yknot

This is what people like me who are active in other organizations have been saying for years. The processes elsewhere are generally seamless, convenient, efficient, and easy. And cheaper. When we attempt to recruit people from outside scouting to the organization, they encounter this morass and are incredulous. Many folks who have been involved in scouting for years are in essence boiled frogs. They accept an incomprehensible situation as acceptable. Those that don't accept it and try to change it are blocked, silenced, tossed out, given some pap about how we're all volunteers and the answer is to volunteer yet more for this crazy universe, or dismissed as anti scout cranks. I too hope BSA will reorganize in a way that will allow it to reach a modern level of basic administrative competency.

That's good news and is exactly what might be a relevant federal role in this situation. May not be able to save boy scouts, but many of these properties are worthy of preservation, especially anywhere on the east coast. While on the one hand I want to see survivors optimally compensated, on the other hand individual communities and states cannot afford to lose some of these as yet undeveloped legacy properties. The pressure on local, county, state, and federal parkland and wildlands is extreme and the pandemic accentuated that. More acreage and access is needed.

I have no wish to rehash these same topics that have been repeatedly and definitively discussed in other threads as you note. I would refer to them if I could find them. But I think anytime someone tries to claim that children have been safer in scouting the basic irrationality of that should be noted. The fact that we are in this thread talking about Chapter 11 is one of the more relevant and factual aspects of that reality.

You're entitled to your opinion but it's not based on facts. There have been similar claims made here that scouting is somehow safer than other youth organizations and repeatedly that has been debunked. One of the largest youth organizations in the US is 4-H but if you google sex abuse claims and 4-H you come up with very few cases. There are unique characteristics in scouting that have made it more prone to infiltration by predators. This was recognized by organized scouting as far back as the 1920s; before we had the ineligible volunteer files they were called the red files. Scouting has done a lot to clean up its act in the past few years which is good but no one should think kids are somehow safer in a tent on a scout campout than they are in the middle of a public ballfield in daylight with multiple kids, parents, coaches and spectators watching. That defies logic.

Reality does not support your opinion. Youth were particularly at risk in scouting for reasons similar to the Catholic church. The person BSA hired to oversee youth protection also said youth in scouts were particularly at risk because of the nature of the program. Failing to comprehend those risks only condemns us to repeat them.

I have issues with some of the inanities of the diversity/equity movement but for the most part there are a lot of people in scouting who are still in the dinosaur age. They are in our units, they are all over facebook and reddit and on some of the scout sites. I think the badge will be just fine and is a good thing in general. I have been in a mixed progressive/conservative council in a very blue state and the stuff that people say around here still curls the eyebrow hairs. I can't imagine what it's like elsewhere.

That's some good news. At least it will be preserved. One of the important lessons of the pandemic is that we don't have enough public spaces available, even in pretty rural and undeveloped areas.

I don't think it is as simple as people who want it vs. people who don't. The pandemic was really hard for a lot of people. Just dealing with the random stop/start of quarantining out of work or having kids quarantining or losing family members who helped with child care was and still is hard to manage.

When were these built? Who is your incident report going to? If it were me I would cc NCAP and the municipality where the camp is located. I would wonder whether those structures are up to current code. Also, municipal policies for youth events within township borders might supercede BSA camp policies. Regulations for municipal youth sports facilities, for example, can be pretty stringent and enforced. You don't see many teams stuck in dugouts during weather events. It's not ideal to draw attention from a government source but in cases where the judgement of BSA leadership can't be trusted -- and we all know nothing much will happen if your report is solely internal -- then the priority becomes ensuring the safety of future scouts.

Yes, the more hermetically sealed our lives become the less we seem to have basic common sense. Regarding your mother, when I was scout age I read a book on weather that focused on lightning phenomenon like the one your mother experienced. It made a big impression.

Sorry to hear that.

That does complicate things. We have a few campgrounds close to bases but they do sometimes (sometimes) send out alerts to the public before firing off anything big. There is also a National refuge near us that is a popular hiking spot. On one side it is bordered by a fireworks manufacturer and they routinely test. Also alarming, lol.

This kind of nonsense is a part of why we left scouts. There is just no consistent baseline of outdoors commonsense in scouting. Years ago I don't remember it being such an issue. My personal, anecdotal belief is that more people in years past, even suburban people, grew up with more outdoor experience and understood the consequences of foolhardiness. Now, people do not have that background noise to inform their decisions and they do really questionable things. It's like talking to a wall to try and address this stuff. I haven't been killed by lightning thank God, but I've had three close calls with it. They were life altering enough that I take weather events very seriously. I've learned forget the phone apps, weather can break over your head so look up rather than down at your phone. I've learned that lightning can literally strike out of the blue even if you are just hearing rumbling in the distance. I've learned you can get knocked off your feet if you are touching the wrong thing or standing in the wrong place. I don't know why anyone would treat volatile weather with anything other than extreme caution.

