yknot

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 mission, whether it's a church or a community organization like an AFL hall. BSA has always tried to give a lot of local latitude as to how COs run their units, with the extreme example being LDS that was really more of a tailor made program within a program. Under either type of CO arrangement, I don' t see how that could continue to be possible, so that would probably result in, as you say, a CO ditching scouts to simply run their own youth group. Of course then they would be assuming full liability for their group and all the headaches that would entail.

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, incestuous leadership with a history of organizational arrogance. As a result, we kind of bumped along in a bubble for awhile while the rest of the world was adapting to this new paradigm. The abuse scandals and other high profile liability cases abruptly burst that bubble. BSA is aggressively trying to protect itself from claims with all these measures, which are largely being driven by insurers seeking to avoid settlement of claims by proving negligence, just as they are doing in this bankruptcy. Almost every legal document you sign or contract you enter into has so many clauses designed to push liability off on the other party. I don't know where it's going, but it's going to be very hard for organizations like scouting that offer an activity with higher than average risks to the public to continue to operate. At some point, it will be impossible to get volunteers unless the BSA pays for additional insurance to cover volunteers for such inadvertent personal negligence incidences as described in another post.

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 line clearing -- they are an agricultural product that has been treated with chemicals. Since it's not a product that people eat, the application of such can be pretty liberal.

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 intention, they make it easier for predators to hide among them. I don't agree about your version of rivalry. What I have seen are anti athletic factions in scouting -- which are vocal and virulent -- put down sports. I have of course also seen sports factions -- which are vocal and virulent -- put down scouts. It goes both ways. The best solution is for parents who are coaches to also be leaders and vice versa. We've got a couple units where this is the case and it is like the lion laying down with the lamb -- it's a beautiful thing.

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 innovative. I really think BSA has to stop trying to save itself and refocus instead on saving scouting. We have a Congressional charter. We envy 4-H, which is partially supported by the Department of Agriculture and run under its auspices. Why not try for a similar structure under the National Park Service. Everything we do with the exception of Duty to God components would fit well under the NPS. They already run scouting programs.

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 children often grow into adult abusers of children themselves, fewer women being traumatized as girls may in turn lead to fewer adult female abusers, BSA, the Catholic Church, the US Gymnastics Team have been very high profile events highlighting this problem. A lot of other smaller and lower profile organizations are coming to grips dealing with child predation among their members as well. It may indeed result in significant changes to how youth organizations are run, but if this scourge is that prevalent, maybe that's not a bad thing. I don't know that the answer is to simply keep children away from unrelated adults though because tragically much abuse also occurs within the home, committed by relatives. One of the methods of protecting children has been to arm them with information about dangers, whether drugs or abuse, at younger and younger ages. I don't know that that is the right approach either because you eventually get to an age where you've put an image or a thought in a child's head that I don't think should be there in childhood.... I sense that I'm getting off on an tangent so I'm going to stop now.

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 functional. I know things can vary regionally and change cyclically, but around me almost all the dens are run by moms and meet after school. Of course, future liability concerns may demand a change in that and the after school model is also changing somewhat as more families become two career.

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 many are operating in reality. I think there are plenty of boys who would still be interested in scouting even under the above scenarios. It will be different, but kids that like to camp and get outdoors will still want to do that. High school age boys that are into sports still do sports even if their parents come along. Any parent of a teen or young man knows there are ways to be there but also be invisible. The kids whose parents are ASMs deal with it just fine. The kids whose mothers are ASMs deal with it just fine.

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 perpetrators identified will be held individually accountable through this process.

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 sitting around a camp fire with them getting sign offs. Once the day's duties were done, we were with our mates and it would have been odd for a leader to have any involvement with us other than to make sure we weren't running amuck. Having also been involved in the Catholic church, the access to youth was indeed as limited as you said and priests or nuns had to create their own opportunities to have access to children outside of CCD or altar practice.

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.

It's just a bad situation all around. Between the bad publicity and the bankruptcy spiking up fees, it's been tough. As has been stated, most other youth programs reduced or refunded fees in the face of offering reduced programming. BSA has increased fees, and that is a tough sell. It's also been very hard to accommodate varied expectations. Some families are completely spooked by in person activities even when outdoors; others are angry that more activities aren't being offered. Committees and leaders have had to grapple with the fact that they and their COs are potentially liable if someone gets sick and they are not following the most conservative guidelines.

I'm not sure where you are or what you do but I have never had anyone from our district or council do anything to ever help resolve any kind of contentious, abusive, or illegal issue. Abusive parents incensed that advancements were perhaps not moving quickly enough to jet their scout to Eagle? Upheld by Council. Incompetent or abusive council employees or volunteers? Upheld by council. Problems with possible embezzlement and CO involvement? No response or involvement from Council. It is as if they do not exist except for FOS time and for the very overworked and underpaid admin assistant who cheerfully processed our paperwork as best she could. Of all the paid positions at council, guess who council laid off this summer? The admin assistant.

"How" is indeed the issue. Do we want to remake the country or try to add in new colors between the lines. I'm all in favor of a radical re-envisioning of the system until it gets to the point where we are tearing down what created this amazing experiment in the first place. Because if we go, there is nothing much else left that holds the line.

I don't think it's just pod size, I think it is recognizing this is a highly contagious, airborne virus that is affected by atmospheric conditions. It's better to have 25 kids at an activity wearing masks and standing 12 feet apart in crosswinds and sunlight conditions than it is having 4 kids 6 feet apart without masks downwind of each other. We need to start thinking that way.

National can enforce. It can revoke charters. National is management. If management finds it has no way to compel councils to follow its rules, it can legislate new ones. National has relied on a hands off philosophy when convenient when confronted with something it doesn't want to or doesn't know how to deal with. It has confused volunteers by not being honest or transparent about why it is making program changes. There has been almost no communication from the Key 3 to the corps of the organization throughout this latest crisis. That is not good leadership. Perhaps the leaders would be spending less hours dealing with the morass if they were more communicative about their challenges. The thing I fear most is a triumvirate of not very effective leaders in over their heads attempting to navigate this morass in complete opacity. Blindly supporting a national organization that has an extensive history of not getting much right is not the way BSA will survive.

I've been concerned because the documented youth transmission cases that have occurred in our area have mostly been during outdoor sport practices, not in class and in school. In practice, even if they are doing socially distanced drills and eschewing locker rooms, they are not wearing masks. This virus does not like heat, humidity or sunlight, so as winter temps cool and become dryer. wear your masks and forget about 6 feet social distance stay 12 feet away even in open air.

I'm sorry to hear that you experienced this first hand and hope you are fully recovered soon. I know. Many people do not take this seriously. Be well.