yknot

An exception is the British monarch; he/she is still commander in chief and is the only one in Britain with the power to declare war although that is fairly well delegated. Prince Phillip was in WWII, the Duke of Kent, an aviator, died in it, and there's Andrew and Harry... Anne is probably the one who most reveres the military but did not go to war. She did, however, do the modern equivalent of a princess riding off to do battle for her country when she competed for a medal in the 1976 Olympics. The sport of Three Day Eventing is modeled on the pre-mechanized cavalry and at the time she competed, had only recently been opened to non-military participants. In her capacity as a multi-year member of the British Equestrian Team, she does have medals she earned representing her country that she could also wear, but does not. She, her father, and her daughter Zara Tindall are unique among the British monarchy in having those kinds of medals.

I've pretty much left off commenting on things scouting because it feels too much like speaking ill of the dead.

You have an MPH plus a DVM degree? The only other person I know who is military and had both is a friend who wound up a Brigadier General assigned to the Pentagon. You have a unique background for today's challenges and are perhaps being a tad modest.

About 500,000 youth annually are involved in 4-H shooting sports programs, more than scouts and it's a lot more involved. I haven't heard of any similar tragedies in 4-H, although perhaps there are some.

If Council camp properties are going to survive, then there has to be a place for innovative programming like this. The council camps near us that focus on traditional summer scouts only programming are falling apart and failing. The ones who have adapted their programming to welcome non scouts with various camping options and non scout families to open activities throughout the calendar year are the ones that still have the doors open and can pay the bills. Keeping the Council camp open for scouts is one way of serving the mission of scouting. It does have to be balanced with also effectively running the day to day operations of the Council and serving its scouts.

There is no way scouting can hang on to all the property it currently has. If part of its mission is to be a steward of the outdoors and get the nation's kids out in it, then councils should have some form of long term management and succession planning for their properties. That would entail identifying future public or private partners for the land that would guarantee continued scouting access in exchange for reduced land costs or other concessions if/when they have to sell it. Instead, far too many councils have either been shortsighted and ill prepared for this stewardship role or they have regarded donated land resources as piggy banks to be raided when council salaries or operations are squeezed. There have been a few bright spots over the past few years where councils have partnered with land trusts or public agencies or even private developers to ensure some or all of the land remains mostly undeveloped and accessible to youth. I hope there will be more cases like this because the loss of these properties forever is sad. The reality though is that many of these properties are currently mismanaged, underutilized, and inefficiently operated. That is one area where the national organization could actually help by providing legal and land use expertise, turn key programming, marketing support, and central purchasing and contracting, among other things, that might keep more of them viable and under direct scouting control.

Those camps pull scouts from a number of councils that are within an hour or two. There is also some degree of crossover from the neighboring cub scout camp. I hope they are reaching out beyond that council and the troop levels. This is the third similar type bathroom incident related to scouting in the region in the past year or so and the 4th if you include a nearby Y camp. Very sad and concerning.

Keep in mind that's not a 23% drop in three months, that's just the reconciliation of memberships that were still on the books on Dec. 31 2022 but were not on the books one day later on Jan. 1 2023. The January '23 membership announcement was strategically timed to be able to tout the higher combined figure, which was the same strategy used the year prior. I always prefer to look at the March numbers. So I'm not concerned about that. What I am concerned about, though, is that we have been officially post pandemic in a relatively normal world now for at least about a year and those numbers are not going up. Whatever post pandemic membership recoup there was, was gained late 2021 and earlier in 2022. At one point, the actual membership was at about 650,000, so there was a one time bump back up to about 800,000, That, however, seems to have plateaued over the past year despite very aggressive recruitment in many areas. The cub scout numbers are showing a small bump, which one assumes might translate into a scout bump, but one of the concerns there is that there is significant girl cub scout membership. Right now, girls have far more limited crossover opportunities to troops and many in those cohorts will be lost unless something changes.

It's not uncommon. It's not just kids who are over scheduled and who are used to helicopter parents -- that is one aspect of it -- but it is also the fact that a lot of kids are being raised with the idea that no social peer can or should tell you what to do. Two exceptions to that are scouts and sports but not every kid has exposure to these activities. Harassment, Intimidation, and Bullying laws in many states, which have been reinforced through the educational system for at least the past ten years, also teach kids not only to not listen to peers but also to not necessarily trust them. Scouts, if they haven't been exposed to it before, kind of asks them to turn all that on its head, so plenty of them are understandably bewildered.

This has the December 2022 membership, a number that was reported in January. Someone on here said at that time that certain positions have access to the membership numbers in real time. Does anyone know if those membership numbers held through March 2023 and the first quarter? Up or down?

