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And ... it shouldn't be dependent on a female adult being in the room (if you're a girl and only your male advisor and associate show up). it should cost less than a student discount lift-ticket to register. I forgot that first one before, and I thought the second one bore repeating. Cost effectiveness is no joke for our teens. Many of their mom's administrative jobs will soon be automated, and the training for trucking or welding isn't coming fast enough.

@DuctTape that won't satisfy the bean-counting requirement of some councils because if you complete YPT on, say, December 23 of this year, that will mean next year when you go to recharter, all of those folks' YP will "only" be current for 11.7 months in 2021. The only two solutions: Divert twice as many scouter-hours from program to YPT than National claims to require. Have a New-Year's party for all scouters whose YPT may lapse next year, and train them at one minute past midnight. That way you get two full charter years before you are nagged by council about those scouters again. Your charter will go in late, but that's council's problem not yours. @ParkMan, I've seen the hassles put upon district scouters chasing down those who let they're YPT lapse, it is hard work, but so what? To make their lives easier, should they take man-hours hours per year away from the thousands of scouters who do their diligence every two years? All for the 100 scouters who they need to hound November through December? All they are doing is transferring load to unit leaders to address a problem that is rather small.

That's an imposition of one of the following ... That's one scout meeting. (Or 1.5 if you're on one hour a week.) Two merit badge counseling sessions. Reviewing the first aid manual. Time at the waterfront practicing drills. A car safety inspection. Shopping for a uniform for a needy scout. Dinner with your spouse. Roundable Two 45 minute drive listening to what life is like for your SPL. If you really believe that scouters are forgetting their training after just one year, or that training is evolving so fast that everyone should take it yearly, that's one thing. But don't ever trivialize the imposition that it poses on a scouter. Multiply it by thousands of scouters and that's a real program that will not get done.

@awanatech, conflating YP (which is a modification of aldult association) with advancement gets us nowhere. Better to just say local impositions that are neither important to National nor mandated by the state make it hard for volunteers to do their job well.

Fix venturing? That would entail: - Allowing youth to meet independent of adults - Removing the distinction in applications between youth and adult participant - Limiting registration fee to the less than the cost of a campout or two large pizzas, whichever is lower. - Renaming awards Star Venturer, Life Venturer, and Eagle Venturer. Or, at least insist NESA extend its mission to support Venturing's highest award. In other words roll back everything that BSA has done to venturing in the past 10 years (except the One Oath Initiative, that actually kinda worked).

Contact your district executive and, possibly, your council president. Explain that you've done due diligence according to national standards. Explain that your parents are a bit frayed as it is, and so are your leaders as you all have gone out of the way to support them. Assure that any leader on your roster whose training is due this year will take it the month that it is due. And, that no other revisions to training will be submitted at this time. Worst case they suspend your charter until you comply, but at the very least you stall until you take the training New Year's Day.

@Sentinel947, previously, it was easy enough to keep a bunch of scouters and scouts on the rolls by turning in a charter with a reasonably small check. It didn't matter if they actually did anything to confirm their desire to be on the rolls. Now half of unit leadership is at risk of being dropped if YPT lapses. Within two years of leaders doing nothing a charter will not be renewable. On top of that, background checks have added to registration costs, so it's maybe 10 times as expensive to register. Some the increase has do with more than the imprative of modern YP, but it still contributes to a disincentive to keep a unit on the books longer than necessary.

I don't make predictions based on interim stats. We have another thread about a non-LDS unit shrinking below 5. How long will the DE let it stay at 3? How long after the unit says it's not turning in another charter before it's not on he books. When my crew disbanded, I let my DE know two months in advance to not expect a charter from us. It wasn't until late Februrary that he sent me the red form. I have no idea if that -1 was reflected in last year's stats or not. I'd like to think it would be in your interim counts by now. Maybe you haven't seen much obfuscation in DC. But, from what little I've seen, I know it can happen. It's a big country. The one good thing about the current YPT is that it forces a more solid head count. So we have a better chance at precision than in past decades.

