yknot

I think there is so much discussion and hand wringing on this site but it is focused on the wrong things. We're all talking about organizational structures and what we think kids need, but what scouting needs is to focus on is why kids don't join in the first place or drop out if they do. If kids loved our program, it would survive bankruptcy and abuse scandals, but the reality is that it's hard to recruit kids.

I think we need to be careful about overlaying our adult opinions on things. Part of the challenge with scouting is figuring out why so many kids drop out. I am/was a completely gung ho scouting parent, although my focus was more on outdoors and service. I had kind of a shocking moment with both my kids recently, now 20 and 15, when they both told me they loved cubs but mostly hated troop. It just stopped being fun. So you might think kids aren't getting anything out of cub scouting, but our target audience -- kids -- might have a different opinion.

That's today, or at least this December, but next year or the year after might be different. Cubs have no commitment to a larger scouting goal that would motivate them to stay involved. Few Tiger scouts or their parents are thinking I have to keep my kid active in Cubs so that he can make AOL. The higher retention at Troop levels is like due to scouts and their families who are a couple of years in and are focused on making Eagle. That same motivation won't exist a year or two as these scouts Eagle out. My point is that the lower attrition rate isn't a function of the Troop program -- it

I knew John Wayne's cousin. John's real name was Marion; his cousin's name was Maurice. He used to play the piano for us at the Farmer's Grange for our 4-H Christmas parties. Somehow both an artist and a mountain man type. He was famous for his snapping turtle soup, which he caught himself. Interesting family.

Ahhh... well the days when everyone who was born in a village and then stayed in that village are long gone. I think the difference I see in BSA vs. other youth organizations is that in other organizations every adult is actively, visibly, and continually answerable to someone else. That kind of supervisory relationship doesn't exist in BSA because they kind of farmed it out to the COs but then provided no managerial follow up. You cannot blame a legacy CO, that has been in operation for decades for having no idea the extent of their assumed responsibilities if BSA doesn't inform them and try

IMO the chartered organization model should never have existed simply because it had too many fatal flaws. I can't remember all my early scouting history, but I hardly think having churches use scouting as youth ministry is what BP had in mind. And not to say that we should be overly concerned with what BP had in mind because what worked then doesn't always work now. But if the general concept is that scouting is a game with a purpose, where does scouts as perpetual Sunday School fit into that? Some COs exert too much influence on scouting to suit their own needs, to the point where units can

I think BSA needs to stop relying on infrequent Bryan on Scouting blogs to kinda sorta clarify unclear YPT issues. I think the online training module needs to be condensed and redone for higher impact. I think some kind of regular communication on YPT issues needs to come out of BSA. There are a lot of things that come up that BSA could educate on or use to reinforce YPT more than take this test and you're done. And, of course, fix the tech issues. There are times that YPT seems to defy common sense such as when you see a leader bolt out of a meeting of 30 kids because they suddenly real

Troop seems down maybe 10 to 20% but Pack is decimated.

I think it's probably a desperate move borne out of the fact that so many COs have dropped units this year in the wake of the bankruptcy filing. I think it was a rude awakening to many COs to find out they actually may have some liability for sponsoring a unit, especially for the many many legacy units where the role is already viewed as simply providing a place to meet and benign support. In some ways, the "rental" agreement isn't much different than reality. Where the problem is going to crop up is for those organizations that have utilized scouting as an extension of their individual

BSA undoubtedly has major issues with the care and feeding of volunteers, training and tech support just being a couple of them. The parts you can't blame BSA for are the inexorable and widespread changes in liability issues over the past few decades. Liability issues are not just driving BSA's policies but those of virtually every government, business, nonprofit, or community organization in the United States. It has become an ever escalating game of gotcha that is increasingly pervasive in every area of life. BSA has been reactive rather than proactive, largely due to having very entrenched

Do you mean the email reminders? I get them. I started getting them in August for an October renewal. However, I can't seem to access the training.

