yknot

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

 I expected my youth to take it on the chin and press on.
 

It's hard to get past that sentence. We're not talking about rain or snow here. I've been in a lot of places where people didn't think I belonged and didn't want me there. I persevered and maybe that was character building but it also almost got me killed. I would not subject any youth under my care to such a thing today. Thankfully, we mostly don't have to because most youth organizations have moved beyond such backward ideas. There are plenty of things out there that can build character that don't have anything to do with a person's race, religion, orientation, or gender. 

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

This, by far is the most hostile post I ever read on this forum. Can you imagine how many of our kids would get education and skills instruction if every teacher, little league coach, dance instructor, and so forth who doesn't agree with all the policies of the organization stayed away from kids? There would be nobody.

This forum has had hundreds of these kinds of discussions for 30 years, but there is a difference between posters today and the earlier years; Posters today don't want to learn why folks think differently, and they want to censor any speech they disagree with.

Ironically, free speech is how bad policies that can be dangerous to youth and adults are exposed. We live in a dangerous time.

Barry

There's nothing stopping people from having these kinds of discussions here or anywhere. But if that's how someone feels about a certain class of kids and it contradicts the policies of the organization they work or volunteer for, they shouldn't be responsible for kids of that class. That's the conventional viewpoint, often reported on in the media, and I'm hardly saying anything as controversial or as pearl clutching as implied. BSA policy for the past six years is that girls are scouts. It's really not about the adults anymore, it's about the scouts. 

31 minutes ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

An adult leader meeting is different from an open online forum targeted at scouters. If this was a restricted-access forum, then it would be equivalent to an adult leader meeting. This is on the open internet, no authentication required. This forum is indexed by search engines. That's how I found it, scouting-related searches turned up discussion threads here. It's a perpetual adult leader meeting that anyone can walk into.

We will never see the scouts "come into the room" and will never know who heard us here. In a physical room, if a scout suddenly walks in and it's a conversation that's inappropriate for scout ears, everyone stops talking. Here, we just keep going. The difference that matters is can scouts "hear" what's being said. It's not whether it's online or in meat space.

My views are a little different. I think people pretty much have a right to say whatever they think, wherever they want, and it's better to know what those thoughts are. If those views include thinking a certain class of children doesn't belong in a youth organization they are involved with, then they shouldn't still hold an active role within it. If registered leaders hold these views -- that girls in this case, or gay, minority, or non Christian religious scouts in other cases, shouldn't be in scouting in opposition to BSA policy -- then they should not be adult leaders responsible for these children and should step down. It is preferable for people to be honest about how they feel, because otherwise how does a parent know they are unwisely entrusting their child's safety to someone who doesn't think their child should be there in the first place? Broader society is largely trying to move past the point where you are not welcome because you are Black or Jewish or Muslim or Gay or a Girl. There are organizations you can belong to if you still hold those views, but BSA is no longer one of them. Parents of any of these classes of children in scouting have an expectation that their child is being entrusted to registered adult leaders who support BSA policies. 

17 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

There is a huge difference between not agreeing with a policy and passionately working with youth. I'm a firm believer that the Tiger Cub program is the cause of thousands of families dropping out of the BSA, but I found a way to raise our numbers. I believe education about the struggles from policy changes is healthy because it provides dialogue for ideas to approach and improve or fix the issue.

Sad that so many folks feel that censure is the only way to stop discussions they don't like. 

Barry

I'm not sure that's a great example to pick, because when Tigers were added to the program, verbal or physical threats weren't made against those children by other scouts or adult leaders. I don't know why people think it's OK though when it's about girls. Protecting children shouldn't require discussion. It's not censure ship to expect that registered and trained youth leaders in a youth organization protect and support the youth in their care. 

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Change does takes time, sometimes decades. Especially those who have put in decades of blood, sweat, tears, time and treasure to the organizations. Trust me, I have seen what happens when they leave: no one fills the void.

Just  remember Venturing celebrated their 25th year last year, and people still call them venture scouts and venture crews, not Venturers and Venturing Crews.

Change is indeed painful but we are talking about adult leaders who are responsible for children so there really isn't much leeway to accommodate adult issues. Adults who resent the presence of some of the children they are supposed to be supporting and protecting probably shouldn't be in the organization six years in no matter what other value they bring. 

22 hours ago, BetterWithCheddar said:

Scouting would not exist in some communities today were it not for some of these "old school" scout leaders. Change takes time and I'm not sure you can get there by extinguishing dissent.

