MikeS72

Are you currently active and able to look at the new training course on my.scouting? If so, I would hope that doing so would mitigate any concerns you or others may have about the BSA approach to this subject. One of the examples used when discussing equity is that of how we can provide additional resources and support to a Scout who may be confined to a wheelchair, in order to allow them some of the same opportunites as their fellow Scouts. While that Scout may will not be able to do everything that his/her fellow Scouts can do, we should, whenever possible, give them the chance to do what is possible for them to do, and to have the same sense of accomplishment and belonging as every other Scout. As to the masking example, the only thing masks and vaccines have to do with equity is in making an extra effort to provide access to vaccines to anyone who wants them. Providing equitable access to a vaccine has nothing to do with choosing to take or not take said vaccine.

While I have not seen anything specific about a Citizenship in Society MB, or the original proposed requirements for Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, I know there has been a great deal of discussion concerning the topic. Much of the discussion has been visceral rather than logical, and dependent on emotion rather than fact. I just completed the newly released Diversity, Equity and Inclusion adult training on my.scouting.org, and fail to see anything that I would consider controversial or contrary to the way any Scout or Scouter should already be conducting themselves. I would strongly urge anyone here who is currently active at any level to go into their my.scouting.org account and take this short course. (I love the fact that they set this up so that those of us who read much faster than the narration can do so without having to listen to said narration - only had a couple of short video segments that had to be watched, and was able to move through the rest of the session fairly quickly)

Examples of grooming behavior have been a part of YPT for at least the past 2 1/2 years or more.

I read the entire article. It does have a link to an article in the New York Daily News, from December of 2019. It appears that he started out as one of Kosnoff's early cases, however, a footnote at the end of the article said he is now represented by a different firm; one that pretty much everyone in FL is familiar with - won't say anything else about that particular law firm. Based on that 2019 article, this took place in New Jersey, sometime in the early to mid 1970's. I fully support the many people who have posted here who are a part of the bankruptcy case, and know that for many of those were abused, either sexually, or as appears to be the case here, physically, no one was ever told what happened. I understand that, and am not indicating that not speaking out at the time of the abuse has anything to do with whether the case is valid. As Skeptic stated however; I am incredulous that someone was forced to strip, rolled up in a carpet, and locked in a closet for an entire weekend, and no one was aware it happened (or that he did not, thank God, suffocate). I also wonder how his troop could have burned his clothing at summer camp without anyone finding out, if not during the week, certainly when he came home unclothed. Did his parents not notice the lack of clothing they sent him to camp in? Was there not at least one member of his troop that was troubled by seeing this happen, who would have reported it to someone, or talked about to someone else, even if bragging? Looking at the things he is asking for in the article: 1. The morally straight action now would be for the BSA to stand up, admit their wrongdoing, and set up a fair compensation fund for survivors. - That is what all of the negotiations and mediation will hopefully lead to 2. We need required, thourough and ongoing background checks for all adults supervising children in any capacity. - BSA does, and has for quite a while, required background checks of all registered leaders. A couple of years ago we had to sign an updated background check authorization form, which gives BSA the ability to run regular background checks on registered leaders, not just the initial check. 3. Abuse investigations must be handled by outside authorities, and we need broader and more strictly enforced mandatory reporting laws. All BSA leaders and professionals are mandatory reporters. As we saw with the camera case discussed in the past few days, mandatory reporting resulted in an arrest and very aggressive bail for the perpetrator. 4. The BSA owes children and their families meaningful reforms to increase transparency and accountability for individuals who commit unspeakable acts. Agree fully here. As I stated in an earlier post, I support efforts to have a public accounting of any case going forward. 5. People who bully, whether they do so sexually or otherwise, should be immediately removed, charged, and blacklisted from the BSA and any position that puts them in close proximity to children – there should be no second chances for anyone. Bullying behavior is already a YPT violation on it's own, and when reported can result in the individuals being banned from Scouting. Bullying such as what he describes in the article should also result in at least charges of child endangerment. 6. The Boy Scouts should also fund third-party counseling of children abused within their organization. - This has been discussed here on many occasions. BSA has offered to pay for counseling for any victim, at the therapist of their choice. This has been available for a while now, and based on what we were told more than a year ago, has been done to the tune of millions. 7. While no amount of money can make me or any other survivor “whole,” a meager payout that lets the Boy Scouts walk away will be a devastating blow. True justice in this case is impossible, but bankruptcy is the coward’s way out. The BSA has the funds to pay victims fairly, and they should. - As was also stated in an earlier post, I am not sure what result would be acceptable to him. Knowing the firm that currently represents him however, I would not be surprised if he was not initially made to think that there would be vastly more money coming to him than would be available even with the total liquidation of all BSA assets, both at the national and local levels. 8. The BSA has tried to silence me since I was 10 years old, and I won’t stay quiet anymore. - Not saying here that he is at fault at all for not speaking out almost 50 years ago, however, I do not see how BSA could have tried to silence him since he was 10 years old over something they were not aware happened... I know that bad things happened to a lot of boys, and that for many, reliving that now is traumatic. I hope that whatever the final outcome of the bankruptcy, that all survivors get some measure of compensation, and some measure of relief from what I know has been years of suffering.

