elitts

That project would have been quickly rejected around here. Digging 6 holes and leveling a bench as someone fills the hole back in would NOT provide sufficient opportunity to "Demonstrate Leadership". Even if they dug the holes manually (which I doubt they did) that's only about 2-3 hours of work for 3 people. I'm sure there was more time involved on the planning end, but still.

This might not be quite as bad as you'd imagine. Insurance companies are well experienced with drilling through emotional reactions and public sentiment and just dealing with the data. So once the bankruptcy is through, if the only risk "BSA 2.0" or the COs would face is from future problems, they are likely to just look at the current YP processes and price based upon the actual ongoing risk rather than outright refusing to offer insurance out of fear. The one real "X factor" will be concern over stupid legislators passing more stupid laws like the states that removed the time limits on filing claims.

That's not how bankruptcy works. When a bankruptcy is final, that entity is essentially dead and it's replaced by a new entity of the same name but with no liability for anything that happened before the bankruptcy. So even if other states remove the time limits on suits, they would have no recourse against the post-bankruptcy BSA. (the Councils might be a different matter) The only way I've ever heard of to get money out of a post-bankruptcy entity is to argue that they did something fraudulent during the processing of their bankruptcy that means the bankruptcy proceedings should be re-opened. The only times I've ever heard of that happening it's been when some person or company actively hid a debtor.

My parents are still close friends with 3 or 4 of the adults who were my Scoutmaster and ASMs as a kid. I'm in my 40s now and I still have to make a conscious effort to address them as anything other than Mr. XXX when I run into them at my parent's functions. In fact, I sometimes find myself just doing the "Catch his eye and start talking" trick to avoid having to use their names.

Well, I only meant a "valid" number, not necessarily an "un-expired" number. And mostly just so that you need to be registered to be an MBC. I wouldn't suggest actually trying to match up registration dates with MBC signature dates and all of that. The only things I'd throw out would be people who put down 8675309 or 3141592 or something.

What WOULD stop that, would be a requirement that a MBC include a valid BSA registration number along with their signature on a blue card in order for it to be effective.

I suppose it depends on the proposal and the scout sometimes. I've sat on a few project review boards where I'm sure the scout thought we were being unfair and mean. Every once and a while you get a scout that has a proposal SO rough that there's just no help possible besides a little "hard truth" and the suggestion to come back again after a little more thinking goes into it. I usually try and handle situations like that with questions that point out all the areas the scout hasn't even considered. Most of the time they just say "Can I just go think about that and come back later tonight?" and of course we allow it. But there have been a few times where the end result was just a "no". We were polite and offered suggestions to make the projects acceptable, but I'm sure none of them felt we were supportive and kind.

Not necessarily. Personally, I favor using a fairly strict application of definitions because I think maintaining gradations is important for understanding problems. Neighborhood red-lining against minorities and 25% down-payment requirements for mortgages will both have the effect of keeping minorities out of suburban neighborhoods, but one policy is based upon racism and the other is de facto discrimination from lack of forethought. The distinction is important because the approaches to solving the problems are completely different. However, I can understand why the perspective of a minority may well be different when talking about the whole scope of "baked in" discriminatory problems within our existing systems. I imagine at some point you have to look at everything and say "How can all of these different policies be disproportionately impacting me and my family and friends unless it's on purpose?". In the broader sense, my biggest issue with the expanded use of the terms "racism" and "racist" is that as soon as you use that terminology you immediately change any discussion about fixing a problem into a discussion about the intent behind the existing system. Charged language may be useful as a rallying cry or to generate support, but it definitely isn't useful when attempting to solve problems.

