Cburkhardt

Great question. Here is the answer. Over the coming years small facilities will be added to the bases to allow family members to come and experience the sites in a family-appropriate way. This can take place at the time a unit visits or entirely unconnected with a unit visit. A program track for youngsters will be offered. They have been doing this for a long time at Philmont and at the iconic Owasippe Scout Reservation, the pristine 5,000-acre preserve for Chicagoland and Northwest Indiana (the Pathway to Adventure Council). Owasippe has operated its family camp for 55 years and has 40

Thanks for this observation. The negativity might reasonably flow a bit from the changes experienced and challenges faced by Scouting these past few years. I spent several months late last year and early this year managing a series of extensive postings about these changes and the bankruptcy, so I don't shirk from these discussions. If folks want to discuss the wisdom of the 100 council camps, Sea Base, Summit and Northern Boundary that operated during COVID this year, great. If they want to debate the amount a Scout should pay for camp, wonderful. If people want to advocate that the BSA

I agree with your thoughts about shade. The Summit is terrain that alternates I between dense forest and open fields. The sun starts to become intense around 10:30 after the final fog patches are burned-off. The direct sun continues until around 5, when the west-side mountains begin to cast shadows. The temperature drops about ten degrees around 6, and again a significant amount between 10:30 and 11. There is heavy dew every night as the clouds descend around Midnight. Adults used to smaller camps are surprised by the distance between facilities -- but the Scouts (even the new ones)

Dear Friends: The policy issue of whether the Summit should have been built or whether it should be retained through bankruptcy are fine matters to discuss, but I hope that can be done elsewhere on the site where policy matters are handled. This is a very detailed review of a summer camp operation that most of us have not experienced and many have been curious about. My intent is to provide a straight-up review of the summer camp only. The previous pro/anti Summit discussions on this site have been exhaustive and informative. Experiencing summer camp there last week was very satisfying fo

The bankruptcy process will determine what assets are necessary to continue the movement. If the Summit does not make the judge’s list, I predict it will be purchased out of bankruptcy by the principal donors who built it, who will then lease it back to us for a very modest annual fee. My posting is a review of a pretty good summer camp program and not a defense of the decision to build the Summit or conduct large events there. Our Scouts are looking for a good place to camp and learn, My experience this last week tells me it is worth keeping.

I agree with you. One cold shower on Monday morning definitely sent me running to the leaders’ showers for the balance of the week. The decision to go with cold showers in such an otherwise well-built facility seems a bit mistaken. We will discuss the trip at a PLC meeting in 2 weeks - will be interesting to see if they bring it up.

These are reasonable issues and thoughts. The Summit summer camp cost was $380 per person. We rented vans and drove 5.5 hours to get there, which is 1.5 hours farther than our council camp (which we passed on the way). Our council camp price is $375. So, it was a very similar price. Yes, we do receive assistance for several of our scouts. Our “monied interests” are the members of our modest CO church, who graciously held a coffee fundraiser to help send our Scouts and the parish itself gave us some additional help. Another parish gave us $1,500. We used it to greatly subsidize particip

My note simply observes that if and when a council camp closes, the Summit summer camp will be available and offers a good program. I don’t think closing camps is the way to go unless local folks can’t sustain them. I agree local is best, and we will go to our council camp next year if they operate. I wish your council the best over the next few years as the financial stresses impact everyone in the BSA.

Thanks for raising the health issue. While I did not make the review COVID-centric, perhaps I could have mentioned that all scouts and adults in our unit we’re tested within a week of departing and Temperature-monitored daily from that point and throughout the week. Masks and gloves were worn and social distancing was followed. We are fortunate that two parent-physicians were able to accompany us as well. The Summit medical and program staff was effectively instant on compliance. We acted on medical advice, plain and direct. The circumstance was far safer than the circumstances these sco

Yes. The showers are still cold water in most of the camp, but they have installed hot showers for leaders. I think it is really only a matter of time when more hot showers will be added. Interestingly, none of ourScouts complained about it. Not once.

Scoutmaster Burkhardt Reviews Summer Camp at the Summit This is a review of summer camp as experienced by Scouts and leaders at the Summit's “James Justice National Scout Camp” in early August, 2020. The Summit is known for its role in hosting jamborees and is used for high adventure and training activities. However, this review will focus solely on the summer camp operation. I am wearing my hat as Scoutmaster to inner-city youth from the District of Columbia in writing this. Late in the review, I will make limited comparisons to council summer camps as I have experienced them as

Council Standards. There really isn't anything wrong with the notion that councils should possess certain financial, operational, membership and programmatic attributes in order to offer Scouting in a geographic territory. That's really the point of JTE and its predecessors as applied on a council basis. In the past, when a current executive board was unable to sustain a reasonable level of those attributes, they were encouraged to consider merging. The success and failure of those combinations usually depended on how well the personalities of the combining organizations were and whether t

Sea Scouts and Exploring. Everyone will recall that Sea Scouts has been officially adopted by the US Coast Guard Auxiliary as its youth program, much as Navy Sea Cadets is the official youth program of the Navy. Sea Scouts can even have dual membership with the Auxiliary. The partnership is important, because it aligns Sea Scouts with a national organization with resources and reach -- including into the Coast Guard itself. Sea Scouts is a micro-sized program and needs to grow. Without a strong Auxiliary link being developed, it might be difficult to sustain Sea Scouts into the future.

