HashTagScouts

@InquisitiveScouter Here's the text of that message: An announcement was made today during the BSA National Annual Meeting regarding Scouts BSA. The BSA has received feedback through member surveys, councils, and other sources that have encouraged a third option be made available to serve youth and their families interested in Scouting. This option would be a “combined troop” option to help serve all youth and families that wish to participate in Scouting guided by the Scout Oath and Law. The National Executive Committee (NEC) has authorized the Scouts BSA Committee to conduct a limited pilot from September 1, 2024, through July 2025. The Scouts BSA Committee will collect feedback from participants and make a recommendation based on the data on the program to the NEC in 2025.

Council contact shared to our unit in a text. Supposedly will be announced later this week in our council newsletter.

And there you go- there is your new logo in that email

They had to have felt more confidence in Scouting America than say Scouting USA re: litigation challenges. They already have logos for Scouting America that I have seen shared in screen shots.

Now that the rebrand notification is dropping, there are other changes that will begin to be announced. One came from the NAM. As of September 1st, there will officially be a pilot for a "combined troop" option.

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Currently at about 42,000, so looking for 19-20% growth in a year is a pretty big goal.

I'd be having a conversation with the Camp Director, now. Make it clear to them- you're open to THEIR suggestions on how to share the use of the latrine, but explain in exactly the terms you outline here why only having the outside facility is not acceptable. It's a true public health issue if you and your troop cannot wash hands at times during the day. And, you're troop is paying the same as that troop, so it is not acceptable to you. If moving that troop to adjoin another site that has a female troop is a better option, then let the camp do so.

Poor forecasting is an understatement. A big problem is location. Not near a major airport, so using it for training opportunities is pretty darn tough. We've got municipal airports in the northeast that dwarf Raleigh County Memorial Airport, and you can't get flights to it without zig-zagging around the US from some destinations. I suspect that is why things like the annual meeting, OA national committee meetings, etc. are not often making the rounds to be held there. There is limited onsite hotel accommodations at the Summit, but to me, we are in a camping-oriented program, so use it for NOAC and tent like is done for Jambo. Why pay huge sums to universities for their campus? i can say the easy answer to that- for many Lodges, it's the additional activities packed on either side of 4 days at NOAC that are the "attraction" (as well as the air conditioned dorms and dining halls). BSA should also look in the mirror- when moving things out of TX, they could have put them at Summit, but they chose Philmont. Why? People actually want to go to Philmont.

If you tried to replace the collar tag with something like the "Officially licensed by boy Scouts of America", obviously crossing into a different area on trademark. Some Scout Associations around the globe use third party uniform items, and some use "official" items which could probably more easily be swapped out with something non-official. Official uniform for Scouts UK: Scouts Uniform | Scouts Section | Official Shop Some have official uniforms which are more activity focused, Like Scouts Australia. A number of those SAs don't wear as much bling as BSA does. Official uniform for Scouts Australia: Uniforms - Scout 11 to 14yrs - The Scout Shop BSA does have it's captive audience, and of course makes a good margin on items. They charge you $3.99 for an SPL position patch. Guarantee at the volume they have made, they didn't spend more than a $1.00 on it.

Do what is best for the YOUTH- always. Trust your gut here.

Roll with it. Begs the question on that disclaimer "Youth who are not registered in the unit may not accompany parents or siblings in camping programs of Scouts BSA, Venturing, and Sea Scouting." If the intent there is to not have non-age appropriate siblings (that is to say, they can't join the unit because they are only say 8 years old), then why not say that? Otherwise, if you had a 12 year old register Scout and their 14 year old non-BSA registered brother (or sister, if they are both female and we're talking about a GT) were to attend, you'd jsut take the "encourage to become" exception to skirt it. G2SS for the win again...

How sure do you feel about "Your insurance coverage was exactly the same"? Have you asked your Council that question? When a new youth comes to attend a troop meeting, we spend time talking with the youth and parent about how we operate, expectations we have, etc. Usually that gets the parent to give us feedback on what they see as areas we need to be aware of- whether it is allergies, is their child introverted, do they tend to gravitate to kids their own age, or are they more inclined to want to cling to adults, etc. Can't say it is a common thing, but we have had conversations with parents of some new crossovers about whether the parent feels that their kid is ready for being overnight without them. We've never not taken their "OK" about it. That particular youth, in retrospect, should have been a concern from the get go- first meeting, parent walked them in, introduced themselves, and then booked it, and the next week sent the kid in with the paperwork and $ for patrol food but never actually came into the meeting hall.. Once they have moved up to Scouts BSA, Cub advancement ends.

Not having time to gain some working knowledge about a youth can be problematic. We had a youth join several years ago, and went camping with us like their second week in the troop. Saturday afternoon the kid was off the wall (amongst other troubling things, he was making suicidal ideation comments to the other Scouts). Come to find out, med form was inaccurate, the kid is on meds, and parent did not say anything to us nor sent his meds with him. It's not a situation that we would want to take on that someone off the street comes on an overnight with us. I couldn't name one troop in our District that would be OK with it either.

