FireStone

There certainly is room for discussion on those points, and on CO rights when it comes to membership, etc. My concern here is not about individual units, or CO discretion when it comes to who they allow to be a part of their chartered unit. This is about the broader ongoing harassment about girls being in the BSA at all, from people who very clearly would like to see girls excluded from the Scouts BSA program entirely.

I can't figure out what other outcome anyone would be advocating for if they believe that the membership policies are not a settled matter. And just for clarity I say "settled" to mean that they are set on paper and will not change, not that everyone is settled in their agreement with them. Outside of this forum, yes, without a doubt there are vocal individuals who wish to see girls and/or LGBTQ+ youth removed from the Scouts BSA program. That much is clear if you read the comments on any social post the BSA makes with a girl or girl troop featured. Or if you even run into one of these folks in-person, and they're often not afraid to say it out loud. Like the woman who passed by our popcorn table outside the local hardware store and said "Keep the 'boy' in Boy Scouts" to the group of young girls in Cub uniforms.

I'm not sure what kind of rational discussion there could be on the topic of girls no longer being welcome in the BSA. And as it relates to the scenarios I outlined in my OP, yes, it's a YPT issue. But that seems to be considered "hostility" to some here because I'm wording a YPT violation in terms that are apparently too harsh.

Do you really think there should be a "civil discourse" around whether or not some kids should be allowed in the BSA based on gender? It's settled policy, no going back. So at this point, any discourse around allowing girls or LGBTQ+ kids in the BSA serves no constructive purpose. When it is done in the view of youth it violates YPT and should not be tolerated.

I'm completely open to discussion about the logistics of girls being in the BSA, mixed gender troops, patrols, packs, etc. What I do not believe the organization should be tolerant of is opinions on whether girls should be welcome in the organization at all. That's not up for debate, the policy is settled on that. We're not going back. The BSA would sooner fold that suffer the societal backlash they'd face if they tried to undo this and kick the girls out. If my thread title seems hostile, it is only in response to the hostility that the BSA allows toward members who are supposed to feel welcome here.

It's been 5 years of girls being in the Scouts BSA program, and yet every time the BSA posts a picture featuring a girl in uniform on Instagram, out come the scouts, scouters, and what appears to be just random other adults to complain about girls being in the BSA. I was in a virtual training session held by the Marketing team at National last night and a Scouter took to the chat to complain about gay and trans youth being allowed in the program. Then I go over to reddit and read a story about a girl who got nasty looks from supposed "adults" at a restaurant because she was an Eagle Scout in uniform. Enough is enough. These policies are set. Girls are part of this, whether anyone likes it or not. LGBTQ+ youth are part of this whether John from the Zoom chat likes it or not. And if some folks who are registered members of this organization can't seem to get on board with that, or at the very least keep their mouths shut in public spaces about how they feel, I think the BSA should start treating these incidents like the YPT violations that they are. Comments made to make any scout feel unwelcome on the basis of gender or sexual orientation are not tolerated in the BSA, or so we're told. It's time to back that up. Scouts who participate in this online bullying, posting negative comments on social media posts suggesting that girls aren't welcome, similarly should be dealt with according to the YPT protocols that we are reminded of in detail every 2 years. At the very least, Scoutmasters should be made aware when one of their scouts engages in online harassment of another scout. Some of these offending scouts put identifiable information their public profiles, which isn't really great but it does allow for them to be identified and possibly reported to their units' leadership. The scouts who these comments are directed at do read them. They comment on those very same Instagram posts, although thankfully they take the high road and only comment in a positive way and ignore the harassment and bullying. But clearly they do see it and read it. There's no point to even having a DEI officer on staff in the BSA if they're not going to enforce even these basic YPT and membership policy standards. But what does National do when faced with these kinds of things, like they were last night on that Zoom call? They talk around it in gentle terms, trying not to ruffle too many feathers. Enough is enough. Stand up for our scouts, BSA. When John hops in the chat to voice his opinions on LGBTQ+ youth, that's the point where someone should have stepped in and immediately shut that down, in the clearest terms possible, and stated that such statements do not align with the membership policies of the BSA. When negative comments are made on social media posts, at the very least the BSA social media managers could delete them. But I'd also like to see them follow up on those that appear to have been made by active BSA members, and investigate them as YPT violations. It's time to stop this nonsense. Let's go, BSA.

Need to see the requirements to really understand how this will play out across the ranks, but my first thoughts: Arrow of Light looks like a lot as a full six-required-adventures rank, considering that most Packs don't do a full year of AOL (crossovers happen around March). Bear seems to have lost the 2 favorite adventures (at least in my Pack), Baloo the Builder and Bear Claws. Hope those get rolled into these new adventures in some way, especially Bear Claws and Whittling Chip.

