Col. Flagg

25 minutes ago, Tampa Turtle said:

I must have missed it. Interesting that 75% =/- of BSA's physical assets are tied up in the Summit. *gulp*

Yup. That and the hold back for liability coverage. Explains the increase in fees a great deal. Little having to do with delivering the program to kids; lots to do with CYA from over-investment in The Summit, under-collection of promised funds. Their liquidity is a joke. Looking at the revenue streams makes one wonder exactly how long they can keep this up. They need a serious revenue injection that doesn't come with a bunch of increased liability. Increasing membership is NOT that stream.

30 minutes ago, cocomax said:

The article points to the popularity of Jordan Peterson,   Jordan Peterson has said many times that the young men who flock to him are hungry for responsibility in a world that scream for rights. 

My question is do young men view BSA as a group to join that would aid them to grow in good character and learn to be responsible or do young men view BSA has something else?

At a time when young men need something like the BSA more than ever how come they are not flocking to join?

Time and effort. Folks are in for the "quick fix" these days. If you can't drop in, do some work and get the bling fast, they think it is too much work.

I hate to say it, but many folks thee days just don't like things that take time, patience and effort. They want immediate (or near immediate) gratification.

1 hour ago, Back Pack said:

Ok. So wood badge is doing the same thing with the horn they use. I’m not sure appropriation is always a bad thing. 

Don't bother. You will never get folks to take down WB even if they are culturally appropriating something. 

Go to class and focus on your studies. 

44 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

Or just have no one-to-one between any leader and young person, no matter what the gender. I.e. there's always another young person or adult there. It doesn't really matter what flavour everyone is.

That's the point. Either have two-deep adult leadership (no matter the gender of the adults) or require one man/woman if at least one boy/girl are part of the event. As pointed out a few times here, the Venturing YP rules are very good and a great guide to use. It is simple and fair.

Reading the 2016 annual report about income, liabilities and the audit notes are, indeed, interesting. As are the notes from page 17 on the three most important issues facing national and it's finances as of this report.

20 hours ago, Hawkwin said:

Scoutbook doesn't seem to have either the bandwidth or the stability for mass adoption but it has a lot of potential.

It is not really a bandwidth issue, technically speaking. The platform suffers from lack of computing power, has some serious API issues, poor coding and design issues, reporting issues and lack of a redundant architecture. It needs a great deal to be ready to server the masses that BSA hopes will use it.

It would be nice as a free app but I would not bet my unit on it. Much of the unit admin tools needed are not on the current system, and I would want to see any new release go through a HUGE stress test before moving my unit to it. That's years away at this point.

4 minutes ago, EmberMike said:

You suggested that I believed that scouts should not treat people fairly and equally, in response to a comment I made about equality in regards to the oath and law. Now you're talking about Scouters and YPT. 

If you're going to erroneously attributes words to me, at least get your fake story straight. 

No. That is what you inferred.

I said that the Oath and Law implies we -- all Scouts and Scouter, including national and our national leaders -- treat everyone equally. I also said that while "equality" is not mentioned as part of the Oath and Law, treating people equally and fairly is implied. So, in creating a standard by which female Scouters are treated differently than male Scouters, national is creating a double standard and not treating everyone equally.

I also said that we do treat people differently based on needs and certain special situations, in general we should strive to treat people equal based on things like sex, and to do otherwise was unfair and against the Oath and Law.

That's what I said.

1 hour ago, mashmaster said:

I don't think they are missing it, I think BSA is intentionally trying to get everyone onto Scoutbook.  They have a long history of making this a difficult process for units.  We used Scouttrack for years and you had to jump through hoops to connect to internet advancement.  TroopMaster was approved and hooked up to it, but was too expensive, and lacked a good UI for years.

What should they do?  They should make a solid SDK for I/O of all the data and let the market create software.  I bet an open source project on GIThub would end up being created and awesome, and free.  But BSA doesn't want that.

God forbid they push units to Scoutbook. We use if for our Crew but it would be a nightmare for troop management. It is way too clunky and the app crashes or is slowed down a lot. They have no idea of what a maintenance window is. If all units were to access their current environment, it would drop to its knees and grab it's chest and die. 

2 hours ago, EmberMike said:

Please quote me on where I said that, or where you think I even implied that. 

When male Scouters are treated differently from female Scouters with regard to YPT, that is unequal. And unfair.

2 hours ago, EmberMike said:

What's your evidence that they didn't do enough? Do you have some inside line to what National has been doing in regard to the new policy, or for how long? Surbaugh has said this was in the works for years. Do you really think "minimal" research went on during that time? 

Have you not been paying attention to the circus in Irving? There is no girls program in place to date, yet they've marketed a product they don't have. That's evidence plenty. The fact they've announced a new product -- yet to be developed -- and are marketing the heck out of it is proof they are doing this backwards. It doesn't require any inside knowledge. Just read what national has been saying and doing. It is obvious to anyone with any education and experience in running a large organization.

