MattR

I forget, what's after Storming?

That reminds me. In another thread I asked what people needed for their kids to enjoy scouting. It was yet another attempt to get people to focus on being constructive, and it was ignored.

Anyway, I thought of one more thing that would really help. Leadership. From the very top. Someone that has a vision and can get everyone on the same page. I read about this somewhere. Or maybe it was in a class I took. Something about animals and parking tickets?

It's surprising how difficult it is to find a real leader. 

Has anyone considered that .07% is a really bad number when it comes to quality? That's 1 in 1400.

If 1 in 1400 cars had serious failures, to the point where it goes to court, people would be really upset.

We should do better for our children.

When it comes to quality there is no acceptable failure rate. There is, however, an acceptable change in failure rate. 

Unfortunately, that money is gone. It's time to let it go. 

How about a small fundraiser to get you through the rest of the year? 

1 hour ago, ParkMan said:

My child joined a pack and later a troop to experience scouting (lower case).  Yes, the BSA program is good and nicely developed.  But most people are not in the BSA because of the organization. 

1 hour ago, ParkMan said:

Just as in the bankruptcy thread, it will be impossible to discuss this topic because none of us can leave emotions and beliefs out of this.

Maybe not. What is it that your child needs/needed to enjoy scouting? I'll answer for me but I'd like to hear your and other people's opinions on this.

My son needed a camp that was big enough for a bunch of scouts and not too far away. He needed a bunch of like minded kids and adults that also enjoyed the outdoors and the ideal of scouting. Finally, the adults that did all the work needed a program that they could follow. I'm not sure there's any priority to this list. One more thing that needs to be added to this list moving forward is a YP protocol that will keep us from ever coming back to where we are now.

For us, the camp we most used was the biggest but the rest, as far as we were concerned weren't nearly as important. They made it easier to put on a monthly camping program. That was nice but we spent most of our campouts at one place. It was an easy place to go camping and big enough that we could do a lot of activities at. We camp in a lot of places but many have nothing to do with scouts, so occasionally traveling to find new places is also in the mix.

Those were hard assets. The people and program were soft assets but they made it much easier to create a calendar.

If we can keep a nearby camp, can still attract families and have a documented program that we can argue about here, then we'll do okay. We don't need HA bases. We don't need OA. A district would be nice but we certainly don't need council other than taking care of the camp. We don't need a lot of things. Put the scout store on Amazon. We also will continue to have the same problems we had before all of this came about. Kids still want to do more than be lectured at. Adjusting or tweaking the program will do a lot more good than saving Summit or preventing the loss of some of our smaller camps.

2 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

From a legal standpoint, it does. The court will look at BSA's negligence (and that of LCs and COs.)

The fact that OTHER organizations may ALSO have been negligent will never, ever be allowed into evidence or as part of the trial because it is irrelevant to the question at hand: was BSA (or the LC or CO) in negligence in caring/protecting for the minor and/or in the supervision of the abusive adult leader.

It was the "to darn bad" comment I was referring to. You could have just left that out. 

I agree that "just because others are doing it" is not a good defense, mostly on moral grounds as I don't understand the law.

27 minutes ago, yknot said:

Before anyone can answer that question you would have to consider at least two additional things: Scale and comparable time periods. There are 3.5 million teachers in the US and 57 million school children creating many opportunities for abuse. There are far fewer scouters and scouts. For example, in 2014, there were 1 million adult volunteers involved in scouting and 2.6 million scouts, creating far fewer opportunities for abuse. 

A useful comparison of incidents would also have to select for comparable time periods. 

I think the one good thing that might come out of this mess is better data sets and societal awareness regarding the incidence of child abuse.  Do I think BSA, given all the other aspects of this issue that we know, should be held less accountable? No. BSA was near custom designed to be a pedophile buffet and did not recognize the warning signs or effectively act on warnings, many of which were issued from its earliest inception.  

 

I'm not sure comparing rates is much help. Youth were/are being abused and the number is significant. I did a search on school districts sued for child abuse and the exact same subject came up for a few districts as for the bsa. In the one case I saw teachers were passed around much like priests in the Catholic church. Maybe a better question is when/how will what we see at the bsa turn up in school districts.

16 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Too darn bad. The fact that other organizations were negligent does NOT absolve BSA's negligence.

This is the type of commentary that doesn't help. 