I think we are in agreement that "done and gone so let's move on" is the wrong way to deal with this issue, and all others like it. My point was simply that in this specific case, part 2 of the process you described has worked so far, in that he was caught, arrested, charged, and with the court setting a $500,00 cash only bail, will be incarcerated for a deservedly long, long, long time. Now comes the 'how did this happen, and were there any warning signs that were not heeded / were there any YPT policies that were ignored by either his troop, local council, or the camp'; and if so, how do we reinforce them so that it makes a repeat there or anywhere else less likely.

My first impression would be that his capturing the 3 boys ingaged in some kind of sexual activity may have just been coincidental. The camp website stated that they serve in excess of 6,000 Scouts every summer. Hard to believe that out of that many Scouts, nothing inappropriate would happen between a few of them. If, however, he did have something to do with them being in the shower room together, I would hope that would be a factor in as harsh a sentence as possible. As for assessments, I would think that would be primarily the responsibiltiy of the local Council, although I would love to see a task force on either the National or Territory level that could come in and look at things with an outsider point of view. Ideally, that would be made up of outside experts in the field, rather than BSA personnel. I am not sure if we would ever get as detailed an assessment of the effects as you mention, but as a long time Scouter I would applaud any Council who had the intestinal fortitude to release than information.

I would agree with you that there should be (and in this climate, likely are) three componnents in play here. I am not sure we will be privy to the results of the Council's investigation, which is why I support the idea brought up here several times, by several people, of a public reporting system any time there is an incident, not just of abuse, but any serious safety violations. Those reports could go a long way toward helping other Councils in preventing similar incidents from happening. Short of either posting round the clock guards at all shower facilities, or requiring the 'buddy system' not only for Scouts but also for adults, I do not see how this particular incident could have been prevented, as even with a buddy system for adults it would have been as simple as waiting until the middle of the night to leave the campsite and set up cameras. I looked at the leader gude for this camp, and based on that I saw 3 shower facilites; one for Scouts, one for adults, and one dual use. No pictures that I could find of those shower houses, but if they are anything like every other camp I have been to in recent years, they probably have individual rooms with locking doors. If that is the case, I do not see how anyone would have known what he was doing when installing cameras. My questions as far as a potential YPT failure would be two fold. One, was he registered; and two, were there any indications at all, even if just inuendo, that he might be likely to offend. As to many of your questions in paragraph two, it seems to be very early in the investigation right now, but hopefully all of those questions will be answered. From the articles I have read, I do not see anything indicating that anyone else was involved, however, we would have to wait and see if that is true. As for "Not, “Whew! We caught him. Thank God that’s over.”; this is the main reason that I read every post in this thread, but rarely respond to any of them. It is too easy to misinterpret things in an online forum. My feelings on this would be more "We caught him, I hope he is convicted (kind of hard not to be with him appearing on video) and is given the maximum possible sentence." Now let's see what needs to be changed to reduce the chance of something similar occuring again.

It was briefly brought up in the Q & A at a Cub recruiting night the first year we enrolled girls in the Cub Scout program. The most honest answer we could give was that we take the safety and well being of every Scout, male or female, very seriously. We always do everything in our power to ensure that nothing like this will happen, but the best way for that parent to help us do that would be to register and participate along with his daughter. As to this particular incident, I saw the news reports several days ago. While I was disheartened to see it happened, I was pleased to see that as soon as it was discovered it was reported to authorities, and the perpetrator was arrested. As was mentioned earlier in this thread, zero incidents is a laudable goal, but probably not realistic. There is however, a difference between zero incidents and zero tolerance. In this case it appears the system worked the way it should have. Something happened, and as soon as discovered was reported, resulting in an arrest.