That might have made sense the first year as people adjusted, but it has been six years and girls are nearly fully integrated into scouting. The fact that adult leaders, who are in charge of girls' safety and well being, are still allowed to hold such positions while espousing those views is a Youth Protection failure, not dissent. Keeping struggling units alive isn't an acceptable excuse. If old time leaders haven't worked it out by now to the point where they can accept it and focus on the kids then they shouldn't be responsible for them in scouting. We don't tolerate leaders with out of date views on other safety issues like shooting sports, water sports, or other aspects of youth protection. Girls are actively present in the organization and BSA is now responsible for their inclusion, safety, and protection. There really can't be dissent about their presence among adults who are charged with carrying out those responsibilities.

On 4/4/2024 at 12:41 PM, acco40 said:

Understood but is the new G2SS rules practical?  For example, I've taken Scouts to public places that don't have separate restrooms for youth and adults.  How should that be handled if one wants to follow the proverbial letter of the law?

A lot of public places like museums and larger stores have a family option that is a single private room. Parks as well as town and school playing fields often have single stall porta-johns most months of the year. I've gotten to where I can find them almost anywhere within driving distance in my region although it might be different elsewhere. 

14 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

I would like to know progress towards YP provisions of the settlement plan, which as I understand were specified as follows:

also I like to know more about the meeting with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC)

 

Agreed. Also on my list are some of the issues that Michael Johnson raised regarding implementing a youth reporting option and adult ID. A lot of units also need YPT guidance on gender issues. Transparency in incident reporting to parents and prospective parents. Dealing with YP issues presented by emerging technology, like covert recording devices and whatever new things are coming down the pike. 

I believe the fee changes have been delayed to May 1, 2024

4 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Maybe his attendance is one of "a few surprises" he mentioned.

I hope Glen Pounder will also attend and speak of problems and progress with YP since he came on board a year ago.

Ha ha! Pounder is listed for one of the sessions somewhere, I can't remember when or where I saw it in some obscure place.

One would think they would be highlighting his presence but maybe we're back to pretending youth protection problems don't exist. 

3 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

3/28/2024: Tomorrow last day to register. No word of online videos for forthcoming meeting.

 

Looks like he is going to be there, then. He wasn't on the program anywhere, lol. 

I hope OK to post: I grabbed it from a US Fish and Wildlife Service page. Clear skies tonight will be good for migration, so tomorrow could be interesting depending on where you are. 

45 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

03/25/2024:  Taylen Robert Claude Brooks, 21, and Wyatt Jay Charles Brooks, 18, of Mount Aukum, California, were the victims in the (mountain lion) attack, the El Dorado County Sheriff’s Office confirmed Monday. Taylen Brooks’ death was the first by a mountain lion in California in two decades; there have been only three verified killings by a mountain lion in the state since 1986, according to California Department of Fish and Wildlife records.

...

According to the sheriff’s office, the pair were antler shed hunting along Skid Road, a rural part of the county about 30 minutes north of Placerville. While walking, they noticed a mountain lion alongside them. “Both Taylen and Wyatt did what they had always learned,” the sheriff’s office said in a statement. “They raised their hands in the air to appear larger, yelled at the lion and Wyatt even threw his backpack at the lion, all in an attempt to scare the lion away.”

...

Taylor worked as a house painter with his father, loved the outdoors and was “an extremely talented guitar player,” his family said in a statement. Wyatt is enrolled at the Mt. Adams fire academy and hopes to someday work for Cal Fire. A fund has been set up to support the family, and a memorial will be held at a later date.

“A brother is a friend given by nature,” his family said. “These two brothers were driven by nature.”

Source:

https://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/california-brothers-mountain-lion-attack-19367715.php

Horrible account. 

1 hour ago, RememberSchiff said:

Teach scouts how to safely to react to discrimination and hatred in a rational way attempt to defuse the situation, report. This CBS news interview with renowned birder Christian Cooper specifically 3:30 on speaks of a rational response.

https://www.cbsnews.com/video/christian-cooper-the-extraordinary-birder/

Another $0.02

 

Chris was a grown adult and took a real risk doing what he did. He shouldn't have had to do that. I think that's where some of the confusion and frustration is coming from. Whether it's someone like Chris, an adult man trying to bird in Central Park in one of the biggest, most diverse cities in the world, and still encountering problems, or an insecure teenaged female, trans or gay scout just trying to find a unit to camp with...  what is really left to discuss at this point? Shouldn't they just be free to do and enjoy what anyone else does? 

If BSA wants to tacitly make room in the tent for folks who don't really want to fully integrate girls, LGBTQ+, trans, etc., in their units, that's fine and their right as a private organization. But they have no problem pointing to all the DEI statements and actions they have taken since at least 2015 in response to sponsorship withdrawals, PR crises, and membership declines that say the opposite when marketing and promoting the program to the public. BSA should either address it or be honest and say DEI isn't consistently applied at the unit level.

