Jameson76

20 hours ago, ParkMan said:

This seems like a trivial merit badge to earn.  Basically you do:

• talk about some stuff around DEI - can probably be done in 30 minutes
• create and give a presentation - an hour maybe
• attend a local event - an hour or two depending on the event.

In the grand scheme of things, this seems pretty simple.

Sadly you do not even have to attend a local event... or learn about such an event that occurred historically. 

100% Classroom and discussion.  No actual "doing".  Just indoctrination

Great - another classroom MB.  Quick read I can see this will be an MBU offering, if Scouts can stay awake, they are granted DEI and Scouts BSA improves it's wokeness factor

32 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

 

We had a visitor at my troop last nite who was an Eagle from the 1990s, and his son is getting ready to Cross Over. he was not impressed with other troops he visited.

We have had recent visitors (AOL's) who the family definitely wants the Webelos III experience.  Not so much Family Scouting but they want to stay in their group, advance together, etc etc.  They also want the 60 page Troop handbook, specific advancement steps, very scheduled on outings and summer camp; etc etc. 

Our input is this is a boy led troop.  The method is YOUTH led and each Scout finds their own path.  We can facilitate, but it is driven by each Scout.  Our success (IMHO) is judged by the number of Scouts we have a active that are in High School and come when they can because (wait for it....) our Troop is FUN and they get away from the parents for a weekend.  Also the downtime on the outings in the afternoons is very welcome for them.

On 12/7/2020 at 5:16 PM, Cburkhardt said:

·       YPT policy compliance might not be assumed.  Paid or volunteer YPT policy compliance personnel might make visits to unit meetings and activities.

 

Good Lord, that would be the end for many people.  Just want we need, YPT zealots descending on a meeting to "evaluate" and offer their sage advice.  All I can think of is the political officers spread throughout the Soviet Union to keep an eye on stuff and make sure everyone drank the appropriate amount of party Kool Aid

That would in fact be the end of Scouting.

Also, the family Scouting concept (for Scouts older than 11 years old or middle school) will be the final nail in the coffin

6 hours ago, TAHAWK said:

Now try, however difficult, to to imagine you face accusations of child sexual abuse from ten - twenty - thirty - forty years ago, and the claim is that there was just the two of you there - victim and abuser.  No other eye-witnesses.  No physical evidence.  No incriminating diary or photographs.  Just your accuser's testimony and the expert(s) hired by claimant's lawyer.   Whatever happens to you will be ""OK" to some  despite the abandoning of centuries-old legal rule intended to protect defendants  from "stale" claims.  Why "OK"? Because of the horrific nature of the alleged crime.   You will never get your day in criminal court because no prosecutor would dream of prosecuting due to the risk of a lawsuit for malicious prosecution.

Reminiscent of Supreme Court Justice confirmation hearings.  No real way to validate or prove truth, you either accept or you are believe in the rule of law want to see evidence.

There is not an easy answer.

As was the case for many of these incidents, there was just the two of them there - victim and abuser.  No other eye-witnesses.  No physical evidence.  No incriminating diary or photographs.  Just the accuser's account.  Families, Councils, Law Enforcement (maybe), Chartering Organizations, Troop Committees...did what they could with what they have at that time

5 hours ago, MattR said:

The difference between 4H and scouting is the overhead in capital and labor. 4H has little and the BSA has an enormous amount. Properties and staffing are huge for a non profit. 4H sets up a stem program and it's a few documents of ideas for the youth. The bsa does it and it's millions of dollars poured into camps. Bechtel?

That said, camps used to be profit centers. It reminds me of college dorms. They used to be really cheap and students were okay with it. Now dorms are really nice and come with good food and activity centers. Well, now students are leaving colleges in droves. Community colleges are a much better deal. So, how does the BSA lower costs and still have fun stuff to do?  It's a fine line between too cheap and just right. Rather than pour money into toys I'd rather see a little money poured into teaching scouts how to create their own fun. 

Another thing 4H has is a definite project. Raise chickens or make a soap box car. I think the bsa could borrow that idea. Make fun MB's for a patrol to work on that takes around 3 months to complete. Something about working towards a final project rather than a patch sounds much more appealing to me.

Don't forget, we all fund 4-H, so it's not apples to apples on program costs.  Funding is through state budgets and taxes.  It is part of Cooperative Extension offices, likely at the County level in many states.  In Georgia it is run through the University System of Georgia

This is an advisement from 2019 on budget cuts - 

Those include a combined $4.7 million cut from the University of Georgia’s agricultural experiment stations, three research centers that teach farming techniques and management in Athens, Griffin and Tifton. The school’s cooperative extension service, which runs agricultural and 4-H programs, is penciled in for a cut of $4.4 million.

