Tron

Let me start with I think there is unfortunately a lot of leeway going on because so many councils are in life support mode and don't want to risk a whole troop or pack dropping from the rolls. It is the wild west out there because membership numbers are so important right now and the paid scouters seem to want to keep their job more than running a quality program. We have a unit in my district right now that we all know is a paper only unit that the CO is trying to keep alive for some reason. A member of the key 3 was removed from scouting for committing and being convicted of a felony. No one is trained. No program is being provided. We're not even sure if the scouts are real; all we know is that the CO pays for 5 adult, 5 youth memberships and a recharter every year. The unit "meets" out of district. The unit never attends any district or council function. This is a prime unit for charter revocation, completely not running the program or even trying, yet nothing is done.

There's two things here, maybe related, maybe not. As an outsider with few years dealing with BSA (not involved with the settlement at all) I see things more from a corporate and legal lens. I agree with the assessment that doing the settlement fund piecemeal (going after councils, CO's, etc ... ) would have created a vast array of have and have nots. So many guilty parties (councils, units, charter orgs, perps) no longer exist, which would have prevented victims from seeking any restitution. I still struggle with these funded vs hypothesized fund numbers. What I know of nationals resources and debt and the councils local to me is that there really isn't much money out there, especially at the councils whom are mostly operating hand-to-mouth. To the discussion of Scouting America being around in the future; I have no doubt that Scouting America will be here in 100 years. I do think Scouting America will look a lot different, a lot more like how I understand scouting was 100 years ago. I think national is going to have to divest itself of a lot of physical property in order to get out of debt; maybe only Philmont surviving. I think the number of councils is going to shrink down to less than 100 (I think this will happen in the next 10 years). I think the number of council owned properties (camps) is probably going to shrink down to around 50 and start to get run more by professional adult camp staff and less by summer volunteers on a 4 season operational plan (the days of 7-9 weeks of summer camp run by barely paid OA seeking volunteers is coming to an end).

If you guys no longer have camps I bet you get absorbed by Western LA. For such a state with such a huge population the CA councils are crazy small.

When I last looked at them there was a link to download the PDFs but I do not see them now; and, they are piecemealed question-by-question. This is a clear indicator that national is doing something on the backend. Is another change coming? That being said I think we're going to see this evolve into a whole new program once the council evaluation has had a year or so to get ironed out. This sort of stuff should be mandatory to recharter. Feedback to the districts through national should be mandatory in order to get all of the paid scouters and big deal committees informed to the real situation at the ground level.

The own kid factor is a big one. I hold my kids to a higher standard to avoid anyone questioning the legitimacy of their accomplishments. Pointing out the own kid standard to this lady might make her tuck tail and run to a different troop.

34 Billion? If all of scouting in the world were liquidated there wouldn't be that much. You can't squeeze blood from a turnip; there is no way people are reading these payout matrix correctly, there is no way the court or parties involved could have been 31.6 billion off (when accounting for the 2.4 billion approved for funding at the end of the trail).

Never seen or heard of this before. I would ask her where she got the idea for recording videos of him performing tasks and see where the leads.

Well it's not anymore according the DC Circuit Court. That decision has created a space for our government to force a revisit to the SCOTUS decision to say burning the US flag is protected. When this eventually winds it's way back to SCOTUS I hope they thrown out Texas Vs Johnson.

Yeah the DC circuit court decision is total BS and it's not going to hold up under SCOTUS scrutiny; however, it has to get there. A lot of people are charged with BS crimes every single day but they don't have the money to fight-the-fight.

No that's not what I read, what I read is the DC Circuit Court has states that just burning the Israeli flag in itself is a hate crime.

I think GSUSA is killing themselves with the school grade bands for rank advancement.

The stat is 90% of eagle scouts came out of cub scouting. The number of scouts bsa members that came out of cub scouting is 70% (last time I saw the numbers). Are you saying you have a troop of 7?

So what's going on is a DC circuit court judge has dictated that burning the Israeli flag is a hate crime; therefore the response is "How is it a hate crime and illegal to burn a foreign nations flag but not illegal to burn our flag?". When stupid people do stupid things it's very common for more stupid things to happen in response.