1 hour ago, Hawkwin said:

Yes, I am familiar with her petition. Doesn't change the fact that she did scouts for years without any official recognition or hope of such.

Agreed, and exactly. "one" of the reasons. Not the "only" reason.

No one is arguing that she hasn't been tagging along and doing stuff for years. The point is she is not yet (nor was she at the time) a Boy Scout, ergo credit cannot be given unless BSA changes the rules.

Clearly, getting Eagle is clearly the MAIN reason she has been doing what she's doing, otherwise she (and her lawyer father) would not be pressing BSA to speed up the timeline. 

3 minutes ago, EmberMike said:

Sure they do. If 40% of your current customers/members want something, 60% don't want it but many will remain customers anyway, at least for a while, and you've done ther research to know that you could increase new customer growth by going with what the 40% wants, it's not such a crazy idea. Especially when overall customer/member numbers are already headed downhill year after year. 

There are lots of successful companies that do this. Companies always want to go where the market will be, not where it was. Apple is one of those companies. They've pretty much abandoned their pro computer market in favor of phones. They angered their old base (myself included) and bet on future growth of a new business segment, and it's paid off very well for them. Starbucks used to sell coffee machines. They had a good business, but moved to coffeehouses because there was an under-served market for euro-style coffeehouses in the US. Probably upset a lot of people that liked their coffee makers, but I doubt they regret that move. 

It's actually a pretty common story in business. Look at Kodak, Suzuki, Nintendo, lots of companies radically changed direction to strive for renewed growth, even if it meant abandoning previous products, services, and customers. Sometimes the best move a company makes is one that seems controversial at the time or upsets existing customers. It's often risky. But that doesn't stop people from doing it if there is potential for it to pay off. 

Now you are mixing things here to make your point. You are mixing R&D with new product development with marketing and advertising. These do have a relationship, but you haven't made your case for how that relates to BSA and the changes they are making. They haven't done any R&D or new product development. They have made changes based on MINIMAL research, no development and have no idea what the new product is they want to sell. What's worse, they spun up their marketing arm to sell something they haven't research OR developed!!!

Again, show me a company that does that AND has been successful.

51 minutes ago, EmberMike said:

That's a huge stretch. 

Since clearly I'm not the only one confused by your notion of equality in the oath and law, maybe you can elaborate on that. 

Wait...you are saying that Scouts should not treat people fairly and equally? I gotta say, I am dumb-founded by this thread this morning. 

Saying that the recent changes to the membership policy allowing "diversity" was not aimed at giving equality to potential members is like saying there's only one reason it rains. In every action/event, there are a series of things that combine to make that event happen.

Was the primary reason for the policy change equality? No.

Was the primary reason for the change to increase membership? No.

Was the primary reason money? No.

[Insert any other argument here]

HOWEVER, combine all those things and you have one of the many reasons BSA made the policy changes. So to say that equality is not one of those reasons is totally absurd. The Oath the and Law imply that we treat people equally. To argue otherwise says that you would allow your Scouts to treat people unequally, which we all know you wouldn't. Yes, yes, we don't help all old ladies across the street (or even all ladies), but that's a strawman. There is an expectation that by opening our membership to girls and gays and other people that we are giving them equal treatment. We will treat girls as we do boys; no one will get special treatment in a general sense. THAT is the point. Not some silly argument of the many permutations on how we are all different.

2 minutes ago, EmberMike said:

Every successful business in the world does that. That's advertising and marketing, and it is most often aimed at new business. 

Meh...yes, that's obvious. HOWEVER, there is no successful business that does what I noted above and remains successful.

Oh, and the Fortune 500 don't spend as much on new clients as they spend on retaining current clients. Anyone who has been in the business world knows that "marketing and advertising" is just a small percentage of the money spent on clients. Even more money is spent on non-marketing/advertising activities designed to retain CURRENT clients.

15 minutes ago, EmberMike said:

But current membership is not what the BSA is fully focused on, not should they be.

I know it hurts a lot of feeling around here that we're not the sole priority of the organization. But if this organization is to survive (and hopefully grow some day), the BSA needs to be looking outside of the organization and figuring out how to appeal to more prospective memebrs. Just like in any company, a big part of your growth strategy involves looking outward. The BSA can't make decisions for the future growth of the organization on the opinions of existing members alone. 

That's not to say existing members should be ignored. But using simple majority voting by current members to decide policy should not be the way things are decided. Not if we expect to ever turn the corner on membership growth in the BSA. 

It is 10 times more expensive to cultivate NEW customers than to retain an old one. Does that mean you don't market to new customers? No, of course not. But a successful business NEVER punches their old, reliable customer base in the face, introduces a new product they know their old customers won't like, increase the price and continue doing all the things that tick off their current customers. NO ONE DOES THAT and is successful. 

17 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

I don't believe trying to run any organization by a consensus vote of the entire membership would work. If A and B are the choices, people would scream about not having C and D as an option.

