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There is a larger issue here. What is the purpose of BSA? Doesn't BSA exist to serve and support BOY SCOUTING in the US? What are the "ideals" of Scouting? (let's ignore the gay/athiest issue for now). IMHO, if you preach independence and self-reliance you shouldn't WANT help from others- whoever they are. If you steadfastly define yourself as "private" it seems that you'd TURN DOWN governmental aid on a matter of principle. I am appalled to see a Council host "grant writing seminars" and hear a Cub Scout Pack talk of seeking a governmental grant to buy a Pinewo

Yes. How about an INDEPENDENT "Inspector General" in BSA - NOT reporting directly to the paid organization but to the National Executive Board? One that had REAL power and authority - with REAL repurcussions. It seems clear that BSA has been having MAJOR problems with training of late - my GSA counterparts are ASTOUNDED that BSA allows leaders near kids without REQUIRING training. Stop the knee-jerk blame assignment - "Its not OUR fault! They didn't follow procedures!" Find out what went WRONG and keep it from happening again. Unfortunately BSA has a tendency to automatical

While some may question the focus on "the outdoors" and speculate that is part of the decline in Scouting I disagree. Our Council is a suburban one with relatively few parents focused on "real" outdoors activities yet our Troop (and others) have thrived by providing a true "High Adventure" program- hiking, camping, ice climbing, rafting, even dog sledding. We have Troops that are drawing in boys with NO Cub Scouting experience - boys that crave the types of things we are doing. We produce long serving Scouts - a few Eagles every year and have a dedicated core of adult support. This Troo

IMO, the problem with BSA is that it has become TOO much like a business with TOO many overpaid high level executives in multi-million dollar buildings. It is a large bureaucracy focused more on self-preservation than doing its job. It makes mistakes regularly - on a dramatic scale - and instead of working to improve things simply "circles the wagons". I am not the first to say that after the changes instituted in the 70's BSA has not been the same. There is TOO Much of a focus on being a "business" and too little focus on serving boys and representing "Scouting." The problem in

Ah, the naivete of youth. At 19 I wonder how much Mr. Zeiger really knows about "Honor." Blindly defending anyone or anything is naive. He would do Scouting a far larger favor in making sure that those involved show the values they profess. And on the topic of "honor" - and ethics and morals...... "Last year (2004) the Grand Teton Council received the National BSA Risk Management Award for the Best Youth Protection and Health and Safety Plan. Only 4 of 308 councils throughout the Untied States received this award last year." Funny, but today reports surfaced about the FOURTH

OK let me be clearer. You just got your unit charter back and there are boys listed you haven't EVER seen - they supposedly crossed over from Cub Scouts two years ago but never went to any Troop Meetings. The are still on your roster. You've already left countless unreturned phone messages and e-mails for your DE. Your Committee Chair and local Commissioner is at the District Meeting and gets a copy of a handwritten Quality Worksheet with clearly altered numbers (a variety of handwriting showing) signed off and officially distributed to attendees with numbers that are not even in the sa

B.S.A. itself asserts that it is a "representative democracy" and is "responsive" to the desires of its members. How "responsive" is an organization that PUNISHES those holding it accountable to its own stated principles. I have yet to hear ANY justification for the revocation of registrations for volunteers that have RIGHTFULLY questioned the UNTRUSTWORTHY and even ILLEGAL actions of paid professionals within their Councils. When a volunteer leader says - I haven't trained any leaders for ALL of these units, what goes? and is told to "forget it"......when he presses the issu

Bob - do you read the news? Tom Willis got thrown out the very day his charges about enrollment fraud were proven correct. He went to outside authorities with his concerns about enrollment fraud only after BSA paid professionals ignored him. He was even threatened with revoval from Scouting if he pressed the issue. Somehow the skeletons in his closet were not sufficient cause to have him thrown put any earlier - he was in charge of training new leaders (which led him to ask why som many units had NO leaders trained). It turned out that they didn't exist. But Holmes - the SE who remo