37 minutes ago, John-in-KC said:

Have you been interested enough to determine if the particular youth members filed claims?

That was a long time ago, do not recall the youth(s) names as I was not directly involved.

12 hours ago, HICO_Eagle said:

As with many class action torts, the lawyers are incentivized to get (or create) as many presumed victims as possible.  Some of the abuse was real but how many of the supposed 90,000 cases are mixing things like teasing by other boys in group showers with pedophile cases?  How many of them are a result of the lawyers getting the now-men to attribute their current problems to "abuse"?  If the count vastly exceeds the so-called secret files (at least some of which were unproveable and maybe even innocent people), just what were BSA or the adukts involved supposed to do with cases they didn't even know about?

It is a challenge with the age of accusations and the time in which they were handled.

When I was a DE (Back in the 80's) there was a issue in one of the districts.  None of the families wanted to formally involved the police.  The CO (a church) did not want the police formally involved.  As there was not a required reporter laws NOR shield protections laws, if we (the council) had called the police, that could have opened us up to slander issues.  We terminated the alleged abuser's membership in the BSA, put his name in the file, and that was all we could legally and legitimately do AT THAT TIME.

Spring forward 30 - 40 years, now the case is being made we should have done something.  But in reality we did DO something.  Is it comparable to today's expectations, no.  Same as when I was in car wreck in mid 70's and got a head injury as there were no airbags.  Can I sue GM now as they did not provide that safety feature as standard back then?

Do not underestimate the damage done in the 70's with the ISP (Improved Scouting Program).  That was a pivotal misstep and lack of direction and understanding by Ivory Tower National Leadership on how the program works.

So many left youth and so many youth NEVER became Scouts and while that immediate loss was epic, the longer term an effect that has driven the quest for the golden ring of "membership" lo these last 50 years.

Without being members as youth, many were not invested in the program.  As adults they did not involve their kids, so less members.  Rinse, lather, repeat.  National then embarked on many misbegotten and NON CORE efforts that really degraded the "fun with a purpose" thrust.  Sort of like Moses wandering in the desert.

Now the National movement organization is bankrupt, there are 90,000 abuse cases (thought that may have come about anyway) and membership has to be way less than the 2 million youth declared at the end of 2019.

I fear that Gloria Gaynor's words "I Will Survive" will not ring true for the BSA.

No matter how you may feel on this, biggest challenge is this is the continuing move away from our CORE COMPETENCY.  Is this "Fun with a Purpose"?  I would say no and it does not add value to the program.

I am not suggesting that the possible issue may be important to society, but there are many many issues that may be important to society.  The BSA cannot be all things to all people.  The more we try the more we wander aimlessly with each special interest group looking to "mold" the Scouting movement in America to what they "feel" is important and critical.

Stick with the basics, focus on fun and outdoors, differentiate the Scouting movement in the market place.  Drill down to the WHY kids join.  This is like houses, not every house one builds may suit everyone.  Deal with the reality and be good at what we do and narrow focus on that.

Bending and moving to the winds of whatever is current will continue to kill the movement.

1 hour ago, T2Eagle said:

A scout leader from the mid eighties would be in his late seventies or early eighties today. 

Or younger.

A 22 year old leader in 1985 would be 57 today.  Mid eighties (83 - 87) is only (only...God I sound old) 37 years ago.  I've got a Philmont belt older than that

21 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

From the article and doing the math, the 93 year old suing the BSA was abused sometime between 1936 when he was 9 years old and 1944 when he was 18. That is over 80 years ago. Folk involved are long dead, including the parents who would have made the decision to press charges or not. And from my research many parents chose not to.

Not dismissing the potential accuracy or validity of this claim, but how can the BSA (or any group for that matter) put up a reasonable defense again this claim?  No real way to even verify the claimant was active in a unit at the time of the alleged abuse.  As many have noted, unless there was an actual criminal complaint and conviction pre about 1980, the accuser could be liable for accusations.  

Basically a no win scenario now.

On 11/10/2020 at 7:45 PM, CynicalScouter said:

Posted to reddit just now.

This is just. Wow.