Side comment: I'm still legitimately surprised that the uniform isn't more enthusiastically worn by today's youth who are growing up with video games and digital achievement badges. We offer the IRL version of that, but they don't want to wear it? What the heck!? My son with "grind" on a video game challenge until he gets it, to earn some digital achievement badge, but I can't get him to "grind" on a merit badge or some 2nd Class first-aid requirements he still needs to do. Ok, rant over. 😄

Throwing a random thought out there: I see a lot of comments about costs, registration fees, uniform costs, etc. And when I go on social media I see a lot of people commenting on photos of scouts with incomplete or improper uniforms. Scouts wearing jeans, non-standard insignia, missing badges, etc. Many of these comments come from adults, and one recent comment I saw came from a council executive. I feel like we've gotta let it go with the uniform policing. At the local unit level, if a troop wants to maintain some kind of uniform standard, fine. But at an organizational level, this can only be doing harm. Especially now, if costs are this much of an issue, shaming scouts and families into purchasing every single piece of the uniform is only going to make families question whether they want to be a part of this. I'm not that interested in what scouts are wearing when they show up. Obviously I'd prefer they wear at least a uniform shirt, but the rest is not a priority for me. Uniform shirt, t-shirt, jeans, shorts, neckerchief, no neckerchief, doesn't matter, I'd just rather they show up. If they're willing to show up, I'm not going to criticize that they're wearing jeans. I'm still shocked that a council exec took to social media to comment on a scout's jeans in a photo. It's not the only thing that will drive kids and families away from this, but it for sure could be one of the things that might.

I'll never be convinced that the modern BSA is any worse than most other youth organizations when it comes to prevention. YPT isn't perfect, and nothing is. But it's still miles ahead of what your local sports, clubs, and other youth orgs are doing. So the idea that the BSA "is still not safe for boys and girls" is unfair. There will never be any youth activity that is completely safe. And I'm fine with the BSA paying for past sins, for the coverups and failures of leadership. But I hate that today's youth and families are paying for it, too.

When is the crossover? Assuming something like February/March, you have time to try and recruit. Grab some flyers and promotional materials from the BSA Brand Center website, post on social media, get the word out around town and see if you can get some other interested girls and parents on board. If it becomes prohibitive to establish a local troop (not enough interest), the best thing might be to just find the nearest existing troop and get her involved there. I know from parents here that were faced with similar situations they ended up not being willing to go out of town, just because of the added time traveling to meetings. Which my response to that has been, "Driving 20 minutes each way to a weekly meeting with an existing troop is less time than you'll spend if you set up a local troop and are the SM or ASM." I know there is more to it that drive time, and obviously a local troop is preferable where scouts know each other from school. But don't rule out a non-local option, even if just temporarily.

Look up ScouterStan on YouTube, he's got a lot of OA videos, I think one is specifically geared towards parents and getting to know what the OA is.

Seems like that would be very prohibitive to a lot of part of the scout program that rely heavily on outside help. I think there's a Webelos adventure that also calls for meeting with a government official. And unless the mayor or a town council member is willing to sit through YPT, that won't work. Forget about visits from first responders, animal/reptile programs, teachers, etc. That's not a thing, unless as mentioned your chartered org created such a rule.

I'll just reiterate what others have said, that scouts are coming to meetings from a variety of situations, which include scheduling challenges, sports practices, financial difficulties, etc. Just something to keep in mind when setting Troop policy. I think a uniform standard is great, but with a reasonable amount of flexibility to accommodate all of the circumstances that scouts and the troop might encounter. At the end of the day I'd rather see scouts in meetings than not, so if the uniform policy is in any way prohibitive to scouts coming to meetings, that would be something that I think the troop would want to correct.

One of the things I've been struggling with is this "how to" part of it, the possibility of training adults to look for recording devices. Which apparently is harder than it would seem, because Camp Winnebago had found a recording device in the trading post bathroom in the summer of 2021 and despite then starting to regularly search bathrooms, they clearly missed new devices being placed and used. So it sound like either devices are tricky to find or that the camp just gave up on their searches after a while. Because clearly this guy was able to resume recording and continued to do so in the exact same bathroom. I don't know what the answer is. But it seems like it's way too easy for this to happen, and we need some sort of plan to combat this moving forward.

Is there a gap in YPT training for this sort of thing? YPT is really good at equipping adults to better identify risk factors among adults and scouts for abuse and bullying, but this tech component seems like maybe it's a vulnerability that YPT doesn't adequately address, especially if there are other cases of this happening in and out of scouting. The camps involved have said they are going to increase regular searches and inspections of bathrooms and other areas of concern. Personally I would consider it valuable to have some training myself on how to conduct such a search or inspection of facilities. What do you look for? What fixtures are most often used to hide cameras? Adults and scouts went in and out of the bathrooms at these camps frequently and it sounds like only one device was randomly discovered. Maybe we can do better at equipping adults to look for these things.

My Pack does not send any money up to the Troop at crossover, nor have we ever been asked to. In fact it was the Troop that informed me that no money was expected because dues were paid to the Pack in the fall and that would carry the scouts through to the next fall. And that because this Troop does their fundraising in the fall and winter, crossover scouts don't have opportunities to fundraise and so they shouldn't be expected to be financially responsible for contributing until they've had a chance to fully participate in the troop.

