yknot

They do love food but a lot of places will not allow you to have food. We can't have food items in any of our meeting locations -- we use a couple churches and a couple schools -- except a park campfire ring. Also, trying to do snacks in units with a lot of food issues is getting difficult.

I think this is part of the scouting mindset problem that could use an update. Kids today do not need to spend hours in meetings to organize anything. They can do almost everything via text, email or online. This is how they pretty much organize school projects and most everything else in their lives now. They can collect money via Venmo or whatever. Meetings have become too much talking and ceremony and it's still not enjoyable even if it's outside around a campfire.

No. Every time new folks join the forum there is a lot of ground to cover and it's easier to just ask folks to go back and review the discussions. There is a recap section in Issues and Politics that has a good starting list of everything that can be reviewed. It says Read This First.

I just watched it. I think it's very effective from the standpoint of presenting the case to the public that BSA has covered up the child abuse scandal and that its corporate culture really hasn't changed. At one point towards the end of the documentary the National Director says the bankruptcy is about compensation for victims, and not about the BSA doing anything much different going forward. In his mind, they've already addressed most of the issues although he later says they will always look to improve. But for those of us hoping there would be some kind of meaningful reorganization, that apparently is not the corporate BSA view or goal. The documentary takes a very quiet, measured, reflective approach to the topic, and it looks at systemic dysfunction within BSA as a whole, not just the abuse scandal. It doesn't come across at all sensationalized to me. The whole film has a very weary, sad feel to it that's very evocative. I have no idea how much attention it will get on Hulu but I think it's going to raise a lot of questions for the average person who views it.

If it were 20 years ago, I would agree but he's kind of too old school now. He has also made some statements over the past few years that are pretty out of sync with what scouting's bankruptcy realities are. I think it needs to be some younger people with an idea of what challenges current families face, preferably from some different demographics like minorities and women, and maybe even from outside scouting. I could be wrong about Bear Grylls, but I don't think he was ever even a scout when he was a kid for example. Social media is the most likely place to look for useful personalities today, not TV. I would start with reviewing some of the people who have youtube channels or frequently post on facebook pages. I'd also look for some scouts who have made it in sports or other fields.

Of note is that Ron Howard also was an executive producer of the recent Hulu series Under the Banner of Heaven about the Mormon church. I recently watched it and was struck by some of the parallels with how the showrunners constructed the insular nature of the Mormon church in dealing with the depicted abuse against women and gender attitudes, and how BSA dealt with the child abuse scandal, likely during the same time frame. I don't know if anyone else watched it but there was a disturbing scene where two abused women are at a gas station screaming for help and they are ignored by all the men present, including a boy scout troop.

I feel for the survivors who have had to relieve their worst memories but the price of "leaving it alone" would have meant a future legacy of yet more destroyed children. BSA only began to confront this when it was put face to face with the nightmares that happened on its watch.

Some of it seems good but some of it seems concerning. Federal lands are already overrun in a lot of places. Not sure allowing more unpermitted usage even by smaller groups is such a good idea. Also given what I've seen of "capital improvements" they are too often connected to concession operations.

I would have appreciated a way to get my aunt's shotgun away from her before she started pointing it at me from her bedroom door.

I think it's kind of pointless to fight with the school district if they don't want to provide access. It probably has more to do with parent complaints than anything else. Just look for other venues. We were blocked from public schools but had good luck at private schools and getting connected with the local home school community. We also have excellent relationships with local sports leagues and do some cross recruitment there. Which is why I think the anti sports mentality so frequently encountered in BSA is counterproductive.

Yes, worth their time, appealing and impactful. Today kids are asked to do civic service everywhere and for everything and the opportuniaties can be a lot more... rewarding? Unified is huge as are high school envirionmental and service clubs. Even the sports teams are doing service projects. The stuff they can do is a lot more interesting and meaningful depending on the unit. They aren't that enthused about spending four hours parking cars at a fair or manning a booth or burning flags yet a lot of units seems to persist in these traditional service projects.

Districts around here don't allow anyone to send home materials or enter the school to recruit members. However, at the pack level we were allowed to hold den meetings after school in empty classrooms. When we had leaders who could do that, it was the best recruitment possible. Scouts were interacting with the school community, visibly doing service projects and having fun. The leadership mix has changed and now most den meetings are on the weekends and our relationship with the schools and recruitment levels have deteriorated.

The only appropriate role for BSA is gun safety and education. Having attended two funerals over the years of young boys in scouting who killed themselves with a firearm kept in the home, supposedly secured, there may be further information to be shared with scouting families in particular about the connection between access to firearms and youth suicide. There are numerous studies that link home access to higher rates.

