rank = Building a Better World + Outdoor Adventurer + Cast Iron Chef + Scouting Adventure + Scouting Adventure + Stronger, Faster, Higher + portions of Castaway An

Crossovers individually demonstrate their skills to the Troop Guide, Instructor, or Patrol Leader. AOL are treated with the same regard as other new scouts.

With all due respect, don't believe the work. 1) Greg Hallett really does not have any research credentials. 2. There are no references, citations or works cited in the chapter you cite. Where is he getting this information? IF as his bio states, he got these from interviews with KGB operatives, there would still be citations for these interviews, and even copies of the KGB records. After the fall of the Soviet Union, I have been told by well respected historians and researchers that for the right amount of cash you could get any KGB record you wanted. 3) FNZ Publishing appears to be a defun

Nowhere in this list do they address the volunteer problem for one.

A friend of mine sits on various national mediation tables. There are apparently multiple "tables" that change composition and deal with specific issues. It is a position that he could not have imagined himself being in two years ago. We never discuss specifics because of confidentiality. Just impressions sometimes. Words like "contentious" and "mess" come up. How could this not be a mess? Tens of thousands of traumatic abuse claims. Billions of dollars at stake. Camps, councils and programs that Scouts and Scouters have poured their passion, time and energy into are

I find it hard to believe if a deal is close it can include LC's. I bet it is just national and deal with insurance and LC later. There are so many variables in the LC matrix.

Hmm. That gets trickier in the case of Mormonism, since we have a lay clergy at the congregational level whose institutional training is almost nil and who are holding down day jobs while putting an additional 20-30+ hours per week into their ecclesiastical responsibilities. And again, as I pointed out above—there are practicing lawyers who get this stuff wrong unless or until they have a chance to do additions research and/or get advice from a colleague. I’m not sure it’s realistic or fair to hold some poor schcmuck who had the misfortune to be assigned the job of a Mormon bishop, to a hig

They make a fair point about the name, they could change the name but still reference BP in their history and founding principles, which I hope they will do much like the BSA does. Although i kind of doubt that will actually happen. Weird that they kept the fleur-de-lis logo, which BP was responsible for in scouting. If they are so anti-BP now, the logo should have changed, too. The organization kind of seems to always be in a bit of an identity crisis. They were a mostly adult organization for a while, then became a more inclusive youth alternative to the BSA, a feature that they st

Sure; but to obey the law, a person first needs to know what the law is. Where a church stands liable for any failure of its functionaries to obey the law, it makes sense for the church to ensure that its functionaries have a means of learning the law—hence the hotline; which (as I think I pointed out earlier) takes pains to NOT actually receive “reports” of abuse in any meaningful way.

My apologies, I missed that sentence regarding the 9 states that require immediate reporting. Although, apparently the Child Welfare Information Gateway has some of the same document creators as the BSA since that section isn't entirely accurate. _______________________________________________________________________ California : Requires reporting with 36 hours Connecticut: Requires reporting immediately Hawaii: Requires reporting immediately, but does not require reporting of suspicions resulting from Penitent confessions Illinois: Requires immediate reporting, but

There are no paragons (save one, but that's a religious discussion). There is no "normal guy." I'm sure, being human, you have as many deep flaws as I do... It is still "cancel culture" From the link @CynicalScouterprovided, "By retaining his name as ours, we associate too closely with his entire legacy, including his racism, imperialism, colonialism, sexism." That's a lot of "...isms", and belies a deeper self-loathing associated with the "woke"

That's quite the claim to make after lambasting our faith in this way, don't you think? 🙄

Far too often authors think they are expressing justified righteous indignation when in fact it's closer to ugly bigotry and motivated by past grudges. We all should stick direct connections. The simple fact is society as a whole did not handle any of this very well in the 1980s or 1990s. Society started adopting the modern understanding of abuse in the late 1990s / early 2000s. People want someone to blame. You might as well blame every part of society.