Sentinel947

My local Camp- Camp Friedlander just finished their day camp program for the summer. Seems like it went well, and the scouts and staff had a good and safe time. 

33 minutes ago, David CO said:

Not always.  I got laid off during the shutdown.  My position wasn't needed for a school while doing distance learning.  Was it gut wrenching?  Nope.  With the federal add-on to my unemployment insurance, I actually got paid about 10% more than my teaching salary.  I don't understand it, but I'll take it.

The hard part is not seeing the kids everyday.  That is gut wrenching.  I really miss them!  But, with the shutdown, that would have happened anyway.

Still can be stressful. You seem like a smart, thrifty and well prepared individual. You'd likely do well regardless of UI. 

A few co-workers of mine were furloughed. They ended up making more money on UI than I was making working. (I live a LCOL area.)  I was kept on, doing twice the work I normally would, but I was grateful because I knew:

1.) The extra federal money for unemployment would eventually end or be modified.
2.) Furloughs can easily become permanent layoffs. 
3.) I like what I do, and with the virus out, I wouldn't do the social things I did to entertain myself like I did when I was laid off in 2018. Even that was a stressful experience, and I was only laid off for about 8 weeks, during a good economy, with no pandemic. 

This week it was announced that half the furloughed members of my team would return, the other half would be laid off.  I'm glad I didn't have to deal with that stress, and I got to pick up some new skills and have a shake up to the normal work I do. Plus now I have a ton of built up vacation to use, and the clock keeps toiling on my vesting for the company retirement plan. 

@CynicalScouter is dead on. I think this site uses Google Ads. I consistently get ads for products I'm researching that are unrelated to Scouting or my discussions here. 

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

And here comes the backpedaling.

And a survey (in which they do not allow you to offer new ideas, just want you to approve theirs).

 

Hard to make recommendations when we have no idea how these changes will be implemented. 

2 minutes ago, mashmaster said:

Note that "End all youth programs at age 18" has become "Evaluate program methods and age parameters to provide an engaging option that enables youth members to transition to adult leadership roles and remain active in Scouting with an ongoing commitment to safety." in this version

Which will mean whatever they want it to mean. It never made sense to have youth and adults overlap in the program as participants, but here we are, so now they need to create a reasonable transition period where current 18-20 year old who have been promised positions can fulfill those, while providing a worthwhile path for current youth to transition into meaningful adult roles.

Becoming an ASM at 18 was one of the best decisions I've ever made. It helped me develop my own leadership skills and decision making more than my undergraduate degree. The transition was challenging, and there was absolutely no guidance from national on how to make that work other than follow YPT, which is obvious. I was lucky my Troops adult leadership were open minded and desperately in need of somebody who understood the program. With the changes the BSA has made to require adults to be 21 to count for two deep leadership, I don't see much of a necessary role for an 18-20 year old to play in a Troop. Unless the Troop creates space for those young adults to volunteer and has clear vision for how the strengths and weaknesses of a typical 18-20 year old fit into their corps of adult volunteers. Most troops struggle to even figure out how to get the youth leaders to lead, let alone mix in a college age adult volunteers. 

21 hours ago, yknot said:

Once again, another really media tone deaf choice by BSA. Do they not even watch CNN? Churchill was a great man, but his statues are being toppled because of his racist opinions. What was wrong with Eagle Project? Why are we always shooting ourselves in our media foot? 

 

It's mind boggling. Is this whole organization run by 70 or 80 year old men? 

I think Churchill is the name of the consulting company that made the report. 

2 hours ago, David CO said:

I think that may be exactly what the executives at BSA have in mind.  They want to turn their remaining boy scout camps into commercial camp grounds.  They'll sell the ones they can and commercialize the rest.

I'm not sure they are talking about adding new membership categories like exploring or venturing.  I think it might be membership categories like the ones commercial health clubs have.  Weekend memberships.  Monthly memberships.  Family memberships.

This is what happened to the YMCA.  They took an association of young Christian men, dropped its mission/purpose, and turned it into a commercial health club.  

I don't get how this is too much different. I can already rent campsites at my local scout camp for private use. I'm not sure how big the market is for a monthly membership to a campground. It's almost like a timeshare. 🤢. A gym membership is different, people will always pay monthly or annually for use of a gym facility. 

34 minutes ago, yknot said:

Agreed. But where else does the paramilitary mindset come from other than the LEO or "para" paramilitary outlook? Random SMs and ASMs or religiously affiliated COs don't come up with it. 

I mean original boy scout uniforms were basically surplus/copies of US Army uniforms from the time period. Rugged, cheap, practical, looked good. Now the uniforms are overpriced, lack durability, are considered tacky at best. 

