elitts

1 minute ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

That might exactly be why they did it last year, to shield it from a bankruptcy liquidation order.  If the judge thinks this was the case, they may still order it liquidated free and clear.

It depends on what was done with the funds.  My understanding (mostly from conversations on here) is that it wasn't actually a new mortgage, it was a refinancing of the mortgage.  But even if the new mortgage was for more than the old one, if they can prove that any extra equity stripped out was used to pay down creditors or was placed into a pot to be used for the purpose of paying debts, I wouldn't imagine the judge would be punitive over it.  However, I do know that bankruptcy judges have incredibly broad authority and can even order money already paid to a creditor within a certain time frame be returned in order to make sure it is shared equally, so if they used the funds to clear a debt on Summit or something, there could be some messy adjustments made.

On the plus side, Bankruptcy judges are fairly well insulated from public pressure.

2 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

I think this is why mediation has a chance.  The plaintiff lawyers realize they will probably lose this argument, so their alternate option will be going state by state and suing every individual council.  If they can settle all at once, it could be a higher return on their investment.

This is very much how I'd view it.  Particularly since if it's handled as a class action lawsuit they can get a higher "victim count".  If you start looking at local councils individually it becomes easier for the council's lawyers to look at 40 or 50 suits and start saying "Hmm.. OK, you are alleging an incident to have happened 37 years ago.  What evidence beyond your own statement do you have that this actually occurred?".

It may not be a friendly way to deal with things, but if someone is looking for a cash payout in this situation, I think it's entirely reasonable.

On 5/27/2020 at 11:12 AM, Eagle1993 said:

“The Boy Scouts of America without a doubt controls the councils,” Mones said. “There are a sufficient number of courts that have said there is that control there because if you can control the sexual orientation of the scoutmaster, you control the Boy Scouts.”

 

I suspect this is simply a hopeful delusion.  Lawyers have been trying to do this same thing with Catholic diocese for the last decade or so and still haven't managed to pierce that veil.  And i don't think anyone would argue that the Vatican has control over the assignment of priests and bishops.

4 hours ago, malraux said:

That’s really unfortunate because they really should have a method to do managed logging to help improve the financial situation of the council while also managing the health of the environment. 

My general understanding of how logging works is that unless you are talking about a forest full of valuable lumber, "managed logging" just isn't really commercially viable.  The expense and time involved in being careful and deliberate will basically wipe out the profit.  Particularly if most of the wood is expected to be sold to the pulp mills.

On 6/13/2019 at 10:06 AM, FireStone said:

Maybe I'm naive about the court system, plea deals, etc... but this seems like an open-and-shut case to me. They have a blood test that shows the driver was drunk, more than double the legal limit. He's given statements admitting his role in the accident and resulting injuries and death. And yet despite his claims that he won't prolong the family's suffering, he is pleading not-guilty, going to trial, and trying (unsuccessfully) to suppress other evidence. Kind of hard to believe that he's truly remorseful when his actions since the accident contradict what he says.

A "plea deal being offered" can mean drastically different things depending on how public the case is.

If I was going to speculate, I'd say that when this became publicized, the DA involved decided to throw the whole book at him and go for the max, which forces a defendant to decide if their remorse is strong enough to give up the rest of their life.   I've seen plea deals in situations like this.  As an example, I'd guess it went something like:

 Drunk driver kills someone and is charged with Vehicular homicide (6-10 year penalty);

Case becomes publicized;

DA adds charges of: 3rd Degree murder, Assault, Conspiracy to commit assault, Use of a deadly weapon in a crime, Use of technology to commit a crime, Depraved indifference, and maybe criminal negligence.

DA offers a deal of: "I'll drop all the other stuff I've added if you plead guilty to Murder with 15 - 25 years.

Now, while this might not sound unfair or anything, the problem is that if it hadn't ever gotten widespread publicity, he might have been offered the original Vehicular Manslaughter with 6-10 years.  If you knew that some people who were guilty of the same thing as you were getting 6-10 years, would you blithely accept 15-25?  I don't think I would.

