ParkMan

1 hour ago, David CO said:

I know that too.  BSA's attention is on membership growth and the $$$ it generates.  BSA is not focused on program.

Sort of, but I'm sure you know it's more complicated than that.  Membership and money enable the BSA to provide programming.  Without membership and money, the BSA would be 3 guys sitting around in a tent talking about how great Scouting could be.   Yeah, it would be nice if the there was a magic fund that enabled the BSA to operate with less regard for either of them, but it doesn't.  This is where a great endownment would be helpful - but alas, it doesn't exist.

Membership is also what enables the BSA to fulfill it's mandate of bringing Scouting to the youth of America.  If they've got the world's best program, but no-one joins then what's the point  I do get your point.  It would be nice to just have a great idea and the have people go implement it.  But, membership is what is used in our world to measure the efficacy of major initiatives at this point.  

All that aside - this is where you've got to decide what you care about.  If you want Lone Scouting, there's a path - demonstrating it can grow membership.  Why not explore it?

2 hours ago, David CO said:

I agree that BSA would just see this as a competing organization.  They would never go along with a split.  

Which is why I think you have to decide what is more important to you:

• Lone Scouting based on the BSA advancement model
• Lone Scouting based on a different advancement model

If you care about the BSA advancement model, then you need to do this within the BSA.  If you don't, then start your own.

2 hours ago, David CO said:

BSA has a lot of "paper" Chartered Organizations.  These are fictional entities that only exist on paper.   Their sole purpose is to allow the leaders of new units to complete the chartering paperwork without actually having a Chartered Organization.   A Lone Scout program would benefit BSA by allowing BSA to get rid of all of these fictional charters without depriving the scouts of an opportunity to participate in scouting.  

Yes - I know this is factually correct.  However, I don't think getting rid of paper COs brings much real value to the BSA.  The kind of value that will get the BSAs attention is membership growth.

Just now, fred8033 said:

Are registrars paid by national or council?  I thought they were like scout shop staff.  

They are council employees.

9 hours ago, David CO said:

A talented group of Lone Scouters could probably articulate a mechanism for Lone Scouting to work as a stand alone program.  I can't imagine any way it could work within the council structure alongside traditional units.  OA doesn't accept Lone Scouts, so they won't be any help.

 

This is where we need a group of proponents of Lone Scouting to advocate for it.  If I wanted to see this happen, I'd get my fellow Lone Scouting supporters together and come up with a description of how it could work and the value it would bring to Scouting.  How would it attract new youth to Scouting, what would they do, how many members could it attract, how would it be additive to our current programs?

Then I'd call up a progressive local Scouter (a District Commissioner, District Chair, or VP of Programming perhaps) and get them on board.  From there we'd take it to the Council Key Three and get them to support it.  What I find becomes important in this is that a group needs to have a plan that they enlist others to support.  That plan has to bring value to Scouting and be achievable.

If the council key three and board support this, then the OA will make it work.

8 hours ago, David CO said:

The ideal solution for Lone Scouting would be split off Lone Scouts of America into its own separate corporation again.  Undo the merger.  I can't imagine anyone at BSA would be open to that possibility.  I don't know if the bankruptcy court would consider ordering the separation.  So the demise of BSA is still the best bet for Lone Scouting.

I suspect that this is a non-starter.  Why would the BSA ever agree to this?  If the BSA did this they'd in essence be starting a competing Scouting program using the intellectual property of the BSA.  Hows does doing that help either the BSA or the youth it serves?  I think you'd find a lot more support for this within the BSA.

However, if you just want a "Lone Scouting" program that doesn't use the BSA's materials, then I don't see why you can't just go start one.

11 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

And now services are being cut at National and pushed down to councils...with no resources to support.   I spoke with our Registrar today, and she ain't happy...

btw, I think Registrars are the most under-rated, under-paid, and under-appreciated positions in council service centers... 

https://scoutingwire.org/transitioning-member-care-to-serve-and-support-bsa-council-staff/

Interesting development.  Seems like the BSA has a real opportunity to clean up their IT systems so that the role of the registrar is substantially easier.  If ever there was a position in the professional staff that could be made easier - it is that one.

It's very interesting.  I gotta wonder why the color choice and shoulder loops though.  Color scheme is 100% BSA colors.

Good for the GSUSA, but I don't get it.  Is an announcement coming I don't know about?

