Owls_are_cool

Hypothetical...If I am selling Scouts BSA to a prospective scout, would bringing up this merit badge increase or decrease the chances of them joining the program?

28 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

Agreed.  I'm writing from the point that I am comfortable now with units that shut down.  We should not feel bad or guilty or a failure.  It's just that the magic mix is gone.  Primary concern is giving our scouts (and our sons) the best scouting experience possible.  That might mean letting small troops close.  Not the right answer for everyone.  

Correct, some scouts like a smaller group. Let distractions during meetings and more say in what goes on. On the other hand, hard to do an outdoor program when only 2-3 scouts want to participate. Leadership skill development is harder. Larger group? Easy for scouts to fall through the cracks and leave the program. 

4 hours ago, mrjohns2 said:

You are moving as the SM of one failing troop to be SM of another? 

I let my son choose another troop, so I went to the adult leadership of that troop and asked them where they want me to serve. Initially it was an assistant scoutmaster, but the current scoutmaster's job makes it hard for him to participate, so I got the scoutmaster job. I was ready to step back, but I can do that job for a year.

On 10/21/2022 at 1:37 PM, Eagle94-A1 said:

What I I need are ideas to reinvigorate my troop. I want the Scouts to take charge, but I am grasping at straws at the moment. I'm trying to recruit folks, but no one is interested.

I think we are all running against the headwinds of the current Scouts BSA program. The Eagle Rank has become the Aim instead of scouts deciding and running their own activities (hopefully in the outdoors)...which leads to character development, better citizenship, etc.

By the end of this year, 6 of my scouts will get their eagle rank, but the negative of that is my troop will be down to 3 scouts. We did recruit extensively, but the cub scouts went to another troop. It comes down to relationships with packs or other youth groups. Since there is really no replacements for me as SM and for most of the committee, I began the process of moving all my scouts to other troops in my city and my troop will fold at the end of the year. Since last summer, I have been serving two other troops which a few of my scouts (including my son) moved to. 

Looks like next year, I will be the SM for another troop that is also struggling to recruit with about half of the scouts aging out. The committee of this troop wants me to focus on eagle ranks, which will eventually see that troop also fold at some point. We are looking at getting involved with a Pack (which always need help from experienced scouters and scouts) to start relationships with parents of potential scouts. 

5 hours ago, Scouterlockport said:

I think you are missing the point on the important of the class room badges. Sadly most of the new jobs/careers are in office spaces we need to prepare our kids for this new economy.

I have a really good job in IT, but I do not have a computer related degree or certification. 1) I grew up on a dairy farm where I learned work ethic, problem troubleshooting and solving, and how to be productive when tired or sick. 2) During study hall in the 80s, I went to the computer lab and started writing computer programs. I was really good at finding subject matter experts that I can learn from. 95% if the stuff I have learned on IT was done outside of the classroom. Training is expensive. Employers love employees that can teach themselves new skills and use them to further the unit. 3) Classroom work does not teach supporting customers. This is where work ethic comes in. I monitor chatrooms where customers notice problems and I usually have a solution in place before the trouble ticket gets to me. 

If you want to make scouting irrelevant, then replace more and more outdoor activities with classroom work type merit badges. If you want scouts to learn interpersonal skills needed in the workplace, then put them in a stressful camping situation where some of their troop are not pulling their weight.  

Late to this post. In my district, cub scouts are done by over half. Virtualized cub scouting did not work. Packs that continued in person activities as much as possible during the COVID fear campaign are the ones that are healthy today. Packs that did not, lost a bunch of cub scouts. Another factor driving scouts out of the program is the push towards more classroom type activities instead of more outdoor activities. 

Recruitment has been significantly down. It has to be all the advertisements looking for victims of sexual abuse, because of the BSA. My chartering organization will no longer recharter a pack and my troop, because they are getting letters from victim lawyers. We are working on finding a troop to merge with by August to keep scouts in the program.

My scouts would much rather camp by a river and explore, than to do most of the required merit badges for Eagle rank. In terms of character development (an aim of scouting), campouts like that are 100 times more effective in developing character than any of these classroom activities. I think the BSA needs to go back to the basics if they want to save the program and its aims. 

13 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

Barry, your former 10-year Director of Youth Protection said, unequivocally, that "children are not safe in Scouting," that "[he] failed" to protect children, and apologized to survivors.

My son just got his drivers license as a freshman in high school, so he is less safe today driving himself to school and to baseball practice. However, in the long run driving is an important skill to have and the more he drives, the better driver he will become. As parents, we could bubble wrap our son, but in the long run, it will be bad for our son.

