PACAN

Maybe national has "control" over SE and maybe that was apparent during the rate increase where national must have put a gag order on SEs.  The SEs were quick to say we have nothing to do with bankruptcy as we are independent fiefdoms.

EB are made up of a number of folks who just want it on theIr biography or emeritus folks who are on there for the pockets. They produce nothing of value.  CORs are invited but most don't go because they see no value added.

how many of you have Executive Committees who meet separately and are made up of the ones approved by the SE.

how many of you see ever any minutes from either group

unless Mr mosby is going to hold council charters to achieve compliance nothing will happen until it might be too late.

JMHO.

David CO:  OK.  I think councils should not have a monopoly over a territory.  Units should not be forced to register in a bad council (which is most of them).  Units don't have a monopoly on a territory.  Why should bad councils have a monopoly on a territory?  Make councils compete for units.  Let the bad ones go bankrupt.

I have said for years that this Franchise model the BSA uses should be canned.   Units that get poor or no service customer service should be allowed to pick who their service provider is.  This is how we personally manage the services we get from other things.  We should all join carebear3895 ! The problem is that national has almost zero control over the individual feifdoms they call councils.   This is why national apparently does not, wiil not or cannot or will be unable to restructure below their level without a significant edict.  aSEs are pretty much uncontrolled by those whom he supposedly works for (Executive Boards) since he picks them (or "nominates" them).

JMHO.  

I could really care less what his title is.   Some historians thought James West title was dictator. 😀

Seems like the interview is all softball questions.    JMHO.

Send your suggestion to MB task force email is  merit.badge@scouting.org

Probably have a better change to getting a First Aid requirement added explaining how to treat injuries contracted by doing the remaining requirement. 😉

The first citizenship mb called CIvics.  It was a mb until around 1951.  It had two requirements related to a "citizenship test". 

1. State the principal citizenship requirements of a voter

2. Know the principal features of the naturalization laws of the US

the Cit in nation mb used to have a requirement to obtain a birth certificate or other legal evidence of your citizenship or if foreign born, learn what a person must do to gain US citizenship.

Just a question....is this scout pushing 18?   

Which Eagle MBs other than Cooking you mentioned ?

Do your due diligence and keep good documentation for each badge on what the story is.

Let your council advancement committee know what's happening 

Follow the guidance in the Guide to Advancement paragraphs 7.0.4.6 and 7.0.4.7

share what you find with us. 

It seems like everyone who has posted since mine on Saturday have validated the post and then some.  

@carebear3895  the communication flow or lack there of has always amazed me. The fact the professionals do not (or claim to not know) about things before the volunteers is amazing.  The last fiasco on the rate increase where the councils feigned ignorance was ridiculous.   I was told that all the SEs have a weekly conference call with national and they didn't know anything until the press released it is either incompetence or dishonest.    

Or if this is how national runs the organization, Mr. mosby has lots of work to do.

JMHO.

So when does anyone believe any details on any organization, personnel or bankruptcy will be announced?

@Eagledad   I think you missed my "credibility of the data " part of my statement.    Pulling the data on the last day of the month is easy.  Counting "active" scouts is never going to happen.  The LDS registered everyone all the time but attendance not so much.  national only concerned with getting the 60 a pop and after that their interest is nil.

It's a database.  Sort by category of primary membership.  The issue is the credibility of the data given the explanation carebear gave on scoutreach a.k.a urban scouting.

And the US number will likely be less than 2 million so 20% less than the 2.5 million in three years

@Cburkhardt  you are one of the fortunate ones in your experience with your female troop.  BP would disagree with you that large a troop.  Early documentation says he believed a troop was max 4 patrols of 8 and after that you started a new troop.  This reasoning was inconcert with his military background on the size of effective sizes of units.

JMHO

SMs NEVER were automatically MBCs.  My documentation on this goes back to the 1930s.   In fact MBCs were not required to be registered either.  And for many years required to be men.

IMO a SE that would sign off on a 2 person troop is more concerned with numbers of units vs getting these two into a troop with an operating program.   The number of adults on a charter should not be twice as many as the number of scouts.

There was a scouting wire posting a couple of months ago that showed number the top ten districts by number of girl troop's .

a friend of mine told me the total numbers for all programs he saw compared end of 2018 and end of November 2019

2185209  vs 2048964.     -136245

2) Merit Badge Counselors will be now be picked by a select council panel and Merit Badge Counselors will now be available to every scout/scout troop in the entire council area instead of just a local district option..