I mean, I have zero sympathy for the guy and I think he probably should spend the rest of his "non-doddering" life in jail; but I also dislike the way DAs and prosecutors go about things.

*Just a note, I made up all those crime names and penalties for the sake of examples*

1 hour ago, Eagle1993 said:

My question is how will the BSA generate enough cash to pay without selling off some or all HA bases? 

Settlements in the Catholic Church for sex abuse range from $300K per plaintiff to >$1M per.  Given est. 4,000 plaintiffs that would be at least $1.2B … before any other costs (resolving other debts, etc.).  Where is the BSA going to get at least $1.2B?  Expect the lawyers to push for far more.  I would be extremely sad but I don't see many paths that avoid selling off High Adventure bases (all of them).

Perhaps they do sell Philmont to an independent trust as mentioned above who provides full market value to the victims fund.  Then that trust charges trek fees to help pay down the debt generated + costs + improvements.  Similar questions for other HA bases.

I would hope this situation will be somewhat different.  The behavior of many church leaders was nearly the opposite of the BSA in attempting to actively cover things up and hide them with little to no effort made to actually provide protections against abuse.  For as long as the BSA was trying to stay on the good side of press, it made more sense to settle cases on rather generous terms.  But at this point, people are coming out of the woodwork with suits that are in many cases going to be entirely impossible to verify given the time lapse.  I'd want to see the BSA's lawyers approach things a little bit differently.  Plus, coming out now and saying "This happened to me in 1972.  I never told anyone or reported it, but give me money." simply can't be treated the same as a current and verifiable claim.

If nothing else, people with damages that occurred 40 years ago should be made whole based upon 40 years ago dollars, not current ones.  So if they'd have been awarded $25,000 in 1970, that's what the basis of their award should be today. 

14 hours ago, carebear3895 said:

Popcorn is a money maker. Like, I get it. Volunteer hate it.....but it's low overhead and a money maker for councils. I would reckon no council is in a good enough financial state to cut one of their largest fundraisers.

The problem I have with popcorn is two-fold.

1. It violates the BSA's own rules on fundraisers.  (product price much be in relation to product value)  I realize they have the authority to authorize any fundraiser they want, but "We can do this and you can't" just always sours the ears of people who hear it.

2. The fact that it seems easy because "This is what we've always done" seems to be the primary motivator for councils.  At this point, this fundraiser is NOT a product sale, it's essentially a donation drive.  Given that fact, why continue using a product that is as fundamentally "Blah" as mediocre popcorn?  Popcorn's only redeeming quality is that it's not going to be viewed as offensive or unpalatable to anyone.  Basically anything you stick cute little cubbies out selling will serve the same purpose as the popcorn does, which is to provide an opportunity to talk people into a donation.

On 5/15/2020 at 8:51 AM, Eagle94-A1 said:

I see increases coming at both the National and Council levels. National is losing members left and right. and with 18% of the membership gone, that is a huge amount of income that national no longer has. Then I am seeing more and more councils implementing council service fees. I see this happening with my council. Depending upon how much of a fee they charge, will factor into the members the lose. I can tell you family FOS is down in my district because the volunteers are not seeing any benefit. DE is not visible, let alone supporting the volunteers who do step up to the plate to help. Service center has the habit of losing records and applications

Given the number of similar comments I see on this, and my experience with our council over the last 10 years; If there is any one thing Councils could do to increase or support their value in the eyes of Scouters, getting paperwork processed correctly and promptly the first time and then being able to find it again afterwards would be it.  Honestly, if there was one position that I would think should be paid very well (relative to the market) it should be the administrative person who handles everything related to paperwork and applications. 

I don't think there is anything wrong with him discussing it with the MBC, but if it were my son, I'd suggest the issue be raised as a question rather than an accusation.  Something like:

"Hey, I just wanted to clarify something to make sure I understand it correctly.  I noticed that some of the scout folders were full of pictures that were taken "of them" by someone else and not photos they took, but I thought we were only supposed to post pictures we took ourselves.  Am I correct, or are photos taken by someone else acceptable?"

