yknot

Whatever survivors want is what I support. As long as the YPT piece is also addressed.

Yes as in G2SS. I'm curious though how many COs allow even adults to do so. Ours doesn't. Chainsaws yes; wood chippers no. We do it at council camp properties simply because they have no idea but it's not allowed on any of their church properties or campgrounds where we do service projects. It's a huge liability risk.

The other thing I would suggest based on your other posts is for everyone involved in the unit to get the latest version of Guide to Safe Scouting and review it. It is available online. I think this is the latest version: https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/gss/toc/ A lot of the turmoil with Chartering Orgs is over liability issues. Make sure everything you are doing follows current BSA policy. A lot of things have changed, even in the past few years. You mentioned that you allow older scouts to chip wood using a wood chipper for a fundraiser, which is not allowed by BSA. Tho

This was recently reported. Not an SE, a DE, but it's still in the same dark category. https://www.newsweek.com/boy-scouts-executive-arrested-sexual-battery-molestation-charges-police-1669814 Earlier I had read through some of the abuse cases both in the media and in some of the letters. I had to stop because it was just too awful but these people did do the unimaginable. I think that's again yet another unique weakness in scouting. It attracts some of the most honorable people who can't even envision such things are possible . But that sadly only seemed to make it easier for the wo

Stay safe and prayers for the wellbeing of you, your family, community, and the parts of our country affected by this storm.

I'm not so sure about COs. Some, yes, but a lot of the historical church sponsors include plenty of failing congregations. What do you need assets for if you're about three warm bodies away from shutting the doors? Many churches and church councils have assets like parsonages, rental properties, and campgrounds of their own. As far as other COs, there are a number of Elks lodges by me, for example, that have picnic groves and recreational facilities. Not really essential to their operations and many rarely used in these different times. There are possibly more assets than are obvious.

You can do that. I've never had a problem with them getting so hot they burned through layers though. You don't put them in the fire but near it. You can stick them in an oversized oven mitt for more padding. Before central heating, this was common.

You don't warm them in the fire you put them on the edge. Pizza stones work great too.

I am also a thrasher but if I unzip my bag I get cold. I bought a cheap two person bag and stuck my unzipped low temp bag in it. Since I am a thrasher I do not trust water bottles but have used warmed rocks twisted up in a towel. They also last longer. Also, one of my jobs as a kid was barn nightwatchman. I spent a lot of time on hay and straw. It's itchy and dusty plus there are often a lot of dead things in it. I wouldn't use it for insulation unless you have a tarp over it

This is a lot of great advice and I can't add much. I have not camped out a whole lot in cold weather but I have had to be out in it for long stretches sometimes overnight. Pay attention to your feet. For hiking and warm weather I generally liked snug footwear but in cold weather some room, especially around the toes, keeps you warmer. I'm allergic to wool so I have had to go with fleece but since I will sweat in those I used sock liners as the first layer. I use glove liners as well. I like a hat with a visor because there is nothing worse than not being able to see where you are going in sno

That's my experience too. They will run an event that will get a handful of kids, sometimes more, but it's generally people who have already been recruited and are attending to get their free rocket or fishing pole or hot dog or whatever they are handing out. I don't want to come off as anti council because I know these are peoples' jobs we are talking about. However, the reality is that structure is built around a much higher membership level and it is also built around a dysfunctional structure that no longer works present day. Something different, something more efficient and more eff

I don't think that's at all usual. I've never seen cub pack recruitment done by a professional in the several councils I am familiar with around here. It's possible that professionals may run a council recruitment event in the spring or the fall but any significant cub recruitment is usually handled by the units around here. Council provides you with brochures and lawn signs. Frankly, I don't think that would be a good use of professional time because the relationships that drive recruitment at the cub level are local -- friends, friends' parents, school contacts, community involvement, etc.

Most of those tasks don't require a council. Summer camps could easily fall under some kind of regional oversight entity. Camporees to me have little to do with scouting. It's a bunch of people in a big field doing the opposite of leave no trace. The recruiting support we've gotten from council have been brochures and lawn signs. Those can easily be shipped out from a central location. I think we've gotten to the point where we have to look at what is really essential to keeping some form of scouting alive. We don't need scout stores. We don't need some of these council events. I think

I'm just not seeing the need for a council office.

You have apparently not met my council's administrative assistant who actually does run the council, not the SE.

I think a lot of BSA's Youth Protection program is just words on paper, because there is no real oversight and it is inconsistently applied. Yes, things have gotten better but there are still problems and BSA seems to take decades to adapt to emerging issues that should instead trigger immediate investigation and response. Some things off the top of my head, not necessarily in order, that need to be addressed in my opinion: 1) Lack of oversight of units by dysfunctional systems and structures. BSA knew for decades the CO model was problematic. It may work in places, but it doesn't work a

I think you are absolutely right. I have been saying similar things for years in multiple threads. I've had a very weird career but among other things I've worked in PR and news and organizational dynamics. This has mostly been self inflicted and is self perpetuated.

I don't know and it's been my greatest disappointment with the bankruptcy process. I thought finally the organization would be forced to look at hard truths and go in search of real data and reconfigure itself -- maybe even willingly if enough people in the organization still embodied scouting's principles. Instead we have... this.

I have a few reactions to this. First, I can't recall where this was posted but one of the things that reportedly came out of the 82,000 abuse claims is that many of the perpetrators were not identified in the IVFs. While it's true some of the cases in the IVFs may be unrelated to abuse, it also means they didn't capture a lot of the most egregious predators that have turned up in some of the lawsuits and claims. So I'm not sure that point serves well as a defense for BSA. Second, I don't think BSA was a purposeful predator. I think it's clear though that it was an incompetent and m

Birding is something you can from a window almost anywhere and is something she can do even if her life situation has changed. Some hospitals have bird feeders outside patient lounge areas. Cornell University in the states has some great online bird ID courses she should be able to access. There are some apps she can download to a phone to ID calls.

My experience with legal proceedings is that corporations, institutions. insurers, and lawyers are looking to offload liability all the time in any way that they can and with anything they can. If they can prove you neglected to have any necessary paperwork in place, it gives them a toehold to work through. And liability for scouters extends way beyond CSA.

Where are their eggs, lol?

I suppose it's not impossible that this is due to Covid. So many things are getting cancelled/postponed right now.

There are not a lot of outdoor oriented merit badges like Bird Study required for Eagle which I think is a shame. Camping is really the only one. Bird Study of all the outdoors badges is probably the easiest for any scout, urban or rural, to complete because bird study can occur anywhere. It would also be helpful if more people learned the ethics of bird watching because some of these vagrants and rarities are being pursued to the point of harassment.

I think a lot of us have been saying this for a very long time. This system is not producing leaders capable of dealing with what the times require