fred8033

Loss of CO model does not automatically mean loss of meeting places.

If national fails, the LCs might have rights to continue IP usage. The failure of a business partner is not a mutual suicide pact. Who ever receives the IP ownership would need to partner with those already using the IP.

Something doesn't smell right or is not fully explained. Can someone explain why a 2nd set of lawyers would use the signature of someone from the first? Or were they formally or informally partnered in this at that time or during a transition? Something just does not smell right about the complaint? And given the case load, I'd really find it hard to believe each person who signed talked to each claimant directly. I'd expect lots of questionably fast signatures.

You don't even need to talk about BSA throwing CO's under the bus. ... Times have changed. The CO was historically more an honorary document the church could hold up to say: look at all the good we are doing. They get their ribbon and certificate to display and get bragging rights. ... NOW, decades and decades later ... guess what? Those pretty words mean something in court now. It's a liability that people have learned to exploit to the tune of million and millions. ... Times have changed drastically. Scouts and parents would see zero difference. Sounds like a good plan.

Cheap summary from my local area ... I'm amazed how few units / CORs / COs are taking this seriously. Maybe it's not hit their visibility yet. My meeting with the CO executive was ... Do you want to oversee the leadership selection and unit program? Answer no. Do you see scouting as core to something the church elders want to oversee? Answer no. How is scouting perceived in the church? Answer - It's a nice community organization supporting youth that we want to support as a church. BUT, it's not aligned with the church goals as the church already has it's own youth program with it's own youth pastors. My recommendation This is an opportunity to represent the relationship correctly. CO was never guiding the program. Everyone knew that. Now, let's make the paperwork match reality. The words we sign with our signature matter. We need to get it right. WAS (and communicated) - Use the facility use agreement. Do NOT sign the charter org. NOW - LONG TERM ... If I am asked again, I'd recommend CO's should not sign anything. The CO supports many community organizations allowing them to use the space and have keys only using the church's registration form. They will still do that and with scouting too ... The key is ... The CO does not benefit at all by signing a document. ... IMHO, the CO needs to have it's own insurance anyway ... The negative is signing the document represents a legal agreement that can be twisted into a liability. ... It makes no sense for the CO to sign any agreement. It does not help them.

Even without lawyer comments ... which I enjoy as much as the next guy ... it's easy reasoning. ... My money won't go to help current scouting. Let the past fund the past. I'll save my money to help the future. ... Just like Eagle projects. It's easy to raise funds to enable a future project. It's almost impossible to raise funds to pay the debts of a past project. I'm wondering if it's materially affecting the bottom line significantly. I was not sure how much of BSA's national budget reflects "dues" versus "donations".

Not sure if this goes in the CH11 thread or other ... trying my best ... Do the negative numbers reflect shutting down of donations? BSA has always been a donation / gift heavy organization. Few individuals and organizations want to donate during a bankruptcy. I'd imagine a bankruptcy completely dries up that funding source.

@Mattr and all the other moderators ... Thank you for all you do. .... I'd say thank you also in the CH11 thread, but it's not strictly about the legalese of the case.

Some read all, but I've repeatedly had to give up reading 5+ pages or 10+ or 20+ of a 100+ page thread. Heck, the bankruptcy threadS are well over 600 pages now. .... but then again, it's a huge topic. I'm sure I've missed lots. I know I've asked for an updated summary at times.

Wages are yet another whole thread. I'm amazed, but then again it's a big organization.

The case I refer to was one I had in training. (?? 10/15 years ago??) Search for Karl in this document. He refers to his 500 incidents. That video was extremely eye opening. I was BSA used that training to open people's eyes. https://www.archmil.org/ArchMil/Resources/SAFE/3FacilitatorManual.pdf I was questioning the statistics. It seems different statistics apply to different categories. I'm not sure which statistics can be used when as applicable to this case. Perhaps, the average for BSA is 5 or 10 per abuser. I'm just not sure. ... It's why I say CSA statistics seem to still be in the dark ages.

