Cburkhardt

I see huge disadvantages in Scouting continuing to wear this huge target on its back as it tries to recast a positive image for a program in which young people learn Scouting skills and values and are taken on safe outings. We are not an ethnic-centric organization like the leagues of immigrants and descendants that preserve specific ethnic heritage. There is no advantage for our young people if Scouting encourages them to impersonate native Americans. Let’s keep the study of cultures and their attributes as part of our merit badge program and move forward.

Sounds like a valid approach. Do the families tell you at the start of the year whether they will pay directly or fundraise? If not, you might ask that question in September and immediately invoice the families who opt to pay directly. This might avoid awkward pursuit of families that do not fundraise and later use excuses like “If you had chosen a better product to sell my child would have participated. Call me next year.” It would also bring in cash early to fund the operation during early months. In any case, great to hear about your success.

Very solid ideas from Parkman. One difference between his Troop and ours is that we started from scratch two years ago and needed to build-in some capital acquisitions into our budget for the first three years or so. We also had some extra start-up money from the church and a individual funding “angel”, but regardless had to pay for things ranging from flags, flag stands, essential program equipment to camping gear. We are at 45 and are naturally growing approximately 5 Scouts net per semester. After we have finished acquiring the basics, we will further build our “rainy day” fund and re-evaluate our dues level then.

1) Our Treasurer electronically invoices the parents at the start of each semester and all amounts are collected on our web site. We have a couple of families that pay by check, which is fine. Because we build-in the national dues and a council contribution into our budget, this means we collect only 2 checks per year. We have 45 scouts and have a few families that are habitually late, but they eventually pay without much fuss. Our volunteer treasurer handles it all. The Scoutmasters never are put in the position of a bill collector. 2). Our annual budget is drawn on a program year basis each summer by our volunteer treasurer and distributed to all parents and registered adults. It is reviewed and approved during the July and August Troop Committee meetings (now on Zoom). We do not post it to our web site, but it is broadly available to anyone and reviewed by the Treasurer of our CO, a very respected Episcopal Church parish. 3). I should have mentioned the Treasurer is fully in the loop. After all, she sends the invoices and needs to know the proper amounts. I should add that we provide extra assistance in many different forms for Scouts that need it. This spans from purchase of equipment, uniforms, bus fare and some of those subtle items that under-resourced families can’t always provide. Examples would be those canvas Scout Handbook covers. We make sure to help Scouts who are using tattered book bags for backpacks and similar things. We get things donated for some of this, but make sure to provide some brand-new things — that is important to them. Families who wish to be on our scholarship program discuss things in confidence with the COR, who then confers with the Rector of the Parish and me. We never put any of our Scoutmasters in a potentially-awkward decision making role. Collecting Camping Fees We send out a “Scoutmasters Note” two weeks in advance of each campout that includes a pre-drafted permission slip and web link to submit payment if their Scout will be attending. Payments and slips are due one week in advance, so each patrol knows how much food to buy for their patrol. The scouts plan their meals with a budget, purchase their food the week before the event and are immediately reimbursed by our Treasurer when they provide receipts. The Treasurer maintains an accessible Google document listing who has registered to attend, so Patrol Leaders can urge attendance. Disadvantages of Our System I like our system, but because it provides for an “all in” dues amount, it can make it look like we are over-charging. Other Troops are continuously collecting small amounts for everything like award patches and camporee fees which are not included in their “dues”. God bless the Treasurers of those Troops, who fill one of the least rewarding jobs in a Troop. We include absolutely everything and never, ever ask for another dime. And we don’t do product fundraising. However, we have an occasional parent who insists we charge too much. We show them the transparent figures and offer them the chairmanship of a new Product Sale Fundraising Committee to fill the financial gap that would be created. I have never had anyone take us up on that offer. long Term Camp In May, the families sending their Scout to summer camp with us pay our Treasurer the lump sum our council charges. The families on scholarship are provided a 50% campership from our council, so they pay us that reduced fee (and we sometimes help with that as well). What a splendid thing our Council does for us in that regard. Almost reason by itself to justify our Troop’s contribution to our Council. The fund for this was provided by a former national BSA officer.

