Sentinel947

22 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

For you active Scouters, I hope this doesn’t put a damper on the candid discussion here. 

It does indeed for me. If Kosnoff is reading here, who knows what other parties are watching?  

It's also highly interesting. He's quoting random, anonymous strangers off a web forum. It's possible that any of us do not know what we claim to know, or aren't who we claim to be. Not exactly trustworthy sources. 

Just now, ThenNow said:

Was there a mysterious outbreak of fainting spells, hiking exhaustion and/or too much tent-contained flatulence that lead to this crisis?

Changing membership policies, sponsor orgs pulling out, rising fees, bad press due to sexual abuse, general decline in civic involvement, then COVID. 

@Eagledad it's conjecture, but it's likely correct given that sexual assault and rape is statistically underreported, particularly in males. 

It's also possible that some of these claims are fake. 

Both things can exist simultaneously. 

I agree with @CynicalScouter. @MrjeffWhat's the point of this thread or your post? You seem frustrated, so I hope your post gives you some release and satisfaction. 

Nobody here is trying to force their opinion on you, but if you make public statements there are plenty of people ready and willing to argue. 

Personally I've been on this forum to learn from experienced Scouters on how to execute the program, stay up to date on changes, work through issues and celebrate success. Over time I've learned some stuff that I hope might help others. 

You've made several mentions of ending your involvement in Scouts. Even if you don't like decisions the BSA has made, I hope you and your youth enjoyed Scouting together and you look back on it as rewarding and worthwhile. Hopefully you'll be on to contribute to other organizations you feel more aligned with. 

17 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Yes but I believe the idea, one pushed by both the insurance companies and at least some of the attorneys for the abuse victims, was and is that those with "bogus" claims shouldn't be allowed to vote on the plan at all.

It's one thing AFTER the plan to simply vet these out and/or payout $3500. It is another to say they should get a vote at all.

And the insurance companies are probably concerned they are contributing money to the pot for "bogus" claims. Yea, those claims might get vetted out, but the insurance companies want to pay as little as possible. 

22 hours ago, Eagledad said:

Good luck. What everyone is basically saying is grooming is a process of Living the Scout Law. Are we going to turn Friendly, Courteous, and Kind into suspicious behavior now?

it would be easier to keep the adults 100 yards away from the Patrols.

Barry

 

I've said this before, but it's relevant. That's what makes No One on One Contact so important. While adults can be friendly, courteous and kind with youth, there's no justifiable reason for an adult to be alone with a youth that isn't their child. 

I feel like I have strong relationships with my Scouts, that they know me and I get to know them, but these aren't secret or private interactions. They take place in view of/ including other adults/youth, whether in person or virtually. 

12 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

@Sentinel947,

I pointed out another case with someone using the same methods to show this is not just a BSA problem,  but a societal one.

I misread, a consistent issue for me. It's not outlandish to suggest this isn't the first time this particular individual may have done this sort of thing, but no evidence provided by the article. 

7 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

Yes and I mean that. Now choose one boy whose abuse checks all or most of the boxes for aggravating factors/multipliers. Lay out his story. Take mine, if you’d like. Nearly 7 years’ worth. Again, I agree with the use of the word, but how do we describe my abuse? Robert’s, Life’s, John’s, Eagle1970’s, Bronco’s, AnonEagle’s, 100th Eagle’s, RandomScouter’s...and the other guys speaking up here, those who are listening and all the others of us. What word or words do we use. My point is, there are none. When we find one or a couple, let’s try to do the same for the aftermath. Words fail.

There are no words that can adequately capture the sexual abuse of children. It's an unspeakable crime, and I respect you and the other survivors who have posted here for coming here and speaking. Even over the internet, it puts real people behind the statistics. There's also nothing I can really say that will make the situation better, you're all in a waiting game, I'll just try not to be obnoxious company. 