Not sure ChildUSA is fair about this ... Example: Calling out old communal spaces like showers, but ignoring that schools required nude showers for all youth as part of gym class and that all YMCAs then ... and still do ... have communal shower spaces. In my twenty years of scouts, no adult has been in a communal shower with youth. In the last five years, showers have changed from communal to individual. Example: Inferring church basements are some dark potentially dangerous place, but ignoring such spaces exist everywhere. Ever been to a shopping mall. My youth was littered with stories of what happened with kids at the shopping malls or in the parking lots. Yes, scouting does have unique aspects that need to special consideration. But such special situations exist in many places. I can think of several reasons easily. BSA is long lived. Many of the worst cases were in organizations that grew and shrunk or failed. The worst offender I've heard about was a roller skating teacher. That business grew and shrunk. BSA is national and everywhere. This creates a huge pool of customers even if one percent of one percent of customers have claims, that's a huge pool. BSA tracked the incidents they knew. That's unique. It allowed momentum to start to trigger this case. Few organizations have something like that to create the momentum. It's an easy starting point for many future cases. KEY ONE ... Eagle1993 wrote: "The laws are the same for all organizations." really? Many organizations are still shielded. The biggest culprits that I saw as a kid were schools. "I believe" ... again not a lawyer ... that it would be much harder to sue a school district for hundreds of millions based on the actions of individual teachers. ... I'm pretty sure that we could easily find a school district with an average of a case per year. I'm sure we could find a state with dozens of cases per year. Yeah, who saw that coming. But then again, people had to have known for awhile for all the cases to exploded as they did. I suspect many organizations have such stories that individual hope time will bury. In 1991, I doubt safety committees historically listed CSA as a safety concern. They were looking at drowning, burning, poisoning, sharp edges, tripping hazards. CSA was a crime, not a safety issue. BSA has admitted their own fault. This whole legal cases is about compensating victims fairly. The trouble is BSA is not a deep bank of money that some claim. BSA has also been expanding YP rules and training for as long as I've been a member. There has been constant focus on it for 20+ years. That's far beyond what other youth organizations have done. There is cause to blame laws, society and lawyers. I'm not seeing victim blame. That's wrong. But, it is 100% clear science / society / laws did not handle this well until recently. The question is ... is this channel about the legal case? Or do you want to re-hash and debate the past. Many of us believe though BSA had bad incidents, BSA was trying to do something when the rest of society was ineffective and doing little.

We have no cause for direct attacks. I agree with you that we need to tread carefully as we are all very passionate. ON THE OTHER HAND ... Fair topics for this channel does include societal guilt and shared responsibility when others introduce their anger / assertions about BSA's past / current. When making those statements, you can't then switch back to say this channel is only about the bankruptcy. THERE IS A BALANCE. BSA has legal responsibilities by how the law works. BSA has moral responsibility too. It happened under their watch. The problem is when the debate cross from the legal case to social media blame / character assassination / group-think that BSA is bad. Many believe ... and it can easily be argued ... BSA is not unique. Many can argue BSA is far from unique. ... I won't re-introduce those arguments here, but they are extremely easy to make. ... Many can argue that BSA did more than others and was ahead of others addressing CSA. We should still not attack each other directly. There is no cause for that. The simple fact is this case raises passions. Emotionally, people find this whole situation inconceivable from many different directions and many perceptions. If you want to stick to the case, stick to the case. This legal situation is intriguing on it's own and I'm learning much on how things work by watching it Side note ... Statistics seem to be stuck in the dark ages. ... CSA is incredibly hard to find comparable / applicable statistics. ... For example, the one I question significantly now is about abusers have hundreds of victims. BSA case files show some with multiple. (not sure number or percent ... @ThenNow has a pretty clear example of multiple multiple). But, I've not seen files that reflect hundreds. I've seen few BSA IVF files with more than a few. Even recent cases. Yet, I've read of cases of roller skating teachers that have hundreds of victims (one guy bragged of 200+ ???) ... .Though our understanding of CSA has clearly evolved over the last 20/30 years, CSA statistics seems to continue to be stuck in the dark ages with little statistical understanding. Even this case yields little useful CSA statistics. If anything, it will yield many interesting statistics about searching for claims or the number of valid claims as a percent. Little useful related to CSA will come from this case. Perhaps that's the nature of statistical analysis of something people don't want to discuss.

