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.

On 2/4/2021 at 3:55 AM, yknot said:

This is what I think is going to be the problem. A lack of easily obtainable, affordable, liability insurance. Who in their right mind would insure scouting right now. 

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.

14 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

This is coming from the Insurance Companies, not BSA/National or the Councils.

This will be the absolute key to the entire thing. Only two options I see.

1) Try to get these claims tossed. This is dangerous for two reasons. First, if they are not settled NOW and someday the state(s) involved open up a look-back window, the claims get revived and the insurance companies, National, and the Council(s) are on the hook. Second, if BSA supports this motion the media campaign will be "BSA fights against victims."

 

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.

4 hours ago, skeptic said:

 but ironically he always introduced me as Mr.  Like many old guy here, past scouts, some now in their 50's still address me as Mr. 

 

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.

42 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

I'm absolutely supporting YPT, registered MBCs, but I hope never to have to see that.  It's hard enough to keep unit records straight.  I can easily see having to record a six month old MB, but the person is not registered anymore as a MBC.  It would create real nightmares.

BSA needs to rethink / redesign the role and process of MBs.

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.

1 hour ago, CynicalScouter said:

This is NOT going to stop the practice units have of off-the-books MBCs without YPT, but I hope it mnimzies.

And if someone gets dropped, then the answer is that they get YPT updated ASAP.

Fingers crossed there would be a system where Scoutnet determines someone's YPT is, say, 3 months from expiring they get an auto-generated email alert.

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.

On 1/4/2021 at 10:03 PM, fred8033 said:

Yep.  It happens.  I cringe every time added hoosp are explained as life lessons or helping them with a future objective.  If a scout comes asking for a proposal approval, scouters should be friendly, courteous, kind and supportive.  A pet pieve is when scouts are forced to face a Eagle project proposal BOR.  It's supposed to be a friendly discussion.  Proposal reviews are NOT a BOR that helps scouts prepare for their EBOR. 

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.

21 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

And if the end result is that the people most effected or disproportionately affected are minorities, still not racism?

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.

16 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Systemic racism holds that our societal and governmental structures are all synergistically designed to be racist.  (But you will find other varying definitions, which is why putting this term in a merit badge is bad news right now. ) It is still a "neologism."

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.

12 hours ago, PACAN said:

@Cburkhardt  If your 130,000 girls in the program is correct, we have lost almost 1,000,000 boys since their arrival.  End of October there were 1.1M total Cubs and Scouts.  Start of 2020 about 2M.   Seems like Surbaugh plan didn't work so well.

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.

Quote

Just a question as we see press releases around the country about the "first girl Eagle Scout".  It appears that almost all the young ladies are 18 or close to it.  So how many will remain with the program or will it be a "got mine" and gone.  

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.

14 hours ago, scoutldr said:

My Council has started charging a facility fee for camps...1.50 per person/per day.  Many of us veteran Scouts and Scouters spent countless hours and our own funds on maintaining those camps over the years.  One of our old-timers and Executive Board member (now residing with the Great Master of all Scouts) once told me he never donated cash.  He would ask the Ranger what he needed for the camp, and he would procure it and take it up there.  That way the SE couldn't "divert" the funds to other purposes.

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.

18 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Agreed, but not on the backs of adult volunteers who are paying for their own training.  Program events (camporees, summer camp, etc.), I get it... training events, especially required ones (like IOLS and BALOO) should actually be given for free.  If BSA requires me to have some sort of training, then they should figure out how to offer mandatory courses for free.  This would really show volunteers that you value their time and service.

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.

On 11/2/2020 at 8:46 PM, Jameson76 said:

Our troop does  knife throwing on a regular basis.  Have a mobile target, ribbon off space, use the smaller knives to throw.  Here's a pro-tip, make sure your knives have bright orange on them, or they will in fact get lost in the leaves or ground cover.

We have some throwing hatchets, but have not come up with a decent target that can be mobile.

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.

11 hours ago, David CO said:

I agree.

A lot of new rules/restriction are being imposed.  We recently got a new rule that boys are not to remove their shirts.  No shirts and skins in basketball.  No changing shirts on the field. If a boy is wearing a sweatshirt underneath his uniform shirt, and it gets warm, he cannot just remove the sweatshirt.  He must go to the locker room to change.  