Merlyn: What the information you have means is that if the unit wants to call itself a "Sea Scout ship", the declaration of Religious Principals does apply. If they want to call themselves an "Maritime Explorer Post", the declaration of Religious Principles does not apply. An Auxiliary Flotilla can actually offer both registration status at the same time. The Exploring program is a career-oriented subsidiary/membership category of the BSA that has no religious membership standard. One of the reasons it was established was because of complaints of persons such as yourself, that government

From a strictly business standpoint, the Virus has stopped all meaningful cash flow and is choking recruitment and retention. This increases the risk of nationwide liquidation of BSA and councils (including properties)as a reorganization requires a strong financial basis for a going-forward organization. I don’t think we are there yet, but Scouting will be astrikingly different organization after this.

I have not given a lot of thought to this, but it occurs to me that if local CO’s are individually sued, it might be a messy and risky business bet for the plaintiffs attorneys, who do all of this on contingency. While the individual charters vest COs with oversight duties, it might be a difficult case to actually prove given the passage of so much time. Frankly, they will likely be viewed sympathetically by juries. The genius behind suing BSA nationally is that it is a “one case gets all” situation and the evidence was created and preserved on a national basis by the defendant (BSA). Suit

The rational approach is for a council executive board is to evaluate its own potential liability for incidents which may have occurred within the council. Some councils already know they have significant Incident exposure. It those cases there really is no choice. They can either contribute something in the national bankruptcy and get the discharge, or they can get separately sued or bankrupted into liquidation. That simple. If they think they have a pristine record, they can roll the dice that no case will materialize in the future from an aggrieved 65-year-old. It occurs to me that th

The immediate issue for councils to determine is whether they will agree to sign the bankruptcy documents and submit their council financials to the Bankruptcy Court in July. Since one case can wipe out the assets of a single big council, I anticipate most will want to contribute to the victim's trust fund and benefit from the discharge.

I know nothing about the events and conditions discussed here, but grieve that another property vested with generations of great memories is no longer going to be a scout camp. I only know the good character and judgement of the man, who has successfully led staff and volunteers through tough times elsewhere. We are in different circumstances now and given the events the nation and BSA face, our survival will require changes that will be disappointing to many of us. A new SE coming into a council cannot be expected to force his executive board to preserve that which cannot be funded or

My high opinion of Marc is from a few years of working with him elsewhere. He inspired his staff and volunteers in meaningful ways. He has sound overall judgement and does not bring a personal agenda to a council. We need more of that.

You heard it here first. Marc Ryan is one of the best young talents in the Scouting profession. He will go far in Scouting and will be one of the people who helps lead us into the new "format" that develops in the post-bankruptcy years. He is a businesslike guy in some respects, but an absolute program enthusiast who inspires he pros and the volunteers around him. I don't know anything about this particular transaction, but reading just the comments in the last few weeks it seems like the post-combination Council needed to right-size the property operation. Good luck to the folks on Lake

The out-of-pocket annual cost to fully participate in our troop (including registrations, summer camp, 8 weekend campouts, patches and just about everything else but high adventure) is around $1,000. This is paid through dues, activity fees and fundraising, which in our troop is an annual fundraising event. We give a troop FOS gift to the council. So this increase will be a piddling amount against our overall budget. New members will pay the $25 without issue. It is the cost of doing business, and is mainly our insurance. If the council would prefer a fee instead of FOS, that is fine wit

A few days ago I stopped checking this thread because of what I sensed was irrational negativity. I was going to post something back then but had one of those "write the letter but don't send it" moments. In the end we need to be optimistic in the most challenging of times and generally have an openness to seeing how we can move forward to another, better day. Relitigating policy decisions already made and making sweeping generalizations is just not going to be helpful to anyone. I wish everyone well who comments here and hope they can find ways to continue serving young people, whether it

The issue is whether the concept of having a chartered organization ("CO") for each unit is a "sacred cow" that is no longer an effective membership structure for Scouting. A number of comments made above show that the well-intended CO concept needs to be re-evaluated. One alternative suggested would be to have a "unitary" organization nationally or within a council where all units are directly owned and operated by the BSA. This is how the GSUSA operates. Their volunteers sign a contract-like document making clear the unit belongs to GSUSA and that continuing adult leader participati

"Don't Ask-Don't Tell" was adopted by National in the 1990's at the insistence of certain subgroups active in the BSA. This caused internal conflict, because faith groups had different positions on the matter. So, we had certain faith groups insisting on adoption and enforcement of membership standards that were not agreeable to other faith groups. Certain external advocacy organizations that had positive or neutral views of the BSA instantaneously despise us. This catastrophic policy change is among the major causes of our big problems today. Those of us at the grassroots level can