yknot

Scouts should be aged out based on calendar year not actual birth date. Most other youth organizations do this. So you can either remain as an 18 year old until Jan. 1 or June 1 or some other such cut off. The other way to do it is to create another youth membership tier. I have never understtood why scouting cut youth off at 18. It encourages them to leave prematurely. Plenty of scouts would continue to participate with their home unit, even if minimally, during college breaks if there was a way for them to do so until age 21. It has also become increasingly common for boys to be held back a year. Unlike sports, there is no real physical advantage to allowing a slight older youth to continue in scouting beyond their 18th birthday.

Exactly. Does camping with unrelated male adults in remote locations in a program that requires youth/adult interaction and limits parental involvement increase the risk of predation significantly? That's one of the questions.

This is one of those areas where I think National could have had a positive effect. It has set standards, but to my knowledge has not helped council level camps leverage their properties for optimal usage and revenue. The successful scout camps in my area operate like any other commercial camp catering to working parents during the summer. They offer family friendly programming and services, such as full week camp, camp wrap (meaning, your kid can come early and stay late), busing, bring a non scout buddy, multi week/multi sibling discounts, etc., etc. Camps that are not doing this are going to have a harder time surviving.

4-H is older than scouting and every year has enrolled substantially more youth than scouting. I think when scouting was at 2.2 million, they were at 4 million. It involves youth in many of the same activities, but the program aspects of how they are administered are different than scouting. We've discussed this before in this forum, but if you google 4H lawsuits for child abuse you come up with very few. It does not appear to be as much of an issue despite the higher visiblity of CSA cases over the past couple decades. Or don't rely on google. Just recall how many headlines you've seen in your state over the past 10 years concerning scout leaders, religious leaders, and teachers vs. 4H leaders. Girl Scouts is about a 100 years old as well. If you google for lawsuits again you come up with comparatively few. It's interesting to note that cases that do appear generally identify a male abuser. This is one of the major differences between scouting and other youth organizations. The most generally accepted statistic is that 88% of perpetrators of child sexual abuse of both girl and boy victims are male. Other organizations traditionally have been open to more adult female involvement than Boy Scouting. which may or may not have an impact on the number of incidences. There is a lot we don't know about CSA.

I think it needs to be strong enough to counter the pervasive membership marketing messages of higher morality and character values that lulls parents into thinking their children are safe, or at least safer, in scouting. What exists now speaks about abuse in a general sense. The phrase that abuse occurs "even in scouting" subliminally furthers that false perception that scouting is somehow safer than anywhere else. The truth is we have no idea, yet BSA has marketed itself that way for decades despite knowing it had a problem from at least the 1920s.

This isn't full disclosure nor is it a real waiver. It says nothing about the unique risks involved in scouting nor does it mention anything about scouting's past experiences with child sexual abuse. If you take a drug, it outlines side effects. If you enage in a physical activity, it spells out physical injury or death. If you buy a ticket to certain entertainment venues, it will warn that bright flashing lights can precipitate seizures.

vol_scouter we have repeatedly on this forum debunked the numbers you are using. There is no correlary. There is no apples to apples. For example, any study of school children includes girls, who are abused at four times the rate as boys... in some studies. But the reality is we don't really know much about child sexual abuse. What we do know is that scouting has a problem. What we do know is that it is BSA that is facing bankruptcy. What we do know is that it is BSA that is facing 82,000 claims. Trying to deflect with completely unverifiable statistics elsewhere has no bearing on anything.

Why? Other than the Catholic Church, they are not subject to hundreds of lawsuits and a nationwide bankruptcy case. In the public arena, Boys Scouts is the organization with the problem. And I would argue there are unique risks in scouting. 1) It aggressively uses morality as part of its marketing to help entice membership and 2) there is no other organization where the main part of its program is having unrelated adults take children into remote locations out of the public view for multi night stays. It is a program designed to appeal to predators.

There is no waiver or disclosure however that discusses the unique risks in scouting. There is nothing that says despite the highly promoted scout oath and law we still have scouters who are not trustworthy, etc. Other organizations do not make any such promises or promote themselves as moral organizations.

