fred8033

Impossible. ... We value making connections with our scouts. To make connections, we talk. Maybe a few can discuss this topic at the ideal concept level. But most will bring their politics into it, left or right. That's the nature of discussion. Specifics will be discussed. Is chanting "All Cops Are Bastards." a form of bullying? Is that the right way to protest? How about specific police incidents? Should you get a permit to protest? Is it okay to march on the highway? I can't tap dancing around the meat and expect the scouts to respect the discussion. I just don't s

This is why I want my sons in scouting. Value statement with outdoor activities. Hike. Camp. Swim. Bike. Some of my best memories are seeing my sons outside with his friends doing things. This is a HUGE OPPORTUNITY for scouting. Break the reputation of stuffy, boring mtgs, etc. Get back to DOING THINGS. How about measuring unit quality by a simple ratio: Mtgs to Activities. Mtgs are indoor, planning, coordination, training, merit badges. Activities are movement, doing things, biking, hiking, camp fires, volleyball, swimming, exploring, etc. A goal could be 1-to-1. My fir

I'm flexible on backpacking meals or bigger meals. I just don't want to be doing dishes late in the evening.

I just don't like overlapping both rank and MB.

I think you are both saying similar things and I concur with both.

Innocent, no. BSA exists in a society sharing deep guilt. My view is it's wrong to accuse BSA more than you accuse police, churches, schools, families. Definitely accuse those specifically involved. Beyond that, this was a society failure. Example ... A huge number of scouting units were chartered by schools. Schools. Their charters were signed by paid professionals, often school principals, whos careers were built decades of knowledge working with youth and families. But they signed the paperwork for the program. Many teachers were often leaders too. ... How did that expertise n

As before, we will have to disagree. Your views are yours. I agree BSA is probably one option in many good youth programs. And, there are many more good youth choices now then ever before. In 1960, there were many fewer choices. Now, there are dozens of choices. I must disagree with you on the slap-on-the-face view. BSA is caught in a legal mess as many things get caught in legal messes when society changes. Maybe BSA was more vulnerable. Maybe. BUT, society was at fault as a whole. BSA had a system before many organizations to try to block abuse. It worked and did not

Exactly. Many major denominations ... even in 1999 ... did not have issue with the membership questions. Instead, it got thrust into a defining statement about ALL scouting. This could have been easily side-stepped.

BSA should have found another path out of 1999 BSA vs Dale, like let the kid progress. If his scouting unit was okay, BSA should not have injected themselves. Instead, BSA choose to block and Supreme Court made a good decision protecting individual groups ... but that decision started an avalanche againts BSA. Though most can't name BSA vs Dale, every scouter has seen the result. Can't recruit in classrooms. Labeled discriminatory. etc, etc, etc. I've never seen a group work as hard to help youth participate, but at the same time get labeled as much as BSA does. There were a

I agree. I fear, as much as BSA was targeted that, BSA also took positions that were changing. BSA's right choice should have been to get out of the fight and focus on what they do best: outdoors, conservation and adventures such that with each adventure the youth grows and learns.

My experience is parents DECIDE to drop out of cub scouts and kids DECIDE to drop out of Boy Scouts. But, your comments are correct.

"other changes" ... I see little impact by membership policy changes, except that it helped cub scout recruitment. The biggest change I've seen is making Tiger a formal rank and then Lion (K) a formal rank. The program started recruiting younger to keep the kids out of other activities, but kids benefit much less at those younger ages. I see many parents looking at Lion / Tiger and seeing little benefit, a lot more work and a lot more repetition. I've also seen higher drop out in K/1st grade years and lower initial recruitment numbers. This seems to be a key issue.

Nature of the program. Boy Scout families have dived in and need to keep swimming. Cub Scout families are still testing the water to see if scouting is right for their kid. High commitment versus little commitment. Age of the scouts. Older scouts take their friendship relationships much more seriously. And want those to keep going. Amount of work. Cub Scouts is A LOT OF WORK for the parents. Boy Scouts is much less work and more enjoyable. Boy Scouts is a journey with a goal many scouts want to achieve. Cub Scouts has arrow of light that can be earned even if

I like how simple it looks. I'm just concerned how much individual bling will need to be added. World scouter crest. Other items. But that's me. I like simple and functional ahead of flashy and decorative.

IMHO, as long as I've been involved, the charter partner model was BSA finding a way to market scouting, extend the program and create more scouting volunteers. It was never about quality control or vetting leaders.

QUESTION ... Perhaps it was written on a previous page. A current life scout, if thy don't complete requirements by May for Eagle, then, they need to complete this badge for Eagle? GTA section 4 says rank requirements are stable once the scout earns the previous rank and they don't change. This topic should just be part of one or more of the existing citizenship badges. ... OR ... merge all the citizenship badges and add this new badge. Scouts should be out doing more active MBs with their rank representing that activity. We've got just too many "required" MBs.

I actually think our council may be okay as we went thru something similar several years ago. we'll have to see though.

Today, Cleveland Indians will no-longer use the name Indians. Washington is no-longer the Red Skins. Will this quickly follow into scouting? OA themes? Local camps named with Indian terms and tribe names? I expect next summer to arrive at summer camp and everything (camp included) will be renamed. My comfort is the camp is the place, activities and the camp fire late at night.

My fear is if you advertise this ... you could get 100 or 1000 or more trees. If you hand out a phone number or email, that phone and email could be flooded with "Can you pick up ?" Private benefit can be argued because you are helping the public handle. But then again, if you keep it manageable, you might be just handling the trees of the scout leaders and immediate family. IMHO, the number one issue is ... is a scout interested in planning, developing and leading the project? The rest can be solved. On the flip side, you don't want to force a project on a scout. I've seen that h

I've watched how that works. It's like stock holders at an annual meeting. The executive board controls over enough shares to roll over any share holder action. Same with CORs. I've NEVER seen a charter org rep effectively make a difference at the council unless they were already a well established council volunteer. Then, it's really that volunteering relationship occurring and not the COR relationship. Saying CORs are voting members seems more like marketing than any meaningful control. When I say the charter org structure is broken, I mean ... Never seen a charter org sig

BSA chartering model has been broken for a long time. This is just acknowledging things need to change. My view has been BSA's existing chartering model works as a marketing tool and not really a functional agreement. Only now that people see liability is it an issue. I say marketing because it's a tool to start the charter discussing how they should be involved and how they can help the scouting unit and thus help BSA. I had an experience 15+ years ago with our pack charter org that viewed the unit as an outside community organization. We kept getting kicked down the road in f

A lot of that has to do with your age at the time. Memories are often vague or clouded for experience under 10 years old. Definitely more clouded / vague the younger you are.

I grew up Catholic also and went thru CCD in the 1970s. It seems that there was similar opportunity. For us, we met in the volunteer's apartment. My parents would drop us off in front of the building and we knew which apartment to go to. My wife grew up in an evangelical church and there were constant youth ministry activities and things happened. I agree scouting had probably more opportunity, but other programs had similar issues.

@ThenNow ... I question the motivation of the attorneys involved. This feels much more like an attorney get-rich-quick-scheme than a real effort to help plaintiffs. Plaintiffs will get some funds, but it feels like only the attorneys will truly be better off. I don't believe anything new will be learned or changed because of the lawsuit. I doubt the funds will be significant to those damanged.