CynicalScouter

Do you have any documents or anything to show this is happening at this point? Rumors don't help.

I agree, but I can see that change going in multiple different ways. 1) Independent autonomous units. Each unit (or group) has to be its own 501(c)(3), etc. There is no CO. There is no sponsor. That's the most extreme. 2) CO's become "sponsors" that allow facilities access for free or no cost. The Girl Scouts model, but with some modifications. 3) Classic model. 4) Split squad: units are allowed to pick from any of these. This would perhaps be the worst case scenario because now you've got multiple different legal, financial, and management structures operating. The legal responsibilities for unit committees will be wildly different. It is hard enough for some committee chairs to understand their role in general, having three different answers will make it worse.

134 sets of attorneys listed as "Counsel to"

My problem with this is that as of right now it is simply rumor and speculation. Do you have anything to show that in fact this "Second option" is coming or is here? What you are suggesting is an overturning of a BSA system that dates back at least 80 years to the James West days.

At last count, almost 1000 UMC had filed claims against BSA National as part of the bankruptcy.

Worth noting: according to the original time table the NEC was suppose to approve action steps in August and the plan executed starting then. Has anyone, ever, heard a single word yet about a) what the NEC approved action steps are and b) what the time table is? Or are we just going to have more things hidden until the next staffer/volunteer has to leak?

Thanks. This is all happy talk PR. We've gotten infinitely more information from leaked documents/slides than anything. Which is sad.

It depends on if there are such waves in 2021. The point of the bankruptcy is that there won't be any future claims against National and the participating Councils for actions prior to 2019 or 2020. That just leaves the COs who will argue that they are covered by insurance from National and/or the Council.

I would simply note that the latest iteration of the BSA charter and rules/regs made some...interesting changes to the unit asset provision upon unit dissolution. RULES AND REGULATIONS OF THE BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA June 2018 revisions and current September 2020 Compare the above to the 2007 version

I also note that the are going to pull the chain on unauthorized fundraising.

The new CO agreement released by national is a game changer. New form released November 23: https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/membership/pdf/524-182_web.pdf Old form: https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/524-182WB.pdf EDIT: As for "imminent", it would have to be within days or maybe a week or two in order to make the December 31 deadlines for recharter

Colonial Virginia Council was within 48 hours of bankruptcy and was forced to give up their camp AND headquarters after massive embezzlement by their S.E. Did National lift a finger? Nope. https://www.dailypress.com/news/gloucester/dp-nws-mid-boy-scouts-camp-closing-20160117-story.html

And what has come out has only come out as leaks from folks on here and reddit. And as noted, they even removed the list of board members from their annual reports. How much confidence are we suppose to have when so much is being hidden?

Update: BSA National USED to list the NEC and NEB in their annual reports from 2012 (at least) to 2016 https://www.scouting.org/about/annual-report/ It was in a section called National Officers, Executive Board, and Advisory Council in the back of the annual report. They stopped publishing it in 2017. I wonder why? Well, no. I don't wonder at all.

The point is that every other major not-for-profit and/or service organization I know of puts the name of their board in their annual report. BSA apparently does not AND goes out of its way to not identify the board on their website. Girl Scouts has an entire page dedicated to their board. https://www.girlscouts.org/en/about-girl-scouts/our-leadership/national-board.html Boys/Girls Club? Ditto. https://www.bgca.org/about-us/board-of-governors And on and on. BSA is hiding from any scrutiny. Any wonder why?

I agree. There's no way to know who these people are. The only think I could think of and I think it worked is the IRS 990 forms which by law have to include the NEB. https://i9peu1ikn3a16vg4e45rqi17-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/2019BSA_Form990_publicdisclosure-1.pdf I won't list the names but they can be found at that link. So as a cross-reference I took one NEB name. Other than that 990 form, this last name appears NOWHERE on scouting.org. So I thought sure, maybe it is on scoutingwire.org. Nope. I even ran a google search. Nope. There are references to the 990 and South Dakota posts the board of directors for all foreign corporations registered to do business in the state (note "foreign" here does not mean "from outside the U.S.", it means "from outside the state", the state here being South Dakota). So we have NEB members that are never announced or made public other than that which is required by law to be done. Nice transparency.

You'd be surprised. For a good many people "diversity" and "equity" translates into "oppress white people." While OVERALL the nation is more accepting of diversity, there is a very large segment that rejects it. https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2020/10/01/americans-are-more-positive-about-the-long-term-rise-in-u-s-racial-and-ethnic-diversity-than-in-2016/ Moreover, the question will be how it is delivered. Ask some folks and they are prepared for this to turn into some kind of Maoist forced struggle sessions where white, male scouts are told to feel guilty for their transgressions and must publicly renounce their "crime" of "white privilege." Even MENTIONING the idea racial privilege is going to set some leaders, adults, and parents off. Until we know what is in this MB, I am withholding any and all judgement. .