The program does put scouts in challenging positions, by design, so they grow in character. So by design the program is not as safe as sitting on the couch watching TV or playing video games. 

Did this Director of Youth Protection do nothing when made aware of a sexual predator abusing scouts? Then yes, he failed to protect children and should apologize. Did he let leaders continue to work with scouts after those leader's YPT lapsed? Then, yes. 

I can say that scouts are unequivocally safe from sexual predators in my unit, because we follow YPT. Adult leaders are vetted to the highest standard and we have removed parents from troop events that have bullied scouts. If I discover a sexual predator in any of our activities, I will get the police involved and do everything I can to get him sent to prison. 

38 minutes ago, yknot said:

Children are not somehow 10X safer in BSA

I do know that in my unit and district, youth protection is taken seriously. Compared to sport teams that myself and/or my son is associated with, the scouts are safer today. In the end, it comes down to vetting adult volunteers, which will never be a perfect process. When I coach basketball, I do have players go places in pairs and I avoid being alone with a player as much as possible. It is a good habit I picked up from scouting. 

Knowing that the vetting process is never perfect, it is important that those directly responsible for sexual abuse are sent to prison for a long time.

8 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

Is there another that would be willing to setup as SM? 

My assistant has a job that requires a lot of travel. Other active adults are having trouble finding time for scouting, because they are single parents or have jobs where they work 50-60 hours a week. Cub scout numbers in my city is down 66% over the past two years, so it has been a struggle to find parents to join the committee/scoutmaster corp. 

I am actually looking forward to joining another troop and contributing at a smaller role. 

Our chartering organization (a Catholic Church) has notified us that they will no longer be our CO at the end of 2022. They got a pile of letters from lawyers stating that they are next in being forced to contribute to the victim fund. 

I am actively moving my scouts to another troop in the city, so scouts in my troop can continue to benefit from the program. My council has offered to charter us, but I no longer have the energy to keep my troop going after two tough years keeping the troop afloat through the covid panic and the constant advertisements on radio and tv looking for boy scout victims of sexual abuse. 

I just signed up a scout to join my troop last week and I paid his registration fee out of my pocket ($37.50) and bought him a manual. I just do not want money to be an issue for a scout to join the program and they will have a chance in Sept/Oct to sell popcorn to fund their own program the next year. Many organizations give introductory deals to get membership numbers up and the BSA should also. 

At some point, scouters like myself will have to give up bailing out national for their bad decisions to keep our troops/packs alive. 

47 minutes ago, qwazse said:

But, they are also doing some astounding things:

This is an excellent list. Never a good idea to judge a generation as a group.

2 hours ago, Jameson76 said:

You guys seriously meet with commissioners? Unless there are pics, gonna call that "unproven"

We are in a large council and they seem to have professional staff all over the place (at least 5 in marketing and untold number in "development")  On paper there seem to be Commissioners; Council, assist Council. asst to the regional manager commissioner, Commissioner colleges, commissioner meetings, etc etc.  They seem to have commissioner gathering at times.

In our District on the calendar there is a monthly commissioner meeting.

In 40 years as a leader in 4 different councils, 5 different troops I have met a commissioner once.  With my current troop over the last 14 years never seen one.  Concept is great, reality is much different.

First step is to determine who is your unit commissioner, then set up a meeting with him/her. Easy for me, because my unit commissioner attends the same roundtables and district committee meetings that I do. Sometimes we meet after roundtable, to be efficient with our time. Granted not all councils have their act together, but I learned what is required of unit commissioners in my district, so I make sure I am available to him and ensure he meets those requirements in regards to my troop.

On 5/29/2021 at 5:32 AM, SSScout said:

What think ye on this?   A "Promise to Parents", not a "promise to kids"?  

Much of this word for word gold standard for Journey to Excellence. 9 short term camps. 75% of the troop go to a long term camp. 2/3s of troop advance a rank. Recruitment goals. Etc. 

While I do attempt to achieve gold in JTE every year, it says nothing about character growth of scouts which is one of the aims of scouting. This is hard to measure, but much more important. JTE likely needs a rewrite to measure what is important. 

We (the Key 3) meet with a unit commissioner yearly and identify areas where my troop needs to improve (maybe needs more focus?). This document points to this meeting a bit. I find this meeting benefits myself and my troop. 

Friends of Scouting is an easy sell for me, because my district office has always been helpful to me and my troop. The summer camps in my state are well maintained and well run. The council and district does try to take some of the load off of the unit volunteers. Not all scouters are as lucky in this area. I do not think customer service is in a district's JTE, but it should be. 

While I like clear expectations for my unit, this seems to be another layer of paperwork that units must go through. It is a lot of work on volunteers to get recharter completed and now this? If this was my council, I would be pushing back. 

