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elitts

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Everything posted by elitts

  1. I think at least part of the issue is the general difference between Cubs and Scouts and finding women who can leave "mom" at home. My experience has been that moms have a significantly harder time dealing with the chaos of "scout-led" without wanting to step in to help/comfort/fix whatever problems come up. At least, that's what a number of the moms in my troop have said about themselves. Of course, in my old Cub pack, we didn't have many moms going on camp-outs either. Even when moms were the ones helping at den meetings and doing most of the Cub activities, it was almost always the dads
  2. That's about what I'd expect here too, though perhaps with a higher perp count. And I don't have any issue at all with scouring the records for abusers that can still be charged. But it does aggravate me when I see her talking about her investigation "Targeting the BSA". Targeting the Catholic Churches made sense given the involvement of the hierarchy as a whole in the ongoing activities of the priesthood. And personally, I find it dismaying that so few Bishops and Cardinals have faced more than public shame for actively protecting priests and recirculating them into positions where they c
  3. That's going to be a big "nothingburger" when it's all done. Nessel is as politically motivated as an A.G. gets and while she may find someone she can eventually file charges against by twisting and warping the intent of the law, in the end the most we'll see is someone pleading to an inconsequential misdemeanor in order to save on legal fees. At least as far as "investigating" the BSA, LCs and COs. Though if she manages to dig out a few actual perpetrators, that would be awesome. I think the logic on SOL rule changes tends to revolve around "how far back can we realistically go and
  4. Executive branch agencies don't get to determine the legality of the court's actions. They can say they think it's illegal, but it's just an opinion. Personally, I think the movement has pretty well passed on wide open expansions of SoL laws. We'll probably see states that restrict the SoL at very short times get widened, but I think the BSA case has shown everyone who's paying attention that permitting 70 years worth of complaints to suddenly be filed isn't healthy for ANY long standing organization. Except that's not how it will work. Here's my prediction if the a BSA
  5. At a guess, one thing that might be a factor is the LCs source of funds. If the Ventura Council operates using a general fund derived entirely from annually renewable sources (donations, FoS, fees), that 1.4 million might simply represent a "rainy day fund". Whereas in units with lots of scholarship youth and minimal fundraising, annual operating funds may be coming from investment interest. So that 14.5 million dollars might represent an irreplaceable source of income instead of being a usable cash balance.
  6. I'm absolutely certain there is both rhyme and reason, we just don't have the data to understand it. 2 claims in an open SoL state for horrendous abuses is a much more significant financial risk than 300 claims that are all time barred. It wouldn't surprise me if the assets at risk factor in too. A LC with no major assets at risk beyond cash accounts has very little reason to be concerned about lawsuits.
  7. He didn't actually need it for advancement, he just wanted the patch so he could put it on college applications. The kid was just about every unpleasant Eagle stereotype rolled into one. Did a half-assed Eagle project where he brought in a builder friend of the family to actually run the project (I was there, his only actual "leadership" was saying "Ok, go as builder-guy what to do next". When the SM started suggesting some additions to the project scope to allow him to actually demonstrate leadership he went home and sent Step-dad in to threaten to sue.
  8. When my son was 15 he ran for SPL and got beat, and then became ASPL for one of the resume builders; who of course vanished like a fart in the wind about 2 months into his term. So my son ended up acting as SPL for 3 or 4 camp-outs. The second campout he did that on ended up being one where he was the only kid over 14, along with two 13 year old "my parents don't medicate us on the weekends" ADHD pains in the rear and then seventeen 10,11 & 12 year olds in four patrols. By Saturday night he was just about in tears when he came up to me off in the dark at about 9pm to let me know that "B
  9. Yep. That's one of the reasons I dislike SPL changes every 6 months. Not that I don't think the elections should happen, I just like it when the SPL serves 2 or 3+ terms. 6 months is just about enough time to figure out what they are doing. Even the boys think the times (3 I think) over the last 7 years where an SPL lasted more than 6 months were significantly better, though I don't know if they've actually made that connection. They just talk about "Back when X was SPL". Of course, most of the rest of the time were SPLs who thought it would be cool to be SPL or they wanted it on their c
  10. Whenever one of the adults in our troop starts making noise about "fairness" because "What about kids who need a position to advance?" I make sure and remind them that other than for Eagle, they can substitute a SM approved project. I think even among those who know it's an option, it tends to get forgotten about. And when it comes to the Eagle requirement, well, there's nothing that says there can only be 1 Troop Instructor. I'm much more interested in allowing the SPL to put together a team that actually wants to do the job rather than picking scouts that the SM says "really need a po
  11. Actually, I've been one of the people commenting on this notion, though I don't recall if it was you or not. What I've said is that there are people who may not pass (by the BSA';s standards) a background check for reasons unrelated to CSA and that would be a problem. If someone actually refuses a free or very cheap background check entirely, I don't think anyone would argue against keeping them out. But there could be times when someone submitted to a background check but can't get registered for due to an offense in their past that poses no risk to kids. The one case I know of personally
  12. The difference is that if it becomes officially allowed, the adults will take the option of remaining single gender away from the scouts in favor of "easier".