An Alternative Way to Fund Local Scouting Several commenters has suggested we need to finance Scouting in a different manner. Prior to forming a new Scouts BSA Troop two years ago, our formation group conducted focus groups with parents of prospective Scouts. We included discussion on dues, fund raising and camping fees. Here are their opinions: They want to know the full, actual cost of operating the Troop and the actual costs of camp activities (both weekend and long term residential). They want this on a per-scout basis. They do not want their children to engage in product sales fundraising (they mentioned cookies, popcorn and candy bars). The families with ability to pay prefer paying full amounts and disfavor typical fund raising activities. The families not able to pay the full amounts want to pay something meaningful, and would like some help with the balance. We calculated the annual all-in cost of operating the Troop (except for out-of-pocket fees, registration, food, fuel and other costs of camping activities). This includes national dues, equipment, advancement, program activities, specialty uniform items (hats and t-shirts, etc.), Scout Handbooks, rope, tents, dining flies, pots pans, I mean everything. We turned it into a detailed proposed budget. The long-term residential camp fee is what our Council charges and we have an average weekend camp fee for all seven campouts (3 in fall and 5 in spring). The annual non-camp cost is added-up and divided by the number of Scouts. The families then pay that “dues” amount in equal lump sums at the beginning of each semester. The families pay only for camp events their Scouts attend. We never, ever, expect a dime in addition to these amounts. Scouts from under-resourced families pay half of the above dues and fees. We budget the support we provide them as “scholarship” money and raise it from three modest churches and through a no-cost annual community coffee reception our Key-Three organizes. These are not big dollars. Only the Scoutmaster and COR know who receives scholarship support. Our Troop Committee believes financially supporting the local council is important, so we budget a single annual Troop contribution. The Council gets about $80 per Scout. We do not sell Council popcorn and we do not have the Council solicit our families for FOS. What is different? · No traditional product sales fundraising. · Annual single contribution to Council. They get more and there is no hassle. · Under-resourced Scouts pay 50% of dues and camp fees. · “Scholarships” are raised from local churches and individuals at single event. · Families pay transparent dues/fees. All amounts known the entire year in advance. We are a new and modest urban Troop and nothing is “deluxe”. Two years of success prove this is a valid way to finance our unit and Council. Are some of these approaches responsive to commenters suggesting we need a different way to finance Scouting?

Very thoughtful. I do not find it difficult to involve our CO, but it takes remembering that a unit has to directly include them in our program. When our bus leaves the church parking lot for summer camp, a priest is invited to provide encouragement and a blessing. When we wanted to do a service project at the church, some of our girls attended their facility committee meeting. When a girl’s mother died we asked for a nun to visit and talk to us. The Senior Warden is our Troop Chair. They will want to be part of us if we ask them. How the legal document is drafter would not impact those things.

I am inclined to agree with you. The only apparent purpose of the presumed lessor-lessee option is to handle the liability issue and not to distance a unit from a religious affiliation. I have my Troop as an example. If our Episcopal Church CO was to somehow opt into this new arrangement at some point in the future (maybe at the insistence of a Diocese official?), it would not change our programmatic activity or relationship with the church at all. The parish leadership and members love us and the Scouts admire them greatly in return. The Bishop attended our very first gathering and dedicated the unit into existence. In our case the shift would be simply regarded as a change for business reasons and it would hardly be discussed. I don't think it would change our Troop's culture of "Duty to God". I understand there are other potential impacts of such a shift related to unit-council matters, but those potential impacts are being well-discussed on the other thread.

Will “renting” impact “duty to God”? A separate thread is currently discussing the apparent development that churches will now have the option to discontinue their chartered organization relationships with Troops in favor of a more-distanced lessor-lessee relationship. Te practical and relationship discussion of this should continue on that other thread. However, from a cultural perspective, this presents an issue. If a Troop is a “renter” and no longer part of a church’s program, how will this impact the “duty to God” aspect of Its program? Does this present a bigger issue across the Scouting movement?