Well, I have to preface my point by saying I despise the overuse of the term "racism" as it is often used incorrectly simply to make someone's argument sound more important/persuasive/dramatic. (and I'm not pinning that on InquisitiveScouter) A more appropriate phrase for what is actually being discussed is "Systemic Discrimination or Bias". That said, while there are certainly people who believe the systemic racism in our society was built in on purpose, "intent" isn't actually a necessary component for an overall system to be considered discriminatory. Take for example; states where the sole funding of public schools is through local property taxes (no state appropriation). These systems were designed to allow for local control of schools by giving local districts the ability to raise or lower property taxes as they see fit. However, a side effect of this system is that school districts in poor urban areas and core cities (typically with a high percentage minority population) end up with both older facilities (requiring increased maintenance) also end up having significantly lower funding per pupil because the value of the property (on a per capita basis) is much lower than suburbs. And while levying a higher millage rate is an option to increase funds, this will tend to drive businesses out of the inner city areas and into the suburbs where the millage rates are lower because the overall tax base is higher. Another example is what happened consistently around the country from the 1940s through the 2000s with municipal water and sewer systems. The general mentality of water/sewer system operators was "expansion is good, so it should be subsidized". And from the general business perspective, this makes complete sense. However the net effect of those policies was that in order to make connecting to the water system attractive for developers, water authorities only charged developers a small fraction of the true cost of extending service into new areas and simply raised rates on the existing rate payers in the existing core cities, which because of red-lining laws with lenders and realtors (they were barred from moving), means minorities were/are disproportionately affected.

I really don't think you can use the raw numbers from 2020 to evaluate the effectiveness of the decision to admit girls. COVID and the LDS exit are massively significant variables that ended up getting thrown in this year. And I don't think there's much argument about the idea that the LDS were on their way out regardless of the decision to admit girls since the BSA decided to stop discriminating against homosexual folks. Uh, they are almost all either 18 already or very close to it, so I'm going to take a wild guess that the number who will remain with the program will be quite similar to the number of boys who remain with the program after age 18. I know in our girls troop, most of the girls over 16 who have already put in for their Eagle award plan to step back from the troop and become more active in the Venture crew, but that is no different from the SOP of most of our boys.

I would just like to see the clothing be cut appropriately for real people. The last 10-20 years at least whoever is designing these things has done a terrible job of outfitting anyone outside the "not-so-standard" bean-pole body shape. My son wasn't able to fit into the right size youth scout pants after age 9 because he actually had leg muscles and couldn't get the pants up past his thighs. And clearly the designers took the approach of just using a straight percentage size increase for adult sizes over large resulting in shirts for overweight people that made them look like flying squirrels and pants options that required either sizing them for your hips and having a beer gut overhang with a webbed crotch or wearing them sized for the larger waist and looking like you are a kid trying to wear your dad's pants.

LOL! That's a man after my own heart. When my Cub Pack got the "Cough with a hand out" over our wreath fundraiser (we didn't sell popcorn) I proposed talking to our local council camp director and asking for a wish list we could dump $1500 on rather than giving it to council. I pretty much had my committee convinced too, except then I couldn't get the Camp director to actually respond to me (I tried for a couple months too) so the check got sent to council instead.

Well... maybe not "free". The problem with "free" is that people tend to automatically infer that if something is free it is of little value. So you get lots of "maybe" signups because you aren't out anything if you just don't show up and people who show up, but only to check a box while they surf on their phone the whole time. A very minimal $5-$10 fee (that can be waived upon written request) does a lot to eliminate those sorts of issues. IMO, almost nothing should ever actually be totally free outside of emergency services.

Try taking some scrap 2x4s and gluing them together "butcher block" style to about 24" wide then cut them to 24"-30" long. Then glue one 2x4 flat against the length of the back and extend it down about 3'-4'. Then drill a hole through the top of the 2x4 backing strip and attach a 2x2 on each side of the 2x4 using a threaded bolt to make it stand like a tripod.

Is that a local council rule or from your CO? That's just nutty.