We're confident that this man will see justice and will likely spend the rest of his life in prison. Even a single charge and conviction could get him 20 years. Multiple charges and convictions will likely be coming. I'm still angry today but that's mixed with the sadness that as a Pack we're having to communicate with parents today about how to send in photos of their children to an FBI email address. That any of us have to do this is sad but I have to admit it hurts more than I expected to be talking about this with other parents regarding their kids. We always want to keep all of our scouts safe. We invite families to join our Pack, go on outings with us, all believing things to be as safe as we can make them. And they are in that we follow safety protocols and YPT very carefully. But then this happens and it just shook me in ways I didn't expect. We'll carry on. I'll probably look at every camp bathroom a little differently from now on and I know local camps are already implementing new procedures for checking bathrooms. But we'll do what we have to and continue to work to make this as safe as we can.

My kids are members of units that camped at Winnebago during the time these recordings were made. My wife and I discussed it tonight, and we will be sending the FBI photos of our kids and hoping they don't get matched to kids in the videos. I've never had to really confront anything like the feeling of the possibility that my kids could have been victimized by someone in such a way. Or that I personally know many families that are going through the exact same thing tonight, filling out the FBI forms, sending in photos, and hoping they tell us they didn't see our kids in these videos that this monster was distributing to other monsters. It's worse because I know there is a very low probability that we won't have local victims. I'd be comforted to find out my kids aren't involved but that comfort will be short-lived as I'm fairly certain some families around here won't get that comfort. Multiple units in my town alone are involved in the effort to identify victims. Units from all over this area go to those camps regularly. This one is going to hit us, if not directly then indirectly through our units, our surrounding towns, our council, etc. I'm trying to lean on my faith to find some calm but if I'm being honest, in this moment, I'm just so damn angry.

Even at the most basic level of participating in the BoR, it seems the scout did not fulfill that requirement. The content, tone, or delivery of the questions almost doesn't matter. If there was basically no participation by the scout, regardless of how the board felt about his responses he really did not "complete" a BoR. The requirement doesn't say "show up and sit there". It says "successfully complete" a BoR. Even just saying "I'm sorry, I'm a bit nervous," is more useful to a board and can at least initiate a conversation or allow the board to adjust their questions to make the scout more comfortable answering. Saying/doing almost nothing is not really participating in the BoR.

The faith component is weird lately. I get parents coming to me saying they want nothing to do with it, which I then have to kind redirect to say, "Well we have a reverence requirement but your family can choose to approach that however you see fit, just let me know when you and your scout have completed it..." And then I have parents who want to do a group prayer at every meeting, and they're not really interested in a prayer that isn't specifically Christian. Meanwhile the BSA seems to give us very little in the way of guidance on this other than that note in the Cub handbooks saying it's a family issue but Den Leaders still have to check the box on the requirements. And we still have "Reverent" and "God" in the Law and Oath, so the families wanting more faith in Cub Scouts have a valid basis for that argument. It's right there in our primary materials, so they can fairly suggest that we lean in to it. I don't know what the answer is, and mostly my responses to parents are some form of shifting expectations away from whatever extreme they currently believe Scouting should be. Either convincing the less-faithful families that we're not going to be doing bible readings at den meetings and try to recruit them into a church, or convincing the highly-faithful families that the faith component in Scouting is a lot less specific than it may seem and that as much as they would probably love for us to do bible readings at den meetings, it's not happening.

Someone can correct me if I'm wrong, but removing a scout without a reason specific to that scout (behavior, bullying, dangerous actions, etc), is probably not something that a CC can do. They can ask a leader to step down, or eventually remove a leader, but removing a scout without cause seems like a stretch of the CC's authority. At least not without the COR rep being the one to say the scout has to go.

It wasn't a murder but that doesn't mean that nothing criminal took place. Negligence can be criminal. It doesn't sound like anything criminal happened, but any further investigation would hopefully confirm the police findings of an accidental discharge.

I think it's a problem, but not the problem in and of itself. It's more a combo of things. He's unhappy with the greater personal responsibility he has in a troop vs. a pack where advancement is almost automatic, you just have to show up and do what you're asked. He also is indicating that he is in scouts because of me, but I know he also has a lot of fun on some of the trips and had an absolute blast at summer camp. So I'm trying to decipher if he feels maybe I got him into this and he's still doing it because of me or if he's doing it because he enjoys it or not.

I think he feels like he would be considered a "snitch" if he speaks up. Especially when dealing with kids that are a few years older than him. I also highly doubt the adult leaders know anything about any of this going on to even be able to try and deal with it. The troop is very much scout-led, which is great, but it also means the adults stay as far away from the scouts as they can, camping in separate areas and unlikely to even know when some tent flipping or bad language is going on. I'm torn between wanting to step in and mention this to the adults vs. trying to give him space to learn how to navigate some of these social challenges.