Certainly you can offer your membership/customers the chance to voice their opinion. The last three membership changes were easy decisions; either you are for them or against them.

I am not advocating that national be run by its members, per se. What I am saying is that 1) You should listen to your membership/customers, not people you think will be your members/customers. No successful business in the world does that. 2) If you *do* institute change, and ask acceptance from your members/customers, then you *have to* show change in the way you as a business do things. You don't make wholesale changes and continue to do the things that irk your customers. 3) If you *do* change you don't INCREASE the price of you new product. No business gets rid of their most popular product, introduces a new one AND increases the price of that new product. That's just poor business.

This is a complicated subject. I would wait for a few of our trained EMTs to chime in. They will know the difference in the training.

@4CouncilsScouter, does BSA have any say in what is included in WRFA? All I have seen is Red Cross and a few other groups offering it. I am not aware (at least locally here) of BSA getting involved in the actual curriculum of WRFA.

@ItsBrian, The only real difference I have seen in y experience is that WRFA focuses on giving aid with the things you might normally have or choose to carry with you in the backcountry. The depth of training can vary depending on who is teaching.

2 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

And finally, BSA has been blasted on this forum for announcing the policy change with without having a plan in place. But if on Oct 11th BSA had come out with a complete plan for this the uproar would have been about not asking the volunteers.

Well, maybe BSA could have done something innovative like 1) survey their membership and abide by what the majority wanted, and 2) include membership in the development of any program changes since they will be the ones that have to use them and support them in the field.

Part of evolution must ALSO include changing the way you manage the organization. If BSA is going to change so much, they should at least also change how the do things. That should not be too much to ask.

23 hours ago, Hawkwin said:

Up until a few months ago, this person had done everything up through First Class without any official recognition or any idea that they would ever receive official recognition. If there was anyone that could say that they did scouts for the journey and the experience and not the swag, it would be her.

If anything, I gained more respect for her, not less.

Really? You might want to check out her petition on Change.org. This goes back over two years. Check out all the publicity too. You can't say she wasn't doing this for recognition or was doing this just to be in Scouts. If there were true you would not see even a fraction of this publicity. And when you read all the reasons why she's doing this (crowbarring open BSA), Eagle is one of the reasons. The irony is that the other reasons don't hold water because she could attend Jambo, go to high adventure camps and all that other stuff as a VENTURER!!!

So fast forward to today. She's not happy with girls getting in anymore. Now she wants 1) Girls to get in faster, and/or 2) Girls who have worked on requirements before they are allowed in to get credit for that. 

No...she doesn't want any special treatment.

8 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

Here is a link to the full announcement:

http://www.ocbsa.org/news/2018-insurance-fee-announcement/

What insurance does your council provide that national does not?

The wording of the announcement seems odd. They spend the first part of the note discussing the rising costs of delivering service, none of which are related to insurance. It sounds more like the $12 is to defray THOSE (non-insurance) costs than anything.

Or is the council's insurance going up and they need to recover those costs? It was unclear to me.

@gblotter, congrats to your family.

My son was able to have his ECOH last February with my dad and whole family in attendance. One year later my dad is ill and may not make it past March. Looking back I am glad we made such a big deal over the ECOH. It was a great way for my dad to see his grandson make Eagle and his son retire as SM. A great way for him to see his legacy live on doing exactly what he did...serve others.

2 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

Just listened to the “pantsuit nation” podcast with Sydney Ireland as the guest.  The striking inconsistency of the argument presented that BSA must tear down this patriarchal program while maintaining Girl Scout are great for girls is blatant.  I warn you not to go searching for the podcast....

In the name of complete disclosure.

https://www.stitcher.com/podcast/cadence13/pantsuit-nation-podcast/e/52933039

ROFL...the impact of being so close to France.

[Well done Kestrels]

Having had several kids on the autism spectrum in our unit, I have to say that having involved parents was key. Also, making sure several of the leaders are trained in how to deal with kids on the spectrum was also helpful. If you search around this forum there should be a thread about a pretty good video series put together by a member. This is the council but I don't see the video series they put together there. You can contact them and maybe they can share it with you.

Here's another decent link.

Troopmaster works fine. Their web version is easy to use and phone friendly.

We also used Scoutbook and found it lacking severly.

41 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Not siding with nationals on this as I’m advocating a case by case decision.  Each lodge reviewing their own with local tribes.

That said, if the WB group painted their faces black, dressed up like an “African”, danced around, used voices and fake stories reminiscent of 1930’s Hollywood view of African tribes, I believe you might see some protests and changes from national.  

I haven’t been through WB, but I certainly hope they don’t do the above.  

OA used to shoot an arrow in to a pile of wood to start a fire...until it got nixed.

As I understand it, the big argument is not about the regalia but the total appropriation of the culture. In that there are no "degrees" of indignation. If you appropriate one item then it is as bad as ten items. Or so it should be if we are going to be consistent...and that's my point. 

If OA is going to be forced to give up the native american aspects of OA then WB should have to give up their "regalia" and "props" as well.