fred8033

This is the one place where I differ. I'm okay saying BSA must report out. I just don't think any organization does well reporting ugly statistics on itself. Like any organization, BSA wants to look good. Specifics get explained away or defined away or plain old lost. It's just too tempting. With mandatory reporting laws, society has a great opportunity to independently roll-up incident numbers and investigate problem areas. The question is who should own those numbers? FBI. GAO. HHS. I really think it's a bad idea to trust numbers from any organization when those numbers would make the organization look bad.

Yep. Agreed, not an exoneration. Paper registration may or may not make it into the office for months. Often only at recharter. Often got held up for multiple reasons. Signatures. Money. BSA depended on millions (literally millions) of volunteer helpers. Unit paperwork helpers were usually registered, never their full-time job. Our unit membership person probably had one week a year where it was six hours work. Then probably an hour a month after that. Usually, just another parent in the pack / troop. Only in the last two years did our school require volunteers to be registered and background checked before they started helping / interacting with students. It is the same with scouts. When I look at our local sports clubs, they have yet to make that transition. I'm not defending BSA or attacking it. A paperwork system where you may or may not get the paperwork in a timely way with manual checks and names that shift is problematic. I just think that was a sign of the times though. Not an exoneration at all though.

Be patient with my statement. I am one that viewed the IVF files as doing something where organizations didn't. And in many ways, I still believe that. ... I won't go into the thought process now. With that said, the re-entrant issue I can understand. Experienced scouters have always seen the challenges getting rosters and training records right. We would have people missing from the roster for years or people still on the roster that had been gone. I remember realizing registrars often had a district file with post-it-notes with apps that were missing signatures or did not have money or recently training certificate.... They were waiting for the DE or a unit volunteer to come in and help address the issue.. Other times, an in-between person (volunteer or professional) would forget to drop off the app. It's only in the last decade where the roster is "mostly" current. AND, only this decade where it's emphasized that all the paperwork needs to be processed before you volunteer. This seems to follow a larger trend. Our local schools are doing that too. In 2004, I helped at my kid's elementary school. No app. No ID. Nothing. Just showed up. Now, you can't help at school or chaperone or ... without first comleting the background check. So, ... I can fully see how the paper systems were really hard to track volunteers when they slightly changed their name or moved between states.

Thank you. I had not heard that of BSA and glad it's not the case. My simple reading of your writing inferred BSA did that too.

Could you provide a reference to a few? I know that is a fair representation in the Church abuse scandals. I am not familiar with case examples here. IVF was about exclusion; not relocation. I've seen case files of a few volunteers who subverted their IVF records. I have not seen examples of BSA moving people after abuse incidents.

There is no need to take a cheap shot at another forum member. I have not always agreed with him, but Skeptic has been a meaningful contributor on many different subjects for 15 years. Though his post baits the edge of lawyer bashing, it is relevant to the topic of a judge reviewing questionable conduct by those in this case.

Areas of concern "All camping is mandatory" is not normal and extreme. I'm hoping it's a misunderstanding. Or, the context is misunderstood. Units can have "reasonable" attendance standards for attendance (See BSA Guide To Advancement). Mandatory and 100% are not reasonable. Normal It is normal to enthusiastically encourage camping / outings. Involvement is a huge predictor of future success. Camping within three weeks of joining is NOT unusual at all. In fact, it's fairly normal. We often had scouts who's first meeting would be March 1st to March 7th. Then, their first camp out was a weekend in mid/late March. In fact, I'd argue it is really really good to get new scouts on outings as soon as possible. I agree with an earlier post. If you have concerns now, those concerns will continue to grow. ... If you can, try out the troop to see if the concerns are valid or not. BUT if you can, look at other troops too.

This is another stumble during the ugly dance we call chartering. Who's leading and who's following? Who's responsible? BSA needs to move away from a "membership" model and move toward a service fee model for using the BSA program. Or, BSA needs to take ownership and responsibility for the units.

I have experienced many apps. I'd encourage you to use ScoutBook for roster and advancement. It has a nice interface and it's the official source. Calendar, communication, finances, etc. I'd be really tempted to use a combination of Google Documents and Facebook. ... OR as our troop did ... the scouts communicate with each other better than we could. Though I have not used ScoutBook much over the last year as my role has changed, I found it only useful for tracking roster, advancement and after-the-fact records (hiking, camping, etc) I'd strongly ... STRONGLY ... encourage families to log into ScoutBook to see their scout's records.

Well understood. I agree. Perhaps I think of it wrongly. I think of it more as ... how much money does BSA have to contribute?. Even to the extreme pain level. Let's separate that cash, protect it to pay debts including victim claims and move on. The CSA claims should be against that protected trust ... and also the insurance companies.