And then he'll need to just leave it at that unless he's asked for an example of a photo set taken by someone else.

21 hours ago, DNRobbin said:

I do not know if that is entirely accurate, and this may be jumping to a conclusion that possibly is unwarranted under the Guide to Safe Scouting, which is the text by which BSA has informed all adult leaders of the rules to be followed for the Scout's, the BSA's, and the Adults' protection. 

The purpose of two-deep leadership within Adult-Scout communications is to ensure that another adult is, at a bare minimum, made aware that a communication or interaction between an Adult and Scout has occurred. It is intended to put another responsible adult on notice and to be aware of this occurrence. Accordingly, sending a piece of mail addressed to a Scout at his or her home address puts that Scout's parent or guardian on notice that a communication has been received made from another adult. If the parent/guardian wishes, he or she could open the mail for the Scout and read the correspondence—or, better yet, read it with the Scout.

The possibility and opportunity is there, and the parent would be appropriately "carbon-copied" on the mailpiece, just in the same way as e-mail, or sitting in on a phone call over speakerphone, or sitting in the back of a videoconference in Zoom. Perhaps there is a rule in the GTSS directly on point, but as far as my YPT training and GTSS knowledge shows, I see no issue. Thus, I see no problem with a SM sending a handwritten card to one or more Scouts under the example the gentleman posed.

 

Your premise depends on the unsupportable assumption that adults in a household always see the mail first.  I know at my house now, and when I was a kid, the kids were usually the ones sent to fetch the mail from the box and I can't imagine that my family is a rarity.  So now you are in a situation where keeping a letter in compliance with the (2 adults) idea requires that parents tell their kids, "Don't open your own mail until I can supervise".  And if we are going to depend on that to make the solution work, then why doesn't that work for reading text messages or emails too?  (ie: Don't read messages from adults without my knowing about it)  The only way to effectively using "Two adult involvement" with a letter would be to require that all correspondence be mailed to the parent on the scout's behalf.

Your response details pretty much my whole problem with the idea that "Two Deep Leadership" should ever be considered an "anti-grooming" measure.  While the rule works great for ensuring emergency response depth (as it was originally intended), it's fundamentally broken at preventing grooming because it's just unworkable in so many situations.  The fact that the BSA (at one time) accepted that Two Deep Leadership wasn't a functional solution to prevent grooming is exactly there was the additional rule of "No One on One Contact".  And as it is, it's still "No one on one" that does the majority of the work of preventing grooming since "2 Deep" has absolutely no requirement that multiple adults be aware of in-person conversations as long as multiple scouts are present.

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As for the rest of this thread, I disagree that the requirement of two-deep leadership for video-conference meetings is in any way detrimental to the goals of Scouting

Whether or not you think requiring two adults to monitor the internal communication of scouts is a problem probably depends on your view of what Scouts is supposed to be and how it's supposed to work.  If you think Scouts is supposed to be a safe space for kids to calmly and efficiently learn new skills under the watchful eyes of adult leaders (ie: Webelos III), then I'm not surprised that you don't see a problem with mandating adult monitoring of conversations.  I've noticed that this mindset tends to go hand in hand with the notion that kids don't really behave differently when adults are around (unless they are misbehaving).  If that is your view, (and I fully realize there are plenty of adults who would love a program like this)  I can easily believe that you might not see an issue here.  Unfortunately, there are a few problems with this view:

1.  Scouts isn't supposed to be a safe space for calm and efficient education;
2.  Kids DO behave differently when adults are watching;
3.  Unless kids learn to do it ON THEIR OWN, they haven't learned how to do it;

Only the most basic skills in scouting are intended to be simply studied and mastered.  This is why "Camping/survival skills" isn't one of Scouting's Aims.  Everything we want scouts to learn with regards to the actual Aims of Scouting is intended to be learned "on the job" through trial and error.  Exasperation, frustration, failure and even some conflict are a part of how the program is supposed to run because those are some of the best teachers when it comes to leadership and character development.  And the key to all of that is getting adults out of the picture as much as possible.  If a scout is only capable of "leading" with adults around acting as a constant warning to "Behave", then they haven't really learned to lead have they?  And how do they learn to lead independently if adults are ALWAYS around?  This is the whole reason why camp-outs are supposed to be done with adult leadership a football field away in their own camp (maybe not even in view), doing their own thing and with only the SM interacting with the SPL or PL.