BSA Council Basic Standards

•Adhere to brand standards

•Adhere to rules, regulations, and policies of BSA

•Current on national fees

•Council governed by volunteers

•Provide programs consistent with BSA Guidelines

Council Performance Standards Charter

The council performance standards committee identified and recommended following items to measure:

•Youth Safety –98% Youth Protection Training

•Youth Market Share –2%

•Youth Retention –62%

•Financial Sustainability –minimum of three months of cash liquidity for operations

•Youth Ethnic and Gender Diversity –10% of membership is female; membership reflects community’s youth of color percentage

Leading Indicators of Successful Councils

Finance

•Net camping operation surplus (inclusive of direct and indirect costs, and depreciation)

•Growth in endowment fund and appropriate earnings distribution

Membership

•Multi-year plan based on data and year over year growth

•Youth in market share, strong volunteer engagement, emphasizes and identifies youth markets with growth potential (ethnic, gender, socio-economic, religious, various communities, etc)

Unit Service

•Effective commissioner team serving every unit

•Continually knows health of every unit

Board Governance

•Diverse board (gender, ethnicity, age, professional experience, Scouting & non-Scouting, backgrounds, tenure, etc)

•Clear understanding of status on all performance standards

•Understands the council’s strategic priorities

Strategic Plan

•Developed as team (staff & volunteers)

•Rolling 3 years

•Living document that drives annual priorities and budget

•Guides executive board and staff agendas

 

 

BSA_Churchill_Plan-Proposed_New_Territory_Structure_and_Council_Standards_presentation_10.6.20.pdf 2.9 MB · 2 downloads

Again - the priorities continue to be way off base.  Clueless being led by more clueless and being led by consultants with stock powerpoints so it seems they did something.

Under BSA Council Basic Standards - they put the only mention of  anything related to PROGRAM at the bottom.  That is insane.  THAT IS NUMBER ONE..PROGRAM DRIVES EVERTYTHING!!

Under Council Performance Standards Charter they put RENTENTION way down the list.  That is an indicator of (wait for it) PROGRAM...THAT NEEDS to be BE NUMBER ONE!!

Under Leading Indicators of Successful Councils they do not even mention PROGRAM!!

Painfully obvious the vaunted Churchill group does not understand how PROGRAM is what drives SUCCESS!!

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Didn't National give out recruitment goals  back in the 1980s and 1990s and some pro came up with "creative ways" of meeting those goals? 

The powers that be do not appear to have a clue what is going on.

 

Boypower Manpower...worked so well in the late 60' and 70's.  Basically DE's registered all the names one could find in the graveyards.  That was followed by the always popular In School Scouting in the 90's, which got you lots of Scouts that had no idea they were Scouts as they used donations to provide registration fees.

They will keep trying and trying quotas until they get it right

4 minutes ago, carebear3895 said:

I like how that presentation deflects all blame off National and puts it on the Local Councils. It kinda assumes Councils are below these "quotas", for lack of a better term, because the field staff simply aren't trying hard enough. 

 

Want to make scouting more accessible to low income families…..maybe stop raising the membership fee and get rid of that horrendous new member tax. 

But .... but .... we are always told Scouting's a great value, less than sports..yada yada yada.  Worth WAAAY more than being charged.  Also they (National) did a survey and 129% of families want a program *like* Scouting (note that does not actually mean they want to join Scouting...but we digress).

If the Brain Trust does not truly understand and accept the reasons for Scouting's decline (muddled program initiatives, Zero National marketing, no real "benchmarking" to determine best practice for successful units, etc etc) they will never be able to correct, improve, and move forward.

I am thinking 16 National Subset ZONEs will have NO impact on actual units and improvement in membership rolls.

Agree -

Just because a Troop does not have advancement centric outings does not mean advancement may not occur on outings.  It should be organic.  

As an example, these are requirements 9B of the Camping merit badge

On any of these camping experiences, you must do TWO of the following, only with proper preparation and under qualified supervision:

1. Hike up a mountain where, at some point, you are at least 1,000 feet higher in elevation from where you started.
2. Backpack, snowshoe, or cross-country ski for at least four miles.
3. Take a bike trip of at least 15 miles or at least four hours.
4. Take a non-motorized trip on the water of at least four hours or 5 miles.
5. Plan and carry out an overnight snow camping experience.
6. Rappel down a rappel route of 30 feet or more.

Annually we do 5 of these in the normal course of our normal outdoor program.  That is what Scouting should be, going out and doing stuff.  Sadly we rarely if ever are able to PLAN a snow camping experience what with being down south and all.

Our troop does  knife throwing on a regular basis.  Have a mobile target, ribbon off space, use the smaller knives to throw.  Here's a pro-tip, make sure your knives have bright orange on them, or they will in fact get lost in the leaves or ground cover.

We have some throwing hatchets, but have not come up with a decent target that can be mobile.

Don't kid yourself that this is about COVID.  That may be the reason given, but in all likelihood it's about money.  If units start doing things together and having a fun time, how in the world will the Council be able to monetize these events?  Why maybe we don't really need the council management overhead.

All those fees for camporees and council events come with a "surcharge" that goes to the council coffers.  God forbid,  troops may get together and run their own summer camp for a greatly reduced cost.

23 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Can't imagine how much Camp Pouch on Staten Island is worth....