I have to admit I've been struggling to follow this discussion, but I think the point that is coming through is that since a CO owns the unit it can pretty much set membership however it wants. It might not be in its interest to do so, but that doesn't necessarily mean that it can't. There is history of COs establishing scouting units as a way to build membership in their particular church -- requiring church membership of anyone who is a member of the unit. That has undeniably happened. I don't think it's common -- most of the COs I deal with sponsor scout units as community service outreach much the same way they host AA meetings or what have you -- but it does happen. This discussion has been focused on religion but there are multiple units that have turned down girls or special needs scouts or scouts with severe allergies because they don't think they can accommodate them.

LOL OK I think I parsed out that it is some kind of reimbursement for their legal expenses or some other kind of expense. Interesting.

How is that even possible ?

Except who other than us is paying any attention at all? Scouters have been told to keep their heads down and focus on their local units. So many are doing so.

I don't know if this is "fun" but a lot of young or new scouts and even adults are hesitant to camp because of fears and worries. Fewer parents are coming to scouting with much previous exposure to the outdoors so it is all new to them as well and harder for them to reassure younger scouts. Good prep covers some of these areas and normalizes them. Bathroom issues are what they are but you can do what you can to dispel concerns. Personal night lights -- cheap battery votive candles or mini led light strings give kids some sense of control. It's something unobtrusive they can leave on all night if they need to unlike a flashlight or lantern. A lot of people are freaked the first time they hear a fox shriek or an owl hoot. There are plenty of apps where you can play a guess who game. One camp out I heard three different owls call. I thought I was the only one who noticed. I got a huge kick out of the cubs who came up to me in the morning to tell me they also heard them. Bear Aware is a big deal by us. In general, most kids find animals interesting so don't just cover the scary do's and don'ts, talk about bears and how cool and smart they are. We had a state BEAR educator come to one of our meetings and she had some fun handouts.

Yup. Many of the countries we try to compete with in mathmatics and science place a much higher value on treating children like children and letting them explore and learn. We keep trying to turn it into a trendy new expensive curriculum program or advancement process.

It's a great approach but it's counter culture in a lot of units.

So true. Unfortunately there are a lot of units that have a very advancement focused, regimented culture. If you can't find time for a hike, or a couple of hikes, or for just checking out the stream or some flashlight games, something is wrong. The other thing I hate is when it becomes tailgating in the woods and no one can leave the campsite because food is the entire focus. I don't mind an occaisional camp out dedicated to cooking involved meals, or a signature fun meal or snack, but I also think if you are toting multiple coolers and apparatus into the woods every weekend you are missing out on the woods.

In the midst of all this sadness over bankruptcy, youth abuse, and now the Ukraine, I have had a joy filled moment almost every day this week sighting a Bald Eagle in different locations all around my state of domicile. It is such a kick to see them back in such numbers to the point that what was once a rare bird is now a near daily occurence.... And it's not the same bird -- It's adults hunting to feed mates and newly hatched chicks from four active nests and now a fifth nest I've just discovered. Or juveniles from last year's nests, which can be so easy to dismiss as another turkey vulture in a kettle until you note that straight-as-a-board wing span, apparently hanging around near mom and dad or maybe flying through to parts unknown. I know the apparently extinct Ivory Billed Woodpecker was called the Lord God Bird because it was so big and so stunning, but for me, that's what I think every time I see an Eagle. No matter what happens with scouting, I hope we're always able to get kids excited and full of wonder about seeing creatures like this in the wild.

Hopefully one of the partners involved -- trust, municipality, Senator's office -- will conduct an independent environmental assessment of the site as part of the appraisal process. In fact, an extension could be negotiated to allow more time for that to take place. It would be of benefit to any potential purchaser because previously unknown environmental site constraints can be uncovered or better delineated ahead of time instead of after the fact as frequently happens. Such information can have a downward effect on any projected appraisal prices. Generally such properties are bought without a lot of specific information that is only uncovered as the development process unfolds. Once you start trying to develop a site plan, a developer suddenly discovers portions of the tract that cannot be developed due to wetlands, slopes, endangered species habitat, additional permits that are required that may be difficult to attain. It sounds like they have investigated some of it but there is likely more.

Not unique? No other youth or young adult organization at the time was selling itself to the American public as a bastion of moral standards and therefore safety. Not 4-H. Not YMCA. Not Little League. Boy scouts marketed its oath and law to boys and parents to convince them they were joining an organization where people adhered to higher ideals and implied their kids would be safe. I don't fault Scouts for having a problem with youth abuse and not being sure what to do about it in individual cases. I do fault them for continuing to cloak themselves in a dishonest false morality and continuing with business as usual when these cases began to pile up. The leaders knew there was a problem then, later, and now. The "red files" as they were first called in the 1920s or so, and then later the IV files, and now the more popularly labeled "perversion" files, are the irrefutable proof.

The big question is if you were Scouts, even in those early days, how could you countenance this. Scouting made a unique promise to youth, parents, and the American public via the Scout oath and law. BSA and no one else created the illusion that scouting was an environment where such things as truth, compassion and honor reigned. We know, with the creation of the then "red files", that BSA knew this was a unique problem within its organization. Whatever the social excuses might have been at any time during this sad history, there were no scouting excuses that applied to it.