And yet here we are with a program where scouts are supposed to learn to function independently, yet we tell them explicitly, "You can't be trusted to have a video conference with each other without at least 2 adults monitoring you".

_______________________________________________________________________________________________________

And as far as the level of my disgust with this rule goes, well that's primarily because I don't think this rule was put in place to actually ameliorate some specific risk, I think the only reason for it because the lawyers at BSA really want to get to the point where they can advertise "Non-stop monitoring by at least 2 adults at all times".

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i.e., those who would call such things "stupid" or "nitpicking"

Just to be clear, I wasn't calling people attempting to follow the rules "stupid" or "nitpickers", I was referring to those people who will take any idea and try and find some ridiculously unlikely circumstances where won't work.  Like the person I heard arguing that having just 1 female leader on a joint boy/girl troop trip wasn't enough and we should be required to have a female leader physically accompanying every group of girls (not just one per event) specifically in case some issue should arise around a period.  (they were basically saying that the 12 girls going should have to stay in one group with the female leader accompanying them at all times)

On 5/4/2020 at 12:40 PM, JoeBob said:

Two deep on all video conferences? Patently absurd.

Unless we're trying to convince our boys that someone is always out to get them.  How better to create paranoia? 

 

I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks of it in terms that stark. 

I really wish some of these risk managers coming up with these new rules (and applications of existing rules) would actually spend some time considering the idea of:

"What unintended consequences or implications could this new rule have on the rest of our program".  But it seems they are about as good at proactive thinking as most legislative bodies are when they pass new laws.

I mean, if a rule or guideline immediately requires a F.A.Q. in order to explain what you mean, it probably means it's a poorly written rule. (excepting the fact that there will always be a few nitpickers trying to split hairs on what the definition of "is" is.)

And since the current climate is such that you get crucified for publicly suggesting that 100% safety may not be the actual GOAL, I feel like my only remaining option is to point out stupidity indirectly by suggesting we should apply the rules as literally as possible and making the "Maude Flanders'" of the world reign me back in by telling me how I'm taking it too far.

*For example, our Scoutmaster recently mailed very nice congratulations and encouragement cards (for keeping going during the lockdown) to each of the boys on the PLC.  However, clearly under the new guidelines, Adults and scouts should not communicate via letter because 2 Deep Leadership can't be applied to written correspondence.  So obviously: THERE'S NO PLACE IN THE BSA FOR HANDWRITTEN LETTERS/CARDS

1 hour ago, carebear3895 said:

An online environment, in my opinion, poses many unique risks to youth than being outdoors.  

Really?  Please explain what your basis is for this belief.  Keep in mind we aren't talking about general web use where exposure to adult material is a risk.  We aren't talking about Social Media where one bullying post can live on indefinitely and be seen by anyone in the world and we aren't talking about a situation where someone can interact with the group anonymously.

The actual risks are that someone will say something mean/insulting or the public conversation could be recorded and both of those can quite easily happen during a in in-person conversation as well.  "Zoombombing" is also a potential issue, but it's not one that having adults monitoring the conversation will actually prevent.  As with any in person interactions, all we can really do is trust that if something untoward happens, the kids are capable of shouting "Mom/Dad, come see what's going on!"

Personally, I'm MUCH more concerned about one-on-one video conversations than I am about a group format where anything said is being heard by multiple other people.

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Yes, sitting in on a one hour video call might provide a slight inconvenience for adults, but that is our responsibility. 