Sentinel is correct. This was a discussion regarding District Executives. As to the comment on the document itself, I agree the job requirements have become overly expansive and no longer suggestive of a “fun” career. As for the fund raising component, I am going to start a separate discussion in a couple of weeks sharing my view that Scouting should adopt a different model to raise funds for units and FOS for councils. Stay tuned, because you will see things you like and dispute.

I am blessed to be in a strong council and district (our District is within the precise boundaries of the District of Columbia) where we still have those skills and practices. My Troop never hears from our 42-unit DE because our excellent commissioner is the one who reminds me to get rechartered on time, etc. Our situation is an example of the earlier poster's view that strong councils beget strong districts, which beget strong troops, which beget strong patrols. It really is true. Parkman's posting was pretty distressing to read and caused me to call our DE and have an informal chat about how things are going. To make a long story really short, things are going very well and it is simply because we are executing on all of the basics here. Being District Chair or Commissioner of the DC District is a prestige role and we lead the Council in every measurable statistic. This, despite the fact that we have a lot of hard-core inner city units and many impoverished kids that our Troop committees effectively scrounge to keep in the program. This does not include any Scoutreach. My late Dad would have felt very much at home in this District. We are dropping five units due to COVID-caused difficulties, but added five better ones. Money and membership will be ahead of last year. This all made me feel better about the future because our local situation is not remarkable in any way. It just shows that if you have the right people and act rationally, Scouting still works -- even in a tough environment like our District. Maybe it is possible that the concerns of Eagledad and Parkman might be partly addressed by the downsizing of Scouting that is going to take place next year in most places. Fewer units (especially the weak ones) and more capability to execute. Fewer disagreeable personalities as marginal performer drop away. More focus on the essentials as the fluff is no longer in the council budget. That said, the impact of COVID and the horror of these bankruptcy claims will change things above the unit level in every council. The volunteer assumption of DE-like roles will be necessary in many places. All of you who pine for a volunteer run and controlled situation will have your chance to perform if you wish. Nobody will come knocking at your door. You will have to reach for it. Many, if not most, camps will be shuttered and probably sold. We can depart in anger at this unavoidable event or adjust our camp property practice to one of intensive cooperation. Despite all that has happened and been said, we will emerge different, but intact.

I have to agree with this. The District my Father helped lead in the south suburbs of Chicago in the 1970s was like a small, high-quality council. The top business people, best past unit leaders and wealthy socialites all converged to promote a local cause that was considered to be central to their community. When I much later served as that Council's president, I went back to see my small town mayor. He remembered the names of the DEs we had in those days -- they stayed for years and were well-known. Today Districts often lack the prestige and opportunity they once provided to professionals and volunteers alike -- leading to the circumstances you colorfully (and accurately) describe. I'm not asking for us to go back in time, but what are some of the fundamental things you think need changing at this moment? This is a 50-year occurrence that will change Scouting just as much as WWII did -- or maybe put it out of business. We need optimism and a path forward.

Eagle 94-A1: I hope the treatment of volunteers by professionals will rapidly fade as an issue and that we can begin to envision how volunteers will more-fully run things at the District and Council levels. The tragic "perfect storm" is providing us an opportunity to make some very significant adjustments. Many higher-salaried people with hardened viewpoints are already choosing to move on. We have all been part of a system that has not functioned well for an extended time. Let's put our operating expectations and behavioral standards firmly in place fairly soon. I want my fellow volunteers and me to be treated appropriately. We remind the girls in our Troop that they ascribe to a higher standard of kind behavior when they swear the Scout Law. Let's hold ourselves as well as to pros to this higher standard and assure that your concerns are not a dominant aspect of our experiences.

What a regretful set of circumstances. Scouting is being burnt to the ground over YPT and a key volunteer like you who can address this crises is not even informed of who your YPT chair is.