@Hawkwin I'm not sure what you are trying to get at by clipping each quote and restating them as if your extension in a particularly offensive direction reflects my intent. I mean it's okay if you find them patently offensive. And I'm fine with you making arguments by extension. It's that I don't know what you think is the most important facet for me or anyone else to address. Since this forum doesn't offer sub-replies walking through each point is kinda hard to do. (FWIW, the forums once had a sub-reply feature, and most folks found it very confusing.) It's gonna take a while to sort it out. Again, not trying to discourage. Just letting you know that if you're expecting a point-counterpoint, it's not coming soon.

The problem here is "the world" was not wronged. It has nothing to forgive. It's only option is to sit on the sidelines while the media makes a circus out of these two people's lives. Given the many scouters who I've seen in similar situations as either perpetrator or victim (in real life, not newspaper clippings), I hope that one or two of them will realize that videos are not "a neutral location." Lacking in-person or arbitrated resolution, a courtroom is intended to be such a location, and the only thing that needs to be said is "Guilty, your honor." That will most likely be the course. @le Voyageur, the most reasonable tactic IMHO is to attempt to bargain for a plea of "battery", which would keep the defendant off of the registry. The prosecutor might accept that plea if this is indeed a one-off event and a pattern of sexual assaults is hard to establish. On the other hand, having put himself on the news, other women (or young men) might come forward to report similar behavior. In which case, I feel really sorry for the guy's family.

A neighboring SM had a lot of Chinese families and observed the same thing. He was pretty frustrated. I'm sure they also brushed him off because I think he was trying to sort this out with the parents himself -- explaining that they should step back from their sons a little, and they just brushed him off. A better strategy might have been coaching the SPL+ASPL to help each parent+child with the task. Often times when the scouting culture is alien to a parent, an older scout is the best emissary to instill that vision of independence and self-reliance.

@ianwilkins, I really wanted to ask my scouts if they had one in their wallets so that I could I could explain our expectations, but our boys barely carry their wallets, let alone a card they were supposed to have earned three years ago! Also, it was hard enough sorting out that what I called "mint tea" was what your countrymen called "tea with mint". (That was after traumatizing them by making sun tea in my clear water bottle.)

@TMSM, he "apologized" after he was caught. Then he got behind a camera to justify his actions. Probably because someone told him that was what you do to try and save your job. That's not an apology. An apology is an attempt to arrange a fair meeting on neutral ground with no recording devices present. Then, when the media hounds you, to refer them to the victim for any further public statements pending the resolution of any potential litigation. I've emphasized that to young women who were physically or verbally assaulted by scouts or scouters (or if they were guarding a public pool). They do not ... no ... they must not countenance such behavior. They can accept whatever apology, but it's their bosses (and ours, if it's our scouts causing trouble) responsibility to act on their behalf. It's been very hard to convince them to press the issues. They don't want to do it. But at the very least, I wanted to let them know that someone's in there court for when they do.

@mds3d Not trying to minimize ... impertinence may also be criminal. But, if this rises to the level of criminal, that makes a reporter's attempting to carry on even more disappointing. If the rule is "finish your job before addressing a crime," there are plenty of criminals counting on us giving them that margin. I am glad she called him out via social media, but I hunger for role models for our daughters who assert themselves the moment their honor is called to question. Obviously that's a very hard thing to do. But, IMHO, it would have been better live TV to at least hear the woman shouting "Hey $#$#$, Not cool, man!!!!"

Our CC said the same thing to our DE when they allowed a nice, but generally divisive leader to form a third troop at a CO within spitting distance of our troop's CO. Meeting on the same night at the same time as ours targeting boys from the same pack. Thank God that after about 3 years our boys and theirs had the vision to say, "This is is stupid."

Yeah. It explains more than it befuddles.