My issue with this requirement has NOTHING to do with it being any sort of inconvenience.  My issue is that it creates an environment where the scouts can't behave and interact normally because they know they are being monitored.  I mean, I'm sure every adult scouter out there has "watched the fun die" when a group of scouts that is laughing and having fun becomes suddenly quiet and restrained as the adult approached the group.

The elimination of scouts being able to hike or camp in patrols was unfortunate, but now it appears the BSA doesn't even feel scouts can communicate safely over video chat without direct adult monitoring.  I have to ask where that line of thinking is going to end.  I realize that we are calling these conference calls "meetings", but that's just labeling.  A "meeting" is a gathering of people at a location or site, and when a bunch of kids are gathering at some location where parental supervision is absent, requiring Two Deep Leadership at least makes logical sense, even if some might argue that it's not really necessary; but a bunch of kids talking together over video chat from the safety of their own homes just doesn't in any way have the same level of potential risk.

I've heard any number of flimsy justifications (bullying, nudity, sexual behavior) for the need to require Two Deep Leadership at virtual meetings, but all of them ring hollow in the face of the fact that the rules don't provide the same requirements in any other situation.  Scouts can communicate with each other in any other way, whether is via voice, phone, email or text without being monitored by adults, but if we call it a "Virtual Meeting", suddenly it's unsafe?  I mean, we aren't sending two adults along with every group of summer campers as they walk from MB to MB, instead we trust them to behave appropriately and we rely on adults being within easy reach to deal with any problems.

I worry that this is yet another step down the road to the BSA wanting to advertise "Your scouts will be safe because they will be continually monitored by at least 2 registered adults at ALL times".

So, I'm just wondering how Eagle BoR is handled in other areas.  When I had my Review Board, it was held at the Gerald R. Ford Museum in the executive board room and was quite formal feeling.  Not unpleasant, but there was a certain amount of solemnity and seriousness.

By contrast, I recently sat on an Eagle BoR for the first time at my local council offices.  I was rather astonished when the Council representative running things told us to "Just grab a few chairs and drag them out into the hallway, you can do the review out there."

I really felt pretty bad for the kid.  I mean, this is a final review of years worth of work and effort and we are going to handle it with less formality than a Scoutmaster conference? 

Is my outlook on this wrong?  How does your council handle it?

When producing rules like this, I find the best approach is to lay out the rules in as bland a manner possible, with very little in the way of backstory or explanation.  Then at the end offer to discuss them in person should anyone have further questions.  Otherwise it can feel too much like "airing the dirty laundry". 

The unfortunate fact is that people suck at reading and keeping it clean and simple works best most of the time.

On 3/13/2020 at 5:05 PM, David CO said:

You apparently never attended a Catholic school.   

😆  5 years actually.  That's one of the reasons I said "Very very few" and not "None".  Even though by the time I was at the school there was only one nun left teaching, it was clear that the nuns of the past were really really good at lists of "Don'ts".

Positive Punishment was definitely a more accepted methodology than Positive Reinforcement.

3 hours ago, njdrt-rdr said:

So, one of my issues is lying flat. At home I actually sleep in a recliner. I've done a hammock and it was more comfortable in that than flat in a tent, once I got in it. But body build doesn't lend itself to hammock camping. I'm short and really fat and have difficulty getting in and out of the hammock. I did try a hammock  at summer camp and it was strung up inside a lean-to that had a closed in front. So when I rolled out of the thing onto the floor to get up in the morning it wasn't visible to everyone in camp...LOL...I also have trouble because I'm short and I can't reach high enough on the trees to tie up a hammock and a rain fly. I did purchase a hammock with a bug net built in but after trying it, I fear me getting stuck inside the thing when I can't sit up to get to the zipper to open the bug net. When we are camping close to the parking lot where we are,  I've actually resorted to just sleeping in seat in my van now. 

Actually, this means you might find the classic Hennessy Hammock a PERFECT fit.  The classic Hennessy hammock uses a bottom entry system to get in.  You split the two sides, lower the hammock down over you, then sit down and pull your feet in.  When you pull your feet in, your weight pulls the two sides closed and seals the velcro.  You can set the hammock up so the bottom is only like 12"-18" off the ground and not have any issues at all with getting in.