Things are getting Victorian.

 

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

2 hours ago, yknot said:

That is all true but you also have to look at why YPT is so necessary.  I have read many comments on this board about scouters who discourage parents from attending camp outs because they feel that they get in the way of the patrol method, etc. There is no other youth organization that repeatedly has adult leaders take relatively small groups of kids to remote places for  hikes or overnight camping activities. There is some of that in sports as kids get older, but it's not common. Most youth in travel sports travel and stay with their families, not coaches. Most youth sports activities are conducted in an open field or gym with parents all around. Dug outs and sidelines are in full view. Other team's coaches, umpires, facility managers are generally in view. I really don't worry at all about one coach running a game or a practice on an open field with a dozen or so kids; I do worry about two adults takings kids on a 5 hour hike or camp out. BSA's YPT program is the most comprehensive, but it should have been long ago because the nature of the activities. 

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)

4 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

How did it grow to 82,000?  I thought this was always in the 10,000 range (max).  The best "win" for the plaintiffs I have seen is the Milwaukee Archdiocese.  It took 4 years in court.  They were able to reduce the claims by 43% and hold payments down to $64K each.  With 82,000 claims, the equivalent for the BSA would be a $3.0B settlement.  

I think we are on the edge of liquidation.  BSA will need to make an offer just short of liquidation … keep enough so they can survive but provide so much that pursuing further legal action on the plaintiff side wouldn't be worth it.  That probably means selling off most if not all HA bases and the artwork.  It will also probably mean selling off a large portion of council properties (or councils will be the next target).

Incredibly sad as the youth today will pay the price for something that occurred decades ago by people no longer involved in scouting.  Given that the lawyers will probably take 40%, the individual victims will be walking away with very little.

 

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)

9 hours ago, yknot said:

Absolutely not. It's just weird that the concept of  "fun" for kids has to be discussed in an organization devoted to kids at all. Does that make any sense? I'm not trying to be adversarial I'm just noting that this never comes up for discussion in other forums I participate in for sports coaches or 4-H or whatever. The activity itself is always fun. The discussions are always about admin stuff or how to make it better or how to recruit more kids. I just realized it tonight reading that comment how strange that is that we discuss it here. 

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?"

Quote

And even in supposedly youth led troops adults still set the tone without even being aware they are doing it. We're youth led for example but the pressure to advance oozes out of all the adults -- leaders and parents -- and the boys seem to have internalized that to the point that it guides what they choose to do.

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.

On 10/14/2020 at 11:52 AM, yknot said:

Franky, I'm a little insulted by this attitude. I'm a girl, and I know at least as much and to be honest probably quite a bit more about outdoor skills than any "boy" in my Troop. But your opinion explains a lot. . .  Who cares what BSA thought in the 1970s?. . . Does anyone seriously think more girl dads are somehow bad for the future of scouting?

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.

16 hours ago, yknot said:

There can be no doubt that BSA refusal to include homosexuals or girls until forced to do so due to social and financial pressure has had an impact on membership. It might not have affected it in terms of scouts immediately withdrawing, but it has definitely had an impact on recruitment and image.

I agree with you at least in part. I suspect that if the only restriction the BSA had had was that the Cub and Boy Scout programs were for boys only, the public outcry wouldn't have ever been enough to make a difference in either financial support or membership.  After all, the ban on boys in Girl Scouts isn't viewed with anything like the hatred that the BSA was receiving.  However, the ban on gay scouts and scouters certainly became a significant problem as society's view shifted on the issue. (particularly given the BSA's official stance of being non-sectarian)  Then, as that issue gathered steam, opponents were able to toss the exclusion of girls and atheists on top of the pile in order to label the BSA as "a generally discriminatory organization".

I would rather adapt and have some version of it survive rather than cling stubbornly to the past and see it serve fewer and fewer youth and ultimately die... here are some things I think would change it for the better or help it survive. I don't have a clue whether they are specific enough or wildly offensive or at all helpful or insightful. I am throwing them out based on my experiences with multiple youth organizations, nearly 20 years in scouting in almost every unit role there is as well as with some district and council experience, and as a parent of two sons who have been scouts for the purpose of rational discussion. I  hope that those who disagree will do so civilly and not result to another round of belittling comments:

I think you would probably have an easier time getting through to people if you split your view of this issue into two different areas, because they really are distinct.  There are changes you think are needed to the structure and administration of the BSA; and then there are changes that you think need to be made to the programming of the BSA.  Lumping them together tends to muddle the issue.