Understood. I meant the other bigger bankruptcy. Even for the LC contributions, there are huge questions. Main one with LC contributions per US trustee, is it even legal to provide future protection to independent organizations that are not going thru bankruptcy. If it's found not providing future protection, I assume the LCs will hold back their contributions.

I'm still baffled by so many fundamental questions that I'm not sure how this continues.

Interesting that form still has references to charter organization and charter org representative. Is that a council signature or are they looking for a "Parents Of" organization.

I don't believe that's true at all. BSA has been stuck walking a fine course between a long list of societal changes. Though I could see a more secular future, I doubt anyone "wanted" that other than a few historical forum posters.

Makes sense. The relationships were always very loose. Why misrepresent it with something formal that is written? Most charter orgs were just being supportive of the community. They can still do that without signing an agreement (aka a contract).

What is Kosnoff's reasoning to expect a chapter 7? Lack of good faith negotiations? The waters are so muddied by all sides on this case and with laws changing even during this process that I'd find it hard to believe a successful "lack of good faith" could be found. (but then again, I'm no lawyer) ... ... Bad future financial picture? We've seen scouting successfully resurrected in England and other countries to great success. If BSA can get past the current bankruptcy and the bad press related (and covid), I'd believe a 110 year old non-profit could successfully continue to function.

Is "No coverage" before 1978 may not be a clear cut? 43 years ago. Insurance practices, policies and laws have changed. Loose agreements. BSA's communications with COs has always been pretty loose. Not really legal agreements and more like marketing agreements. Only now being interpreted as contracts. Self-insurance? I could see BSA having practiced self-insurance for CO liabilities. It was more a general statement about BSA being behind the CO and supporting the CO. "if it exceeds what you can cover, BSA will be there to help" ... Many companies still self-insure. Most importantly, no one in 1978 could conceive of the modern era settlements. In a 1978 context, BSA could have easily self-insured their COs and covered incidents. Bigger cash reserves. More members. More donations. Drastically smaller settlements.

People might not realize this. I cringe re-reading my old posts. I'm often doing current real work and revising these hobby posts. I cringe when I see typos. advise versus advice. argh.

"insurance plan for ALL churches" ... a leading one, but I did not think all. They don't represent "all". ... 134 of 485 diocese (arch and non-arch ... not sure on exact numbers ... just a quick search) ... I was thinking the archdiocese of Boston versus Denver might have different needs as they had very different member bases and incidents. The bigger decision factor might be the individual cash reserves of the individual diocese / archdiocese / parishes.

@ThenNow ... Is it a real "grouping" for Catholic / Methodist Ad Hoc Committees? The ad-hoc committees can have one law firm, but the units are chartered by the individual parishes and arch-diocese. I thought I saw the arch-diocese had their own lawyers and had often filed their own claims / case filings in this bankruptcy. So, ad-hoc committees might help with consistent advise to their members, but it's still just advice. Individual members might have different needs / different views.

Good point. Many organizations allow outside groups to use their facilities. This may be a situation where the CO is better off not signing anything. Even signing the facility use agreement then introduces questions of involvement / responsibility in potentially bad situations. As a former long term COR, I really have never seen any benefit to the CO to sign either of these documents. It was signed as good will and helping out the scouting unit. The CO never had a driving need for a signed agreement.

Limo services are nice shuttle busses. Sometimes econoliners with four rows of seats. Other times, similar to airport car rental shuttles. Never the traditional stretch cadilac. BUT ... it would be fun to show up in a stretch cadilac.