I disagree with @FireStone that the BSA doesn't need this. The organization is rife with volunteers who have impertinent moments. The world needs to know that. Youth protection makes it worse because you need more adults for every little thing, and the talent pool just isn't that deep. Doesn't hurt for the world to know that either. If someone is getting all high and mighty about this or any other behavior of our volunteers the reply should be, "If you can do better, here's an adult application." Secondly there were other people who saw this and said nothing. They wen't on with their race too busy to care. The reporter should call them out. In high school marching band, a judge once butt-slapped me as we were marching single file. My mates tried to diffuse the tension with a little humor, and it helped. But, it would have been nice if one of them would have said, "Sir, this isn't football. We aren't wearing pads. A tap on the shoulder will do." Thirdly, she's right to be offended, but was slow to react. I've counseled several young women to not countenance any such behavior on their job. Address the public promptly, firmly, and loudly. This reveals a cultural deficiency. In the Arab world, women are taught one simple phrase to shout in public. "Did you see what he did to me?" It can get a guy a solid beating for the slightest jostle. I knew a backpacker who had a little old lady do this because she didn't hear him and his buddy say "Peace be with you" as they walked through her village. They weren't sure they'd make it out alive. We need to imbue our young ladies with that same confidence. Fourthly, Whoever told the guy that getting on TV would be a good idea should be fired. He didn't offend us. He offended her and her staff. He and his wife should have asked in writing to meet with her, her boss, and her camera man to apologize personally. No interviews. Ever. If I were his CC, I'd ask the guy to have a sit down with the scout moms and let them know that they can call him on any other fast-and-loose behavior.

Learning to delegate requires a cycle of trust. Most of us don't realize that we shouldn't trust folks who we haven't seen perform. I don't know why we do this. I mean, I can barely walk and chew gum at the same time ... Why would I think that someone else could do more than one job? So, over time, we learn to give folks one task at a time. Exactly how we do that depends on your posse.

Just to de-fuzz the math, remember that to break even from a ten percent a ten percent loss, one needs a subsequent eleven percent gain.

Never heard of the site. Never cared.

Right, because nobody else is ever going to have a UK scouter drop by camp to update you on one of your scout's Totin' chip fails ...

The scoutshop is organizing it (article on Bryan's Blog) @5thGenTexan, I would hold off until the sibling's ticket was filled and tell the Scoutshop that you're not doing no giving-tree half-ask.

More to the story? We can bet there is. The SM is quoted about "legacy", "Eagle rank", "19 year charter", etc ... But what is not said speaks volumes. How many times do the boys hike and camp each month? What happened on the last campout? How friendly are these three remaining scouts to others? Are they good mentors? What skills do they have? Are they first class scouts? What was the last notable good turn of one of these scouts? Have they won at camporees or camp-wide uniform inspections? Folks, if you're going to the press about your unit, stop talking about how good you were. Tell the reporter about how you are fulfilling the promise of scouting by inculcating a vision of hiking and camping independently with your mates. And tell them how your scouts will help their kid make that happen this weekend if he drops by tonight! Otherwise, find your scouts a new home, where they stand a chance of becoming "all that."

For your specific issue, our committee gives the SM a yearly allocation for gear purchases. (Usually this is an estimate based on the SM and QM trying figure out what the troop needs will be. If the PLC is running smoothly, the SPL would be the one submitting the estimate.) The committee does not get into the weeds of what gear is purchased. That way, if the SM and scouts are buying a new stove, and see a couple of tents competitively priced, they may buy them. Receipts are turned into the treasure, and the committee sees the total dollar amount of gear purchased in the treasurers report, and the list of gear purchased in the SM/SPL report. The same applies to most general expenses. The committee establishes a budget, and delegates the responsible parties to work within that budget. There are some things that come up quickly and cannot be budgeted, like families needing support for camp fees and the cost is beyond SM's discretionary budget. I've recommended that committees handle those between the treasurer, CC, and SM in executive session, and the treasurer reports the expense as an anonymous line item like "Camp fees for scouts in need". Bottom line: the committee should focus on deciding how to support what the scouts want to purchase ... not deciding what to purchase for them. Since our troop doesn't buy tents, and I only buy tarps, I can't help you on your hunt!

Here is where I disagree with @ParkMan, the SM was the only adult who wore a uniform in our troop. The rest showed up in their best work clothes. The ASM who was a coal miner looked pretty rough, but one of the most caring men I had met in scouting. I never saw a committee member in a uniform until my sons joined scouts. Still think it's dumb. Why does an MC need a field uniform? To set off his/her beads? None of those adults bothering with uniforms, and guess what? I made a point to look sharp every meeting and hang my pants creased in the evening. Shoes polished every Sunday. Inspected patrols every couple of months just like the SPL's before me had done. You're the only adult who the scout needs for an example of a sharp uniform. You don't need your adults to uniform. It's not their program. You need them to admire your scouts. You need them to be kind to one another. You need them to turn into wallpaper as the scouts run meetings and activities.