Responses on DE Issue Post: “Yet, if we are not paying DEs, I sense this could be a more focused effort to pay for camps and other central resources. A few paid fundraising professionals would likely be more financially successful for a council to employ here.” Response: Perhaps centralizing fundraising and going all-volunteer at the District level is indeed the way to go. A challenge will be to get new volunteers to do this District-type work in areas where the volunteer BSA culture has fully dissipated. I think it is possible to do that, based on my several years of recruiting people to volunteer as commissioners. Some of the most effective people I recruited for those roles did not even have a background in Scouting. I know it sounds counter-intuitive, but a group of motivated young businesspeople who know each other and the community work well as commissioners. We are not limited to former unit leaders with five rows of square knots. One of those people I recruited back then (mid 80s) is now a council president of a small Midwest council is and on the front lines of all of this. Post: “... and our districts were eliminated two years ago in favor of "professionally" run "service teams." Volunteers were not "team players' (insufficiently servile). The awful monthly gatherings that resulted before COVID ended them - 90% announcements and fund-raising - greatly diminished volunteer efforts outside units, and no one really knows what's going on in the council area. The only communications that I receive from Council are about $$$$$$$$$$$$ and YPT.” Response: Great observations that support the comments on how volunteers need to take back ownership through activity. It goes to changing the culture we have of expecting the professionals will do all of the detail work. Part of this goes to an attitude that if a volunteer cannot or will not get something done, you put that task on the plate of a professional. When the tasks become too numerous, there is a perceived need for another paid person. When there is no volunteer support for something, perhaps that particular task is not merited. An example would be a longtime executive in knew who insisted that there be two District camporees every year in a small District. This quickly wore out the volunteers, so the organization of camporees became a professional task. There should never have been an overload of camporees and the volunteers should have continued to be in charge. It is interesting that the two things you do get communications on (finance and YPT) are two things that have been problematic during recent decades. If there had been volunteers who know local communities tasked to intervene with units presenting significant youth abuse risk, we might not be where we are now. Instead, it looks like you are receiving ineffective missives about a topic of crises importance (YPT). Overall The postings so far, even by commenters who rarely embrace my points, do reflect the need for Scouters to go beyond rearranging things. We must fundamentally alter the basic aspects of how we operate and support Scouting.

Volunteer YPT Enforcement? We already have great volunteer YPT committees and chairs in our councils. In the past several years they have primarily focused on getting everyone trained and aware of the operating rules to implement the policies. Is now the time to add a number of carefully chosen volunteers to spot check and assure compliance? They presumably would need some authority. So far this authority rests in the hands of the Scout Executive and whoever he delegates. Do we want to continue this as a professional-only function? If we are serious about this, we might need to take some volunteer ownership. This would be a significant culture shift, because currently, only a Troop Committee, COR, Scout Executive or CO executive officer can issue direction to a volunteer adult leader.

DE Job Description After a close read, it seems to me that one task in the DE job description volunteers might not want to embrace is the fund raising component. If this function were centralized in a different position, the remaining program elements might be done by volunteers. In that case we would need a significantly invigorated volunteer staff at the district level. This would require a bigger time investment than folks are used to.

While “don’t touch” is unlikely to be adopted, it would have the impacts I have stated. Parents have lost trust in our practice of YP self-regulation by adult leaders because despite the well-intended approach you have well explained, molestations regularly occurred. We are no longer trusted to understand and implement the nuanced system you suggest. There are many rational arguments that we really don’t have to change our culture and we can somehow get a better outcome. I do not believe that to be true.