  13. But any linked troop can run functionally coed if they really want to, outside of the formal troop structure, so what is really being added by allowing full co-ed troops other than not requiring 5 girls to start one? If the boys and girls want to camp together under the current system, they can; if they don't want to , they can choose that too. If "full co-ed" becomes allowable, that choice will go away in many situations as the adults will end up deciding "easier is better" and the administrative hassles of 2 troops will make the decision, not the scouts. Plus, camping in fully separat
  14. No. We tried mixed company for almost a year. They didn't like it so we did separate stuff for another year and when the issue was revisited again, they still said they prefer camping separately. It's not that doing Scouts co-ed "wouldn't work", clearly the kids are comfortable in co-ed environments since that's what the rest of their life is. If that was the only option, I'm sure both the boys and the girls would cope and things would cruise along. But that doesn't have any bearing on whether or not its the best option. And while I don't know exactly what all the reasons are for our
  15. Our troops are very much separate and for the most part, both the boys and the girls prefer it that way. For the first 6-9 months after we started we had a bunch of joint campouts (though they always met separately) and when the question was asked of the kids about continuing with joint events they pretty much universally said "maybe occasionally, but mostly separate".
  16. I don't know about places other than Michigan but you can get a clearance letter from the State verifying no child abuse or neglect charges or convictions. And I know the state police maintain a database that some people can check, but they are really restrictive on who can access it and for what. Ugh.. it would be great if something like a hospital's M&M conference could be done on these things, but our legal system makes that sort of thing being open for public inspection horrifying to contemplate. Who would be willing to admit to a mistake when it's going to be open to
  17. Your assertion was that the number of accidental deaths among children due to injury has decreased "exponentially" due to safety restrictions that have been imposed over the years, thus justifying the ongoing trend of restricting and curtailing childhood activities and equipment. I'm saying your assertion is incorrect on its face because the number of children dying from accidental injuries has not decreased by an amount that could be considered "exponential" in any sense and further that most of the reduction in accidental deaths that does exist is attributed to a single source, seat bel
  18. Anyone else think that the completion of that swing was probably closely followed by a group of boys deciding to compete to see how many revolutions they can do before they vomit? And then when they realized not everyone does vomit it was followed up with "Ok, now eat/drink a bunch of X and see if you can still do it without throwing up!"
  19. That's not even close to true. Per the Maternal & Child Health Bureau, Accidental Injuries represented 49% of child (5-14) deaths in 1970 and was 36% of deaths in 2007. And since that death category includes automobile accidents, that's going to include the reduction in deaths caused by the seat belt laws passed in the 80s. Child Mortality Study 1970-2007
  20. Honestly, having the ASPLs be elected is probably the worst positions to do so with. The ASPL is supposed to be the SPL's right hand person and stand-in and that only works well if they get along and can work closely together. As an appointee, you know the ASPL is going to be someone the SPL likes and probably has influence over (to encourage attendance and that prep work actually get done). As an elected position, you can easily end up with a pairing that can't stand each other or where they butt heads over getting things done. My experience has been that when you have the SPL working
  21. I always wondered about that reasoning. It's like it never occured to them that the reason kids that reached FC were more likely to stay was that they were the kids who liked the program enough to have spent 1-3 years working on requirements. It's not like being awarded FC is going to make the kid that was going to drop out after the first year more likely to stay.
  22. Oh yes, there's definitely some tools I wouldn't even let most adults use unsupervised (or at all) if they were at my house. I grew up using that stuff with my father and grandfather and even then I didn't respect table saws quite the way I should have. But now the slightly numb middle finger where the nice Nurse Practitioner sewed my fingertip back together serves as a nice constant reminder about safety. Yeah, radial arm saws, shapers, lathes, angle grinders I don't think I'd ever allow anyone else to use on my insurance policy. Way too much risk of mutilating injury through a single
  23. Nobody has ever argued that the bankruptcy was done primarily for the purpose of compensating survivors, obviously it was done to protect the ability of the organization to keep functioning, like every chapter 13 filing. But part of the process of a bankruptcy is the legal requirement to notify any potential creditors of the impending case so that everyone has a chance for a piece of the pie, however large or small it is. So the publications and notices were intended to let any victims who hadn't yet filed suit against the BSA know that if they didn't make a claim now, their ability to do so
  24. The belt sander in shop class is typically the free-standing variety that you apply the wood against rather than the handheld variety you hold against the wood. While they have similar risks to a lathe (or anything else that spins in a "locked on" manner), the actually chance of getting tangled up in one is much lower since the opening for something to get snagged is 1/4" wide on each side of the belt as opposed to 30"-60" with a lathe.
  25. No, this bankruptcy was never about the 181 lawsuits that were already filed, it was about the hundreds or thousands more they knew would be coming after states started rolling back Statutes of Limitations in the face of the other CSA mass-torts (Nassar, Catholic Church, etc.). Putting a stay on the existing cases was just an added bonus. With tort claims of this nature, any settlement, bankruptcy or otherwise, was ALWAYS going to be a combination of BSA funds plus insurance payouts, with the insurance payouts being many times higher than the BSA contributions. In the individual cases that
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