yknot

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 snow or sleet. When you have to be stationary, make sure you have a windbreak. Check out feed and farm stores for working cold weather gear. They are generally cheaper than places like REI or the scout shops and the stuff is often better quality than what you will find at Walmart. I know I just said I was allergic to wool but my favorite ground cover when I did camp was an old school old wool blanke roll. Easier to deal with than the foam pads and a lot warmer.

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 effective and economical, is needed.

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 we'd do a lot better financially if local units could fundraise from local sponsors. Frankly, I think council camps would be a lot healthier if they were overseen by a larger entity that was able to negotiate central purchasing discounts and maintenance contracts, etc., etc.

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 across the board, with tragic results. A new organizational model is needed where "someone" takes clear responsibility for the quality of program delivery, including youth safety, from the top down. BSA can no longer operate local units like farm teams. 2) Desperate need for volunteers. Many councils, districts and units are so desperate for bodies they give the benefit of the doubt to questionable adult volunteers because there is no one else stepping up. The volunteer heavy lifting needs to be made less daunting. 3) Membership numbers can no longer drive the vision of the organization because it creates an inherent conflict of interest. This has concerned me greatly in the UMC agreement going forward because it is just more of the same. 4) De-emphasis of religion in the program. Fine to encourage good character development and spirituality but allowing religious organizations to create programs within a program like LDS have been a disaster in my opinion. Scouting was never a psuedo youth ministry program. An overemphasis on religion only gives more cover to those who would exploit it to gain access to youth. 5) Independent auditor and review process to collect data and adapt program in real time. 6) Robust adminstrative and online capabilities. The double work, inefficiency, antiquity, and inaccuracy of almost all of BSA's management systems is a contributor to many youth protection problems past and present. BSA is a very old fashioned organization. It seems pretty clear going forward that effective youth protection -- the kind where we can all sleep at night and still feel comfortable being connected to this organization -- needs to be a lot more organic and holistic. I'd like to say it should also include a data collection, feedback, and follow up loop, but at this point, I don't think we have that kind of time. We can't afford too many more mistakes.

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 mismanaged organization that blindly and maybe arrogantly dismissed risks and so unwittingly aided and abetted perpetrators. I'm not sure scouting has done better than other organizations. As I've pointed out multiple times, 4-H doesn't have this problem. Third, BSA somehow for a long time did not comprehend or face the fact that it was providing the perfect petri dish for predators. It was and is an organization frequently recommended for at risk youths or those lacking a paternal presence. It allowed unrelated men to take young boys overnight to remote locations in the woods out of the public view. This is something that Michael Johnson, the departed Youth Protection director, repeatedly pointed out. Scouting does do a lot of positive things but unless the organization really restructures so that it can ensure proper supervision down to the unit level where most of the adult/youth interaction occurs it really shouldn't be trusted with children. BSA to me is wasting far too much energy trying to hang on to the status quo or tinkering with window dressing details instead of really deeply examining how it needs to be in order to continue providing scouting in the years ahead.

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

If they have any kind of historic designation you can't tear them down. But frankly they have a lot of appeal to businesses like architects, art galleries, breweries that want the cachet of an unusual or landmark building. It's just changing demographics. Part of my family lives in the south and megachurches have taken over the landscape. They are almost like small cities and offer everything from coffee shops to gyms and summer camps along with services. These little rural churches can't compete with that. It's kind of analogous to scouting.

These two portions of that statement concern me. First, publicly crowing about how the UMC was able to negotiate a minimum liability contribution doesn't seem smart. Second, raising funds for the Trust seems like a conflict of interest. The drive to increase membership is why BSA so often turned a blind eye to chartering org and other oversight shortcomings. This puts the UMC in the same position of having to "sell" scouting.

In my area there are a number of fading rural and semi rural congregations, most of them UMC, that I expect might/will be consolidated, closed, and the parsonages and churches sold off. Many of these properties are very valuable and there are a number of old historic church buildings in my area that have already been converted into homes and businesses. In some cases this is ideal because the new owners are better caretakers of these historic structures than the failing congregations that can't afford to replace roofs or do other repairs. However, like scouts, it is very sad to see these community fixtures disappear.

We assigned each rank a pack meeting and pack admin/leaders did the rest.

In multiple places, it is stated that lapsed units lose their BSA insurance until their paperwork is completed. After two months, it becomes a dropped unit and I believe you lose your unit number. The exception might be UMC units who have negotiated a March extension which is likely memorialized in formal documents. If we have learned anything from this bankruptcy process, it's not to take anything on good faith unless you have it in writing. We also know that councils often have incomplete, out of date, or wrong information. The suggestion to put it back on the CO to make the judgement call is not a bad one however they have already in essence told you that they don't want to "own" you or even agreed to your facilities agreement.

If your charter is expired and nonexistent you should not be running program. That has been standing BSA policy. The UMC has an agreement with BSA to extend its disputed charters to March. I do not think the Catholic Church has any such agreement. In one sense, negligence can already be assumed if the unit leadership is aware it is not chartered and yet is continuing to run program. It just seems like you are sticking your foot into a bucket of muck if anything happens. I'm not an attorney but this just seems common sense to me as sad as the situation is.

I don't think so. The current structure simply doesn't work and that's why there have been so many problems. Maybe a loose federation of independent local councils would result in the responsibility for oversight clearly residing in one place: the local level. The way it is now there are simply too many cracks in the floor for problems to fall into and no oversight or real consequences.

Trail cams and collection by photo or notebook sketch are great Leave No Trace/Outdoor Ethics ways to meet some of the requirements in some of these outdoor oriented merit badges or rank elements. There really is no reason to actually collect specimens from the wild, even insects. Unless they are invasives, like Lantern Flies, they all serve a purpose that should be respected as much as possible. The goal is learning and you can learn just as much by observing or taking a photo.