1 hour ago, David CO said:

BSA policy states that Lone Scouting is only for kids who are unable to join a traditional unit.  If a traditional unit is available, and if the boy is able to attend traditional unit meetings and activities, he is ineligible to be a Lone Scout.  

 I really do appreciate your conciliatory attitude.  It's just not possible.  The only likelihood for Lone Scouting to rebound would be for BSA to go under.  It really is an either/or scenario.

My gut tells me that in this climate, if a group could articulate a mechanism for a lone scout program to work and coexist alongside traditional patrol based programs then it's a possibility.  I've been around enough high level Scouters to know that the door is open for all kinds of innovative activities right now.  The challenge in things like this is knowing how to talk to the right people about it.  You call up your DE or local membership chair and start talking Lone Scouts and they'll go tilt.  They are generally not going to have the right opportunities in the organization to even know how to raise it.  But, if an organized, knowledgeable group had the right approach for raising it internally, then anything is possible.

7 hours ago, David CO said:

That is simply not true.  Lone Scouting was originally created in Chicago to serve newspaper boys and other urban working boys.  My dad was one of them.  He peddled vegetables off of a street cart on the south side of Chicago.  As such, he knew a lot of the newspaper boys who sold newspapers on the street corners.  They recruited him into Lone Scouting. 

Many small farmers would bring their crops into the city and sell them to street vendors, like my father.  They got to know each other, and Lone Scouting spread to small farmers and agricultural worker in rural communities.  By the time BSA bought out LSA, there were more rural Lone Scouts than urban Lone Scouts.  There were once 250,000 Lone Scouts.

Can you imagine what a difference it would make today if BSA had 250,000 Lone Scouts registered?  BSA has distorted the original vision of Lone Scouts.  I know that you would like to restore the original vision of Boy Scouting.  I wish you would want to restore the original vision of Lone Scouting as well.

This sounds like a wonderful program - even in today's uber connected world of 2020.

I don't know why this is an either/or scenario.  You want the lone scout experience - join up that way.  You want patrol method Scouting just a Troop.  Both can exist can't they?  I'm on board 100% - what do we need to do?

Hi @5thGenTexan,

Congrats on getting ready for the course.  You have my sincerest hope that you have an absolutely wonderful time.  I attended just before I became a Cubmaster and it was a great help for me as I took that role on.  Like you, I have a hard time with delegating.  I had a blast and really enjoyed it.  I've since staffed three times in large part because of the wonderful experience it was.

I'm looking forward to hearing about your course as you attend!

@BAJ - Thanks for the amazing review.  It's great to hear such positive feedback.  Those of us who will be involved with staffing the new curriculum are excited about it and so it's wonderful to hear such positive reactions from someone living it.  I'm thrilled that you are excited for weekend 2!!

1 hour ago, dkurtenbach said:

Give up discussing ideas and opinions simply on grounds of supposed futility?  Yet your statement itself expresses why we do it:  Weariness over the status quo, certainly, but also hope that somehow the potential of the forum can be achieved.  So it is with discussions about BSA and Scouting topics that appear to be beyond our control.  We want to express frustration.  We want to find out if others share our views.  We want to test our views to see if the premises are valid, or if we are missing something.  We want to see if someone can tell us something to help relieve our concerns or offer hope or a different perspective, or even change our minds.  We are here because we are all heavily invested in the program.  We are here because this forum helps us to stay invested in the program.  In the end, expressing our ideas and opinions isn't about whether we can change the program but whether we can (depending on the day or the issue) let off enough steam or stoke our fire enough to continue contributing to the program.  And maybe, just maybe, someday, somehow, the right person will read something here that will cause them to do something that makes a difference.

What I'd like to see if an agreement that within the confines of this forum, we are all open and encouraged to share our opinions honestly. 

• I, for example, have no problem saying that I think that the professional structure is too autocratic and that this has a very negative result in how professionals interact with volunteers.  In a society which is moving in the direction of high skilled, knowledge based workers, too many of the structures we have in place in the BSA run contrary to that.

I would hope that we can find a way to generally agree that we have a shared goal of building a stronger Scouting program centered around the organization we know as the BSA.  We can debate and discuss the strengths, weaknesses of the BSA.  We can discuss how to deal with them.  We can discuss how to advocate for change in light of them.