Lets just be clear here, for the most part, the scouters who are taking kids out into the woods are parents. It's not like there are there is this large cohort of unmarried childless people serving as scout leaders who are trying to keep the annoying parents away. When you see scouters (like me) on here talking about getting rid of the parents on camp-outs all they are really saying is "We don't want people uninformed about the program interfering with the program". After all, the only difference between a parent and a scouter is training and a piece of paper sent in with a registration fee. And as far as the safety of sports vs scouts, sure there's plenty of parents around in Rec League sports, but in official Middle/High school sports or the competitive traveling sports? Not so much. I think you have to differentiate risks in order to weigh them fairly. Personally, I think the risk of abuse is higher in sports because there are so many more people involved and they are run so loosely that it would be fairly easy for something to slip through the cracks and isolate a child temporarily. But I'll agree that the inherent risk of death or other physical harm is greater in scouts as you are further from medical attention while engaging in potentially more dangerous activities. (like an ax yard or fire building)

Fortunately, BSA doesn't necessarily NEED the approval of the plaintiffs in order to get the Chapter 11 bankruptcy approved. If they come up with an offer that is fair and equitable, and the plaintiff attorneys reject it and insist upon liquidation, the judge can simply overrule their objection and approve the plan anyway. Particularly if it seems like the plaintiff attorneys aren't really bargaining in good faith. (ie: their mission is liquidation, not finding a deal that works)

The difference is the scope of the programs. Most kids activities are fairly limited in scope and so the only kids that join are the ones who consider the focus to be "fun". And since there is a specific activity that everyone is there to participate in, these conversations don't need to happen. With Scouts the variety of options is much greater than sports or even 4-H. Even worse, because of the ages involved, you're getting kids right as they enter Middle School with all of the personality changes that entails and sometimes parents have a hard time remembering that interests change. "What do you mean you don't want to weave a lanyard? You loved that last year?" You are correct here. Personally, in my troop I've been lobbying to not even have parents in the room during PLC meetings. (there's always some who feel compelled to be there) Even just being present and watching is enough to have a significant impact on what happens in those meetings. My son told me one time that there was one of the PLs who's mom would always come and watch and when he would talk and make suggestions, mom would be sitting behind him nodding along at his comments. Then if the mom ever left the room he'd immediately something like "That last thing was my mom's idea, I'd actually rather go shoot rifles than visit the art gallery". I mean, I realize there's the whole "every aspect of the program is open to parents", but I truly don't think that was meant to be a hammer for parents to use to gain access to areas where parents aren't supposed to be involved.

While it might seem like splitting hairs, the issue that people refer to about "the admittance of female Scouters" usually isn't about the equipment between someone's legs; it's generally about the problem any organization has with the sudden, mass inclusion of people unfamiliar with the program. That problem being that when you have a group of people with no appreciation for how and why things were done in the past, you almost always end up with well-meaning people wanting to "fix things" without the experience to know if the "fix" is a good idea. (FYI, I'm not arguing that all changes are bad, and new people can be wonderful for pointing out problem areas) If you want a modern day example of what I'm talking about, just imagine what would happen if you had an existing scout troop that was very much boy led (and thus, somewhat chaotic), where 90% of the existing leadership leaves suddenly and the new leaders are all drawn from incoming Webelos parents, none of whom were ever Boy Scouts. I guarantee that within a matter of months you'd have parents "helping" the troop right into being a Webelos III program and then clapping themselves on the back for how much smoother and well-organized everything is now. Personally, as both a scout and now a scouter, I've never had a problem with women as Scouters, though having "moms" involved can be a problem. One of the central components of scouts is supposed to be letting the kids try and fail/go hungry/get cold/get sore, in order to learn. Adults that can't leave their "inner mom" at home almost always short circuit this process. Though I have to admit that in my son's troop, something like 25% of the dads need to learn to leave their "inner mom" at home as well. But as long as a woman can leave the nurturing mostly at home, is capable of peeing in the woods and doesn't insist I hike 200' into the woods in order to "study a bush", I'll welcome her along. As far as adding in "dads of girls", no, this is clearly not a bad thing. However, it could possibly be a problematic thing if you end up with inexperienced (with the program) dads implementing the program poorly.

