MattR

No, if they followed precedent they would have split cit world into world and universe.

They combined all of the Cit MB's and the DEI MB into one. Apparently this is the first of many changes in the entire MB program. had you going there for a bit. Admit it.

@lklawson, welcome to the forum, and good luck. It sounds like a fun hobby.

Nice article. Nice troop as well.

Welcome to the forum, @Life. It's really hard for me to believe you're the first person to grab the user name "Life". Don't get me wrong, I was a life scout when I left scouts. Humor is a good way to deal with pain. Best of luck. I'm hoping this forum helps some of those victims. So thank you for being brave and speaking up.

Anyone, I believe. But I'm not sure, as I can see a bit more because I'm a moderator. Articles aren't used. Reputation is driven by an algorithm - so take it with a grain of salt. As long as you're not really getting everyone angry my guess is the reputation is proportional to how long and how much you've posted. As @qwazse said, there are two camp (fires?) on down posts. My version is "praise publicly and punish privately," so I don't use the down arrows. I guess it depends on how you see the down arrow. Is it disagreeing or booing? I can never tell unless someone writes why. But to each his/her own. I don't see them as helpful or harmful, so I mostly ignore them. There are some pinned posts on rules in the New to the Forum" sub forum. Given that this has been the 3rd, I believe, version of the software since I've joined we've tended to ignore the differences. Asking works, so you're doing fine. Not sure that's allowed in the G2SS. We might send you looking for a smoke shifter, though. Oh wait .....

I do. I also realize that nobody does, and the councils like it that way. If just a third of the CC's in my district voted on council issues there would be real feedback. They are the ones that have to deal with council, the CO's have no idea what council does.

I think there's a sweet spot between these 2 posts. As Fred says, scouting is kids outside, learning skills, being challenged and having fun. But think about what challenge means, especially to a teenager. The right challenge is the motivation that brings out the magic in scouts. Somewhere between boring and overwhelming is a good challenge. Not only that but the best motivation is self motivation. The adults sole purpose is to help the scouts find motivation, preferably self motivation. As the scouts become motivated the adults have less to do. That's my interpretation of what Barry has said elsewhere. If the scouts are motivated to try new things then everything else will take care of itself. Scouts respond to different things. Advancement and recognition, high adventure trips, working with younger scouts, servant leadership. Nearly all scouts respond to just hanging with their friends. I think the challenge is giving the adults the tools to make this work. How to work with scouts at different levels of maturity to find that which will give them a passion for scouting.

Real camps don't have wifi. Go sit on a rock and enjoy the breeze.

The training for what I call dangerous stuff seems to shy away from local issues. It's there but not pushed. I will never see Lyme disease or hogweed but I nearly stepped on a sleeping rattler a week ago and altitude sickness is something we have to look out for on several campouts a year. I think it would be great fun for the scouts to learn about all the ways to get hurt in different areas. (I once went on a night hike in the Amazon and they could have called it: all the ways to die in the dark - scouts would love it. "See the colorful frog? If you touch it you will die.") Anyway, I'd certainly like to see a local dangers presentation if I were going to an area I'm not familiar with.

I like that last part.

@ThenNow, it certainly shines a light on the ugly side of "the good guys." To paraphrase a WWII ace that got into plenty of trouble, "show me an organization that claims virtue and I'll show you the dark side to it." Ironic, no? That said, this document still only represents, at most, 13k cases out of 82k. Do you think that 16% is the tail wagging the dog, so to speak?

@CynicalScouter, in the future, please quote content that you haven't created. I didn't know whether the paragraph following the link was your synopsis of a credible source or just a random opinion from someone that's annoyed with the BSA. Just to make myself clear, I have hidden similar mistakes from other posts.

Welcome to the forum, @Runningwolf

This is a great comment. By focusing on one leader the BSA, while talking about leadership, pushes aside teamwork and also responsibility. It's much easier to learn leadership if one is confident in what needs to be done and the team understands how to work together.

I have no idea what the official policies are for dealing with a scout that has been changed but not convicted of a felony. Sounds like someone making a quick decision with partial information. Maybe assuming that these charges will be dropped is also a quick decision with partial information?

Maybe, rather than "teaching" leadership there should be focus on giving scouts "opportunities to learn" leadership or even just "an appreciation" of leadership. Encouraging an internal motivation rather than forcing an external motivation is the difference between fun and school. My son had a soccer coach whose goal was for the kids to learn a "love for the game". He figured if the kids had that then they'd figure out the skills on their own. All of the check boxes and "leadership skills" are external motivation. While some of that is needed to prime the pump, the real goal is beyond that. Making requirements more and more detailed is going the wrong way. How to describe and sell this in a phrase, to both new parents and adult leadership, is the basis of making the adult method work. There's an aspect of play that's also important. Learning how to get along and take care of each other while playing in the outdoors sounds more inviting to me.

Could someone summarize the "fish smell"? Something to do with the COs, Coalition and TCC. I don't have the time to read the past few days of posts. Thanks.

Sometimes, when trying to explain something with an example, people forget what you were originally talking about. Anyway, good luck.

Okay, time for this thread to take a break.

That's a really good observation, @Wëlënakwsu. Why have the most important position held by the least paid? Of course, getting marketing people that know marketing would also help, along with every other position. Maybe, starting with an SE that understands how to run a non profit would be a good place to start.

It would be interesting to see, by council, the amount of money they're putting into the sexual abuse fund compared to their annual salary budget.

Pinging @SCOUTER-Terry, would you like to share your thoughts? (See post above)

It has less to do with scouts/families and more to do with the number of donors with deep pockets. Years ago my troop went to a neighboring council's summer camp and our service project was to pick up shotgun wads on the nature trail. No way the scouts or scouters would be allowed to shoot there. It was a fundraising activity for the council that included booze carts. They brought in a couple million dollars so they thought it was a good deal. They got money and a bunch of scouts cleaned up the mess. All they had to do was pay for alcohol. Once I figured out the whole story I told my troop we were done. I saw something similar in the Northwest. They wanted a new pavilion so they threw a party. They asked for donations. Donors asked how much and wrote checks on the spot. These were people high up in fortune 100 companies. Granted, they weren't shooting skeet on a nature trail, but when the money is that easy, who cares about overhead? Well, the donors are drying up and the model really hasn't changed. So here we are.

Create a Facebook group or just do a search on simple forum websites. It's fairly easy to set one up.