As much as possible we need to try and rally around constructive solutions - even in the issues and politics part of the forum.

• I would like to see our collective knowledge help someone like @Eagle94-A1in his problems with a dysfunctional district/council.  We shouldn't leave him feeling like the only resolution to his problems is to have the BSA get liquidated.  I guarantee that it is possible for volunteers with the right acquired skills to reform his district.  We should be offering ways to accomplish that instead of commiserating about how awful the professionals are.

And yes, there are some things that we cannot change.  I think we should be free to remark about how stupid particular choices and decisions are - but then follow it up with strategies for making the most of them.  

My Scout law parts here are: helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, & cheerful.

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

I don't hope National fails (as in "is liquidated"). I just think it something of a dichotomy between

1) Those who yearn for the "good old days" and want Scouting to go back to where it was circa 1960-something  (or 1940-something) in some "golden age". We aren't that nation anymore, the youth are not the same youth, therefore any version of scouting that tries to operate like that would be little more than anachronism and offer nothing but nostalgia for the scouters leading it and have about as much viability as an automat.

2) Those who yearn for complaining incessantly that National is screwing things up. Yes, they are. Leadership always does, if/when you gauge it against some utopian vision of what "should be". There are trade-offs. Unlike some on here I don't look at National's leadership as either a) gross incompetents or b) people actively engaged in an effort to harm scouting and individual children. I don't think Roger Mosby is either evil or a complete moron. They may have photo-shopped the horns and fangs off of his photo, but somehow I think they just were not there in the first place. National has a massive problem (well, several) that would stumble the best managerial minds. Bankruptcy? COVID? Thousands of claims of sexual abuse? Declining membership? Yeah, any one of these would hobble most volunteer organizations. Stack them on top of each other? Yeah.

If you look at National as the harbinger and bearer of "Scouting" you will be disappointed because the harbinger and bearer of "Scouting" are the scouts. If young people don't want what you are offering in the form of some retro-1940s vision of scouting or some hash or rules and obligations (which is where we are today, more or less), fix it.

If you look at National as a source for certification of your programs (which is what chartering is if you get down to it) then so long as they do that, everything else is just garbage. YPT exists not because National is stupid or evil, but because we are not where we were in the 1960s. You want to operate a youth organization today? You are getting some version of YPT. Want to yearn for the "good old days", remember those "good old days" got us thousands of abuse cases.

So no, I don't hope National fails. I hope it survives and changes for the better. But while I hope it changes, I also recognize that change can sometimes mean "justification for any harebrained thing we came up with" and "let's go backwards". Neither will work.

 

 

Remarkably well said.  Thank you for capturing it so well.

6 minutes ago, David CO said:

No, you haven't got this straight.  We are not complaining in the hope that BSA will fail.  We are complaining because BSA has already failed us.  

I mean no disrespect by this, but that feels like a distinction without a difference.

Within the community here, I think open dialog and yes - complaining makes complete sense.  Express your frustrations and I'll be here to support you in that.  I think that's the benefit of a community like this. 

11 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

My strategy is to identify the current problems at the top of my voice and hope that enough people realize what is going on that it gets fixed. Kinda like what happened with the Churchill Plan. It got leaked, and there was enough outrage that several issues are "paused for consideration" and "are not moving forward with these recommendations," but " we will continue the dialog that prompted the recommendations." Although with National's history of ignoring the rank and file, how long those ideas will not move forward remains to be seen.  Making the National LFL director also in charge of Sea Scouts and Venturing looks like it is a matter of time.

The term "inside baseball" comes to mind.  By and large, most Scouts, families, and frankly - even Scouters - are not that worried about these things.  I'm a pretty with it Scouter and I've got absolutely no idea what the national professional structure that oversees the programs really is.  Where do we camp, how do we get more members, who's going to take the kids camping - these are the things that occupy most leaders minds.  At the district/council level concerns are things like - how do we get more units to our summer camp or how do we help those packs with 8 scouts get to 30+?  

You and I have had conversations about how criminal it is that your experience is not better leveraged in your district.  To me, that's my basic premise.  We need people working in Scouting in constructive roles at the district & council level to build the kinds of programs that kids want.  We cannot wait for national to make some sort of program ruling on how things work.  We need knowledgeable Scouters engaged.  Yet that engagement has to be constructive.  If you want to come over to our district, I think we'd love to have you.