IN THEORY, most District and Council positions are supposed to be chosen by volunteers - if only through "nominating committees." "Elections" occur only in the sense that you'd see in a pseudo-"democracy" - with the WHOLE slate approved or voted down. The catch is that too often the paid staff - SE and DE control who's on the "nominating" committee. Stack the Committee and you get who you want. Even where reps vote whole slates down - detailed in a post under Dictatorship or Democracy - you can have the volunteers will blocked. Most COR's do not participate and vote so this can h

Assume it IS all true - because it is. ANd it HAS happened AGAIN - here. And AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN and AGAIN. Be glad if it's not happening where you are but be aware that it IS happening elsewhere. The account was written by one of the principals involved who confirmed its accuracy. A number of volunteers in that Council have been "suspended" - something new to me. Usually B.S.A. simply throws people out. I have talked to at least a half dozen people removed by B.S.A. or personally familiar with volunteers removed for VALIDLY questioning bad behavior by Scout Exec

The following was passed along to me. The following parallels behavior in our Council - should this occur in Scouting? What happens when volunteers are completely disenfranchised by the leadership that is supposed to represent them? In this Council, volunteers critical of leadership have been "suspended" by Council leadership - a move that I can find no reference to in ANY BSA rules and procedures. Edited to remove names and locale as I am a third party to those actions. My intent is to point out that this occurs too often. Valued and regularly used property is sold off over the p

OK...a bit more info. Four to one ratio of adults to boys is good and older boys. But the total was only 10. How many rafts - two? But this story notes that TWO boys went in the water. That sounds like really rough water or people not prepared. If two went over from one raft, you've got problems. Only three are left in the raft right there to deal with it and if the two are going in different directions..... Or was everyone focused on one when the second went in? Frankly it's not easy to haul even a 13 year old back in a raft - older boys are bigger. Were people here in over

Hate to add onto the list.....at least the boy had a PFD but I don't see how it came off. This is the type of thing that gives leaders ulcers. I've been WWrafting enough and it should be TIGHT - done right, lifejackets shouldn't come off no matter how fast or rough the water. Even if you're knocked out it's designed to right you and hold your head out. We check and double check. You should be able to lift someone by their lifejacket without it coming loose. My oldest went over out West in a rocky Class 3 stretch about this time a year ago despite having a secure position and feet wedged

Regarding "numbers" An LA Times story - the ONLY One that I could find to give a full reporting of the audit stated that - Frankly, when even a half-baked "audit" - a sampling of 68 or 482 (NOT a full unit by unit audit- or was that all they found?), an "official" audit conducted by a hand-picked firm, could only find 5,361 - out of whom 3,485 were "Active" - something really stinks. One of the few REAL Scoutmasters in this program stated he was tired of being used for PR purposes by BSA. It's clear what was going on - we should all be ashamed. Such a scandal does irrepar

Did you even check out the site or the recent coverage of Atlanta? From 15,000 (spun by BSA to only 10,000 claimed) to 5300 (with only 3400 "active") and would ANY company on earth tolerate that kind of creative accounting???? Even the repeated and regular 30% differences would be cause for dismissal in any other organization. Black Scoutmasters are saying they are fed up with being used in photo-ops to show how Scuting is serving the inner city - even as BSA lies like hell about it. A whole troop took off their uniform shirts in protest. Troop leaders - REAL leaders of REAL Troops

Dis you look at the web site referenced. THings in Atlanta ARE pretty bad The concerns expressed in the above post are the same as yours. Dedicated Scouters do not want to see "Scouting" killed but there are serious problems at the National level with those that should be the ones cleaning house. THe bad behavior of paid staff in all these recent instances sullies the image of all those doing a great job and blackens the name of Scouting. But when corruption is at the top, what do you do? What happened in the cases hitting headlines (and many more not yet there) when vo

The following from: http://www.boyscoutsfortruth.com/ This site apparently set up by volunteers in Atlanta' A good summary of what those of us in "not-so-well-run" Councils see and feel. It is an intelligent and thoughtful take on what is a very REAL problem (even if you are lucky enough NOT to have them in your Council). What happens to BSA nationally affects ALL of us in Scouting.