9 minutes ago, skeptic said:

Many things that make it more difficult are basically our of the direct control of BSA, or for that matter, any youth serving agencies.  It is our legal system based on greed and the foolish idea that personal responsibility is not first and foremost, and that somehow human nature will NOT intrude too often and make things worse.  Civil cases are built primarily on the foolish idea that it is always someone else's fault, and so anyone remotely connected can be held accountable, with few or no limits.  Add human emotional empathy in many juries, and it explodes.  Meanwhile, we have more and more lawyers beating the bushes for anything that might feed this.  And then allow the media to hype things to extremes, and we have our perfect storm.

The concept of the Summit is not bad, it is the skewing of it over time and I fear some back stage siphoning.  On the other hand, the same concept on smaller scale might have been applied to regional summer camps that simply need financial help, but had or have volunteer support locally.  Then the youth served would have been more realistic, and also less expensive over all, or so it would appear to me.  

I think it was poor forecasting more than anything else. They started it when scouting had already experienced significant declines and hit an almost 50% drop by the time they closed. The declines were influenced largely by changing demographics and not Covid or bankruptcy; at that point its financial problems were many and unrelated to those things. It was also pointed out it made no sense to try to build local membership with an expensive national center. I'm not aware what market research was done on its scout appeal, but it was never on the list for our units -- they wanted Philmont or Sea Base for exotic high adventure. For a lot of people in the eastern US, that kind of Appalachian terrain is beautiful but already accessible locally. 

You have to wonder how anyone responsible for the Summit mess is still serving. He should have resigned.

I'm a little worried Roger Krone will see Summit as a legacy building project and focus his efforts on trying to turn it around vs. addressing some of the more mundane issues that hamper program, like declining volunteerism. National Meeting is coming up. Hopefully we'll hear something about what he has been doing other than making videos for the past six months which, while good, haven't resulted in any visible action so far. 

8 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

Perhaps it is just my highschool, but as a parent of a teenager I have to say expectations of what teens must do far exceed what was expected of teens 20, 30, 50 years ago. 

First, they are expected to take college level courses in high school.  When I was a kid, I took 2 AP courses, now ... If you want any chance to get selected by a highly selected university you need at least 8.  Plus you need to have nearly perfect grades and an ACT/SAT that is very high.  

Then look at sports.  When I was a kid you can simply walk on to most teams and the sport lasts the season.  Now, the best teams are not even at high school and nearly all teams except you dedicate yourself to that sport all year (and expect to travel).

Add in the expectation you also have a job, volunteer, become president of a couple of clubs, etc.

Free time for far too many kids is rare.  They are jumping around from studying for an AP test to travel baseball to mock trials, etc. 

Participation trophies are a thing in the past.  My kids participated in years of various sports, never received a trophy and were told they were no good for travel and should simply quit.

As a parent of a couple of kids today I think the lazy argument is that kids today are babied.  Actually, in many ways, I think kids today are abused.   Expectations are far too high and many sacrifice childhood to become mini adults at age 9.  The kids that don't are left feeling like they are failures. It's incredibly sad.

Scouting is the one organization where you are not judged if you are not the "best" at something and you don't leave feeling like you failed life just because you didn't ace an AP test while also throwing a baseball in the mid 90s at 16. 

I honestly think that is why we need scouting more than ever.  It allows kids to try a variety of activities, fail, learn , have fun and just be kids.  Everything else is rushing them into adulthood.

There are incredible pressures on kids today, but I'm not so sure scouting is much of an antidote to that anymore either. There can be just as much pressure to be "the best" and to achieve Eagle, and if kids don't or aren't as interested in the advancement process -- "First Class, First Year" -- they can feel like failures the same as they can in any other arena. It's an adult driven disease that has permeated almost every aspect of childhood -- first, best, most, etc. 

3 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

Quick reacting women cyclists fought cougar and pinned it down with bike to rescue their friend. SCOUT SALUTE!

 

This is timely. Ever since a mountain lion from South Dakota was hit by a car in Connecticut around 2011, it has become apparent that young adult males are dispersing widely from established populations. They can turn up almost anywhere in places where they haven't been seen in 150 years and a surprising number of state wildlife agencies are reporting confirmed sightings the past few years.  I can say in our area, scouts don't get any education about them but they probably should start. 

17 hours ago, skeptic said:

I am not a watcher per se, though do take note on occasion.  Our local paper just had an article last weekend about the changes in bird migrations and related things that appear related to the climate issues.  Most noted was the moving of boundaries from the past, with many birds going farther north than in the past periods.  