41 minutes ago, yknot said:

Here's the version I found. Pretty horrific. 

https://dailyjournalonline.com/news/local/crime-and-courts/scout-chaperone-charged-after-cameras-found-in-s-bar-f-scout-ranch-shower-rooms/article_6574f813-b7fe-5790-9b74-7be6ff182fe2.html

 

If what's detailed is accurate, there better be a deep investigation. As @Eagle94-A1pointed out, this guy has apparently been doing this elsewhere. Who else and in what ways has he victimized others? Has he done this at other Scout camps? At Church? At work? Community centers? 

It triggers a bunch of questions for the BSA. Were the restrooms single occupant, or is it a multi occupant showerhouse? Were males and females mixing? Were youth and adults mixing? Was he registered? Background checked? Had he been reported for odd behavior before?

Looks like 4 separate female youth and 1 male youth were recorded changing or showering, along with a female adult. Then the separate 3 male youth involved in some sort of sexual activity among themselves, or with the accused setting up the cameras? He was identified by the camera footage, so did he assault any of the youth involved? 

2 hours ago, yknot said:

How is this remotely relevant to scouting? We're talking about kids who are supposed to be in a protected, supervised scout camp operating under the gold standard of youth protection in 2021. 

The more interesting question to me is how did this person manage to set up the camera. Didn't anyone notice there was an adult hanging out in the kids bathroom or during kids hours? And the really dismaying part, according to other accounts I have read, is that he recorded scouts engaging in sexual activity in the bathroom. What parent will want to send their kid to that kind of camp?

 

The accused could have set the cameras up during a mealtime when everybody was in their campsites or at the dining hall, or in the middle of the night, where the chances for detection would be low. 

The article seems to have moved here, and I'm not sure I'm finding the exact version online. There were details about them finding sexual pornography, including involving the perpetrator, but those details aren't showing on the articles I'm finding now. What the earlier articles didn't make clear was whether the sexual activity was recorded at the camp, or whether it was found on the device. Harder to say now, since I can't find that language on the articles now. Either way, it's bad. 
I hope the youth weren't engaging in sexual activities at camp. Even more so I hope the accused wasn't sexually assaulting youth at camp. 

I'm confused. The article states there were recordings of sexual acts, pornography. Of others and some involving the accused. Were those found on the devices, were they actually recorded at camp? 

My local camp also had staffing issues. 

I've been involved in Boy Scouts/ Scouts BSA since 2005. I've never heard the second verse of Scout Vespers... I didn't even know it had a second verse. I learned something today. 

56 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

I also don't believe older scouts stay in the program for fun and adventure. I have actually polled our scouts on this. Only 1/4 of the scouts 14 and older hung around for the outdoors activities.  If you can get an honest answer as to why older scouts stay with the program, you will learn they enjoy adult mature responsibilities of running a complicated program, mentoring the younger scouts. You don't see older scouts in adult run troops for two reasons: First, they have been doing fun and adventure for several years, it's not a draw anymore. Second, the only responsibility that have with younger scouts basically comes down to babysitting. That is not the same as mentoring. 

Barry

That was the draw that kept me engaged in my Troop as an older Scout. Being responsible for the Troop, it's activities and it's members. It was a challenge, and I enjoyed the opportunity to try to make things better for myself and the other Scouts. 

30 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

This topic has come up with the Scouts in my troop. One is so disgusted with the "merit badge inflation" that he is no longer considering  completing his Eagle because he believes it is meaningless now.

My Answer to him is the same as the "I need Eagle for my College Application." The journey each Scout takes to earn Eagle is far more important than holding the award. If he decides it's not meaningful to him, he shouldn't bother, but that should be because he's prioritizing something else in life more meaningful, not because other people are taking shortcuts. Will he drop out of high school or college when he finds out classmates are cheating on quite literally every assignment? It doesn't matter what those people are doing. 

9 hours ago, MYCVAStory said:

Anecdotally, I've visited so many reservations in the past decade where I was told "We have several camps in the reservation but only use one regularly."  It always follows the demographics.  Take Ten Mile River Scout Reservation in New York.  10,000+ acres and at its height 11 independent camps and outposts.  Today, three camps.  Drive the old roads and it looks like one scout camp ghost town after another.  I don't know that Council's plans but if the notion is to hold on to all of that property until eight more camps are filled, well, good luck.  There are others like it.  It's business.  When times get tough, time to close the under-performing franchises.

