yknot

I want BSA to survive. Right now I don't trust it to. There are so many comments on this board and elsewhere that make me think that a reconstituted BSA would simply be the 2.0 version of what we have. If that happens, the next crisis is merely around the corner. The idea of making decisions now about scouting's future with the current leadership in place with no plan or road map that indicates any real internal analysis has taken place seems like history waiting to repeat itself. I was hopeful that bankruptcy would lead to a complete restructuring that would address some of the inherent dysfunction. It doesn't seem to be happening. The only new plan I've been hearing for post bankruptcy scouting is the same plan we've been hearing connected to the old one: increase membership.

I completely agree and have made many similar comments over the years. There is no defense for near zero communication from top leadership. All good leaders communicate. We needed a general but have gotten what feels like a car pool driver. A nice bland guy who will move us down the road instead of leading the way.

It was pretty awful. I kept waiting for the cat face filter to pop up.

Again, I'm sorry, but I am not reading this the same way you are. In 9 states the mandatory reporter is required to report directly to authorities first, not to an institutional head or resource, and in 17 states there is a variation of that. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/manda.pdf I think the Sandusky case showed the dangers of having indirect reporting and it seems like some of that has been tightened up.

A lot of the information in this seems to indicate differently. https://www.childwelfare.gov/pubPDFs/clergymandated.pdf

It may not be the way we want it to be but if it is the way it is, does it do any good to ignore it? You will never have a chance of influencing different behaviors if you can't even get them to knock on the door.

Yes that really is one of the best things that Qwazse has ever said. It is so profoundly true. Why, though, is scouting having such a hard time seeing this?

I'm not sure. I'm looking right at the bottom of the form and it says priest should never be advised to report abuse but that it should come from legal counsel. If I'm misreading that, by all means show me but it seems pretty clear.

This seems very ineffective. The policy you see it you report it seems to be the standard of the day.

We had one. No help, just hindrance. And a very, very strange guy to boot

I can't think of a single media occasion either in all the years I've been involved even going back well before pre bankruptcy days. Only time I remember to the membership was Surbaugh asking us to fill out surveys about opening up to girls and how whatever was decided would be implemented gradually. Then about three days later it was announced as already happening lol.

I meant what I said -- promoting from within hasn't produced great leaders for us. YMCA, on the other hand, whether he came from within or without, seems to have a good leader. YMCA has weathered its share of controversies over the years but seems better positioned than ever before. Can't say the same for BSA.

Agree. Most importantly, he appears to have provided commonsense leadership that allowed what seems like a very similar kind of organization to pivot and remain relevant and active through the pandemic. YMCA seems very well positioned to have a successful summer meeting its mission -- which is serving kids. Somebody like this at the helm could help BSA post bankruptcy. Promoting scouters from within is overrated in my opinion.

I'm not sure it's a secret. I think it was a conscious decision on the part of BSA not to address this because it would have resulted in a loss of membership. As far as LDS, I count that as one of BSA's leadership failures. They should never have allowed an organization to create a program within a program. BSA was not the LDS church, but the situation resulted in the BSA adopting many LDS positions that warped or outright paralyzed BSA in it's efforts to run a nationally focused organization.

OK well that's their reasoning, but that wasn't what I was referring to. I don't want to get into a further negative discussion about BP on a scouting web site, but there is an awful lot out there to read about him that has nothing to do with isms. He came up with a great kid program but he was a very strange guy. If you don't want to hear it, leave it there. If you are interested, there are a number of books out there beyond what was published through official channels. I got interested in this because I wanted to develop some historical perspectives in how scouting got where it is now so I went back to the beginning. There is a good book by Tim Jeal that is fair in how it recounts his talents and his flaws.

I don't know why they changed but outside of scouting BP has a problematic history that has nothing to do with cancel culture. Most scouters just know the official biographies about him. There has been a lot more published, some outright scurrilous, some serious research, that has to be taken as a part of the whole when considering him. For my part, I think he had some great insights into the minds of kids and how to engage them in constructive fun - an approach that I think works for girls as well as boys by the way - but he was by no means the paragon that the scouting world has set him up to be. I don't fault people for being a product of their time but he had some weird interests including a morbid fascination with executions. He was not a normal guy. .

I wasn't arguing with you I was supporting what you said. Edit: Or at least that was what I was trying to say.

Yes, it is not a comparable situation. In a healthcare system you could have claims for everything from a radiation patient being improperly blocked to an intubation injury in the ER to a patient slipping in the bathroom. A couple of other differences are in the fact that the medical arts evolve rapidly unlike scouting so you can be in new territory almost daily. There is also a huge oversight system in place. There are professional and institutional standards of care and medical and ethical review boards. As we all know, despite all the measures in place, problems still happen but the negligence there is largely one off. Healthcare systems are also subject to outcomes management and if say a large percentage of infants are dying in a NICU, that trend becomes known, is analyzed, and is addressed. It might be just an unhealthier patient population, or there could be something amiss in the unit. Negligence might be found but it doesn't usually continue. That kind of review does not occur in scouting.

Tough situation. I'm also not convinced of the post Covid membership rebound for scouts. Over the past 14 months, a lot of kids and families found out they have other interests.

It's a weird situation. I don't understand adding new fees or raising rates at a time when most other youth organizations lowered rates or gave discounts last year. On the other hand, BSA is bankrupt and apparently desperate. I think it's a case of BSA's reality being out of sync with almost everyone else's reality. Sadly, so many times that has seemed to be the modus operandi.

I'm not sure what you are saying. The HPV vaccine while pediatric is an outlier in many ways, primarily because it is not part of the battery of vaccines we were discussing that are given during infancy and toddlerhood. Maternal antibody interference with that one is also not much of an issue? However, my kids received HPV exactly because of the statistics you cited. It's not the cost so much with titers it's more a question of how reliable some of them are for certain diseases. The body of research is growing but titers don't always correlate to real world protection. Immune response can be very individual and influenced by many factors, some of which are not well understood.

Veterinary pediatric patients are also vaccinated with multiple vaccines on an aggressive schedule and it has more to do with waning maternal antibodies and the nascent immune system than human behavior. I have to believe that's similar in people.

I've not heard of any scout camps requiring that yet. I know some local camps have been considering it and the ACA recommends it. Right now what I've heard so far is staff have to quarantine and test before arriving on site in our state.

And boy. Those relatives.

I didn't take it personally at all -- no apologies necessary. I share what you are feeling. We are all so activated by current events, even the more more level headed among us. It is a struggle to discuss things and not instantly snap into reactive mode. I'm churned up every day despite not wanting to be and trying very hard to hit the pause and edit buttons.