My point is that going back to some "golden age" (Pick a date here. 1960?) and replicating that program won't work because that was a program for a different time. You literally cannot (legally) do some of the things that were permitted in 1960. In other words, if you simply took the Fifth Edition of the Scoutmaster's Handbook (1960) and the Sixth Edition of Boy Scout Handbook (also 1960) and said "do this" it wouldn't work. We aren't the nation we were in 1960. Offering up that 1960 program today would not work.

I think it is an interesting exercise but I would put it this way. As PACAN noted Why the decline? There's a lot of internal pointing that there were programmatic failures and that BSA National caused its own downfall. I also want to suggest something else: BSA Scouting has run its course, was created and functional of a certain time and place that no longer exists, and that it will shamble on a husk NOT because of anything BSA did internally but because the environment changed. In other words, the "crisis" in Boy Scouts of America was it was designed, shaped, built, premised, and principled for America circa 1930. Maybe post-WW2. But that's it. Robert Putnam alluded to this 20 years ago in Bowling Alone: these kinds of organizations are simply dying out. And millennials are apt to volunteer/sponsor/participate in a single program and then jump to another one in a matter of months. You cannot build a sustained organization like that. Put BSA in the historical context of such a collapse and it makes "sense" that BSA is likely going to drop in terms of membership. THEN add in the missteps by National. THEN add in a society that looks at mid-20th century Americana as anachronistic, implicitly invalid (racist, sexist, etc.), and so on. I would also perhaps put BSA in contrast with other organizations. Put it in context. Was BSA's decline in numbers similar to that in others? 4-H was in freefall for years, starting in 1974 when it peaked at 7.4 million. It dropped to around 5.5 million by the 1990s but is back up to 6 million or so now. Why did they come back (or at least remain stable) while BSA dropped like a stone?

Proposed standards for councils now out.

Posted to reddit just now. This is just. Wow. BSA Council Basic Standards •Adhere to brand standards •Adhere to rules, regulations, and policies of BSA •Current on national fees •Council governed by volunteers •Provide programs consistent with BSA Guidelines Council Performance Standards Charter The council performance standards committee identified and recommended following items to measure: •Youth Safety –98% Youth Protection Training •Youth Market Share –2% •Youth Retention –62% •Financial Sustainability –minimum of three months of cash liquidity for operations •Youth Ethnic and Gender Diversity –10% of membership is female; membership reflects community’s youth of color percentage Leading Indicators of Successful Councils Finance •Net camping operation surplus (inclusive of direct and indirect costs, and depreciation) •Growth in endowment fund and appropriate earnings distribution Membership •Multi-year plan based on data and year over year growth •Youth in market share, strong volunteer engagement, emphasizes and identifies youth markets with growth potential (ethnic, gender, socio-economic, religious, various communities, etc) Unit Service •Effective commissioner team serving every unit •Continually knows health of every unit Board Governance •Diverse board (gender, ethnicity, age, professional experience, Scouting & non-Scouting, backgrounds, tenure, etc) •Clear understanding of status on all performance standards •Understands the council’s strategic priorities Strategic Plan •Developed as team (staff & volunteers) •Rolling 3 years •Living document that drives annual priorities and budget •Guides executive board and staff agendas BSA_Churchill_Plan-Proposed_New_Territory_Structure_and_Council_Standards_presentation_10.6.20.pdf

Boo. Hiss. Boo. But if I had to do a running sum I believe my last estimate was 850 Methodist Churches and organizations that have filed claims as of around Friday 11/6.

With the deadline approaching, I'll do daily updates to the claims docket. So far: Date Total Claims Methodist Monday, November 2, 2020 40 40 Tuesday, November 3, 2020 67 54 Wednesday, November 4, 2020 113 43 Thursday, November 5, 2020 81 68 Friday, November 6, 2020 26 26

My troop did a Webelos/AoL event recently. We had the parents to the side and let the Scouts led the Cubs. The adults talked and we showed the Troop plan: our unit hikes or camps at least 1 if not 2 a month every month but December where we do a rock climbing lock in. The Cub parents were amazed. "Where do you get the time for rank advancement?" they asked. And as a former Den Leader I got that. Cubs is so totally focused or can be focused on "this week/weeks is this adventure or that adventure". When we explained that the rank advancement comes automatically with the outdoor activities they got it. As was said, at least for Scouts, BSA rank advancement is the naturally occurring byproduct of outdoor engagement and activity.

This just came in from our Region and Area Advancement chairs: