Leaderboard

Thank you everyone for all of the input - as it turns out, the girl's troop member planning to attend are now not going, so that simplified things in this case. It is, however, good to have this discussion and clearly, we need to get more female adult leaders registered. Easier said than done but I will be meeting with everyone soon to discuss this so they understand the limitations we are under and why this is critical, as the last thing I want to do is leave them out of outings due to lack of leaders. And yes, things are getting further complicated with the new BSA leader rules - I understan

The thing is, it sounds petty and selfish until it’s your family facing tens maybe hundreds of thousands of dollars in medical and other costs, then it’s your family’s survival on the line. And there is no other way in our society to ameliorate those costs, no one else is coming to your rescue, no one else is going to be in a position to actualy provide that level of help.

It's probably worse than that- once you take YPT you are not supposed to be alone with any other scout even if they come to stay the night with your child and your spouse has to run out and pick something up from the store. I would guess that it wouldn't take much for a lawyer (I'm NAL) to draw some pretty strong parallels of this "groups of friends and families" campout that is pulled together by registered leaders and probably discussed at meetings or if nothing else you probably used the resources by being a Scout leader to get emails and phone numbers of these "friends" who also happen to

The huge problem with requiring all adult leaders on every campout to be registered with the unit is the issue of transparency of the program. It basically forces every parent of every scout to be registered if they want to be able to witness the program in action. From a legal perspective, I am more concerned about eliminating this element of transparency as I am of adhering to this strict new rule. Why would I, as a parent, trust adults that I may not know very well to be in charge of my kids when I can't witness first-hand how they handle campouts? There needs to be a reasonable carve-out o

Excerpts from Kids Are Alright columnist Carl Kieke farewell: Its purpose was to provide a spot in the newspaper for Eagle Scout and Girl Scout Gold Award recipients to be recognized. It quickly expanded to include any youth groups or individuals who were providing service to the community – showing that not all kids were troublemakers. On Aug. 21, 2023, column No. 1,522 appeared. It is the final column in the series. Due to changes in the newspaper, the section is being discontinued. I want to thank my readers over those 30 years. I would occasionally be met by someone who ment