Getting out can be somewhat more complicated, but this is easily fixed with a very simple change.  To get out, you use your toes to split the seam and stick your feet out and get them planted on the ground.  From here, those of us who are more apple shaped can have an issue because you need to sit up in a swinging hammock.  But this difficulty is resolved by tying a rope to the tree your feet point at, then pulling the rope through the velcro seam with you when you get it.  So all you have to do is get your feet on the ground, then pull yourself into a seated position with the rope.

On 3/11/2020 at 5:34 PM, ParkMan said:

Someone needs to show me some documentation that says a linked troop cannot operate in this manner.  I sure have not seen any yet.

From everything I've seen this troop is acting within the rules.  Who says that two troops cannot work together and share a common SPL?  This is especially true of liked troops where there are very likely to be a number of joint activities.

Linked troops are a new invention of the BSA in light of situations just like this.  I find it remarkably telling that the BSA struck all such language restricting how linked troops operate from their latest FAQ.  Given that they removed the content limiting linked troop operations, it sends a clear message that linked troops are increasingly free to operate as they best see fit for their particular scenario.  If they wanted to continue to restrict how this works, the language would still be there.  The language is not - which shows the BSA is not stopping cases like this.

There are very very few organizations that actually go through the effort to officially say "NO" to everything they haven't said "YES" to.  Using that as your yardstick in life would be a great way to get in trouble.  Your argument here is essentially identical to saying:

Why can't New York and New Jersey have the same Governor if they want to?  States are "linked bodies" and they work together on joint projects and when there is a governor's meeting, they always pick one person to be the "chairperson", so clearly a joint Governor shouldn't be a problem.

16 hours ago, yknot said:

I can't find that brochure anywhere else except at that specific council website. Do you have a BSA original source for it? 

No, I imagine it was simply a scanned copy of the published brochure.  But here's a link to the "Trail to Adventure" publication, Volume 8, Issue 1.  https://i9peu1ikn3a16vg4e45rqi17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/04/The-Trail-To-Adventure-Master-Copy_Spring-2019.pdf

This is only talking about the issue in regards to summer camp, but it makes the BSA position pretty clear.
 

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Question: Can Scouts BSA girl troops be combined with Scouts BSA boy troops into a “camp unit”?

Answer: No. Program integrity requires single gender units.

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Question: Can we create a provisional troop for Scouts BSA girl and boy campers?

Answer: No, program integrity requires single gender units. Female provisional campers would be in a provisional Scouts BSA girl troop, and boy provisional campers would be in a provisional Scouts BSA boy troop.

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Question: Can linked Scouts BSA girl and boy troops share a campsite?

Answer: Yes, if your camp layout and amenities meet all the requirements of the Barriers to Abuse, including privacy and separate accommodations.

Now, let's add to those points the fact that the BSA Rules https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/membership/pdf/Rules_and_Regulations_June_2018.pdf

specify that the SPL must be elected by half of the members of their troop.(Section VII, page 14)  Therefore a "Joint SPL" is not possible because SPLs can not be elected by anyone outside of his/her troop.

For all those looking for explicit documentation about sharing leadership between boy and girl troops, here you go:

https://skcscouts.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/12/Starting-Linked-Troop.pdf

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Whether boy and girl troops are separate or linked, they can meet at the same place and they can enjoy activities together. They can even conduct joint openings and closings and courts of honor. However, to ensure both boys and girls have equal opportunities to learn and practice leadership the boy troop and girl troop should run their meetings separately and planning should be done by the Patrol Leader’s Council for each troop.

This clearly and definitively states that the entire youth troop structures of linked troops are supposed to be independent.

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@ynot Unless there is a clear cut policy that says girls and boys may not ever hold leadership positions over the opposite gender -- and BSA would be falling on its own bad PR sword if it ever issued such a statement -- where is the policy that a girl or a boy can't serve in such leadership roles?