For sure. My council has 4 camps on 2 properties. All are used regularly and maintained. That's probably not the norm for most councils. 

24 minutes ago, 5thGenTexan said:

Its hard for me to understand camps that are "underutilized".  I have to look elsewhere for camping locations because our closest camp is almost always booked up full.

19 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

When you consider there are councils that have lost 50-70% of their membership in the last few decades, "underutilized" camps start to make sense.

Depends on the Council, which is somewhat related to Council management success or failure as well as broader economic and social trends. 

7 hours ago, Navybone said:

A nuanced comment on your assessment on teaching leadership, based on my experience (MBA and senior military leader) - leadership is learned by doing (being in a position of leadership) and having a mentor or guide to help develop the individuals leadership skills.   My concern and experience with naturally learning is that poor leadership skills that create results can be the the wrong lessons learned.  What I mean by this are use of yelling, fear, intimidation, threats, etc. and learning that those type of toxic leadership methods can be successful to get objectives met.  

That was me as a Scout. Very aggressive, authoritarian leadership. That's what I'd seen modelled in sports, band and in school. My Scout leaders didn't really correct me, because I got stuff done. I'd like to think I had the Troop and the Scouts best interests at heart, but my methods were still toxic. My friends joked that I put the "dick" in dictator. When I was 15, I attended NYLT, and it opened my eyes to the principle of Servant Leadership. That personal experience is what has made me such a strong supporter of NYLT. Like any BSA training, it's not a perfect syllabus, and the people who implement and conduct the training aren't perfect either, but it had a huge impact on who I've become. 

5 hours ago, yknot said:

"One thing we have to keep in mind is that scouting teaches one kind of leadership model: top down. The rank advancement system is built around that"...... "And as I've said before, if scouting was that good at producing great leaders, we wouldn't have the kinds of organizational dysfunction and crises that have plagued it for the past few decades because BSA is basically led by scouts."

There can always be a gap between design and common outcome. As this forum has harped on, the BSA doesn't do a particularly good job teaching how things are supposed to be done, and much of how Scout units operate is down to local unit historical practices.  I don't agree that Scouting is designed to teach top down leadership. When I think of Scouting leadership, I think of the Scouts electing patrol leaders to serve the interests of the patrol, and the SPL as a facilitator to help the Patrol leaders come to a consensus. I'm not sure how you define top down, but if you consider the patrol method top down, what organizations and institutions in American life aren't top down? 

I'm curious what the percentage of BSA pros were Scouts as youth, or BSA volunteers as adults. Given the long hours and terrible pay for BSA pros, I imagine talented leaders would look elsewhere for employment, since leadership ability is a very valuable set of soft skills. Regardless, the conduct of many pros and volunteers in their day to day interactions or historically (hopefully not ongoing) abuse cases does lend a thick layer of hypocrisy to the claiming of the mantle of leadership. 

3 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Locally, the COs are in open rebellion and, as someone else mentioned in NJ, the Methodist churches will likely just outright abandon units at the next recharter in December. We have one Catholic diocese that covers our entire council and it is currently "debating" whether to issue a no-more-COs order. I spoke with the committee chair of the troop that is chartered by the parish and he says the pastor wants to keep the troop and pack alive and be the CO, but he has to do what he's told.

The only options going forward are for Troops to charter with the council and get the facility use agreement, or the CO's need to bring the unit completely under CO control and oversight. That would likely entail closing membership of the unit to only individuals who are members of the CO. That would kill most troops in my local area, since even the Catholic ones take on non church members as Troop members. 

CO's would be foolish to continue chartering Troops and simply rubberstamping the paperwork as they have done previously. 

4 hours ago, elitts said:

If I'm dragging some conversations from business school up accurately, one reason why companies tend to be over-zealous about protecting their trademarks/copyrights even in fairly minor cases is that their ability to use the courts to redress violations depends on their having actively protected their interests in the past.  In other words, if they were to simply ignore small-time patch producers now, they could very well have problems getting a judge to protect their interests against a similar sized producer in the future.

