Col. Flagg

23 minutes ago, David CO said:

I agree with everything you said, except the charitable giving part. Buying bling isn't the same as charitable giving.

I agree. To me charitable giving of any kind should come without (tangible) recognition. Maybe that's just me.

8 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Anyway, they started getting very negative, which I can understand. But as the wife told me when i talked to her about all this stuff, I need to look at whom I am responsible for (my sons), and focus on what I can do to help them. So I told them they have 3 choices: transfer to another troop, run for office and try and change things from the inside, or just let it slide off their backs, do what they know they need to do and not worry about anyone else. Oldest told me he doesn't ever plan to run for SPL ever again because it is a waste of time; adults do what they want anyway. Thankfully he has POR time for Eagle now, and he will continue to do appointed PORs.

I can't recall if you said the SM was complicit in this or if he just didn't care that he (and his youth leaders) kept getting mowed over by this ASM. But as a former SM I would want to know this situation AND how my youth leaders felt. It sounds like these adults are not likely to step aside and let the boys lead, so taking this head-on as a youth leader is tilting at a windmill IMHO. Looking for a new troop is totally up to the individual because only they will know their mind.

If my son were in this situation, I would encourage him (and his friends who feel the same way) to have a heart-to-heart with the SM and really lay out their issues. I would advise them to link their grievances to the Aims and Methods of Scouting and the BSA Mission Statement. It may not change any minds and it may cause waves, but they will have the satisfaction of petitioning their unit leader with their grievances and learn a lesson on standing up for themselves.

One should ask the question why good Scouters would seek recognition for charitable giving. 

Scouts only get service hours for their charitable work. Many volunteer Scouters and parents give generously of their time and money regularly and get nothing but a thank you in return.

I would really like to see less adult recognition in the form of knots, trophies and such UNLESS it is for something very significant (e.g., retiring unit leader, cherished volunteer, etc.). This "do this and get that" culture BSA has for adults only reinforces that same notion with the youth. Talk about (purchased) participation trophies.

(Note: @MattR, this is nothing against your gesture. It is more against BSA even having this in the first place.)

42 minutes ago, oldbuzzard said:

For pack campouts, they prefer you to be with your parent(s) but the firm requirement is that all cubs must be under the direct charge of an adult and a non-leader adult can be in charge of one kid who isn't their own. We had a couple of dads at our winter campout with son and best friend.

For this very reason we required a parent or legal guardian to be present on all overnight trips for Cubs to manage/saveguard their Scout.

26 minutes ago, David CO said:

I think all CO's should see scouting as an extension of their youth ministry/youth program. 

Totally agree. I wish that was the case. It might make many of our current problems easier to deal with.

17 minutes ago, blw2 said:

Sadly, i think it's the other way around from their perspective, at least to a degree.  The pastor likes and verbally supports scouting, and I believe he would echo the same sentiments that I did, but basically the general 'machine' of the church "staff" sort of treats us as you put it "renters"..... We always seemed to have a lower standing when compared to youth and other uses of the building.... and we certainly never had our own room.   I never really understood that... I've honestly thought it comes from the catholic tradition...."think the stereo typical nun in an old catholic school"....mean and strict.  It's just the way they are.  Like a drill sergeant.  Anyway, in our case the COR was never engaged so that may have been a factor.

I think "Catholic units" have it a bit harder in this regard. For Protestants, my Scouter friends seem to be more successful in selling the inclusion of non-church members joining the unit. The thought is that maybe they will join the church anyway...assuming they are Christians and Protestants. Most Catholic units I know want the members to be Catholic. A few have it as Catholic only whereas with others it is just a suggestion.

Ironically our strongest advocate for the unit is Jewish. Loves the troop, the church, the CO and is always volunteering to help. The COR said, "If only several of our Catholic members were that energetic." 

1 minute ago, ItsBrian said:

My question is...

Why did I not have to take a specialized YPT or venturing YPT if I had worked at a CS Day Camp with female campers and staff?

If they are already "mixing" boys and girls, why do they have to do something about it now?

Read the thread about BSA and their love of poor process and paperwork to keep council and district staff busy.  

That's why they do it. Right hand, meet left hand.

17 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

Our charter is by calendar year... so October probably doesn't mean anything.  On the other hand, when I said I was going to ignore it, I didn't mean for that long. 

5 minutes ago, jjlash said:

That was my thinking too.  No doubt you could get dropped mid-year but I'd be very surprised if they did.

No you won't get dropped mid-year, but many of our local units being prepping for recharter in October so that we can wrap up paperwork in November. We don't like to ruin our holidays with paperwork and process. I just assumed all units got stuff done in October or early November just to avoid the hassle.

