MattR

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.

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.

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

Thanks for the feedback.

I would like to not lock the thread but we seem to be in a rut that we need to get out of before any progress can be made. Here are some observations that might help. First, human dignity is the cornerstone of the Bible. (yep, hang in there.) It is used to resolve conflicts. It is the goal of how to treat each other. The level of evil or sin is based on how much indignity one causes another. Shy of murder I can't think of anything more undignified then an adult chronically abusing a child. The main subject is child sexual abuse but we also heard about parental abuse yesterday. Next, PTSD can cause people to boil over with anger. I've had scouts in my troop with PTSD and I've volunteered at a veteran's support organization that dealt with a lot of PTSD. All I can say is their anger can take over any rational thought. It just is. I can't fix it. I can't change it. All I can do is control how I respond to it. At the same time this forum is mostly people that have spent a lot of time donating their time and resources to scouting. When your year pin only measures decades then you've invested a lot of time. We're dealing with the shock of the upcoming change, which nobody knows at the moment. While I respect the pain of watching something one has built getting washed away by the court system, it does not compare to the indignity of chronic child abuse. Everyone says they understand that and yet, when emotions boil up, there's the stray comment that starts with "I understand, but ...." All I ask is that you please try and understand how this comes across to someone that has suffered a horrible indignity. We can't control the outcome of the legal process. We can only control how we react to each other on this forum. There are people here that struggle with controlling their anger and we need to be Kind. Right now things are going really bad. Let's live up to what we believe in. Now, for the important points being made. Yes, the BSA has done a lot of good. Yes, most of us have donated a lot of time and don't want to see that thrown out. Yes, the claiment side is not perfect and deserves some critique. Yes, the 85k cases are not at all well understood. Yes, constantly posting the same thing over and over is like shouting to someone that doesn't speak your language. Yes, the legal system is like operating with a chain saw. And yes, no matter what anyone says, Strang still bothers me. But, what can we do? Does anyone honestly think they can change the outcome? What's coming will be. All we can do is control how we react to it. That's it. This forum, however, we can control. Just a suggestion: This thread is about chapter 11. I would be fine saying any post not related to that will be removed. And I mean anyone's opinions as well. The 1000 links posted above would be removed as they don't contribute to understanding what has been done in the court. One link to one website with the reports is all that's needed. We can start another thread about what is fair and what you'd like to see related to chapter 11. How do we keep that civil? How do we deal with comments that just grate on some people's nerves? I'd like to just ask everyone to be more scout like, but that won't work. I barely have the time to read them. If people want to talk about how they want to rebuild scouting once this is over, that's easy, go for it. But don't try to change someone else's opinions or discount them. The only way out of these disagreements is to better understand where people are coming from. I learned something yesterday from @Eagle94-A1 that surprised me and it probably took some courage to put it out there. The same goes for @ThenNow. As I understand what people have experienced it's easier to appreciate their point. Some comments are just trying to get in someone's face. The most trouble I get into is posting late at night when I'm tired. Again, any ideas on how to control it? Some people react well to me hiding their post and telling them what's wrong. Not sure about others. If anyone has constructive ideas on how to keep things civil and moving forward feel free to post. I don't know what the other moderators think about all of this, and I clearly haven't considered it too long. Maybe we can discuss this elsewhere.

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.

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.

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.

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

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. 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.

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. 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.

I hope the judge listens to everyone with an appropriate grain of salt and makes her own plan. The quicker the better. At this point the lawyers are just sinking the wheels deeper into the mud, nothing is moving forward. I'd rather see some progress so the victims can get some closure, the volunteers can start rebuilding and this forum can get back to arguing about the patrol method.

Peakaboo! For all of you that just look at the "what's new" page, it looks like @Eagle1993 corralled that other thread about how superior Latin is, or whatever it was, and put it back here. You can continue here.

I used to tell patrols: 1 scout, find another patrol; 2 scouts, your choice; 3 or more, you're a patrol. A lot of scouts enjoyed the smaller patrols. Everyone had to help and it was all very fluid. They could cook things that were too hard with 6 scouts. One patrol started their standard for dessert - melted chocolate and some sort of fruit. That patrol stuck together till everyone aged out for no other reason than melted chocolate and some sort of fruit. Well, that and they just got along, but they claimed it was the dessert. Thanks, that's a really good memory.

@seguru, welcome to the forum? Anyway, nobody said you can't express your opinion. But if you're not courteous then we will remove posts. Those are the rules.