We've often debated why LC/CO protection in another companies bankruptcy. I finally saw in another thread something that I've probably asked before (and forgot the answer). It's BSA's bankruptcy being used to settle a lawsuit. Why would insurance companies receive protection? The insurance company is not going bankrupt. It really seems the scope of the bankruptcy must really be shrunk.

$100m spent in 2021 (guestimate). Divide by 365. Approx $300k per day.

Amazing how weeks and months pass so easily.

Ummm ... You can't keep on commenting after deleting other people's posts. Time to delete your own.

MLK was a minister. But fair enough.

TANGENT ... I generally really like GTA. It's really well written. It's our guide to consistent execution. It's the guide for when others question our decisions. Section 4.2.3.6 is generally great. I like comments like "unless it is stated otherwise in the requiurements". Cool. There is part of 4.2.3.6 that I don't like. The last two paragraphs don't seem to 100% match. It sets up the situation where the scout can be guilt tripped by his leaders. "Hey, do you really want to be the kid who ..." ... But if challenged say in a formal appeal, the leader would lose as it's not explicitly in the requirements. So, the leader can't (with a knowing scout or knowing parent) do that. I really would have liked the paragraphs to emphasize celebrating the scout having done volunteering and celebrate how it is core to the scout oath and law. Instead, it pushes back suggested leaders call the scout out on "maybe you should have done more". ... Of course I'd like to see the scout do more. I'm just not sure we should guilt trip scouts.

There was a great article December on the bankruptcy and it's costs. Some great quotes in it. https://news.yahoo.com/big-winners-boy-scouts-bankruptcy-100024259.html * UCLA law professor calling the whole bankruptcy system corrupt. * BSA fees 40% projected compared to Enron's 3%. * BSA administrative bankruptcy cost is over $200m. Remaining funds is approx $200m also.

Valuation is not a fixed $$$$ amount. You can't price tag this type of victimization. Rather, the question is how big is the pot of money. Then, what portion each victim gets. That's exactly the point. Valuation is based on the pot of money. Valuation = (pot of dollars) / (victim total) * (victimization scaling factor) * (admin/fees scaling factor) If $3B pot of money and 84,000 victims and a 0.6 factor for admin/fees, victims would (on average) be around $21,500.

Our pack rented local county / state park group camp sites. We usually could find one within a 10 to 20 minutes drive. We pushed council camps also, but cost kept going up. It got to be a $200+ for a father/son cub camp Friday night to Sunday morning. Plus gear. "Cubs don't need to camp" ... Some pros is that it dilutes the new rich experience of Boy Scouts. Also, Cubs now includes K, 1st, 2nd, etc. That's a lot of day care. ... Flip side ... scouting is about being active and outside. I can't imagine scouting without camping.

Thank you for posting the link. It was informative.

Thank you. Just watched it. Very professional. Very informative. Very professional. #1 Seemingly confusing contradiction. TCC argues not legal for bankruptcy to protect non-bankrupt party, but TK predicts chapter 7 where LC assets are pulled in. Not sure if it is, but these seem like contradicting views. #2 Statement - TCC stated non-profits can't be forced into bankruptcy. Only can do voluntarily. That's news to me. Makes me wonder on TK statements predicting chapter 7 final result. #3 Criteria that victims must do better in chap 11 than chap 7. I thought that would be easy for BSA to prove given chap 7 means employee retirement programs are funded before legal settlements.

Can you post the link? I've not watched one yet as I'm not a member and wanted to stay a little separate from that channel.

My personal view ... Zero chance of victims getting money in 2022. Even if the Dec 2021 plan was accepted, victims face many months of evaluating claims, money passing to law firms that then pass to victims. That itself could easily take the rest of the year. If a new plan / mediation, etc needs to happen, we're then into 2023. Purdue Pharma filed for bankruptcy in Sept 2019. No money has gone yet. Bankruptcy is in question. ... BSA filed six months later with a more complex bankruptcy; more complex victimization and more complex questions. Given past performance, I would not be surprised if 2023 passes too.

I always though the membership number problems of the 1980s/1990s was marketing to FOS and United Way to get more donations. I never connected that to CE pay. Metrics are important. There must be the right metrics to review CE pay. For example, common accounting requires reporting numbers a certain way. Perhaps, membership dues revenue could be used as a factor toward CE pay. On the flip side ... business in turbulent times often have trouble with pay / salaries not being scaled right.

Many believe the pandemic is a lull that will take a few years (5 to 10 to 20) to recover from. It's like many business trying to plan for their long term size based on current levels. ... Question will always be the long-term membership numbers. We've been in 20 years of lawsuits. There is a scouting future and it will include BSA if/when BSA can get past the legal / public relations issues. My question would be ... Perhaps council charters should also have a line saying executive salaries will be re-adjusted if membership numbers drop. ... example ... a scout exec should not earn half of council funds.