Looks to be 140 acres and was possibly on the block in 2010.  At that time The Boy Scouts hoped that a conservation organization like the Trust for Public Land would buy the development rights to most of the 140-acre property. The sale would provide an infusion of as much as $30 million to the Boy Scouts

https://www.nytimes.com/2010/01/24/nyregion/24scout.html

49 minutes ago, elitts said:

  I can barely even get folks to consider a camping location without a toilet and running water.  Even one with a toilet, but only a lake for water nearly got shot down because "OMG what if the boys need water to drink and there isn't any?"  

Telling them, "There is a lake 500' away and we have filters, tablets and stoves" apparently wasn't enough reassurance for some of them.

We just got back from weekend backpacking.  

The camping area was on a bend in a river.  River is up due to rains, so we had to have the boys figure a way to get to the river, step on to a downed tree to float the intake for the water filter.  Good times to get water, but on the plus side, sort of an unlimited supply

8 hours ago, HICO_Eagle said:

I care what BSA thought in the 1970s because the culture was different.  IMO they did NOT routinely manipulate data then the way they do now, they did NOT screw around with the program to feed some adult's ego at National. 

I am going to have to respectfully disagree with on the National not screwing around with the program in the 70's.  That is exactly what they did with the "Improved Scouting Program" and decided that the real way to win hearts and minds was to focus on inner city and urban youth.  That was the ticket.  Also the infamous "BOYPOWER MANPOWER" initiative to tie in with the 1976 Bicentennial.

The ISP turned rank advancement on it's head and for several years you could earn Eagle without ever camping or doing any traditional outdoor stuff.  Scouting lost about 2 million members in the decade

Boypower Manpower resulted in the largest membership scandal up to that time. maybe more than the In School Scouting programs in the 90's.  Many of the members showing in 1970 were likely not there in reality, so the actual loss will never be known.

BSA National the the "adults" that feel they are all knowing always feels they know best and they never go and see what actual units are doing to be successful.  They are so far out of touch it's silly.  Leads to things like shrinking membership and bankruptcy so I've been told

54 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

I flip back and forth on this.  My experience is that scouting units (packs, troops) need relatively light policy and procedure documents.  Document habits.  When do you meet?  How much are dues and when?  How do you share fundraiser profits?  ... A new parent guide ... Beyond that, I find little need to document policies and procedures. 

RECOMMENDATION:  Resolve the situation first.  Then, outside the situation, discuss whether a policy is needed. 

I've sat in too many committee meetings where hours are spent debating a well written policy that is driven by one or two situations.  Then, after the incident is done, we never touch the policy again.  It's never published.  It's never communicated again.  It really turns out it was a policy for this one incident.   My conclusion:  Don't create policy during problem situations.  You will often end up with policy that you don't want to live with and that others won't follow. 

Queue a policy discussion for later, but don't create the new policy during the situation.  Policies written during situations often become bad policy. 

Sometimes I wonder if discussing policy is the passive aggressive way to handle bad situations that are really best handled clean and upfront.

This so spot on. You do not need a policy to have common sense.  Many units paint themselves into corners with policies and multi-page (with colored tabs no doubt) Pack Procedure manual.  This takes away the ability to really manage the issue.  

In this situation basically they want YOU (The pack) to provide an accommodation for their son similar to the School system.  The schools are a public items, governed by a myriad of laws, guidelines, rules.  The pack is not under that guidance.

Situation - Cub is disruptive and needs to be removed from the meeting.  That is the issue, deal with THAT issue

Solution 1 - Parent stays and manages their Cub, works with them, works with the pack system, registers, and his attendance is dependent on their attendance OR their recruitment of someone to manage THEIR son.

Solution 2 - They need to find a pack that may better fit their specific needs

Go forth and have fun Scouting

2 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

OK, then how about this rule.

So, you are on a Scouts, BSA camp out and decide that you are going to tent with your son (we've had this come up with camping in my area due to COVID). Are you therefore indicating that you'll ignore the rule and tent with your son?

Tent with my son on an outing??  That would mean that we would need to speak with other on an outing, possibly make eye contact, and horrors, he would need to acknowledge that he knows me and potentially have interaction with me.

As none of those are going to happen, the whole tenting together is not happening.  Plus he has BO and talks in his sleep.

1 hour ago, 5thGenTexan said:

Circle Ten

https://www.charitynavigator.org/index.cfm?bay=search.summary&orgid=8221

Peanuts

Atlanta Area Council SE base salary is close to $500,000.  Top Five folks in the staff of + 70 combined make over $1,000,000.  When you add in benefits, bonuses, etc the total for those 5 is closer to $2,000,000.

Nice work if you can get it I guess