1 minute ago, CynicalScouter said:

The "volunteer corps for young adults 18-29" could, might, maybe be a modified Rovers program.

Given most council's lack of interest in supporting Venturing, I can only imagine a Rovers program is dead on arrival. Councils might have an interest in using a volunteer corps if it can help supplement the decline of free OA labor in supporting council properties. I think that's a tremendous waste of potential. It'd also overlap with Alpha Phi Omega, which is redundant. 

Personally I'd love to see the Volunteer corps become more unit facing than just Council facing. A young adult volunteer corps is going to have a range of availability, experience and skill sets. A unit might need help with planning an event, conducting a training of youth/adult leaders, providing specific outdoors skills training or may be short on adults for an outing. They can contact the volunteer corps and get somebody from that group to help meet that need. I know that overlaps with the Commissioner corps, but there aren't enough Commissioners as it is, and frankly to steal @Stosh's term, many of the Commissioner corps are "Parlor Scouters" they are past the point of active outdoor unit participation, either by desire or physical limitation. On a council level, the volunteer corp can help provide support/leadership for camporees, Jambo contingent leadership, additional volunteer support for Summer camps. In a sense you are taking some of the finest young adult Scouting talent in a council, and making them available to units throughout the council on a project by project basis. This makes even more sense as councils may be looking to streamline their district professionals and volunteers in the coming years. 

As somebody in that 18-29 age group, I'd be totally interested in participating and helping lead something like that. Having a purposeful opportunity to volunteer with some friends and assist units in putting together great programs sounds like a lot of fun. Even better if I don't have to make a long term commitment to a unit in order to do so. But every program requires a staff advisor, and I doubt there will be much of an appetite in most councils to oversee such a program as professional resources become more scarce and job responsibilities expand. 

So nothing has changed? Didn't 18-20 year olds still have to register as adults and follow YPT in the OA? Hasn't that been the case for over a decade or so? Were people not following that? 

45 minutes ago, mrjohns2 said:

Like many said, this isn’t much of a vision or plan. 
 

Getting distracted by Rovers is pretty dumb. They seem to be cutting out some distractions, but to think a distraction like Rovers will help the core program, they are mistaken. 
 

Get rid of the garbage and the focus of national on a small set of out of touch volunteers is a big part of the problem. Doubling down on excellent execution of the current program is the answer. Any org structure or flanking program that distracts from Cubs and Scouts BSA is a mistake. 

I don't see any indication in the screenshot that they are implementing a Rovers program. 

12 hours ago, David CO said:

This part doesn't make any sense to me.  Why would we need a separate membership category?  Advancement is voluntary.  If a scout doesn't want to advance, he doesn't have to.  He doesn't need a special membership category.

Good question. 

13 hours ago, carebear3895 said:

"Create a membership category for youth and families with no advancement program"

 

You mean like how was Venturing was supposed to be? High Adventure emphasis with an OPTIONAL advancement program. 

No. This is the next step of "Family Scouting" implementation. 

52 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

But that quote is from Episode VIII while the image is from Episode V!

🤪

One of the only redeemable sequences from the entire 8th film.... Excellently written, well shot, well acted. 

1 hour ago, John-in-KC said:

My two cents:  If she donated the property and built the building, and the Council opts to rename them, then the Council owes her heirs the money back, with interest equal to the annual rates of inflation. 
 

It’s the right thing to do. 

I live in Dan Beard Council. Her Foundation would be the ones to decide. They said in the article you cited,  said her Foundation supports organizations removing her name.

"The Marge and Charles J. Schott Foundation released a statement Tuesday, saying they support the organizations who remove her name. 

"While we cannot make excuses for the rhetoric made by Mrs. Schott decades ago, we can ask you to learn from Mrs. Schott’s mistakes as well as her great love for Cincinnati."

They didn't object to the University of Cincinnati (my alma mater!)  removing her name from the baseball stadium there. I don't think they'll object if things in the Council are renamed. If the Board does decide to rename things, I still would like to see them recognize her contributions in some way. While she had some very nasty views, and said some nasty things about Black people, she was a very generous donor to Dan Beard Council. A generation of youth have benefited from her charitable giving, and will continue to do so.

 https://www.fox19.com/2020/06/23/trustees-discuss-marge-schott-name-change-uc-baseball-stadium/#:~:text=Marge%20Schott%20Stadium%20was%20named,name%20from%20UC's%20baseball%20stadium.

Also in the broader context of whether it's right or not.... who's going around asking for gift's back,  unless there is some sort of contract that requires it? If I give a friend of mine a gift, or give an organization money, and we have a falling out, since when do I get to demand they return those gifts to me? That's not a gift, that's a loan.