I don't remember if that issue is one written into the law or simply the unofficial way the courts work though.

Not sure, but it's also basic logic. "You didn't grant or deny permission to these 10 other people, but now you deny me from doing it?" 

2 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

This next month is about to get real rough as we see the impact of $650M.   It will be especially rough knowing that HA bases were protected while LC camps are being discarded left and right.  

Leaves a bad taste in my mouth, when you consider that most Scouting takes place on the local level. 
My council is in states that have not extended the SOL. There does not seem to be plans to sell either of our camps, but we'll see what happens. 

On 7/1/2021 at 2:48 PM, fred8033 said:

Probably re-hashing a really old argument yet another time.  ... I agree that we don't need to keep re-imaging BSA and the programs.  I would say though that I disagree on the strengths.  I feel like a church member who still has faith, but is now questioning one of the long-promised values. 

Leadership.  I just don't think troops teach it well.  I question focusing on leadership.  I question encouraging adults to teach leadership.  Scouts will learn leadership naturally by trying to get their scouts out doing things.  Be active, etc.  

I never wanted my scouts to be in scouting because of "leadership".   Sure it might become a side benefit.  I wanted them in it to do things I would not do with them on my own.  Or skills I did not have at that time.  ... To also build life-long friendships.   To get experiences.  To be more independent of me.  But, "leadership".  I'm not sure I would join BSA to get my kid to learn leadership.

I think we all agree that the informal leadership training that Scouting provides is valuable, it's also hard to quantify, and it's hard to sell as marketing to parents. There are numerous opportunities for adults to model good leadership practices to Senior Scouts, but these are less of formal instruction, and more of a mentorship/partnership. As Scouts seek to solve their own issues and confront their own challenges, there are opportunities for that informal style of teaching leadership. 

I have seem some great outcomes in myself and my Scouts from NYLT, but that alone is not sufficient to market Scouts BSA as a "Leadership" program. Much of it's value does not derive from the instruction, but from the activities and time spent in a real functional patrol, which is sorely lacking in many Troops. 

There's also a simple fact: not everyone can be, or should be leaders. There is absolutely nothing wrong with folks being contributors to the team. To say that every Scout who comes through the program should develop as a leader is presupposing that every Scout wants to be, and should be developing as a leader. 

Why would families put their kids in Scouts during COVID? Pay all those fees for zoom scouting? As things reopen some folks will return, some won't. 

Those that joined the forum to track the news, share their perspective as abuse survivors:

Thank you I've learned a lot from your posts , please keep coming around, sadly this still isn't over, and for you all, it never truly will be. It makes me sad that an organization that has so profoundly shaped my life for the better has had such the opposite effect for so many, and it gives me a great burden to carry as a leader today, to do the best possible to make sure that the youth entrusted to me are safe from harm. 

3 hours ago, DavidLeeLambert said:

The 82,500 doesn't include victims who are dead and didn't tell their story to an heir, or who didn't see the advertisements or didn't connect them to their abuse, or who just chose to stay out of the bankruptcy for some reason. But I wouldn't assume so quickly that the the 82,500 should be immediately doubled, either. Consider:

• The TCC's numbers released in March show 2,970 cases in Michigan. It's possible BSA gave the state one batch of names from claims in January, when claims normalization was a little over halfway done, and another more recently, perhaps even after giving the TCC the data that they released in March.
• Of that 84,000, at least 10% were blank/unknown. A proportional number of those 1,700 would be 170 additional claims, not the entire difference, but a reasonable number for the AG to guess at when discussing the case without further analysis.
• The TCC's table is based on one state per claim, but some claims could actually implicate more than one state... maybe a Scout lived and was registered in Michigan, but was abused while at a high-adventure activity in New York, or vice versa.

 

It's really hard to say. For an example of a highly public case right now, UoM's Dr. Anderson may have assaulted up to 100 victims of various ages. Some of the sexual predators roaming around in Scouting may have similar counts. The carnage of these evil people, and the cowards who allowed them to operate, will never be truly and completely known. 

Second for CalTopo