carebear3895

It's always been the unofficial rule that for Volunteers it's a max of 3 rows and for Professionals it's a max of one row. Again, that's unofficial. But I think anything that goes over is too "look at me"

The most surprising thing out of all of this is that a unit actually followed the correct procedure and submitted a fundraising application

AKA the money ran out.

This is actually an interesting theory I have thought about too, but in a different way. I think one of the big reasons we are seeing the rise of "Mega Councils" (ie. Chicago, Michigan, St. Louis, Indy) is to create a larger corporate structure of Professionals to offset the lack of Volunteers in the BSA now. In a lot of places, DE's are just trying to keep afloat sinking Districts.

When I was talking to the National Director of Cub Scouting, he said they are moving away from the rank specific uniform items, minus the neckerchief and hat. They are just trying to get rid of inventory.

Personally, what the heck is the $24 "held by the council then billed to national"?? Also, charging units a "council support fee" is such BS....

Ah the song of my people. TBH, I don't think the starting salary is that bad if you're not terrible at managing money. The real kicker is promotions and raises. That's where a lot of good people leave because they don't want to wait 4-8 years to get a decent, family supporting position in a field they actually want. No body wants to be a ground pounding DE forever. I could go on and on about Pro life, but I digress for now.

It is....and the unfortunate part is that this seems to be a trend i'm seeing with multiple GSUSA councils

See, that's where BSA confuses me. in the FAQ's of the barriers to abuse it says exactly that, but then a few questions down is says Lion/Tiger adult partners don't meet the two deep requirement at Den meetings. A straight up contradiction. What if a Den meeting is also a fundraising event? How do you know what events are and aren't OK to substitute a parent?! Sorry for Hijacking the thread.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯

Yessir. "Two registered adult leaders 21 years of age or over are required at all Scouting activities, including meetings."

*Sigh* The Organization is still called Boy Scouts of America. Just the 11-17 program is now called Scouts BSA

RIP those DE's

At the end of the day, mixing dens is a better experience for the youth, and isn't that why we are all doing this? What's National going to do? Send guys like me out to revoke charters if a boy and girl associate with each other at a Den meeting?

*whispers* Co-Ed Dens are the norm in the field.

Officially, I would say only once since they are covered under BSA insurance as a non-registered guest for only one visit.

Yup. I like STEM Merit Badges and the NOVA stuff too. I have a problem with the program "STEM Scouts". It's not Scouting. The Unit destination is "Lab" for future reference. A couple of bigger Councils have even tried out STEM executives. Basically a DE just for STEM Scouts.

I'm not sure your graph is exactly accurate. Exploring is under the LFL umbrella, they should not be separated. I believe those 109,613 Explorers are already included in the 313,020 LFL report. It's very sneaky the way national reported it.

1. Yes, venturing is dying. Which is incredibly unfortunate because I think it's the best program the BSA has to offer. When I was a kid, I heard so many other kids say "I quit scouts because I just wanted to camp and do fun stuff, I didn't care about the badges". Well that's exactly what venturing offers!! To make it even more gloom, every council has a "Camp Crew" where you register camp staff who are not involved in traditional Scouting. So the total number of actual ventures is even lower than the national report. 2. National BSA is making the same stupid mistake GSUSA is doing by fo

or Trails End need to consider making a mint chocolate popcorn....HMMM. Minty thin popcorn?

Sharing funds is highly, HIGHLY discouraged for very incredibly obvious reasons. Just because Troops are "linked" does not mean they have to share everything. It's designed to be flexible to give units the option to be as close or as separate as they want, just like family Packs. The COR is not the word of God. The Committee exists for a reason and to be brutally honest, if parents wanted to say in how the unit runs they should fill out an adult application.

This is wrong. A "multiple" registrant doesn't count as two as far as membership goes. If a kid is registered in a Troop and a Crew, he only counts once with traditional membership. Plus the way the database is setup, you literally can't set up two membership accounts for one person. Heck, that's even why a lot of DE's hate recruiting Venturers out of Troops because it doesn't increase membership. Trust me, I 100% get Professionals fudge numbers, but this isn't an example of that. You know, some of us actually do our job correctly and ethically.

oh, I thought you meant interpretation as far as Nationals numbers go.

I'd be happy to try and provide some interpretation.

...why have I never thought of this before!