Let me get this straight.  The strategy is to complain about what we have, hope it fails, and then hope it is the replaced by an organization like you like.  If so,  I am quite certain that there is no chance this works out as you hope.

The most likely path to getting the Scouting unit you want is to be building such a unit now.  Then, when there are opportunities for change and influence, provide both. This is part of why constructive engagement is so important.  

16 minutes ago, David CO said:

Offhand, I can think of several organizations that would like to replace BSA as the official boy scout organization in the United States.  I'm not sure WOSM would recognize any of them, but I am certain that WOSM would recognize somebody to reorganize scouting.  WOSM would not leave the USA without a scout association.

 

I expect you are correct that WOSM would likely appoint someone to replace the BSA as our representative the world body.  However, I do not think it would result in a successful Scouting program at anything approaching the levels of involvement of the BSA. 

• The national Scouting resources are owned by the BSA and would most certainly be lost.  Philmont, Northern Tier, etc. would go away.
• Since the idea is that councils would go away in favor of this new entity, I suspect that almost all council camps would be lost.
• You'd have a new Scouting program that is unfamiliar to most.  What keep generations coming back has as much to do with history as it does a fundamental commitment to "pure" Scouting.

Maybe many years down the road the new organization would be stronger - but I seriously doubt it.  Many of the core issues that people complain about are simply the result of how the BSA has dealt with real world pressures:

• YPT - the pressure of lawsuits, insurance, and risk management
• focus on membership - this is the result of an organization that has to deliver on membership growth numbers
• dilution of the program - again, the result of trying to make membership numbers
• focus on money - the minute you have facilities and staff someone has to pay for them

I don't see how some other fledgling organization would make choices all that much different from the BSA.  If anything, I would expect the new Scouting organization to give volunteers even less control over the program.  Further, I suspect any new Scouting program to look a lot more like the GSUSA model than the BSA model.

20 hours ago, Eagledad said:

I don't think so. What I've noticed is that folks don't seem to bring a tone of anything except contrary subjects.

Of what I've heard, this is the most civil Scouting forum. The other forum that I sometimes follow has almost zero traffic now, and it used to compete with this forum in it's heyday. So, where are the discussions we had 15 years ago? You really think this a Scouter.com problem. 

I don't think there is a Scouter.com problem at all.  If anything, I think that what we see here is emblematic of the country as a whole.  It strikes me that there is less knowledge sharing today and more debating today.  What I cannot figure out is where people go who have questions on how to implement the best program possible.

14 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I admit I am one of the "Negative Nellies" of late. I am not trying to be the "silent majority" that @The Latin Scot talks about above, but rather shout at the top of my lungs the BSA is headed in the wrong direction. A lot of concerns folks here and elsewhere had are coming to be because the experienced Scouters are being ignored. And it's not only on the local council level, where I am experiencing it, but also at the national level.

I guess I wonder - when does our interest in discussing the future of the program overwhelm our ability to enjoy the program and advocate for it?

I am the first to acknowledge that national policies and structure are important.  It strikes me that the challenge is to keep our feelings on the big picture balanced with our desires to build the best local program possible.

In the midst of these lawsuits, this seems to me to be the big question.  While one may think the BSA organization is a joke and that it led to all these cases of abuse, but why turn that into a desire to see the BSA fail?  The likelihood that a "better" version of the BSA will replace it is very low.  So, are we not better off working internally to build the best Scouting programs possible?

Is it perhaps a more contemporary idea that we should dissolve and replace organizations instead of improving them?

Scouting is a strange volunteer experience.  Scouting needs volunteers in a number of difference levels in the program.  We need people who are thinking about how to take a 9 year old on the best weekend trip ever or how to take a 16 year old on a meaningful backpacking trip.  We also need people who are thinking about organizational issues at the unit, district, council, or area level.  One of the wonderful things about the program we have is that there are places for all kinds of volunteers with all kinds of skills.  I think we'd be better off if we simply recognized that and embraced it.

@MattR - I hear you.  I periodically get to the point where I need to step back for a bit myself.  For me, the spring and summer so far have been that.  

Maybe it's just me - but it feels like we are always pissed off about something in Scouting these days.  Unit leaders hate district, council, and national.  Volunteers dislike professionals.  etc..  We don't like Wood Badgers, OA members, <insert your own group>.  What I miss are the days of volunteers working together to try & make Scouting great - at whatever level you volunteer at.