Ugh. Get yourself one of the gravity bag filter systems. I remember when I was a scout and we had to use those cursed hand pumps whose manufactures apparently all thought, "An 8" intake hose is long enough right?". Now all they have to do is scoop out some water with a bucket or bag, (in your situation you could hook a bag to a rope and just toss it out and pull it in) then let it hang off a tree or something for 10 minutes for 10L of clean water. Though personally, I prefer using a cloth pre-filter just to keep sediment out of the filter.

I can barely even get folks to consider a camping location without a toilet and running water. Even one with a toilet, but only a lake for water nearly got shot down because "OMG what if the boys need water to drink and there isn't any?" Telling them, "There is a lake 500' away and we have filters, tablets and stoves" apparently wasn't enough reassurance for some of them.

Yeah, I can't profess any kind of substantial knowledge of how our council's budget is organized, but I know the work expected for the pay offered is very very sub-par for most of the staff. Though I'll admit to being somewhat concerned on occasion (back in the 2000s) because I was regularly interacting with with one employee (I don't remember his technical title) and from what he described, while his pay was somewhere around 30-35k per year, his transportation and training budget was immense. He was out of state attending some conference or training at least once every other month, often monthly, for 3-5 days. He didn't handle all of this own bookings, but he estimated that the council spent at least half again his salary on sending him all over the country.

Yeah, I'd imagine if we did it, I could rattle off the names of the 8-10 parents who would actually attend. Though I know part of that is because many of the parents know who already complains about which issues and knows that whatever concern they might have, will likely be represented by one of those "usual suspects" as you say. (In our council about 90% of the complaints are about administrative issues) Sadly, every council person knows about all of the problems they have with admin stuff, they've known about it for decades and yet no one has ever managed to come up with a solution. I assume because none of the "powers that be" actually think paying for quality administrative staff is a worthwhile expense. Either that or there's too much entrenched "this is how we do things" for the average admin person to cut through so even if they know how to fix the problem, they can't get buy-in from the crusty old farts.

Huh.. I was surprised about the idea of anti-Catholic discrimination when David mentioned it too, it must truly be a regional thing. The only time I've ever seen it was when my HS girlfriend told me that her pastor (Free Methodist) sat her down for like a 30 minute talk over concern for her soul because she was dating a Catholic; because, (I'm summarizing) "The Catholic Pope is actually the Anti-Christ in disguise". I just assumed he was crazy and left it at that. I guess all the bigots in my part of the country have enough to do worrying about the black, brown and yellow (sic) people and they don't have enough time left to worry about which Abrahamic faith they belong to. In my experience, there's a much easier way to get rid of those pesky Council gnats than being rude or inhospitable. When someone from council visits our troop we welcome them in, and introduce them as being "from council". They then get swarmed by parents and spend the next however long listening to every question, complaint and suggestion every adult present has about the Council's operations for the last 5 years or so. It usually doesn't take long before they "have another troop to visit tonight". And from what I can remember I think we've had about 3 visits from Council folks in the last 5-6 years.

That fact that something is "Done to protect children" doesn't automatically mean that action should be considered sacrosanct and accepted without question. There have been plenty of foolish, stupid and even dangerous things (eg: banning books, banning sex ed, helicopter parenting) done over the years "to protect the children" and so rules should always be continuously reviewed to see if they are reasonable, if they function as intended, if they have unintended consequences or if they are even necessary anymore. In the case of YP and the GSS, we have a set of rules that have in some cases gone so far past reasonable that they violate some of the key principles of rules making. As a result, scorn for those rules in general is just natural. In fact, that's the biggest problem with making stupid rules; when you do it, it makes it much too easy for people to simply decide "all these rules are stupid and unimportant". The fact that the BSA generally refuses to even acknowledge that their rules and guides are poorly handled only further intensifies the feeling that they are out of touch or incompetent. And just to be clear, the fundamental problem with BSA rules are that they violate the following principles: If a rule immediately requires exceptions and extensive explainations, it's a bad rule. (Two Deep Leadership being required for every activity) Don't make rules that you know are going to be ignored. (attempting to mandate Two Deep Leadership in people's home lives) Don't make rules that are inherently nonsensical or conflict with your own program. (Age Appropriate tool Use)