- Restructure the organization.  National's silo based, top down organizational structure is dysfunctional and is inherently not built to support the end customer -- scouts, units, and COs. Like other organizations, BSA needs to not only recruit managerial talent from within but from without in order to update its practices and perceptions. Throughout its history BSA has been insular to the point where there is a large degree of organizational arrogance. This has resulted in top management that has been inexplicably blind to pit falls that other organizations, including other youth organizations, routinely avoid. Some PR blunders have been self inflicted. These problems have affected recruitment. 

- Any restructuring needs to include the CO model, which is also dysfunctional.

- A broadly functional IT platform that would streamline and standardize administrative functions and volunteer roles as well as facilitate collaboration across units, districts, and even councils.

- Develop social media platforms that can be used as public relations/information, recruitment, training tools.

- Cost efficiency is also one of our current challenges. At a time when other youth organizations provided refunds or discounts, BSA has actually increased fees. An IT platform could also offer central purchasing options. 

- If District Executive positions survive post bankruptcy this needs to become more of a unit support and resource role than a fund raising one. This position may need to make up for training gaps among unit volunteers and be a source of expertise for outdoor activities. 

I suspect you aren't going to get very much push-back on any of these ideas.  The vast majority of local scouters I've read on this forum or met in real life would generally get behind all of these ideas as being important.  Even modifying the terms of CO "ownership" of the troop wouldn't garner much outrage except for from those folks who already know their program is being run in some way contrary to the BSA principles or from those few folks who just fixate on this aspect of the organizational structure. 

- Reposition ourselves as the nation's premiere outdoors resource for scouts. We missed a huge opportunity this summer to offer home based outdoor programming opportunities to the nation's youth during Covid. Some Councils/Districts/Units did a great job, but it was localized and focused on kids already in scouting, not prospective scouts. Nothing driven by National.

Meh.. I don't view the "home based" stuff people did this summer as anything other than a somewhat useful stop-gap to keep people thinking about scouts.  There is nothing about what was done in my area that I view as worth keeping.  And the problem with national putting stuff like that forward in any official way is that it would be more likely to lead to people thinking "camping in your backyard by yourself" should be considered the equivalent of camping with a patrol or troop.  As it is, I just know that at some point here we are going to start hearing some excited news stories about a "Home based Scout troop" that offers the entire scout program via Zoom and will let you get your Eagle Scout award without ever having to be within arms reach of another scout. 

Incorporate more outdoors skills into the main program. Too much outdoors curriculum has been outsourced to Merit badges. Every scout should learn more about things like tracking, birding, fishing, canoeing, endangered species, adverse weather, wildlife encounters and dangers, etc. Some of this exists but it is very topical. Develop partnerships with other outdoors related organizations to provide content and add interest. I tried to develop a local relationship between the Sierra Club and our Pack's Wolf Dens. Most young kids love animals and so do their parents. Why don't we capitalize on that within the various ranks? There are so many useful conservation lessons that are lost. The outdoors, unlike religion and social issues, is almost universally appealing and without controversy with Millennial and Gen X and soon Gen Z parents as long as you don't get into Climate Change. We could better align with the Parks Service, Outdoors Outfitters, Conservation Organizations of all types like Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited, Audubon, etc., etc. There are so many possibilities out there.The reality is even amongst our most experienced outdoors leaders the curriculum is really limited. Also jettison JTE, which is pointless and toothless, and instead require a minimal number of outdoor activities to be held in order to recharter or else be put on provisional status.  And why are there so few COs who are conservation centers? 

- De emphasize advancement and the push to Eagle. In its most traditional sense, scouting is supposed to be fun -- a game with a purpose. Yet too many units don't do anything that isn't linked to advancement. For example, my son's Troop repeats the same hiking loops every year because they dovetail perfectly with the hiking merit badge and hiking requirements in the program. We live in an area where there are literally hundreds of cool places to hike, but there's no time to explore them because everyone is pushing for Eagle and needs to do the hikes that fit into the formula. Where is the sense of fun and adventure? Don't get me wrong, they still have fun, but this isn't the highest experience that scouting can offer them. 