At any rate. Maybe BSA picked October to allow a few months for stragglers before they get heavy-handed at said, no cert no recharter.

9 minutes ago, jjlash said:

Good plan....They say everyone is required to update by Oct but nothing says what happens if you don't.  

I suspect you won't be allowed to recharter with your unit(s). 

17 minutes ago, MattR said:

But getting back to the OP. The question every council and national employee should be asking them self every day is whether what they're doing helps each CM and SM deliver fun and adventure. If all they come up with is it's important that every scout memorize the USDA My Plate diagram then they're failing and adding no value. Come up with some honestly fun activities that a unit leader can use out of the box and then there's value added. If all these parts were supporting the CMs and SMs then the money problems would fix themselves.

I think many can get behind all of this.

The reality -- and I think the point of the OP -- is that culturally, BSA at the national and local levels, have created such a problem for themselves that they cannot possibly reach your excellent vision of what is needed. Why? They are too busy doing their usual stuff -- stuff needed to keep the juggernaut afloat -- that they don't have time to stop bailing to work on the ideas you suggest.

I suspect this is the very reason why many of us have decided to focus on our units and not do anything with council and national. 

3 hours ago, FrankBoss said:

To be honest in my Council and District... "I Think" the culture of the office has turned bad. and it has leached in to the Districts..

Absolute little concern for Program or Volunteers from the professionals and a sole focus on income is a wicked problem...

We have no voice in district and council... If you have the wrong message even if it a constructive... your shut down and pushed out.

The saddest part for me was that we lost a lot of incredible volunteers over this...

FrankBoss

Yup. This mirrors what we seen locally.

Our RTs are boring and the waste of paper on the announcements table would make a recyclist have a seizure. When it was suggested that all of that paper could be sent via pdf or posted easily online, the DC said, "Then what would our DE do?". Someone quipped, "Train UCs or visit units in trouble to actually help them?". That unit was given the graveyard location for popcorn sales and the "rough neighborhood" for SFF. They stopped participating in SFF, popcorn and FOS as a result.

15 minutes ago, Hawkwin said:

Could also be just the opposite. Opening BSA to girls could help fuel their eventual recruitment to Venturing. My guess is that Venturing pulls very few girls from Girl Scouts and instead gets most who are not members of either (for now at least).

I am not sure how this would work. You've just created a new product that has the goal of getting Scouting's highest award which typically takes boys from 11-15 (or longer). So I am not confident girls are going to jump to Venturing, but rather spend their 14-16 year old years working toward Eagle. Not to mention older girls who may want to get Eagle and will forego Venturing.

Maybe long term -- and we are talking several years -- you might see some older girls wanting to join Venturing much like older boys join it now. But the big appeal of Venturing was that it offered stuff GSUSA didn't, so they joined us to get that "Boy Scout" experience. You've now given them all that at an earlier age, so what's the draw of Venturing?

12 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

Did notice the Male leaders (oh no!!) leading them along the trail with no female leader in plain and conspicuous view, though I am sure she was about someplace so as to be 100% compliant to the Girls Den YPT guidelines.

Media sensationalizing the arbitrary or possibly even creating news to make ratings is the way things have worked for well over a decade. This cannot be all that surprising, can it? 

7 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

On the flip side of your thoughts, the most successful Venturing Crews in our area are the ones that specialize in non scouting related activities like: Law Enforcement, Medical, Aviation, Scuba and others that I forgetting. The least successful are the Venturing Crews created by troops to extend their older scout programs (actually to save their older scout programs). My guess is that whatever membership trend follows these new changes will have the same affect on Venturing.

I have seen this as well. I would add that the other very successful Venturing Crews I have seen are those that really focus on high adventure-type activities. We have a few locally that do "club stuff" each month, but have 4-6 trips a year for some really cool stuff.

On 1/22/2018 at 12:55 PM, TAHAWK said:

Can you give instructions?

Here's a good tool for anyone who has to share pictures or doc-pics. You can take pictures or "scan" any picture or doc. You can do one or a batch of them. When done just save as a pdf file and send or post. 

We've used this at the unit level to instantly scan receipts to send to our Treasurer. Sharing docs and pics is a lot faster this way too.

2 hours ago, Eagledad said:

Venturing is more successful when the program is viewed by it's adults as another adventure scouting program, not as the next step (or higher step) in the BSA ladder.

It will be interesting to see what becomes of Venturing. It flounders now. I can only imagine what will happen when we have to contend with girl units recruiting for the same Scouts (14+) we will. It will just be more noise in an already overpopulated pool of activities for kids. IMHO, for girl "boy" Scouts to take off they need to 86 the Venturing program. It is a shadow of its former self now. I don't see it growing after girl boy Scouts come calling. 