Do you mean this? It's Miquin Woods now. https://www.co.hunterdon.nj.us/DocumentCenter/View/2961/Miquin-Woods-Preserve-Trail-Map-PDF?bidId= https://www.co.hunterdon.nj.us/DocumentCenter/View/2960/Miquin-Woods-Preserve-Brochure-PDF?bidId=

I think you are in the majority. This perspective is part of the curriculum and/or character education programs in a lot of public schools today, maybe most, beginning at the early elementary grades and has been for at least 10 years. Kids who learn one level of awareness in the school and community setting are frequently uncomfortable with the different viewpoints and practices that they encounter in the scouting environment. We went from having a handful of OA candidates each year to having zero for the last several I was involved. The NA aspect wasn't a draw, it was a deterrent as far as we experienced.

One of the issues is that there is no central "government" for many of these groups. There is controversy and disagreement within the NA community about who is or is not in a position to speak on these issues. There is no consensus, so the issue for BSA all along has been that it cannot truthfully claim that it has the permission or the blessing of any group to continue its questionable practices. There is no centralized, universally recognized group equivalent to a national government. This has not changed over the hundreds of years that Europeans have been interacting with native Americans but the BSA and its iterations like OA and Mic-O-Say still believe they can validate their traditions in this manner.

If, for some reason, you put a few hundred kids in flying monkey suits in the night sky above you, and you knew they were there and unseen in the dark, you wouldn't risk pointing your laser up there during an astronomy lesson, would you? I would think you would want to give their eyes a wide berth. I'm not a Leave No Trace instructor, but I think the whole point of LNT is to universally leave things that are out there in their own habitat unharmed and undisturbed within it as much as possible. At least by scouts. Googling pretty much confirms that lasers are harmful or at least disruptive to the normal activity of avian wildlife, and used to haze and disperse them; birding experts only use lasers in daylight when they can see what they are doing and know they are not hitting or disturbing anything. If there's any lingering doubt that migrating birds are in the skies at night at high concentrations during certain periods, consult this web site anytime after March 1: birdcast.info. It's a joint project between CSU and Cornell and uses weather surveillance data, radar, and other tools to issue migration forecasts. You can look at the radar and actually see the density of birds overhead during migration. Somewhere around four billion birds migrate in our portion of the hemisphere spring and fall. You might not see them unless you are looking at a fairly full moon through binoculars, but they are there. They are impossible to miss, in more than one way.

Well, try Mr. Google. You can learn all about how lasers are used in bird dispersal. Or there are Audubon chapters in almost every state. Stop by and talk to someone sometime. We're supposed to be an outdoors conservation minded organization. I would think stuff like this wouldn't exactly be news.

We have an observatory in our state park and the astronomers don't use laser pointers for scout talks during spring and fall migration. Songbirds migrate at night. The beam doesn't have to be pointed at them to disorient them.

Bring the binoculars, leave the laser pointers at home. Just fyi, as per below, lasers can be disruptive to bird species, especially during migration months when many migrate at night, and are not allowed in many parks. Using lasers at night is not in alignment with leave no trace principals. https://www.nps.gov/subjects/watchingwildlife/gear.htm Also, regulations regarding possession, safe usage, etc., can vary by state and even municipality. Some shore communities have completely banned their use.

That, and the fact that the cub program itself is very redundant with the school curriculum. They are doing a lot of these things two, three, and four times in the course of a couple years. In my district, almost every kindergarten class goes to the police station and the fire station. Plus fire stations are a popular kid party place. There leventy nine other examples of that in cubs.

In the current bankruptcy case, I am pretty sure I saw some cases that were "estate of... " Maybe one of our legal eagles would remember or know where to find where those cases might be listed to provide an example.

It's a bit sexist to think these concerns are limited to Millennial women. As far as the NFL example, female viewership has increased but youth participation has steadily declined and less than half of Americans now think football is a suitable activity for youth.

We never registered a scout unless the parent also took YPT. Unit rule which solved that problem.

All of scouting is supposed to be 100% transparent to parents even if they are not your ideal parents from a program standpoint. I don't really think any other position is acceptable today.

Good point. I don't think I can take going down some of these rabbit holes again.

It's a big country so it's probably not universal but around here parents are not accepting of adults without kids camping or interacting with kids. It's the same in sports. The only guy I know who was accepted was a pop warner football coach who made the draft but had four daughters.

I just don't see girls as being all that pivotal either way. They are a great and no brainer addition to a youth organization but in the scheme of things, at least here in the US, I'm not sure it has had much bearing other than providing a helpful blip through a couple of very dark years. Where the UK is concerned, I think some of its success has more to do with the fact that it has had consistent, identifiable, high profile advocates from the late Queen to Bear Grylls to more lately Catherine Middleton. They are so high profile, we are aware of their involvement even in the US. I also think the UK organizational structure seems to be a lot more effective than ours. Our structure keeps us tied in knots. The BSA also seems to have put a lot of eggs in its Eagle Scout basket but there just aren't a lot of high profile Eagle Scouts you can point to in the US. Other than a filmmaker, an astronaut, an ex CEO -- who are all older guys -- I can't think of a one who is high profile and fun or inspiring or relevant to parents with scouts my general age. I don't think girls are really the issue here in the way that you think they are.