There is no reason a female SPL can't serve in an ad hoc leadership role for some activity, however the key concept behind an "ad hoc" anything is that the term of service is only the duration of the (typically short) immediate activity.  Furthermore, serving in some leadership role on an ad hoc basis is completely different from formally holding a "Position of Leadership". 

18 hours ago, njdrt-rdr said:

I've given up on getting decent sleep on a campout. I come home wiped out every time and it takes me a day or so to recouperate.

As JoeBob said, a hammock was the best thing I ever bought for camping.  I'm still going to take a nap on Sunday afternoon, but I'm no longer so tired that I'm not functional.  A 20 minute shower and an hour or two nap and I'm pretty much recovered.

If everyone is heading off to bed at 8:30-9pm, it sounds like you need to start planning some kind of activity for Friday nights.  8:30-9pm is about when we would start 'smores and kids would start playing flashlight tag.  (Though we did have one pair of boys that would disappear suddenly around 7:30-8:00pm because they'd put themselves to bed.)

The key to being Cubmaster on camp-outs is that you shouldn't be running any of the specific activities once there.  What you do is start pinning down parents who are already there and asking them what they are going to help with.  The way I'd ask the questions would make it clear that they would help with something, the only decision to make was about which thing they chose to do.  Since they are already on the camp-out, they couldn't very well try and dodge the question by pleading unavailability.  This works even better if you can get the whole group of parents together at once because if you start allocating tasks, some parents will volunteer and once that happens, you identify the slackers trying to hide behind other people and guilt them into doing some actual work.

If you do it right, you get all the tasks supervised by some other parent so you can float between activities, and usually even work in a nap somewhere before or after lunch.  Of course, you still spend the whole day making sure everything keeps moving, so it's not like you aren't busy most of the time, but at least it's just busy pitching in where needed.

Oh, and just as a general tip from a former Cubmaster to a new one:

Cub aged kids are always thrilled by taking old games and then adding new rules to make them stupidly hard. 

              Example: "Crab Tag" which is like freeze tag, but where everyone has to walk on all fours and when you freeze, you have to stay bent over.  Then if someone free manages to crawl under your arched body, you are free again, but if you collapse, you are out permanently.

If nothing else, this would be a great time to publicly offer Girl Scout troops to the option of attending BSA camps "to make sure they don't miss out on any opportunities".  It would suit my sense of perverse delight greatly if some of that $200,000 per year endowment ended up getting used to fund BSA camps because GSUSA troops or individuals wanted to attend.

From what I could find just looking up this type of project on google, calling things like this a "pile" isn't really doing it justice.  What you are effectively doing is deliberately creating all at once the kind of habitat that would be created over years in the woods.  Ideally, these aren't made by just haphazardly piling up logs and pouring dirt on top to fill in the gaps.  Instead, the scout will need to "craft" a habitat with a combination of hollows and gaps in some spaces, loose leafy dirt filling others, and plenty of air moving through the whole thing.

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Informational signage seens more useful that a really fancy enclosure -- though I doubt the insects and chipmunks will care about either.   And what is the purpose of the fancy enclosure anyway?  So that people will understand that it is a deliberate wood pile, and not simply leftover logs that someone forgot to carry away?  To keep kids from climing on it? 

The enclosure keeps things in a "pile" rather than allowing people and nature to knock or blow things flat over time.  (I'm sure serves to limit liability as well.  Any time you pile up logs basically anywhere, you've created a "kid magnet" with the potential to have shifting logs crush something.)

I'm going to agree with some of the other folks though.  I don't see any particular problem with this project if it's done right.  If the scout is going to collect and organize the assembly of logs, branches, sticks, leaves, dirt and everything else from a variety of sources on the beneficiary's property, dig holes for stablizing poles and then craft the "pile" with care and attention to detail; I think this is a great project.  But I'd probably suggest doing more than one.

Of course, if the beneficiary has equipment and drags all the supplies to the site themselves and the scouts just show up and start throwing things in the pile, I wouldn't consider it sufficient to "demonstrate leadership".