yknot

I think it's easy to get way too carried away with awards. While some things in cub scouting may take some perserverence, nothing is hard. It is no more difficult for a 10 year old to earn AOL than it is for a six year old to earn Tiger because it's an age appropriate progression and the skills are easily attainable by the particular age. This seems to be reaching for ways to make certain groups of kids seem more worthy than another. Cubs simply isn't built that way.

Eagling, planning, budgeting, having everyone remind you for the rest of your life that you screwed up one meal -- these are the kinds of things adults think are great but are not what kids will think are great. It's also kind of weird that a new leader would come out the starting box making somewhat dated anti sports comments. Youth sports is not the reason why scouting is in trouble but it seems to be a perennially popular dog whistle for people who like to deflect blame there. There's more to be gained by a positive collaborative attitude with some of the nation's other youth organizations vs. a negative one -- BSA could actually learn some things. A willingness to communicate directly with the troops, though, would be one major immediate plus.

Most schools and even COs have adopted a fee structure based on economics so the fee isn't the issue. What I agree with the Girl Scouts on is that the fee structure is odd. The districts I dealt with had a formula that computed fees on three elements: space requested, frequency, and profit/nonprofit status. There was also a fourth 'soft' element which was whether or not the entity involved offered something of use to the district's school children. So a classroom rental had a more minimal rental fee than the gymnasium or auditorium; if you met regularly once or twice a month vs. a one off event there was a frequency discount; and higher fees were charged for profit vs. nonprofit groups. If there was a conflict, student centered organizations were given priority. All organizations were subject to approval by the board of ed. A $30 fee per kid seems ridiculous. As cited above though no matter what condition they leave the room, the district still incurs expenses in allowing them access to the building that must be recouped.

I think some places are lucky and have a very competent CM or SM, or a well run unit, or a functional council. That can be a very mixed bag around the country though.

That's a perception issue that the child sexual abuse history has obscured: public perceptions of overall competence and program safety is not great. For example, this summer, some camps were desperately advertising for volunteers at their shooting ranges by stating 'no training needed, we'll train you'. Did not instill confidence in the program overall no matter how good the RSO might have been.

Kid fundraising is indeed out of control and I have also become increasingly sensitive to the financial and time challenges faced by some families. There is a lot of free stuff out there and sometimes it helps to get off the unit/district/roundtable/council/BSA bandwagon/herd and scout around for random stuff you can find on your own. I don't know what level you are, cubs or troop, but there is a 4th grade free national parks pass that can be used to get 4th graders and several family members into most national properties, not just parks, for free. Many YMCA's offer free year long trial memberships to middle school age students and we have been able to use the connection to get free or very cheap access to Y facilities, like an after hours pool session. Kids Bowl Free is offered during the summer. Check out all your local tourism and leisure industry boards to see what kinds of youth events and deals they offer. A ski region near us had a winter kid pass for late afternoon/night skiing that was dirt cheap. Combined with someone finding a nearby church basement, it made for a very cheap winter ski camp in. We also developed a list of municipal, private camp, land trust, and private property sites that would allow us to camp for free mostly off season. I've done free youth events with local chapters of Audubon, Trout Unlimited, Ducks Unlimited, the national weather service, the US Patent and Trademark office, etc.

Parenting methods have changed a lot in the past decade or so but the pandemic didn't help and many of these parents who were juggling kids and working at home short circuited right alongside the kids to some degree. That's not an excuse, but it is another challenge. A little household destruction was considered the price of staying employed while parents locked themselves in the closet for zoom meetings. Normally in scout led you would let scouts come up with the meeting programing but in this case I might try to actively schedule some cool things and speakers to hold their attention for awhile. It can help the younger ones learn to focus through actual interest and give the older ones a break until they mature a little more. We also had a bathroom trashed so we did things like sign out sheets, one at a time, adults monitoring who was out of the room, etc.

The pandemic has had a noticeable effect on child development and what might have been reasonable expectations before are not at present for some of these kids. There has been a lot of discussion about this in the educational community because teachers are continuing to deal with it in the classroom and that would be a good place to look. In general, these kids need more social intervention, not less, so suspension might not be productive. Expecting peers to be able to manage this along old youth led models also may not be productive because they are experiencng some of the same deficits. From what I've read and done, smaller group sizes, more mentoring, and giving more explicit and direct and sometimes repeated instructions is helpful. Bad behavior is bad behavior and has to be dealt with, but some of these kids need perhaps more adult supervision and mentoring than scouters may have been comfortable with in the past.