Other than what is a "select council panel", this is essentially Chapter 7 of the Guide to Advancement.  It didn't say if they were going to eliminate MBCs which would be foolish.    The Council Advancement Committee is the approval authority for MBCs.  There are badges listed in the GTA with specific qualifications needed.   Most times approval is passed to the District Advancement Chairman and the app is signed by the SE or DE.    They are eliminating the Troop only option which is good especially for badges that there are few MBCs.   MBCs always have the option to tell a scout they aren't available right now.  

Some other random thoughts 

I don't care about any particular categorization of professionals or volunteers.   What I want to see from all these folks is customer service by answering in a reasonable time not weeks (if at all) after the question .  Even an interim answer vice crickets is okay.  Also having accurate information as particularly the Commissioner force is not current (e.g didn't know there was a Guide to Advancement).  Wood badgers that never do much after their beading.  This is supposed to be a group that the council can turn problems over to and come up with solutions.

Back to numbers

carebear covered the urban scouting "accounting "

girl units....the push to get numbers of units resulting in 5 troops of 5 or even less instead of building one strong unit like cburkhardt sets up units struggling to meet and get outdoors or even recharter.

JMHO

4 minutes ago, carebear3895 said:

Couldn't tell you. Here is the official word from the Registration guidebook: "A roster may be used in exceptional circumstances in a few Scoutreach units where obtaining completed applications or parental signatures is not possible for a special group of members. This exception applies only to situations where privacy regulations or the safety of the youth or the youth’s family preclude obtaining the information, e.g., where the youth is living in a protected environment such as an abuse shelter, group home, or detention facility. Or, a roster may be permitted when participants are enrolled in a school-based program provided to the students, and the school does not want individual applications used"

You can see how that can easily be abused. If your council employs Paraprofessionals, they are usually the one who runs the after school meetings.  

Your Council is playing an unethical game. 

Good grief.   

If the professionals would actually trust the volunteers (they aren't bonded or we might get sued if something went wrong) to do the "mundane" tasks maybe the DE could focus on the important stuff.

Is the job title "executive" even mean anything or is it a "feel good" title?   Like the companies that have more VPs than workers.   The definition of an executive is :  senior managerial responsibility in a business organization.

carebear told us in another post that the professionals don't really get any training on the people (volunteers) they are supposed to have managerial responsibility for or any real customer service training.

40 hours a week for an executive is wishful thinking....I have been an executive in many organizations most way more than any DE including the new CSE (or whatever) and thousands of employees.  Never saw a 40 hour or even a 60 hour week. 

JMHO

@carebear3895  Incredible.   Thanks for explaining what I guessed.   How long has the "method of membership accounting" been going on?  How do you register a scout without the parent signature?  Do these scouts actually follow the program?   I guess this is also now a way to beef up the female numbers as well???   Our scoutreach numbers went up almost 300 in December so we "grew" in 2019.   This tactic could wipe out the LDS leaving in about 15 minutes.

Anyone else that has this program see similar results?

@carebear3895.  What is the deal with urban scouting and how they are accounted for in the membership stats?   I thought this was going into elementary schools and essentially signing up all the boys and they might meet after school but almost none of them ever seem to stay to Boy Scouts ?  Their fees are paid by whom?  Quick way to add numbers?    Seems like they would be a separate category like LFL.

Thanks carebear3895 and Eagle94 and Jameson for your info.

This inability to retain professionals (good ones anyway) is something critical the new CSE needs to fix asap.  Of course he has no control of the council's personnel actions.  We have gone through so many DEs the volunteers joke about "he won't be here long).    

Maybe they need to use the same model used to hire Mr. Mosby and use that to hire SEs from outside the organization especially for failing councils and/or mergers about to come.

Since Mr. Mosby's intro included mentioning 33 years of volunteer service, I'm guessing he has experienced or heard of the issues in the majority of these posts.

Some of these I lay at the feet of the respective Executive Boards to actually do something to correct them.  Most are name only, haven't been associated with a unit for sometimes years and serve as lemmings to the professionals.

For one of our resident professionals,  Carebear....do professionals get any training in customer service or how to work with a volunteer workforce?

Seems like they tell you what you want to hear and then forget it.