42 minutes ago, Rabid said:

Please don’t lock the thread. It’s a valuable resource. And I’m sure there are others lurking quietly, watching as well.

Thanks for the feedback.

Okay everyone. Let's all step back for a bit. I can lock the thread and force it but I'd rather not.

Well, then maybe the SM has to take the training on how to deal with adults that get in the way. In my experience these people are not that common. Most reply positively to gentle coaching. And for the ones that don't get it, remove them.

I had a dad that was much more disruptive than any parents you've described. The rest of the troop backed me up. After a month he was gone and we could get back to scouting. A month after that another troop had removed him and his son became a lone scout.

Part of the sm's job is teaching adults. Granted, this isn't explained anywhere but that's more reason to have training at a campout for adults.

I like the idea of a patrol focus to teach that skill. Give patrols a bunch of options rather than a camporee style program. It could be advancement, skills, or just fun with boats, shooting, hiking or whatever else the camp supports. 

But the same thing should be done for the adults. They need something to do to keep them from annoying scouts. That might solve @Eagle94-A1's concerns. Training for patrol method. Put them in their own patrols for doing some fun/skills. Maybe roundtables and all the commissioner stuff could be done as well? And get troop committee meetings out of the way as well. Or help work on the camp. 

Scouting is best when done outdoors, so this idea has some merit. 

3 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

At the same time, he was a close compadre of my abuser/SM, came around the Unit, drank beers, was aware of porn passing...the very same stuff he knew was a precursor to abuse.

Now I understand. I was confused as well.

There are comments about STEM, women, school, etc. that are missing something.

Scouts would enjoy a program raising chickens in their back yard if they actually got to make a chicken coop and raised the chickens rather than talked about the different types of chickens, safety requirements for raising chickens and presented a report to their patrol about different types of chicken coops. It's not what they work on, it's that they do something.

The real challenge to this program is coming up with all of these ideas that have scouts doing something every single week that builds into either a campout every month or some other major event. 4H has a project. Robotics have a big competition. Sports have some sort of playoffs. They're doing something constantly. Scouts have a lot of boring meetings because that's the easiest thing to create. Standing up and having a scout recite finger printing MB requirements is really easy to set up. I use that example because I just heard my troop did that.

If there was one thing I'd change it would be related to the MB's. They all have great potential for doing fun stuff. I would rewrite all of them and greatly reduce the "school" part of them. I would make all of them have the option of doing a 3 month project for scouts that really want to dig in and do something more. I would also make them so an entire patrol can work on them at the same time. If a patrol wants to make a club house by lashing poles together over a week, that would be a great way to do pioneering MB. It might take a month or two to get the poles and ropes but it would make for a fun memory.

One more thing, the outdoors is still quite popular. If I want to hike on a popular trail I have to get up early if I want to find a parking spot at the trailhead. The nearest national park started an appointment system to go for a hike during covid and we're afraid they're going to keep it. Camp grounds are booked months ahead. Skiing is so popular it has priced many people out. People like the outdoors. It's what made the pandemic tolerable for me. The question is why can't the BSA use this interest? I'd say that what's driving the kids away is our lack of imagination in getting them doing things. I know how to teach a kid how to tie a bowline but I don't know how to make a bowline something a kid needs to have fun. The phrase "we do fun" might be a good goal.

1 hour ago, ThenNow said:

On average, what do you guys estimate is the average weekly time commitment for a Scout and, separately, a volunteer? I realize the outer will be wildly variable, likely more so for volunteers, but a guesstimated average. For me, this is a critical part of any equation considering involvement and long term commitment to any youth activity. Curious. I know what mine was, but that was decades ago and irrelevant...before the age of the microchip, resume building from birth and the panoply of menu options.  

Now I can answer your question, since this has little to do with CH 11.

Typical scouts spend about 1.5 hours a week at meetings and one weekend a month at campouts. When they get into leadership and they do a good job the meeting time probably doubles. And could double again for SPL/ASPL.

Adults are more like storing data on disk drives, time spent is not a problem until the spouse complains (or drive fills up). We estimated that for each scout in the troop all the time spent by adults as a whole was one hour a week. So with 50 scouts, the total time could get to 50 hours of adult time a week. Honestly, I'd say the scout leadership time was part of that. So if you had really great scout leaders then the adults would be doing less and the scouts more.

At the district and council level ... they all get yelled at by their spouses (and hence I have cut that way back and say no a lot).