While I will agree that keeping up with the GTSS may not be the easiest thing to do, but no Scout or Scouter should ever find it "hard to tell right from wrong."

I carry Katadyn products; both filters and a SteriPen.

We also need to take into account the cost of the online platforms that councils used to conduct programs with, they are not cheap. Depending on the platform, your council may have been paying anywhere from $600 to several thousand dollars annually, an item that was probably not a part of the original budget for the year. I believe the cost for those sessions in my council was $5, and yes, it did greatly help avoid having people furloughed or laid off.

If my interpretation of the last two lines is correct, it would not cover abuse of a scout, as that is both intentional and criminal. While it may be argued that it could not have been expected, it was certainly intended (at least by the perpetrator).

We are no different than many of the districts we see discussed here, in that we do not have enough of us, but our core group of commissioners and district committee members are extremely active, and are right there in the trenches along with unit leaders. I consider myself to be lucky to be a part of what many look at as the best district in a well run council. Just an example of how our council leadership is looking at the big picture: when it was announced that councils could charge a program fee up to, but no more than the national membership fee, they institued that fee with a caveat. There are no longer any fees charged for district events. District camporee is free to all scouts and scouters. Cub family camp is free to all Cubs/parents/siblings. BALOO/IOLS free to all leaders. When national then raised the recharter fee late in the year, the council leadership told us that since we announced to units back in February 2020 what it would cost per scout to recharter, they would absorb the national increase. This is not to say that we do not have problems from time to time, but overall, I think the vast majority of scouters at both the district and council level are in it for the right reasons, and work to provide the best possible program to our scouts.

In my district most of those instructors are either members of the District Committee or are Commissioners.

What kind of device are you using to try to open the PDF with? On a PC, clicking on the links CynicalScouter provided above should open the file in another browser window. You should then have a 'save' icon in the top right of that browser that will allow you to save a copy to your computer, which you can then attach to an e-mail. When on my phone (Android, so not 100% sure for iPhone users) clicking the link also opens the PDF, and by using the 3 dots in the upper right, I again have the option to save a copy of the file, which I can attach to an e-mail.

I have seen flames run right up to the spout when I scout added just a bit to an already lit fire. Not a fun sight to see.

Welcome

Originally with Wa-Hi-Nasa Lodge. I was elected and did my ordeal at Boxwell Reservation in 1969, and received the Vigil Honor there in 1972. I am currently a member of Tipisa Lodge, Central Florida Council. I still have many memories of OA events at Boxwell, and as a member of Anawaha Chapter in Cogioba District. I hope you and your son enjoy your time with Wa-Hi-Nasa as much as I did.

The tn in tnmule20 would not happen to refer to Tennessee would it, and if so, would you now be a newly minted member of Wa-Hi-Nasa Lodge #111?

National Service Territory Maps | Boy Scouts of America (scouting.org)

Nothing. Replaced by 16 National Service Territories

Our local OA Lodge does this every year, and presents a James E. West award in the name of a member selected by the general lodge membership at the same time that new officers are elected.

A large percentage of packs base there program year on the school year. Many have a few events during the summer, so scouts can earn the summertime pack award. As long as my cubs and families want to continue meeting, we will continue to meet during the summer.

We were told about 15 or 16 months ago that the fees would increase 3 years in a row. Since last year's increase came after we set council fees for 2021, our council chose to eat that $6 increase rather than pass it on to the families. My hope is that cooler heads will prevail, and there will be no national increase for quite some time.

My scout has shredded more than one set of Frogg Toggs, the upside to them is that they are relatively inexpensive, so not a big deal when they need to be replaced due to either being destroyed or out grown. I will wait until he is a bit older and is not likely to out grow it too quickly to spend the money on a quality piece of gear. The biggest downside of the cheaper version of Frogg Toggs in my mind is that wearing them in FL is just like wearing the rubber suit I wore 50 years ago as a high school wrestler trying to loose weight. Sauna City! I did recently pick up a new ultra light rain jacket that Frogg Toggs makes for backpacking (only a couple of ounces, and seam taped) and have used it a couple of times. I can say that it is much more comfortable than the cheaper version, and sheds water very well. The more expensive Columbia jacket is great for basecamp wear, when every once counts (or when I want something that compresses well into one of the pockets on a Camelback) the Frogg Toggs ultra light is a good choice for adults.