I just want to make it clear to you that what you are advocating here isn't some "new and radical change in the program to suit the modern world" (outside of emphasizing partnerships with other organizations) rather, it's exactly the "return to the scouting of the past" that you've been poo-pooing when other people talk about it.  Before the program was watered down, pretty much all of the basic outdoor skills were included as components of the journey to First Class.  Plus you had to actually master skills rather than just being able to fumble your way through a skill over 10-15 minutes and then finally get signed off on it when you accidentally get it right. (or when the person testing you got bored/frustrated)  

Even with my troop in the 80s, rank advancement was never promoted or advocated past First Class.  We almost never had a "merit badge meeting or camp-out" except for the ones that required trips. (cycling, hiking, backpacking)  And working on Star, Life and Eagle was something that happened on your own time unless you set up a meeting with the SM or ASM or MBC.  And while getting the Eagle Scout award was considered prestigious, it was also unusual and unnecessary if it was emphasized at all.  In fact, the trend that seems most common with troops (with 30-50 active scouts) when I've looked at their "Eagle plaques" is that from the 1960s - 1990s the number of scouts earning Eagle was often somewhere between 0 and 3 with sometimes a year or two between awards,  whereas by the late 90s to current it's more like 4-6 awards pretty much every single year.

- De emphasize religion. It's too much and just gets us into trouble. No one should be using scouting as an extension of their Sunday school or Hebrew school or whatever. BSA should never have allowed LDS to create a program within a program. The scouting program should be available to all who are interested, but since a scout is courteous and kind it should never have allowed itself to be used by organizations who wanted to exclude people. 

This one I have to agree with you on, though I'm uncertain if I'd consider it a program or administrative change.  However, I suspect the need for this varies significantly by region.  I know in my area of Michigan, I've never met another troop that placed a significant emphasis on religion, though I'm sure there are outliers even here.  That said, I wouldn't a religious CO's troop having a denomination specific worship service on a camp-out to be "too much emphasis" as long as scouts weren't required to participate.

- Find new ways to provide training. Whether traditionalists like it or not it's clear that Millennial, Gen X and soon Gen Z adults are less interested in investing endless hours in training, volunteering or spending time away from their kids and families even though it is needed more than ever. I read one post on this thread recapping some proposed training scheme and my first thought was that none of the parents in my unit would ever do this. We'll have to innovate ways to build skills. Campouts may need to become family affairs where parents are still with their kids and also possibly getting some chunks of training themselves.

Family camp-outs where scouts and their parents are together would render any attempt to develop youth leadership ineffective.  Only the very rare parent is capable of letting their kid struggle with something and most kids won't struggle with something very long if they know their parent is readily available for help.  I would suspect I'm considered one of the more "hands off" adults in my troop and even I have to just make myself scarce sometimes now that my son is SPL because the urge to toss some advice in the middle of a meeting or activity is just too tempting. 

I think a major part of the problem with leadership training is the lack of clear and consistent materials from national rather than poor presentation methods.  If you could actually count on council scouters to all know the program and rules correctly, it would make training much easier, but there are so many misunderstood and poorly explained parts of the programs that it's nearly impossible.  So then when you have new parents come in ready to learn, they get bombarded with conflicting and incoherent information until finally they decide "learning the program" is pretty much impossible and stop trying.

 

- Leadership. I think we need to give up on positioning BSA as a Civic Leadership experience. I personally think we no longer do a good job with it. From the general public perspective, our organization is not well led. Leadership approaches that worked 50 years ago are different today. Scouts is very top down and militaristic in its approach but leadership models are becoming much more collaborative and organic. Kids today are much more individualistic and their parents encourage that. The Patrol method works, but it needs some updating. Kids are not coming to scouts with some of the conflict resolution skills they had 50 years ago and it is a problem whether you are trying to develop peer to peer leadership or older scouts leading younger scouts. There needs to be some stepped path to leadership because throwing a bunch of kids into a group and expecting them to be able to sort it out and emerge as leaders is becoming more problematic. Many schools no longer have students work in group projects because of this. 