21 hours ago, David CO said:

I really dislike it when people refer to government expenditures as investments.  Taxation is a harsh business.  Best not to soften the language.    

I believe it was Oliver Wendell Holmes who said "Taxes are the price we pay for Civilization." Regardless we are going to pay money to some institution to provide services that we cannot provide by ourselves. Whether it's a corporation, a HOA, a non-profit, or a government. The only difference between the first three and the government is that the first three are voluntary. 

Government expenditures can most certainly be investments. Roads and transportation networks are investments. Educating young people is an investment. National Defense, Banking insurance, national retirement programs are all programs too big to be run by anything other than government. That isn't to say the government does a particularly great job at any of those things, but there is at least a purpose in government.  

The real question for anybody who is being honest with themselves is not, "Do we need government?" but is "How much government should I be paying for?"

Americans of both parties are addicted to government spending. Both parties seem to be perfectly happy with spending tons of future American's money and sticking my generation and future generation with the bill. Deficit spending and borrowing money is a neat financial trick, but it eventually bottoms out when the interest payments get too high, or investors are afraid to loan a government more money. 

36 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Well, your young. These discussions have been going for 60 years (Black Panthers). I'm wondering why the billions in taxes over those years on this one specific ideal hasn't had any effect. Hmm, wondering wondering. 

Barry

Money will never overcome a lack of will. Both parties benefit from the status quo, so nothing really changes. 

Or were you thinking something else? 

4 hours ago, walk in the woods said:

Get serious.  Here's an interview with one of the founders of BLM.  At the 6 minute mark she talks about being a "trained Marxist."  The Postmodern progressive movement isn't interested in a diverse group of people singing scout vespers around the campfire.  

 

I'm entirely serious. Is it still possible to decide on issues based on values and not whether I'm on team red or team blue? 

Is the BSA the Scouting movement or part of THE Scouting movement? 

Is the official BLM organization representing everyone that protests? Or just the most organized and vocal? 

I think there are legitiment greviences Black people have about how they are treated by the legal system and society. More than that, I've seen the impacts these systemic issues have had on Black and Hispanic citizens. How my  white family benefited from access to good educations, safe neighborhoods and good real estate. I'd like to see that reality happen for more Black people too. 

That doesn't mean I have to endorse all their aims. If I find a common cause, that doesn't violate the teachings of the Church and the law with a Marxist, or a Jew, a Muslim or anybody else, I can cooperate in achieving that objective. Maybe somedays they'll be advocating policies I can't support, and I'll oppose those specifically. 

37 minutes ago, elitts said:

I dunno.   I've reviewed their web page and I don't see anything on there my priest would object to.  I think the problem is simply that BLM's structure is just so fractured that they can't keep the people speaking out using their name on message.  That and the people getting interviewed sometimes get wrapped up in their emotions and start spouting their personal opinions instead of the organization's positions.

The "official" organizations about us page is here: https://blacklivesmatter.com/what-we-believe/

The Catholic church would object to "disrupting the nuclear family" as we consider it the most basic and important unit of society. BLM affirming transgender transitioning, which the church believes is harmful. 

Not sure about your priest, but the teachings of the Catholic church are clearly outlined in the Catechism, which can be found for free here. https://www.vatican.va/archive/ccc_css/archive/catechism/ccc_toc.htm

That doesn't mean we can't make common cause with the BLM movement on areas of agreement, but it would preclude a blanket endorsement. 

@qwazse referenced a thread of mine from a few years ago when I was a moderator. 

At the time I was concerned that the new software here would act like Reddit (Probably the most popular forum/subforum website on the planet). On Reddit, if a post receives too many down votes, it's automatically hidden. We ran a unscientific experiment, and I had a post with -12 down votes. It DID NOT hide my post. So while that's not conclusive if too many negative reacts will censor a post, it does mean that given the smaller forum numbers we have here, that practically speaking is not an issue. If that feature exists, we likely don't have enough active users to hit the threshold. 

So down votes and up votes here don't have a prescribed meaning, but we can see the developers intent with the highlighting of posts with significant up votes and reacts. I personally don't care if people down vote my posts, but I would prefer them to post in addition to that so their opinion is out there. Down voting posts with out an explanation doesn't do much to further a conversation or change anybody's mind. 
 

First of all, celebrate and enjoy the success you've had, with your sons and their friends. This is why we became Scout leaders. 

My recommendation is to create a succession plan. You should always have one because life can come at you fast. Otherwise, keep doing it while you enjoy it and feel like you're good at it. If you find it's more stress than it's enjoyable it's time to hang it up or change roles. It's up to you and your Committee Chair to determine when it makes sense.