I'm not kidding. All the scouting images are of his stunt double except for the weenie roast with Odie. He did that one because there was food.

I don't think it's out there I think some councils already do a version of that type of thing. One of the ones here runs short session summer camps that seem to rotate around the council at different park facilities for a week at a time. I don't think councils are going to have the wherewithal to buy property, I think they are going to have to look for partnerships and facility usage agreements. I think the traditional chartering organization model is dying and councils are going to fulfill more of that role without investing in real estate.

I think owning and managing a site would be difficult today for most units. There are a couple former scout "huts" in my area that are either nonfunctional or in other hands with some continued scout access. We had a lot of luck working with private land trusts or municipalities to gain camping sites and access. We were also to develop relationships to use several private camps for local off season camping. We camped several times midweek when our school districts had random days off for professional development, parent conferences, etc.

Just so you know, I interviewed Garfield and he was only in scouting for the lasagna.

I'm glad to see this because he's largely been a cipher after more than 6 months in the role. He said more changes are coming and if so that's good and I'll take him at his word.

I'm not sure BSA did that directly but since University of Colorado Boulder is one of the leading universities concerned with NA issues it's an appropriate place to hold NOAC but an unlikely place to host AIA type events. UCB's NA center basically led the fight with the NFL to change team names.

Anyone know what that means? Was that anticipated when the trust was established?

Scouting is only a bargain when other people volunteer.

Costs and relative value for any youth activity are pretty dependent on where you are, what kind of council and unit you are in, and how involved your scout and family want to be in it. You can spend thousands on a couple seasons of a travel sport; you can spend thousands on a HA trip or jambo type events. One of the initial sticker shock problems with scouting is that there is no gradual on ramp; you pretty much pay the same to try it out as a cub scout as you do to rejoin as a seasoned troop level scout. That's not the case with most other youth activities geared for the elementary level age groups and it is a deterrent.

You're welcome. Migration is often thought of as a daytime event, which it is for many species, especially the very visible raptors, or because of what is seen during local fallouts and daytime feeder visits. Songbird migration, though, at least on the wing, is largely a nighttime phenomenon. Hopefully things like Birdcast will help build an appreciation for what is overhead on many nights in the spring and fall. The recent full moons in the northeast have been great for showing this to kids.

If we're talking biggest impact on migratory songbird species overall, it's habitat loss, degradation, and human intrusion up and down their flyways, migration routes, and at breeding and wintering sites. Migration as a species survival mechanism is struggling to navigate the modern world. All these things play into that. Don't get me started on turbines...

Thank you. Nice piece. Lots of stuff gets blown around this time of year. Glad to hear of some things making it back on course. This article noted nocturnal migration. For anyone who isn't aware of Birdcast, this is a second/third generation radar mapping resource run by Cornell and Colorado. It tracks noctural songbird migration and weather begining about three hours after sunset during peak periods, like now, and is a great visual to use for kids--kind of like Norad's Santa tracker for the little guys except it's real. If the forecast is good and there is a bit of a moon, have them aim their binoculars up to see dozens, hundreds, if not thousands of birds flying overhead in the night skies. https://birdcast.info/migration-tools/live-migration-maps/ The article also talks about a few hundred million birds. Sounds like a lot, but many of these species have had population declines of 50%-70%. At one time, a few hundred million of something would be a large flock or two. Not helping is that nocturnal migration has increasingly become a bird obstacle course, with hazards from illuminated skycrapers and proliferating light pollution to increased human intrusion into the night skies with everything from drones to fireworks to laser pointers.

Many of our oaks apparently didn't cross pollinate this year due to weather conditions earilier in the year. Sterile acorn husks started dropping over the summer and we're getting' next to nuttin' now...

I believe it's fairly amorphous right now. My understanding is that it is part of the settlement, but no real description was given or any kind of timeline. It could start to materialize in one year or ten from what I read. Would be interested to know if anyone else has more complete information. if it's limited to convictions, it will be pretty useless.

Are you sure about that? I know the Narragansett tribe once did.

At least the land will not fall to development and should still have public access.

It's seems like its been pretty standard in most places for a long time. Edit: In fact I would say in general a lot of security measures have been very robust in schools and other youth settings, such as security cameras, the presence of LEOs, adults and staff also having to wear photo ID badges, anonymous threat reporting systems, etc.