And again, what you are asking for here is exactly what the "old-timers" have been complaining about for years.  There used to be a stepped path to leadership, it was called the "mixed-age patrol".  The new scouts would be spread out into existing patrols and they would have a couple of years of witnessing youth leadership before they needed to step into a leadership position for rank requirements.  And as far as the leadership structure goes, it's only strictly hierarchical if a troop is operating that way incorrectly.  Every step of the planning process in Scouts is collaborative by design.  Patrols discuss what activities to do on their own with the PL acting mostly as moderator.  The PLC discusses what the troop activities are going to be with the SPL acting primarily as moderator.  In each case, the PL and SPL each only have one vote in their respective groups.  But even with those "collaborative and organic" leadership models in the adult world, while planning might happen in a collaborative and organic way, when it's time for implementation,  there's still always a hierarchy because committees are notoriously bad at dealing with time sensitive issues.    

- Consider advancement tracking. Families today increasingly want experiences that are specific to their needs. Many other youth organizations have adopted this. By this I mean STEM Emphasis Eagle track, Outdoors Emphasis Eagle track, Citizenship Emphasis Eagle track. Have a common core but let kids specialize based on their interests. 

This is called the "merit badge program".  There's the common core of Eagle Required badges and then all the elective ones so that scouts can choose to explore whatever they want.  Actually creating separate formal "tracks" and giving parents the option to pigeon-hole their 10-11 year old into whatever they think is important just isn't be a good idea.

What I want for scouts is to survive in some fashion. I want it to be relevant for more families. I want it to be more outdoors oriented. I want it to have more competent leadership that is more outwards and forwards looking and be more scandal proof. I want the organization as a whole to reorient around the scout and the units. I want to get rid of crippling disconnects and conflicts of purpose between the tiers of National, Council, District, Units and COs who all seem to have different missions and marching plans. What I also want is more research, conducted by an independent source. There is a ton of general research about Millennials and Gen X's and Gen Z's that support what we are seeing across the country with trends regarding all youth organizations, not just scouts, but it would be helpful to have something specific to us. 

Just now, Jameson76 said:

We just got back from weekend backpacking.  

The camping area was on a bend in a river.  River is up due to rains, so we had to have the boys figure a way to get to the river, step on to a downed tree to float the intake for the water filter.  Good times to get water, but on the plus side, sort of an unlimited supply

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.

11 hours ago, mashmaster said:

How do you backpack with that?

  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.

10 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

I will tell you this. I got a committee chair in another unit I met at roundtable. Our district was trying to get a new DE and about ready to post to the web and it came up at RT. Committee chair asked how much they make and was told the salary range. "Part time?" He said. Nope. 4 counties, full time. Nights and weekends. He thought they were joking.

Of course our District Chair and everyone absolutely agreed it was underpaid, but that is what they had to budget, so, that was it.

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.

42 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Night of Zoom. 20 adults; most of whom were the "usual suspects" (i.e. the ones who show for District Committee and/or Roundtable) That's it. The Council Key-3 introduces themselves, said thanks for all you do, gave a 10 minute overview of how Council was handling COVID, and then opened it to questions. Two questions. Done.

Now when she gets complaints about Council she simply says "They came. They were open. You had an opportunity to express your concerns. You chose not to."

It separates those with legitimate concerns and those who simply want to belly ache.

 

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.

9 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I can vouch for the anti-Catholic discrimination @David CO is getting.

I was lucky growing up. My hometown is largely Catholic, 90+% of the private schools are Catholic, and I did not face the discrimination. Moving to NC, Is were I first encountered              anti-Catholic bias. I've have heard it at restaurants, children's' playgrounds, and yes at Scouting functions.

At Scouting functions, when I mention I am Catholic, I get the shocked, "You're a heathen" look at times.

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.

2 hours ago, ParkMan said:

There are lots of reasons for a unit to want to be more insular.  I'd always gathered @David CO's comments were more focused at district/council/national Scouters who they wanted nothing to do with.  I see that in my neck of the woods too.  It's not that they are really hiding anything, they just find Scouters from the larger organization a hassle and bother.  i.e., you must be visiting with us to ask us for money, to do something, whatever...

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.

21 hours ago, carebear3895 said:

Imagine being so cynical towards the BSA, you hate rules that are put in place that are meant to protect children.

Wild. 

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)