I'm locking this until I pull out a sub thread about need vs want. I'm not deleting any posts. Just give me a sec.

I'm back. NO POSTS WERE HURT IN THE MAKING OF THIS MOVE.

If you can't find your old post it might have gone here:

I'm going to move some posts from the ch 11 thread to here. It came from comments about what the bsa needs vs what it wants. It seems to include a discussion about camps and program.

You're welcome to add here.

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

BSA is a dinosaur on life support.

It will shamble on post-bankruptcy, but we are part of a dying organization.

Old saying: when a worm sits in horseradish, it doesn't know there's anything sweeter.

Another, not so old saying: Sometimes things have to get worse before they get better.

Not really a saying: Go look at UK Scouts. At least before the pandemic they had lists of people trying to get their kids in scouts.

@RandomScouter, welcome to the forum. Sorry there aren't any other topics to talk about 

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

You mean http://www.usscouts.org/databases/camp/ocd.cgi

No and sorta. These are not are HA trips. It could become a useful list of places to stop at but most of them are trying to be a destination and not a way point.

I MOVED A BUNCH OF POSTS from the ch 11 thread to here, as it really has gone off from legalese (although important to the ch 11 thread). So, some of these posts you may have seen. Look for the time stamp of 5/9/2021 at 4pm Eastern.

On 5/8/2021 at 6:13 AM, RememberSchiff said:

I do not understand this argument when the vast majority of scouts (90 percent ?) will not attend a BSA HA camp. The outdoors are core to our mission not any particular property.

I've been on about 15 high adventure trips and none have been at a high adventure base. For a while we were doing 2 a year. We need a local camp more than a high adventure base. A 3 hour vs 1 hour drive for a weekend campout will have a much bigger negative impact on our program than anything related to HA bases. 

Rather than summit, which is 1500 miles away, a wiki with ideas and potential outfitters would do us more good. Having a network of scout camps we could stay at would also make travel cheaper. 

While there's lots of discussion by the lawyers about the property values I wonder if anyone is considering what the units need. Unfortunately, I suspect I know the answer to that.

There are lots of companies that make custom ribbons. Search "custom award ribbons". They typically have a minimum amount. 

I looked into it when I was camping chair but it was beyond my budget. 

4 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Some things are non-negotiable

I'd say everything is negotiable, it just depends on how one negotiates and how much leverage one has. Ignore the org charts. Power comes from people following someone. If the people that are supposed to follow you don't trust you then there are other ways to go around you. Make your life miserable, ignore your requests, etc.

I see this in the BSA/council relationships. Councils can ignore the BSA up to an extent. At the same time the BSA has to be careful how it tells all the councils what to do. At some point national could fire the council exec, but that's rarely done. I suspect this is why councils can't pick their own council execs, national is afraid of losing control.

3 hours ago, ThenNow said:

So, who is responsible (directly and ultimately) for the selection and oversight of Unit leaders and what is the interplay between the COs

This is not the military, there is no chain of command. Theory has it that the CO picks the leader but most COs don't even understand scouts. There's a roughly one page agreement the charter signs each year. I have no idea what it says even though I was a SM for 12 years and got them to sign it. BTW, that was the CC's job but I just did it. Next, one might say the unit committee chair picks the unit "leader" (SM, cub master) but even that is a bit hazy. Often it's just finding someone that is willing to do it. As for responsibility, the council won't step in unless things go way off the rails. They certainly don't ensure the program. It's like the relationship between national and the councils, as long as you're not way over the line you're left alone.

This whole thing is based on trust. If you're a good unit leader then your scouts will have a good experience and hopefully your unit will grow. If you're just okay, well, that's not so bad. Until you get cross wise with the law or a ton of parents complain, it's really easy to create a fiefdom. I suspect that is not what you want to hear.

No, what I'm saying is a couple of good memories make up for a truck load of strife. I believe you when you say you're frustrated. We've all been there. Time can help fix the frustration. If not, then it may be time to walk away. I know of several scouters that stuck around, hoping to get things back to a more fun time and it never worked out. The result was a lot of resentment and anger towards scouting. From what you've written it sounds like you might be approaching that. It might be better to take a break and find another way to volunteer. That's what I'm going through right now. Last weekend I went on a campout and really enjoyed it. I didn't have to put on a program for hundreds of scouts but I did help a handful cook their dutch oven cakes. That was reward enough for me till the next campout.

Welcome to the forum. Some times you need to let the bad memories go.