Sentinel947

There were no cameras in my High School classrooms or teachers offices. (2012 graduate) I remember having to make up assignments after school where I was totally alone with the just the teacher, and during my study hall period I'd go down to the band room to practice, and it'd just be me and the band teacher there. Maybe that's changed in the last 8 years, but I'm skeptical. Abuse does happen in Schools. There's no point pretending that it doesn't. That doesn't let the BSA off the hook. Yes, child abuse does happen at School or on Scout outings, but when I've read the stories of some of th

That might be your experience with it, but rather than reject it, plenty of participants are unaware that the program is trying to make them role-play as Scouts. They come out of Wood Badge and think Adults are supposed to be acting they way their patrols and Troop Guides did in wood badge, when those are "youth" roles. I don't disagree with you, I don't think the role-playing aspects of Wood Badge have much value. But that doesn't change that people graduate from the program and don't recognize what they experienced.

Yes. This is one of many imperfect lost- in- translation aspects in Wood Badge. There are Wood Badge graduates who fail to realize as participants they are living a youth role, and so is most of the staff. NYLT's a little stronger in the way that it's more obvious who's in the staff is a Youth POR vs an Adult role. But NYLT's PLC's suffer from the same issues as Wood Badge. It'd be better to have a scripted mock PLC to demonstrate, and then stop calling the daily progress/tasking meetings "PLCs."

I've worked with a lot of Life Scouts. I've seen it go either way: 1. The Scout has an idea, and pitches it to the beneficiary. This mostly looks like the Scout contacting the beneficiary representative and pitching the idea. 2. The Scout picks a beneficiary, the beneficiary representative and the Scout decide on a project of need. I'd say most of my Scouts (including me) went the second way, but I did have a few that went the first route. End result is the same. The advantage for picking the beneficiary first is they might have a budget assigned for the project, where if a Scout springs

Best will always be subjective. There a bunch of very worthy activities for youth to involve themselves in, and a variety of very worthy volunteer organizations for adults to provide service to. I firmly believe in the Scouting program, and I back that belief with time, talent and treasure. It's the best activity I was involved with as youth, but best is going to depend on each youth and their unique interests and needs.

In a negotiation it depends who has leverage. My current rental arrangement reflects my leverage vs my landlord. In the case of the boy scouts and renting, the facility owner holds most of the cards, and all the cards that matter.

This is just part of the JD (job description) for a DE. I don't think @Cburkhardt was suggesting it become the standard for Scouting volunteers. The DE role has some huge challenges. From a job design perspective, it's asking people to have a variety of valuable skillsets for a low rate of pay. That's a poor business practice. The BSA will always struggle to attract people with the right background for such a multifacted role, and once it starts to develop staff to have the necessary sales, fundraising and people management skills needed to be a DE, they can leave the BSA for sales, fundrai

You're fufilling your destiny @InquisitiveScouter! Become my apprentice, and learn to use the dark side of the force!

@ThenNow Thank you for sharing your thoughts and experience with us.

Technology has made things significantly easier for people in general, not just Children. The life skills required to be an ADULT today is not as demanding as it was in the 1940's. If you have money, you can pay somebody to do most things for you. Where I will disagree is that children are academically and socially under WAY more pressure than they were in decades past. I was studying things in High School my parents didn't take until they went to college, and I was definitely not as academically bright as they are. The competition for jobs and college acceptance is way more intense than it

Do you have some sort of data that suggests that young adults are more likely to be sexual predators than older men? The articles I've seen on abuse in Scouting and the Catholic church doesn't seem to show that's a consistent trend.

My dad and uncles Troop was like your troop. They accepted the new requirements, but otherwise just kept doing their usual outdoor program.

I was being facetious. Since commenters on the Wapo article were calling for the BSA to be abolished. If every organization that failed to handle sexual abuse of minors historically was abolished, there would be no youth serving organizations left.

Due to the commenters on the website suggest we abolish public education too? https://abc7.com/child-sex-abuse-sexual-misconduct-lausd-los-angeles-unified-school-district/5855667/. Hold organizations, leaders and administrators accountable, yes.

I think diversity and inclusion is important, but I don't think this should be a standalone badge. It should be rolled into a combined citizenship badge. There are now effectively 4 Eagle required badges on the topic of citizenship. Scouts by their nature as young people don't take a whole lot away from classroom style badges. Can you cite any of those studies? One of the issues with diversity and inclusion is that it means different things in different places. That's a function of societal make up and culture. For the purposes of this forum, and the BSA's badge, I'd imagine we are di

Just because you don't get out enough to see it, doesn't mean it doesn't exist.

That's my thought too. Changing the name of the program would hurt more than it helps. My experience has been most people view the program either positively or neutrally, unless they have some sort of political disagreement with the former or current membership policies, or they were mistreated or abused by a BSA volunteer or pro. If the BSA changes it's name, removes more traditional elements of the program, and becomes an after school camping club or family camping club, this individual donor has other worthy organizations to donate to. I don't think the corporate donors are coming bac

This is going to get messy. Looking at the Catholic Church, the Scouts, the Schools, I don't think any other youth organizations were doing any better. I can only hope by blind luck they might have done better. I mean read this article, then tell me what the BSA would have done to prevent this abuse to Frank Spinelli? https://www.npr.org/2020/11/13/933924470/boy-scouts-of-america-sexual-abuse-victims-seek-justice-in-bankruptcy-court Given how trusting his parents were, I don't think even todays BSA YPT protection would have prevented this, unless Frank told another Scout or leader and they

It's sad, and deeply ironic, that by coming forth and trying to create a settlement fund to compensate victims, the BSA will actually be destroyed by it. This seems like it'll be a total liquidation of national and council assets.

It depends on the Scouts. My first Scoutmaster handed things over when I was 12. While I remember him fondly, I wasn't super upset that he was stepping down because I hadn't known him very long. On the other hand, during the last Scoutmaster transition, I noticed how much Scouts (and their parents) would still seek out the Scoutmaster or I for things that were really the purview of the New Scoutmaster. It was mostly older Scouts and their parents who had grown comfortable with who they should go to.

It's only an issue if the SM does not communicate or delegate. I spent about 3-4 years being "the backup" to two different Scoutmasters. One always made sure I was in the loop and prepared. The other would tell me 30 minutes before a meeting he wouldn't be there.

My Troop's Scoutmasters have typically served for 5-7 years. I think that's a good amount of time to gain proficiency, provide stability but also turn over often enough to give others an opportunity and the Troop a fresh perspective.

The same people would ban air because their political opponents breath it. 😄

Why are they filing? Yup. This liability to the CO's is going to be the real driver behind whether the BSA survives or not. If CO's drop their units in mass to avoid future liability, this will be the end of the BSA in it's current structure. I'm already steeling myself that National and the Council's will lose everything. If they don't I'll be pleasantly surprised.

Thanks, My early Saturday AM ramblings. Today I was out at the Council camp doing some service. I ended up running into my Troop, who was out camping there. It's one of the only places they are allowed to camp. They had about 20 Scouts and 10 Webelos out camping with them. The Webelos are working on some of their AOL requirements. Surprising to me, COVID 19 seems to have galvanized the adult leadership of the Troop, and they seem determined to make things work the best they can with COVID 19. The Scouts seemed to be having fun, and were in their patrols, which I was glad to see. The Cub