1 hour ago, David CO said:

I don't anticipate the guillotine for myself or my friends, but a more symbolic decapitation is already occurring.  Statues of Father Serra (a Catholic saint) have been beheaded.  One was illegally pulled down by protestors as a part of the Juneteenth celebrations in San Francisco.  

From my point of view, these are celebrations of anti-Catholic bigotry.  But so long as acts of anti-Catholic bigotry are conducted under the cloak of Black Lives Matter and Juneteenth, they shall enjoy the protection and support of local officials, liberal journalists, and BSA.

There will always be people who will take advantage of crowds and chaos to further their objectives or settle scores. I don't think supporting Black People against injustices is contrary to being Catholic. Rather, I look at racial justice as an essential element of being Catholic and something we should push for. The BLM group has some positions as Catholics that we cannot support in good faith, but like Scouting, where the BSA is just one element, the "official" BLM group is only part of a broader movement for racial justice. Overall I support some of the goals of the movement, but I don't support every position or action they take. 

There have been activists in San Francisco and California generally targeting St. Sera for a while now. They've been trying to distort his life and actions into an example of white supremacy. If you watch this video, look at the racial composition of the crowd who pulled down the statue... mostly white people. https://abc7news.com/statues-torn-down-francis-scott-key-junipero-serra-golden-gate-park/6257760/. Large crowds in the park gave them the opportunity to do what they have always wanted to. So I'm not ready to pin this on Black Lives Matter or Juneteenth specifically. Especially since Father Sera likely never met a Black person in his life. There is a strain of thought on the extreme left that is a modern day form of Iconoclasm. Anybody who doesn't uphold their ideals cannot be part of the public square. I'd guess getting rid of the statue of St. Sera was something the leadership of San Francisco wanted to do anyways.  

From my understanding of history, Father Sera accidentally introduced European diseases that did significant damage to the Native population. Him spreading the faith, introducing European technology and practices and building the missions fundamentally changed Native Culture and lifestyles.  He's resented for this. But he also did the best he could to educate the Natives, and protect them from the abuses of the Spanish military. The missions he created are the foundations for most important California cities today. 

The way I see it, the California tribes would have been subjugated and dominated by the Spanish regardless. Father Sera's leadership in California made things better for the Natives than elsewhere in the Spanish empire. Would their communities have been better off without the Spanish? Probably. But that's not the reality we live in. 

16 minutes ago, David CO said:

Thanks.  I thought Ohio was mostly settled by Miami tribes.

I suppose they couldn't choose the Miami, who were often referred to by the French as the Naked Indians.  I am told that the Miami were basically nudists, when weather allowed.  I can't see BSA going along with an accurate portrayal of Miami at OA ceremonies.

By the time of the American colonies, and founding of the US, the Miami were one of the dominant tribes in Ohio. I'm not an expert on Native American history, but from my brief researching online, the Miami started in Wisconsin and expanded into the Ohio valley region. It seems like the Lakota may have originated along the Mississippi and Ohio valley and then migrated Westward. 

It doesn't seem like the "modern" (Post American) Lakota lived in the Ohio valley, but I'm already stretching the limits of my Native American history as it is. 

6 minutes ago, David CO said:

If you are located East of Cleveland, why did your OA Lodge follow the Lakota tradition?  

The Lakota had a significant period of time in Ohio, before they were forced to migrate by other hostile tribes. Not going to speak for @TAHAWK, but that might be why. 

1 hour ago, Eagle1993 said:

Thanks for finding the additional info.  This circulated around Scouts L and the initial poster indicated "young scouters" … I guess 29 is young to some

 

29 is absolutely young.... because I'm quickly closing in on it. 😂

1 hour ago, DuctTape said:

I understand some have significant personal objections regarding those who are gay. There were those who had significant objections to mixed race troops too. It took 50 years and we are mostly past the latter. Hopefully it won't take 50 more years to be mostly past the former too.

 

Unlikely. There are substantial populations of Christians, Jews and Muslims who have strong beliefs about gay and transgender behavior. Short of the government intervening and ending religious education for youth (that's not happening), then this will continue. 

I think we are approaching an equilibrium point. LGBTQ rights will be protected by law, but religious exemption rights to run Churches, Schools and Charities will remain. This would likely include the Scouts, unless the BSA intervenes. Which in that case, you can kiss the whole current system of the BSA goodbye. 

Given this equilibrium point, I can hope the conflict settles, as a majority of each side mostly gets what they want: the ability to do their own thing.

More realistically, one side or the other is going to continue to push their claims, and the cultural warfare will continue. It's too useful of a political issue. It's useful for politicians to "other" people in order to motivate and cement voting blocks.