I was hoping for someone to say this. It really cuts to the core of the suggestion made by a preponderance of commenters on this site that volunteers re-take responsibility at the local level for Scouting. My Father was our District Membership Chair when I was a Scout. His group of three people did everything to form new units and help the commissioners maintain the ones having difficulty. The performance of that work migrated to professionals over the last 40 years. Have to say, I think my Dad did a better job of that particular work than even the best DEs I have known. So you have hit it on the head. The follow-up is to identify those functions that can only be done well by a full-time executive employee. Following is a DE job description I just snatched from the web. Is there anything in it that can't be provided by volunteers? To focus the discussion, let's concentrate for the time only on the DE position. Principal Responsibilities Work with a volunteer board of directors and other community and business leaders to identify, recruit, train, guide, and inspire them to become involved in youth programs. Achieve progress towards specific goals and objectives which include: program development through collaborative relationships, volunteer recruitment and training, fundraising, membership recruitment and retention. Be responsible for extending programs to religious, civic, fraternal, educational, and other community-based organizations through volunteers. Secure adequate financial support for programs in assigned area. Achieve net income and participation objectives for assigned camps and activities. Recruit leadership for finance campaign efforts to meet the financial needs of the organization. Ensure that all program sites are served through volunteers, regular leader meetings, training events and activities. Collaborate with adult volunteers and oversee achievement of training for their respective role. Be a good role model and recognize the importance of working relationships with other professionals and volunteers. The executive must have communication skills and be able to explain the program’s goals and objectives to the public. Provide quality service through timely communication, regular meetings, training events and activities. Have a willingness and ability to devote long and irregular hours to achieve council and district objectives. Desired Skills Non-profit, fundraising or sales experience is a plus. Must be comfortable with public speaking and interacting with diverse audiences. Excellent people skills, enthusiastic, punctual, responsible and creative. Self-motivated individual with solid time management skills and strong organizational skills in management, budgeting, and planning. Committed to personal and professional productivity, while maintaining high ethical and professional working standards. Minimum Qualifications Must be willing to accept and meet the Boy Scout of America’s leadership and membership standards and subscribe to the Scout Oath and Law. Bachelor's degree from an accredited college or university (transcript with the date degree conferred stated is required for employment). Attained 21 years of age or older unless prohibited by any applicable law. Ability to work varied hours when necessary, evening activities and weekend work is frequently required to achieve positive objectives. Ability to travel for training at least once a year for one to two weeks. A Scouting background is helpful but not required for employment. Offers for employment are subject to criminal, reference and motor vehicle background checks.

Volunteer District Executives? Some councils will greatly downsize their professional staffs -- many already have. A broadly-held opinion that emerged from posts this spring was a preference that unit-serving executives be prioritized. My unscientific observation is that preservation of DE functions has in fact been a priority as councils have adjusted their staffs, but we can reasonably assume there will be fewer DEs who will be asked to cover more units. I think there are volunteers who would be willing to serve in a new role as unpaid (perhaps expense-reimbursed) executives. Such roles could be right-sized depending on volunteer time availability. Interested retirees might give a couple of days each week. The management side of Scouting could and should shift more to volunteer engagement. I think there would be a lot of long-time BSA volunteers willing to consider a significant cultural change like this.

Reactions to Several Posts on Youth Protection. Post: “No touch policies don't solve anything if you still have predators in your midst.” Response: A no touch policy would allow for immediate identification of an abuser, who would disobey the policy and immediately be outed. A no touch policy would almost certainly provide an immediate end to any hidden ongoing abuse. It could even stop an ongoing horror. Post: “BSA makes this very difficult to do by instituting policies and practices that widen the gap between athletes and scouts.” …. And … “I have spent 35 years trying to end this silly rivalry between scouting and athletics. The athletes should not be putting down the scouts as nerds, wimps, etc.. I am concerned that a no-touch policy in scouting would make this more difficult to do. It would add one more excuse for athletes to mock the scouts.” Response: No child will be attracted to Scouts because its adult leaders generously touch them. No child will depart Scouting because their adult leaders do not generously touch them. Parents of Scouts do not wish the adult leaders to touch their Scouts as is they were athletic coaches. Because of the bankruptcy and huge number of claims filed, Parents of Scouts are properly suspicious of adult leaders who generously touch their children. Post: “BSA cynically uses YP to get a lot of stuff that doesn't belong with YP. They can't resist using YP to further their social agenda.” Response: Youth Protection Training is a direct response to the obvious presence of child abuse in Scouting’s past and perhaps a bit in the present. If instituting youth protection fulfills some person’s political or social agenda, it is not relevant. Youth protection is a necessary and morally required action for the BSA to take because it stops harm and protects children. If a house is burning down and people need rescuing, I want the firefighter to rescue the people. If his motivation to do so is to get a financial bonus or heroism medal, it is irrelevant. Scouting is burning down and we need a most rigorous implementation of youth protection and other cultural changes if it is to survive as a movement. Post: “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.” Response: I do not think there will actually be a “no touch” policy. Your view is a solid way to approach things. We need strict implementation and no tolerance. Any flexibility offered to an adult leader to continuously violate the policies will attract people who will abuse our Scouts. Adult leaders who demonstrate refusal to follow the youth protection policies should be banned from Scouting-type organizations. As an aside, I am a Scoutmaster of a large girl Troop in an urban area and I frequently mix with the other Scout leaders in our city. There is no open flaunting or questionable practices in evidence in our city/BSA district. I cannot speak for what may have happened in the past, but things certainly are being operated in a YPT-compliant manner today. If it is otherwise in your area, you should urge a change in leadership. I strongly urge you to report any violations you are aware of directly to law enforcement (legally required if an instance of actual abuse) and to the chartered organization executive officer and Scout Executive (if a failure to follow youth protection policy of the BSA or CO). Scouting leaders are mandatory reporters of instances of abuse in almost every legal jurisdiction.