1 hour ago, Tampa Turtle said:

Do we have the data for past 1999?

Yes, and it represents a 3% year on year decline through 2013. After that the decline doubled to 6% or greater since then. I read a thread around here a while back where someone posted the data from 1999 or 2000. 

1 hour ago, EmberMike said:

Agreed. There should been a freeze on any girl uniform items for at least a couple of years. They don't need them, at the cub level the clothing is universal enough to fit a boy or a girl. If they wanted to roll out girl-specific products later, fine. But at the launch of the program, it just sends the wrong message. The opposite message of what we've been trying to express, really, that girls want the boy program as-is, and we're giving them that same program and experience. Except we're not, if you're a girl, you should wear this impractical gender-specific uniform item. 

Clearly the "we" BSA is supporting is not the "we" in this forum. Whether the skirts are a BSA idea or one from a focus group of early adopters is anyone's guess. But it wouldn't surprise anyone here if it were 1) about money (vis-a-vis increased uniform sales) or 2) poorly planned without consulting anyone who matters. 

13 hours ago, FunkyChikin said:

It’s not the only reason we considered changing. They make us feel like we are a burden to them. 

26 minutes ago, blw2 said:

I have to wonder why an organization would actually be a CO if they didn't want to be....  this whole thing seems odd and smells fishy to me....

Way back when, our Pack was hosted by a church that really treated us like a burden too. They never really liked the Pack and treated every request as if we were begging at their doorstep. Then the membership policy changed in 2013 they dropped both the Pack and the Troop that were there.

In our area most churches treat BSA units like we are any other group renting their facilities. Only the Catholic units are seen as an extension of the church's ministry.

1 hour ago, FrankBoss said:

I'm doing a series of post (On FaceBook ) with some observations on my Council and District expe

I recently stepped down after many years as a unit lead. District tried to suck me in. I was warned off by a dozen or so folks (previous district volunteers). I turned them down for my own reasons.

My council/district also focuses on the high-revenue events for cubs and families. Also FO$ and recruiting. Sadly all of these things are done quite half-arsed but they still make $$$.

You are not alone. I think what you observe is symptomatic of how BSA manages things regionally.

1 minute ago, Eagle1993 said:

To be fair, the complexity is jumping up on YPT and overnight requirements.  I think a BSA sponsored YPT playbook armband should be coming out soon.

 

Usually this would have been something you think about before changes are made. Get folks trained. Promote the rules so there's no grey area. 

This potential problem could have been avoided.

25 minutes ago, Tampa Turtle said:

I heard a rumor that was at Camp Raven Knob, NC. Some units go to the same campsite for summer camp for decades so they invest in better improvements, etc.

Heard good things about that camp. Nice promo too. Wish our council did something this nice.

Over/under on when the first lawsuit against BSA concerning the mixing of girls and boys on an overnighter?

You just know some Pack somewhere is going to have a coed Den and not properly separate the kids.

13 hours ago, T2Eagle said:

Our council used to, maybe still does, allow a unit to care for a cabin at one of our camps in return for a reduced or free weekend rental.  Seems pretty easy concept to apply to a campsite.

In our area the concept died on the vine for a few reasons.

First, council was really bad at making camp availability easily known. Units had a hard time finding out when they could go to camp to conduct upkeep. You couldn't just show up and start working. The ranger had to know and be willing to allow you on property. Next, with four council camps there was no intelligent distribution of sites for units to serve. We have one camp north of the city, one just south, one two hours west and one two hours south-east. Council would assign a unit in the north a camp site at the western camp, or a southern unit a camp in the northern camp instead of assigning the closest units to their closest camp. Lastly, when units did perform maintenance some did a great job whereas some were so bad that they actually made things worse. Anytime a unit wanted to "upgrade" or really fix something, council would require 10,000 forms and months of waiting only to have them say "no". So it got disheartening to participate.

Hope other councils have better luck than we did.

1 hour ago, Eagle1993 said:

One of the moms, current GSUSA leader asked “what grade do you earn that coveted Eagle”.  I explained that it has nothing to do with age or grade as there are some *shudder* 12 year olds that have earned the rank. I went through the requirements and we talked about all of the Eagle projects around town.  I then explained EBOR and she said it sounded like defending a dissertation.  

I remember when my kid was just joining Tigers. The Pack leaders cam in and walked everyone through that first rank and the requirements. At the end of the meeting half the parents quit (and took their kids) because it was too much work for them.

I can only imagine what some of those types of parents will think about Boy Scout ranks, especially Eagle. How long before even those requirements get watered down.