Rethinking program should be done. Scouting is too much like school, when the focus should be outdoor activities. Cub scout day camp is what got my son hooked. 

For my troop, work schedules of parents make it hard for them to volunteer. Father out of town frequently for work, we cannot expect mother left behind with multiple kids to volunteer for the pack or troop. Then the requirements the BSA loads on a potential volunteer is a lot!

Parents that have children with behavioral issues are drawn to the BSA for its character development. Most volunteers are not ready for this. So a simpler program would make it easier to accomplish the aims of scouting.

Another thought I have...since we know that background checks do not screen out 100% of the pedophiles and the BSA knows this fact also, is the BSA still liable for abuse that leaked in from an imperfect background check system? And if the BSA is still liable, then how is it possible to for the organization to eliminate 100% of the abuse, short of ending scouting?

I did state this before: the BSA does take youth protection much more seriously today, than organized sports and schools. When I coached baseball and basketball, there are no two deep adult requirement, nor are players required to have a buddy to go to the bathroom, etc. 

All these organizations do require background checks, but we all know that these checks are not 100% fool proof and will not detect anyone that has not committed their first sexual crime (or multiple crimes if their victims do not report). It is bothersome to me that the BSA seems to get all the blame, yet very little energy is being spent on getting sexual predators into prison.

I always have a few scouts (out of my 11) that cannot participate, because of sports and jobs for part of the year. If they are SPLs, they are good at handing off the position to someone who can make the meetings/campouts. While a scout has limited participation, they do show up on occasion and contribute to the troop via a position of responsibility. Mostly it is training younger scouts first aid, how to cook, etc. The more I let the scouts run their own troop and let them make their own decisions, the more they get something out of the positions of responsibility. That is the spirit of the requirement. 

In Montana, we have tourist season from Memorial Day to Labor Day, then hunting season in the Fall. My troop tries to camp in the spring and later fall to avoid these seasons, but it is getting hard on this old man to camp in the snow and cold. My troop does not close down for the summer. We still meet to prepare for summer resident camps and some and 1/2 short term camps. 

3 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Or are volunteers required to train every year now?

BSA wide is every two years. My council requires it every year.

39 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

The fact that that training was only 66% in compliance as recently as 2019, however, certainly shows BSA remained negligent up until that point.

There were issues on my.scouting.org in 2019 where many scouters took the YPT training, but it was not recorded. I had to send a screen capture of proof that I completed YPT to my council, so they can manually update the official status with the BSA. I had to do the same with 5 others in my unit, until the issue was fixed late in 2019. 

This year I could not recharter anyone that did not have YPT up to date, so for my council over 99% of the scouters are in compliance. There are a few scouters whose YPT lapsed after recharter, but they ceased involvement in scouting after recharter. (Thus the not 100% compliance.) 

Now the BSA is taking adults off a unit's roster if they do not have YPT up to date. 

From the day I became a den leader about 6 years ago, YP has been drilled into me from the pack, district, and council, so your case for BSA negligence  today is utter BS and full of ignorance. I'd ask you of names of current District or Council executives that oppose YP or do not take it seriously, but I will not hold my breath. 

That seems to me to be an impossible standard for youth organizations, in that many victims and their parents did not report to the police these criminal actions, so many child molesters fell through the cracks of background checks. Even today, the BSA must report to the police all instances, but if a prosecutor refuses to prosecute due to the lack of evidence or the victim's unwillingness to cooperate, nothing will show up on a background check. 

51 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

As such, if you do not want to pay into the victims fund? Fine! Leave! No one is going to come after your personal assets or hunt you down or what not.

Or I can get you to pay the registration fees for adults and scouts in my troop, so we can continue to invest in the scouts' character, citizenship, physical fitness, and leadership. Or is that ceasing to be the goal in the near future?

25 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Then what is your alternative that will compensate the sexual abuse victims.

How much to you expect me and my scouts to pay into a victim fund? A thief steals my car from a driveway, so I sue my neighbors for allowing it to happen. I would be wrong to go after the neighbors instead of the actual thief.

Even worse, I wait 30-40 years where all of the neighbors have died or moved away and I sue the existing neighbors. 

13 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

So you believe that BSA the corporate entity should not have to pay one thin dime? You keep dodging the question, but I'll keep asking it.

I'll keep pointing out the impacts on scouters and scouts not responsible for the abuse, but yet will pay the brunt of the bankruptcy. You can't get money out of dead people, so scouters and scouts are now being targeted, because we are the BSA today. 

20 minutes ago, ThenNow said:

Let's talk about costs and fees.

How much of those costs to you expect me and my troop's scouts to pay?