 

Yes, it's really interesting to look at. There is a lot of ongoing research, there is a lot of viewable citizen science you can access on things like eBird, and it is also easy to notice things locally on your own. First of spring arrival and nesting dates are being recorded earlier and earlier for many species. Where I am, American woodcock arrivals and breeding displays used to be an early March to April event and are now more of a late February to mid March thing. We'd see them commonly at one camp out that traditionally occurs late March. Now, if I want to see them in any number there, I have to visit by early March. Black vultures, more of a southerly species, used to be uncommon here but are now so common they seem to be pushing out the native turkey vultures.  

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

Demeaning and bullying is inferring that the many who have not heard of the term are somehow less or old or uneducated or an isolated religious sect.  You can discuss the term without being mean.   ... That's me being an upstander. 

The term was rarely used in society before the last few years.   I've taken years of classes thru business, college and post-graduate work.  My kids just graduated a major school system a few years ago.  I am very well educated.  ...  The fact is the term was rarely used until recently.  It's why I strongly assert it's strongly connected with a political agenda.  

 

Those embellishments are your own, not mine. I made what I think is an accurate statement and I was actually trying to couch it so as to not offend. Talk to a cross section of school age kids and parents. Some of the things people argue the existence of on this forum are very hard to process, and this is just the latest that has left me blank. 

16 minutes ago, MikeS72 said:

Had I not spent 2/3 of my life in the public school system CiS may well have been the first I heard it used as well.  Due to many years in elementary, middle school, and high schools it is a term that I am very familiar with and use often.

I often think the reactions of some of the scouters on this site to certain things might be due to the fact that they perhaps no longer have younger kids involved in a public school district themselves. Or, if they do, their involvement may be limited to a more insular community like a scouts/church continuum. Some simply may not be exposed to things that seem very commonplace or mainstream to others. 

5 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

We have been keeping a list, since 01 Jan, of the different species we have seen in our yard so far this year.  We are up to 30. 

The Tufted Titmouse has been notably missing from our feeding stations this winter.  They have been quite plentiful in the past.  Our birding neighbors have noticed the same.  

Their absence is a mystery.

Anyone else seeing a decline of these?

Post script: Appears West Nile Virus may be one factor:  https://www.rappnews.com/wildideas/wild-ideas-disappearing-birds-are-we-once-again-facing-a-silent-spring/article_e5bb42b6-0254-11ea-9624-db770acf0ef4.html

Good article.  I too went from having dozens in the yard to zero. I did see some last year and a few so far this year, so regionally there may be rebound. You can search eBird for your state to keep track. Disease events are somewhat normal, and ideally a species should be numerous enough to rebound. As the article notes, though, so many species are in serious decline from the cumulative effects of habitat loss, human interference, etc., that it's a bit concerning. Not sure where it will wind up.  Last year, I had very few warblers despite normally having large flights of multiple species. I tell kids to get out now and see some of these things, like the linked American woodcock, while they are still relatively common. In the future, they may not be as easy to see.  The Bird Study MB is the most accessible of all the outdoors badges -- while binoculars are nice, scouts can study birds for free almost anywhere and almost any time, even at night, and can even do so with limited mobility. 

Winter birding highlights are over in my neck of the woods, but spring migration brings plenty to look at, even at night: 

Birdcast went live March 1 for the spring migration season. As noted in a fall post, it uses radar to track what is flying overhead at night and what kind of local fall out might occur in the morning. A good forecast, combined with full moon and clear skies, means scouts can birdwatch after sundown: Binoculars trained on the moon can see silhouettes of hundreds to thousands of songbirds migrating in night skies.  

https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/

American woodcock have made an appearance at most of our March campouts over the years, and have often peaked interest in the Bird Study MB thanks to their breeding displays and behavior. Another species that can be studied at night, this is a link to a current migration and population research project:

https://www.woodcockmigration.org/

Sandhill Cranes are rare in many places but elsewhere in the country they stage north in huge numbers -- a sight to see. This 24 hour live cam at Rowe tracks them now through April: 

https://explore.org/livecams/birds/crane-camera

3 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Well, @Jameson76, that is because, statistically speaking, men abuse more  than women, right?

NO!  

https://www.statista.com/statistics/418470/number-of-perpetrators-in-child-abuse-cases-in-the-us-by-sex/

https://scholarworks.gvsu.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1825&context=honorsprojects

https://www.statista.com/statistics/254893/child-abuse-in-the-us-by-perpetrator-relationship/

But, they are more likely to sexually abuse...

https://www.rainn.org/statistics/children-and-teens#:~:text=In 88% of the sexual,%2C and 3% are unknown.

Those percentages are a function of the fact that more children are cared for by women with, in many cases the fathers absent or marginally present, and how laws don't extend any culpability to fathers. The study you posted here elucidates that on page 10. When a pregnant woman abuses drugs and is charged with child abuse, the state doesn't also charge the father who may have not only taken the drugs with her but may have even supplied them.