As a follow up to my own post, I think one thing I've noticed is that some of us have been here for years following this issue. When new folks come, even if they've been lurking, it seems like we keep going down rabbit holes covering some of the same ground over and over as they get up to speed. I wonder if it would help if we developed a recap post that could not just welcome folks but lay out ground rules and hit the highlights of where we are at?

I don't think so. I think most of us are reading absolutely everything. What gets hard is trying to go back and find something buried pages and pages deep. But we have some folks who seem to have their fingers on that and are willing to help when someone needs it. I think the question to me is are the moderators finding this onerous? If so, how can we make your jobs easier?

That's my point. They won't be there.

It will be kind of moot because if these community organizations and churches have any exposure, there won't be any facilities to use. Most of them don't have any assets other than property.

The two sites are separate though, right? He could have seen the beta for the reorg and then it's possible people were filing claims elsewhere on some of the aforementioned attorney sites. I don't think it supports the conspiracy theory just how Gilwell could have some kind of legitimate memory about what he thinks happened.

I understand but they are often not built on the domain. Oftentimes you don't yet own the domain, so you canlt build it there. You build it elsewhere and then move it once you have the domain. Not trying to defend just pointing out it is very possible he could have seen SOMETHING in 2019 even if it wasn't actually live.

I can't comment on any of the rest of this, it seems farfetched, but what Gilwell describes regarding web site launches is pretty standard. Those sites are often built months ahead oftentimes by subcontractors who are directed by an IT department. Anyone could have been given the link to a beta site and if it looked official wouldn't have known the difference.

BSA operates like a cult, not like any kind of recognizable corporate entity. It has its own rules and seems to rely on blind discipleship. There are a lot of good people involved but the overall structure itself is a dysfunctional alternate reality.

Just received another update from local UMC state council with an even more strongly worded recommendation not to recharter. Any agreements, including facilities usage, should only lbe effective through Dec. 31. That last clarification seems to be new.

Let's hope it survives the next 100. Did you see this in Washington Post? In case there is a paywall, article basically outlines how the trail has been swamped during the pandemic. Unlike national parks that at least have paid rangers and can in some cases limit access to timed entry reservations, the AT cannot do that. https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/08/22/appalachian-trail-crowds-roller-coaster-hikers/ Units here have traditionally hiked parts of the AT every year but the number of oddballs on the trail recently in addition to sheer numbers is making it problematic. This is also occuring on other popular local trail systems and in parks and campgrounds that have traditionally been pretty accessible and safe. Great to see folks enjying the outdoors. Not so great to simply seeing the living room party mentality moved outdoors.

Most of the people signing agreements today wouldn't have access to those older documents. For anyone signing post 1976, most would just assume the same coverage had been in force. I don't think it's necessarily that they were morons or misunderstood. Isn't there some negligence, again, on the part of BSA if they knew they had an abuse problem and didn't keep COs informed before signing agreements so that they could make an informed decision on whether to recharter?

No worries I've seen your posts and I know how you feel. I'm just saying I think BSA seems like it is increasingly headed in this direction. I don't know what to think about it. Some scouting is better than no scouting but I do fear it might eventually be unrecognizable.

Great to see former scout camps still serving conservation and outdoors related experiences and education. My hope is that many of the camps that will be sold through the bankruptcy can still be preserved as much as possible as open space.

I have sometimes wondered if one of National's possible survival strategies is to mostly give up on local scouting and COs. Almost all of its liabiity problems have come from the CO and unit level. There is a reason why local scouters and national and council scouters don't seem to be speaking the same language: they have almost completely different goals and purposes. If BSA were concerned about local scouting, it would have given up at least one HA base and tried to find a strategy to help functional councils keep functional camps. Problems with Youth Protection implementation make it clear it can't effectively manage units and COs. It also can't effectively manage the social differences required by religious based COs. BSA has repeatedly emphasized family scouting, which is much more managable in every sense. BSA may simply be seeking to maintain a national profile with family destinations and programming at its four HA bases. If any Councils can manage to hang on post bankruptcy, that will be gravy. BSA may literally not care that much about whether COs participate or not.

I think some councils that are selling camp properties are loathe to spell that out until the last minute especially in councils where the camps are all well utilized. They will want to wait to reveal that after it is pretty much a fait accomplit.

What happens to the BSA restructuring plan if it starts to become clear in the next month that 700,000 scouts in 2021 will go far south of that in 2022? I think that's what you are alluding to?