Amazing how heads remain in the sand. Funny how the whistle-blower that brought in the FBI in Greater Alabama got thrown out of Scouting on the same day the "official" audit showed hw was right and numbers were overstated by 30%. Holmes is blaming "the ACLU" for these declines. You've GOT to be kidding. BSA agreed to switch over charters for units where schools or military units held them. This isn't a problems when the units are REAL. Parent Teacher groups or other community groups step up without any problems when there are REAL units with REAL members. "Ghost Units" have a ha

Read through and note the details NOT reported elsewhere. From 15,000 (not the lower 10,000 number BSA publicizes now - c'mon doe sit really improve tings when you're overstating by ONLY 100% instead of 200% ???) to 5,361 BUT ONLY 3,485 were active and THIS was based on a SAMPLE audit 68 out of 482 !!?????!!! Beasley of Operation PUSH/Rainbow Coalition is right not to trust the "audited" claims. ONLY 68 units were checked - or were those the only units they could find? When is BSA leadership simply going to stand up to the plate and DO WHAT IS RIGHT!? One of the few

The PURPOSE of mypostings are to point out that in too many cases (including my Council) BSA is failing abysmally to live up to the "high standards of character" they espouse. The VOLUNTEERS are NOT the problem, the PAID staffers are. Those objecting to my posts should try volunteer to take on our SE when theirs leaves. THEN they can comment. When two Councils have raised the same complaints about a professional, HE is the problem. WHen BSA does nothing, BSA is the problem. BSA does NOT take action to hold PAID staff accountable for their failures to follow the Scout Law unless they a

Well, 30% overstatement and it looks like half of the "youth served" were Learning for Life - which has been manipulated routinely in the past all over in efforts to boost numbers. But the guy who blew the whistle got thrown out. One of the media reports on this early on had a quote about a volunteer "getting removed from Scouting if he pushed the issue." Well, it got pushed, BSA was lying again and the whistle blower got nailed. This shows what BSA does to those who raise questions. Given that one of those involved in the Dallas fraud was involved here and no report has surfaced about

BSA did their own "audit" in Texas in 2000 and found no fraud though enrollment numbers dropped 30-40%. Currently there are fraud reports from FL - boys left on rosters long after gone, AL - the "John Doe living at Council headquarters is for their protection", Or where a PAID staffer is suing after being forced to resign when he refused to go along with fraudulend disabled Scout units. Atlanta overstated membership by 100%. Interestingly a Council in NH is now conducting an audit - THEIR SE came from Atlanta within the year and though "they have confidence in his leadership....." C'mon -

About the whole "character" issue..... Isn't this just one more sign of the "moral malaise" Quoting a DE, BSA is preoccupied with superficial measures of success - enrollment numbers, money and "quality" measures Hence the scandals over enrollment numbers. A SE is expected to achieve Quality Council status, so DE's are under pressure to get "Quality District." To get Quality District, you have to have "Quality Units." Even when caught fudging all this there's no consequences. Our DE lied about the numbers in our District - by a large factor. You can see where numbers wer

Such a press release just invites sarcastic comments. A not inaccurate re-titling could be: "BSA Unprepared to Make Challenging Ethical Decisions." "Scouting" is and has been a positive influence on youth. It does prepare youth to make moral and ethical choices - when they have good and dedicated leaders showing character. You think with all the enrollment fraud, abuse cover-ups and the head of youth protection distributing child porn, BSA might be a bit wary of trying to claim that BSA is somehow responsible for boys making ethical decisions. Its obvious that far too many of t

Our May District Meeting was a revelation. It seems that Executive Board Members were questioned on enrollment numbers recently - not sure of the circumstances. This was after Council leadership made a big deal of "We don't do that here" when the Alabama scandal broke in the media. Sure. Well, the "corrected" report for our District now has dead units gone and enrollment figures are down "substantially." Our unit still was getting membership cards for kids not seen in two years though. One leader did an analysis of past enrollment reports and passed it around. Now, maybe I'm being