I think the scouting program has moved too far away from outdoors and I don't think it does a good job of teaching leadership. The organization has promoted almost all its leadership from within for decades and BSA has been marked by extremely poor leadership. I think the thing about civic participation that I see is that scouts today are less likely to do things "just because" or due to tradition. It has to be something that appeals specfically to them. We seem to get good support for food and blood drives that have an actual impact. Few seem to want to do flag retirements, ceremonies, parades, etc., any more. We get good turnout at events where they are doing something more than just parking assistance, etc., like stream clean ups, trail clean ups, etc.

It's sad. I will say real estate evaluations for camp properties which are often unique are simply speculative until you have a buyer willing to part with money.

That is sadly too common. People donate land to scouts thinking it will remain in use and then it's sold. Where I am there are multiple scouting properties that have been lost, most developed. Thankfully there are some that became part of a parks system or held by a land trust. Schiff Reservation is one of them thankfully. It was appalling when BSA sold that. It's still nice to go there and see the old scout structures and think about old Mr. Hillcourt and what he represented in scouting. It was neighbors and a community that saved it. Hopefully some of these camp properties will be preserved.

Membership numbers as of March were down substantially according to the bankruptcy plan. I would guess some councils are using the bankruptcy to downsize. I just wish there was some kind of long term planning being done on the part of some of these councils to preserve the properties as parks/open space with continued public/scout access. It's painful to see these properties eyed for development like the one in Connecticut.

I don't understand why you are considering attending this as described. The process you are outlining seems highly inappropriate. I would stipulate what you and your scouts need the process to be in order to be comfortable with confidentiality and possible exposure to yet more bullying or berating behavior on the part of the SM/ASM. There is no need for all troop members to be present, nor for your scouts to have to confront the SM who bullied them. If those changes can't accommodated by tonight, then say it needs to be postponed. I would feel free to request whoever else you want in the room and for what portions. I would only do this though if you are committed to remaining in that troop. I think the advice elsewhere to leave was good.

How does one message the moderator team?

I think you should stop posting because if anyone from the mainstream world visits this forum and reads posts like yours claiming that neuroticism is why women aren't in leadership positions... that is very far outside the mainstream and is really terribly offensive. Again, where are our moderators? Are these fringe views acceptable and defensible?

The Bureau of Labor statistics fact sheet clearly states it does not include any infectious event not linked to an injury. That is not the same as saying that no one is at risk of dying, which I think we both clearly agree is a high risk event. The thing about the health care profession though is that infectious disease events are not outliers, they are inherent to the work. The type of fatality risk might be different for some professions -- falling out of tree for a logger for example vs. contracting a fatal disease for a doctor or nurse during periodic outbreaks -- but the types of individuals who choose to work in these fields both have a high threshhold for risk acceptance. However, healthcare is somehow viewed as a low risk, nurturing profession mainly because many women pursue it. When people use those kinds of false perceptions to buttress claims that women prefer menu planning and eschew action and adventure, or when they claim that women are incapable of holding leadership positions because they exhibit more neuroticism than men as was recently, and unbelievably, posted as evidence by Inquisitive Scouter, I think they need to be called out on it loudly. If you find that incomprehensible, I can only say you're going to have an interesting ride going forward in scouting as the numbers of girls and women in it increase.

Since I seem to be one of the ones speaking up for women this week, I would say don't make the usual BSA mistake of only looking backwards. The future of scouting, if it survives, is going to include a lot more girls and women. And since females are sexually abused at a rate 5x that of males, at least according to universally available historical data so far, this is going to have to be a youth protection area of interest for BSA going forward. If the YPC is going to do any good, it has to be looking forward as well as taking instructive lessons from the past.

Wow... Those were a couple examples for illustrative purposes. As far as Covid, I didn't think you'd dismiss the thousands of health care workers, from physicians to nurses to aides, who have died in the past few years from Covid, far eclipsing fatalities in any other profession. Infection doesn't count in your book? That doesn't qualify as bravery or a high risk profession? Wow. Those were not people who got infected and just got sick... Those are people who died. Google yourself how many. You won't believe what I post anyway.

https://www.nbcnews.com/think/opinion/hospitals-health-care-workers-face-inordinate-violence-they-need-our-ncna1286705 My friend's sister is an epidemiologist who accepted the Nobel Peace Prize for Doctors Without Borders. More than 75% of their workforce is female. Infection is not their prime risk concern when working in regions of conflict.

No, but as Moderator you are defending the comments of someone who essentially did. You tell me how else to read that comment and now some of yours. Maybe show some of the things that have been posted here to some random women, maybe even outside your immediate orbit, and see what their reactions are. I'd be curious to hear. Personally, I've got a houseful of livid people here. Maybe tell some of your girl scouts that the reason they can't be in mixed gender troops is because they like to menu plan too much. See how your Twitter feed blows up.