The girls in our Troop despise the braggarts on Eagle. They are taking it slow and doing everything correctly. I can’t but help thinking some of this is encouraged by media looking at king for “The first X” stories.

Excellent ideas. This is what I am getting at. Many things will be wiped away an a new operation and set of practices will emerge. Scouting will not simply emerge as the same, but smaller, movement.

A catastrophic number of claims were filed against Scouting for child abuse. A catastrophic number of people claim they were damaged for life as a result of what happened, much of which was abusive touching. Continuing business as usual is not the right response. Shifting the burden to a child to stop what he knows is “bad touching” by an adult would not be effective. Under such circumstances it would not be dystopian to end all adult touching of children in our programs (with exceptions for emergencies). We must stop, absolutely, the potential for this type of abuse and a “no-touch” policy should not be out of the question. It would make things very easy to understand and would remove the opportunity for abusers to engage in or “explain away” grooming activity involving touching: “I was just showing where the pressure points are”, “I was inspecting the Scout for ticks” or “I was just rubbing the Scout’s sore muscle.” Sorry to mention these sick examples, but that is what happened. Suppose a junior high school suddenly had 50 abuse claims filed against it for alleged child abuse involving molestation by several of its staff over a number of years. The school board and parents would not continue business as usual and an extraordinary remedy would be quickly instituted (perhaps a no-touch” rule). Such action would not be regarded as inappropriate. It would be welcomed by the parents, students and staff members seeking to protect children and restore a good image to the school. Incidentally, I am not on a “no-touch” advocacy campaign. I played this out an example of how some culture fundamentals of Scouting in the United States will need to evolve rapidly if Scouting is to survive as a movement. We need to decide what is fundamental and unchangeable and what is not. Touching children is not fundamental to what we do.

“This sounds like some dystopian sci-fi movie in which children are raised without physical contact.“ Do you think children are adequately protected under the current policy? Are we doing a exemplary job in this regard?