I wouldn't be worried about the tinsel but the chemicals are an issue. You might want to talk to your local watershed association first before you do it. Christmas tree growers spray their trees extensively with pesticides and other chemicals. In addition, many people add chemicals to the water to preserve them which stay in the tree's phlegmatic system long after disposal. Neither of those practices are good for healthy waterways and fish. Another place I've seen them used is to help prevent beach erosion. But again these are not random "clean" trees or brush from a property clearing or power

I agree. No touch policies don't solve anything if you still have predators in your midst. Think Jurassic Park think the Malcolm character think his version of chaos theory. Bad actors will always find a way to do what comes naturally to them. Rather than no touch it ought to be no tolerance for folks that don't follow the rules. There are still so many scouters that despite all the scandals and bad press and YPT training and exhortations who still do questionable things or flaunt YPT. These folks need to be called out. If they don't stop, they need to go. Even if completely blameless in inten

I think this is going to be the heart of the problem. There are no signs that there is any kind of volunteer groundswell to support even a skeletal level of organized scouting. There are a lot of highly committed individuals, some even in pockets, around the country that will attempt to run local programs. However, I think liability and PR issues are going to make even that very difficult post bankruptcy. Things will survive for a few years, but long term it is probably not viable. What has been leaked out of the Churchill documents is very disappointing because so far there has been nothing i

Well that makes perfect sense, but that's something that is pretty individual to you. It's not really an argument against allowing two female leaders for boy dens.

Does that come up for you much though as a leader issue? Never did for me other than maybe a random eww...

Interesting point. There are a couple other things to consider as well. It's not just that far fewer women are abusers, it's that the type of abuse they perpetrate is different. Profiles for female abusers typically include a woman who is participating in an abuse situation under the direction of a dominant male or a woman who is targeting an older child -- teacher/student type relationships. The Me Too movement has also shed a lot of light on the incidence of abuse in women and girls. Girls suffer abuse at significantly higher rates than boys: 1 in 4 vs. 1 in 6 by adulthood. Since abused chil

In scouting, I think it's partly a practical reason based on biology. I don't know too many unrelated males who would be comfortable instructing a 12 or 13 girl on first time tampon use while on a hike or camp out. There really isn't anything similar to worry about with boys. It's also likely that if BSA was dealing with claims perpetrated by women, it would have a different policy. It will be instructive to see if any of the 95,000 claims that have just been filed involve women as perpetrators. If so, that might drive a change.

The statistical reason is that less than 5% of perpetrators are women and it's generally a different kind of abuse than we've seen in scouting. It's more often an older female taking advantage of a juvenile male. The other sad statistic is that while in BSA we are hyper focused on the horrific abuse of boys, in reality girls are five times more likely to be victims of abuse and the abusers again are almost exclusively male. Apart from the statistics, I think the practical reason BSA has allowed two women to take boys on outings is because if they didn't a lot of cub scout dens wouldn't be fun

I think if scouting survives it will be a much smaller organization. I think it's clear the only kind of scouting that will continue will be more family oriented experiences/camping because that's what millennials and younger want and liability insurance and issues will likely demand. I think it's clear we are headed to mixed gender because that is what millennials and younger want. It also just doesn't make any sense to try to run this bureaucratic/volunteer heavy organization with different groups of volunteers just to preserve the illusion of segregated units when that's not how

I support what you are doing. Anyone who was abused in scouting should have filed. You and others like you who were truly hurt deserve closure or resolution, or at least as much as is possible. There are no good answers here for either children who were hurt or for the organization.

The vast majority of claims -- 85% -- have been filed by men aged mid forties to 50s, so many of the perpetrators as well as potential corroborating witnesses are likely still alive. An additional small percentage of claims have been filed by people younger than mid forties, so perhaps 90% may be subject to to some kind of reasonable validation. I don't know the specifics of how this assessment will be conducted, but in other situations things such as case clustering in time and or location could be considered as somewhat corroborating. My question though has been whether or how any perpetrato

The most tragic legacy of abuse scandals in both the Catholic church and scouts is that truly decent adults who want to reach out and help kids in need now often feel that they can't. Not only can't. Shouldn't.

I think that's the crux of it. Scouting was/is unique among other youth activities because of the way it separates a handful of adults in charge of a group of children away from family and community often in remote locations. There were also very few -- maybe no other -- youth activities that routinely included sleepovers away from home. I was in a 4H club that did routinely camp out in either tents, cabins, campers, out in the open, or just under a shed row or in some shed somewhere. However, whatever instruction or interaction with leaders was done during the daylight hours. There was no sit

Not really. It's s completely different locker room scene now -- half the kids wear shorts to school in February anyway and just change shirts -- plus before it really wasn't comparable with situations in scouting. Even back when kids showered after gym or in practice, it was a 3 minute deal with next period teachers or parents waiting. Not off camping at a facility in the woods with random adults. Pedophiles are everywhere no doubt but there are some characteristic reasons why scouting was such a buffet for them.