The issue I took on this thread was "segregated events". NOAC was not segregated. Were there optional sessions intended not as "put on a pedestal" but rather as social events? Yes. And the point of those - can't speak for the sessions, as I didn't intend them, but understood the context of the planning- were to bring together individuals attending NOAC together and to hopefully learn how the OA (and BSA in general) could better include them into the program. Female youth in particular are an issue that our Lodge, and those in our Section, have had issues to contend with to assimilate them into the Lodge while maintaining the YP policies (as this is not a pure OA forum, I'll leave some particulars out, but for the "IYKYK" crowd, think about Vigil- maintaining buddy-system in that can have challenges, now put the situation if you have only one female youth involved, etc.). Going into 2023, our Lodge had just under two dozen female youth inducted through Ordeal, but only a handful had ever attended another Lodge event after Ordeal- that lead to a potential situation for us in fall 2022 where we had 1 female youth sign-up to be a ceremonialist, and 1 female youth sign-up to complete Brotherhood. The issue we had to grapple with is how do we maintain a buddy-system for each of them? With some convincing, the BH candidate agreed to be a ceremonialist as well, so averted the main problem. Otherwise, we were faced with a situation of not being able to have either of them attend OR having to break policies OR having to break traditional structure of the induction weekend. If pulling together female OA youth together for an hour at Section/Region/National events is possible to get them to brainstorm how we can help Lodges, I'm all for it. Trying for two years to work with what at the time were all male youth Lodge officers to discuss this was not incredibly productive, and often was stuck with moving them over the hump on even understanding that co-mingling when there was less than two females was a problem. How to move forward is still necessary discussions- and my $.02 BSA is moving along as though there are no real day-to-day issues here that are making it complicated to actually deliver an inclusive program. Then again, BSA fails in most respects to address anything about OA in the G2SS and leaves it to us to have to read between the lines and use logic that only some of us have with Venturing/Sea Scouts on how to handle program with both male and female participants under the BSA umbrella. Can't say that is exceptional.

It's in the G2SS (sort-of): Youth who are not registered in the unit may not accompany parents or siblings in camping programs of Scouts BSA, Venturing, and Sea Scouting. Too much liability for us.

We wouldn't allow a youth not in Cubs to attend any activity other than a troop meeting (and, depending on the agenda for a troop meeting, there potentially could be things we wouldn't let them participate in- knife making night, probably not; knot skills, OK) without being actively registered through the troop. They don't really know us, don't really know our expectations (and neither does the parent), and we don't necessarily know enough about the youth.

We could flex the six MBs sewed to the long sleeve shirt exception to pants I guess...

Correct. The FAQ here is helpful on what positions are permissible: Youth Protection and Barriers to Abuse FAQs | Boy Scouts of America (scouting.org)

I was in Minneapolis a few months ago. Huge "office" there. I think they even had an indoor rock climbing facility. Hinds is appropriate for PTC. Took Daniel Webster a while to realize Camp Carpenter was appropriate for their HQ as well.

Sounds reasonable to co-operate, at least for a time, and that may allow folks to not get overly worked up about "the change"- if they understand it is potentially short-term, there could be less of a feeling of dread. I've been through a Lodge merger when councils merged, and the first year was a miserable experience of (mainly adults) negativity. I wish I had bought a few dozen copies of Who Moved My Cheese? and handed them out at the beginning. You mentioned trying to make equal use of both schools. I would just do everything you can to make a calendar about what nights you are at which location for at least 3 months at a time and get each family that calendar several times over. As many parents that are scheduled to the hilt these days, even being across town on a given week it may be difficult for them to make it, but with advance notice they can at least better plan for it.

I would recommend talking with the leadership of the new unit and solicit advice on who her contact should be going forward for the whole process as though she hadn't actually begun. Councils can have different procedures they desire be followed on the whole approval process (our Council requires the youth contact the District Eagle coordinator with a rough outline- similar to what is in the project proposal section of the workbook- after meeting with their Coach but before engaging to obtain any signatures, for example). As much of a pain as this can be right now, she will be working with a whole new group of folks through the remainder of her project, and establishing some rapport now can be beneficial later on. With that new contact, she can address next steps, what has been done so far, etc. For the sake of a clean recording, new signatures are probably going to recommended, but best to have whomever she will work with to submit and coordinate BoR later be informed now and know her transfer situation (and would agree with Jameson- less is more on details. All they need to know is she decided to make a Venturing Crew her primary unit going forward, and the Crew that was the best fit for her happens to be in a neighboring community that is within the boundary of a new Council). Best of luck to her.

I'm sure this is the part that got the GSUSA council upset. They profit from the cookie sales- they don't profit from the bracelet sale.

Learned today from my Council- this is new National policy that will roll out this fall. YPT will need to be done every year by every volunteer going forward, it will no longer have a two year expiration.

I believe what @InquisitiveScouter is referring to is what is in the official roster in ScoutNet (my.scouting.org) versus what is in SB. In other words, what positions is this person actually registered as through Council?