Cburkhardt

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

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 professiona

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 vol

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 sever

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 t

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

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 r

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 …

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” pol

“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.

Significant Cultural Changes are Coming Soon For this posting, let us predict and discuss fundamental cultural changes that might affect our program and activities. Here are hypothetical examples to get the discussion going: · Parents may no longer repose sufficient trust in Scouting leaders. As a result, a significantly higher number of organization-registered and YPT parents might need to be present at meetings and campouts. · YPT will have to get very serious. Physical contact presents unacceptable YPT and liability risks. There might b

My last posting for a while. Some upcoming professional activities on my part will make postings inadvisable for a while. I have learned a lot about the the reorganization effort, and I have come to understand the principal points of view. Best wishes to everyone.

Real Life Numbers. I had specific councils I am familiar with in mind when I constructed the hypothetical for this thread. They are not located in the same geography (as was earlier suggested), but reflect the character and operational circumstances of the fictional councils. I purposefully chose councils without large LDS membership to control for the LDS departure factor. Membership and financial figures I just reviewed show that in a year-to-year comparison at the end of August, my proxy councils performed as follows: "Big City" council (metro sized): Lost 10.4% of its overall

You are right. It really needs a new thread that is separate and apart from the national bankruptcy thread. Different issue and different impacts.

Insurance fees and camp maintenance need to be paid, and we need at least a skeletal staff at the council level. In our Troop we raise funds to partially subsidize the Scouts from under-resourced families. The out of pocket cost to participate in a typical unit program runs 500-1,000 a year (depending on localities and how often a unit camps). We nibble that down as much as we can for thee families. National and council fees should be in lieu of expectations that units participate in FOS and product sales. I am more concerned with long term predictability, so we can properly anticipate th

I tend to agree that National will somehow get through reorganization and continue to own the IP. If there were some legal theory that would force liquidation, I think there are some pro-BSA people who would buy it anyway -- just like some of the bases. However, the center of the movement is going to shift back to the surviving councils. We have not discussed it much, but I think a good number of councils will enter some form of bankruptcy. Principal factors will include the number of credible claims attached to a council's geographic territory and how well the finances are. It will proba

If National gets through reorganization, it will retain the IP as a core property for future operations. If National is liquidated, the IP will be sold in bankruptcy like all of the other assets. A group of going-forward councils that have survived and received individual third party discharges could bid. Other purchasers could outbid a council group, so there is no guarantee that a Scouting-related group would be in control of it.

The letter the ASM would have seen does not contain any specifics. If the person wants to appeal the decision of the council, he can do so to the Region and later National. Such appeals are quite rare.

Another Outcome: Big City Remains Alone I am trying to present outcomes that are realistic possibilities for different parts of the country. This outcome would be a potential or even likely outcome where the big metropolitan council is reasonably well run and there are reasonable personal relations between most of the predecessor councils in the pretend Area. Big City, Rich Folks and Happy councils get along fairly well. There are good cultural ties among them caused by Happy council having encouraged their Scouts to attend Big City Scout Reservation and the common business and soc