11 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

It comes down to the bankruptcy judge. If National can convince the judge to avoid liquidation, then BSA shambles on as a shell of its former self.

As I mentioned previously, there's a massive presumption against Chapter 7 liquidation where the entity is looking to simply restructure (Chapter 11).

 

 

Yes and no.

Legally, structurally, and financially yes - the bankruptcy judge has the primary impact.

However, in the hearts and minds of volunteers and members, the bankruptcy judge is a smaller factor.  What I expect will be just as destructive to the future of the BSA is how the active volunteers support the program.  The more of us that lose faith the more challenging it will be for the program going forward.  If the BSA has a committed group of volunteers it can recover from anything.

On 8/22/2020 at 1:27 PM, David CO said:

I don't think they are two separate things.  The way BSA is structured played a big part in the way it responded to the child abuse.  BSA puts their institutional interests ahead of the needs of the kids.  So when the initial reports of child molesting reached national, their first reaction was to protect the institution rather than the kids.  

 

They may not be different, but they get to the nature of someone's dislike of the BSA and our prospects in the future. 

• For those people who so strongly dislike the BSA, I suspect there is no path forward that keeps the BSA in place as an organization that provides a Scouting program.  If someone is upset about what happened years ago, then there is a chance a reformed BSA that demonstrates it's commitment to youth safety can win their trust. 
• For those who strongly dislike (dare I say hates) the BSA as an organization, then I find it improbable that those people can find a way to support the BSA.

6 hours ago, David CO said:

I do have a visceral reaction to the child sexual abuse scandal at BSA.  No doubt about it.

Does your dislike of the BSA as an organization all stem from the actions of the abusers years ago and the BSA not being more aggressive in stopping it?  I was under the impression you disliked the organization because of it's structure and distinction today.

6 hours ago, David CO said:

Most kids don't choose to participate in scouting, and they don't feel that they are losing out on anything.  There are lots of good youth activities out there for kids to choose from.  If not scouting, they can do something else.  People don't need to support a dysfunctional BSA, as if there are no other good alternatives.  

 

I don't think that we are even remotely talking about the same here.  You seem to have a visceral dislike of the BSA and want to see it fail.  I believe that having a strong Scouting program in the USA is a good thing.  I'd rather see reform of the BSA so that it can really focus enabling successful Scouting programs in our communities.

5 minutes ago, David CO said:

BSA has been dysfunctional for a long time now.  Long before the lawsuits.

Yep - that is true.  

But the core point is that we are all running around angry with the BSA - lawsuits, anger at execs, whatever.  In the process it's the kids who lose out.

1 minute ago, David CO said:

Let's not kid ourselves.  BSA exists to pay the executives' salaries.  They couldn't care less about us.  BSA is all about the $$$.

That's jaded talk.  Just about everyone who has a job wants to keep it.  I want to keep my job too.  I don't fault those who work for the BSA wanting to continue to do so.

But it's not the real reason it exists or at least not the reason it was intended to exist.

6 minutes ago, David CO said:

Yes, the numbers have gone down.  That's because fewer kids want to participate.  It's not because fewer kids are able to participate.

On the surface that is correct.  But the BSA has become incapable of meaningfully adapting to help kids Scout today.  The BSA has become so wrapped up in lawsuits and insurance and fees that it simply can no longer adapt.  I look around my area.  The infrastructure that is the BSA today has no idea how to meaningfully grow anymore.

9 minutes ago, David CO said:

No.  BSA is a corporation that profits off of kids participating in scouting.

The BSA is the congressionally chartered corporation established so that kids could scout.  We need to remember why it exists.  The BSA is there for kids.  Kids are not here for the BSA.

This is different from a normal corporation.  Normal companies exist to make profits for their owners.  That is not shy the BSA exists.

So many of the problems in the BSA stem from the fact that we all forget that. 

Just catching up on this topic.  

All programs - get rid of shoulder loops.  There is no point.  Same with the world Scouting patch

Cubs - end level specific belts, hats, and neckercheif slides.  Lions-wolves wear the same uniform.  Bears-AOL wear the same uniform.  Keep the level specific neckercheifs.

Standardize on two standard materials- poly/cotton (like is in use today) and nylon (like in venturing).

Most of the rest the patches are decorations or badges.  No need to change those.