Reactions to your Comments on Culture Change Thanks all for sharing solid opinions on these significant issues that can define the future of Scouting. Thanks for staying on the “big picture” level, because this posting was not intended to debate specific implementation or bankruptcy issues. Below are a few reactions to the themes I am reading, based only on my thoughts and not inside information. “Eventuality of mixed-gender units” I have been roundly criticized on this site for being SM of DC’s 43-girl Troop and being a believer of single-sex and stand-alone female units. Now that I am two years into the project, I know that the girls themselves want to be as separate from the boys as they can be. Parents with a boy and a girl assume the “linked” Troops (often having a “girl patrol” in a boy Troop) are all that is available. When they find out about our girl-separate approach, they always have their girl to join us. When I took them to summer camp at the Summit this last summer, they had no interest whatsoever in mixing with the boy Troops. Rather, they sought out the other girl Troops. My conclusion at this point is that the girls themselves at Scout age want to be separate. Linked Troops that offer a practically speaking “co-ed environment” by fully-integrating a small girl patrol into a big boy unit will never maximize membership and will not offer the environment that girls want. I do not believe the Scouts themselves want to be “co-ed”. “Boys bad/Girls good” I know very well what is being encouraged in the schools on this issue and do not like it. My experience in our very large council is that this has not been a factor. The girls are not receiving any discernable preferences – and I would know being SM of a big girl Troop. This is surely a fear and dynamic we want to avoid. I just have no evidence that it is present at this time. “Men bad/Women good double standard” Any Troop that wishes to survive and thrive in the current and coming environment will need to adopt a practice of going beyond the minimum adult leader presence at activities. As SM of a large all-girl Troop, I could never favor a practice allowing only men to take our girls on a campout. It is important in the girl Troop setting to present strong outdoorswoman examples and women of great character with a variety of experiences. Given the horrific number and quality of abuse accounts filed in the bankruptcy, it is just unthinkable to imagine that parents would allow otherwise. The current policy has a whiff of inequity, but it is simply necessary to have female leaders at girl Troop events. If I were SM of a boy Troop, I would also include women leaders on every campout. Boys also need to see strong outdoorswomen as great character examples. They are entering a world where they will interact with women as colleagues, employees and supervisors. The culture of men-only taking boys-only out in the woods will evolve. “Let’s only discuss what the bankruptcy presents to us” Everyone on this site knows big cultural changes are going to occur over the next couple of years. It is healthy and appropriate for us to discuss what major changes are possible or likely. The structure of the bankruptcy will largely determine the possibilities of our financial, property-owing and organizational issues. It is not the right device to resolve our important cultural change issues. “Family Scouting” I do not dispute a single observation made by commenters on this. What I do understand is that Scouting-type organizations will have to be quite open – perhaps wide open to direct participation of parents and guardians if the organizations are to survive and Scouting-type programs are to have a future. Our treasured memories of getting away from the family and growing-up on our own at distant camps with unrelated adults are wonderful. However, this is already in Scouting’s past. When our troop got ready of our latest socially distanced campout and we had only four adults to accompany 32 Scouts, we upped the adult component to nine. The adults included seven parents, who camped as a separate patrol and did not “hover” over their children. This culture change is necessary. We can handle it. “Touching” and “Good touch/Bad touch” Credible allegations assert sickening accounts of severe abuse by horrible people “teaching” lessons central to the Scouting curriculum as their “excuse” for inappropriate touching. It starts as grooming and progresses to horror. A culture of generous touching of youth to teach merit badges, first aid, and other lessons will need to end. The experience is that while a Scout might know what a “bad touch” is, Scouts have often been unable to prevent the eventual abuse from taking place. We can teach these Scouting lessons by example without touching a child. We need to be open to these changes if we are to regain the trust we have lost – or even be able to operate. “Properties” What will roll out over the next six months will make clear that we can no longer operate the vast number of properties we currently own. It will cause us to rapidly prioritize what we need and what is financial sustainable. The culture that each local Scouting entity must have access to a nearby comprehensive residential camp was already fading due to economics. That process will greatly accelerate due to the bankruptcy and many will be disappointed with the closing of facilities. A culture of property operation cooperation will emerge. “Professionals, National, Councils, etc.” There is great discussion of these details elsewhere on the site. As a matter of cultural change though, I believe some commenters are not yet internalizing what is coming. “National” will be different from the current BSA version of “National”. National might very well continue as the same formal corporate entity if we successfully get through the Chapter 11. It might largely be a shell that manages the IP, supply services and whatever is required to be done at a national scale. The field presence of the new “National” will be a trace of its earlier composition, and almost all volunteer. “Council” will vary from place to place, but professionally may be skeletal versions of their former selves – mainly providing a smaller number of unit-serving executives. They will morph into mostly volunteer-dominated entities. Some councils will operate a residential camp with the attendance support of many other nearby councils. Those commenters disfavoring personnel and activity above the unit level will be cheering. Those commenters who enjoyed the events, services, offices, scout shops, awards, professional staff assistance, locally owned camps and our previously pristine public image will regret some changes. The emerging culture will be overwhelmingly local and unit-focused. There will be a lot less in the way of organizational politics to dispute.