Well when we look at family packs in my district we have a couple of hold out "boy only" packs but they are down to a handful of scouts and when those kids crossover the packs are dead; everyone else is a coed family pack now.

Maybe ... but something to think about. We're (my town) in a weird situation where the biggest female troop in our district is in the town over and almost every female scout is from my town and not that town. The DE is structurally blocking new linked and coed troops to keep the existing female troops healthy. In addition to those female scouts we're losing the brothers to that troop as well (parents don't want to drive to 2 different places on the same nights). That troop is 1 of 3 linked/coed troops; because of geography it's sort of the only game in town and sucking the air out of the room because of that. That troop is so large that it churns through crossovers and survives on gravitational affect alone. I think, and I have told my commissioner and DE the following: Once my towns troops have the ability to provide the program to female scouts it might kill that other towns mega troop. It's an upsetting discussion for them. As of right now the '26 crossover cohort in my town is female heavy; so is the '27 cohort. If the local troops are allowed to go coed in December the neighboring town (based on discussion with the crossover parents) will lose out on 10-40 scouts over the next 24 months. That's pretty much immediate affect in this program.

In my opinion it becomes a situation where the PLC is told that the program includes those items that they hate, they have to do them at least once in every 18 month period. The PLC gets told that they have an obligation to run the program and ensure that the younger and newer scouts get a chance to advance. Not running the program is what kills troops, every time. When the district committee does a postmortem on a unit that surrenders it's charter it is literally the exact same thing every time: Not running the program, which leads to scouts not advancing, which leads to them quitting or transferring out, which leads to structural imbalance in age distribution, which becomes a red flag to crossover families, whom then go somewhere else. Think of it this way, the PLC is the management but the scouters are the board of directors.

Scouts pick but they don't. This isn't the scouts get to do what they want program, this is the scouts get to lead and do things that interest them but they still have to run "the program". As adults we're the framework to make sure the program is being ran. Think of it like a Montessori school. We know that in any given 18 month period national wants us to provide a program that provides the opportunity for a scout to get from nothing to 1st class rank and star soon thereafter; so everything for scout through 1st class has to get covered at some point in any given 18 month period. Say you have a PLC that hates land navigation, sure they can push it off, maybe they love swimming and swim for one meeting every month, but sometime in that 18 month period the adults have the duty to force the PLC to accept the fact that they have to do land navigation, at least enough to teach the new crossovers so they can advance.

I think there are two or three things here. The scouts do not need to have their phones out and as adults we have an opportunity to teach the scouts to exercise self control by keeping their phones put away unless truly needed. Taking away and securing the phones as a default behavior makes adult leaders the wardens and conditions the scouts to being told when it is ok and when it is not ok to have a device out. Phones are a useful tool for the scouts. Scouts can use them to reference scout materials, use them for orienteering, checking maps, etc ... and the great big bonus is that if there is an accident and a scout has a phone they can quickly call for help. It's a tool, we want them to have them, but we need them to have the self control to keep them put away unless truly necessary. Parents need to backoff and leave their kids alone. Children need space to grow; boys especially need freedom to be about unsupervised to gain the confidence to function. Helicoptering and electronic leashing children is known to cause anxiety and depression.

So when you read the GTA, the Troop Leader Guides, etc ... the reality of the program is that getting something checked off for rank requirement requires only ever having done it successfully once. Now what separates a rank mill from a real scout troop is what happens afterwards. A good scout troop has a regular calendar and rotates through scoutcraft regularly which provides two things: First it allows scouts to revisit that skill and practice. Secondly it provides an enablement opportunity for those senior scouts to teach and thus master their scoutcraft through having to know the task well enough to explain it and teach it.

The new rule is also buddies should be no more than 3 years apart in age which also complicates mixed age patrols.

The adults are the danger, if you push too hard, they will all turn on you.

I heard a generic phrase along this line that a large number of adults can't pass the physical and that a large number of "trail guides" have been getting used to keep contingents on the trail down at Philmont. I think the solution to this problem is if you show up and fail the physical you get sent home. Right now if you fail the physical my understanding is that they put your butt up in a cabin somewhere and you chill for a week while your scouts go beat the trail.

This rule is with good reason, a lot of abuse victims were victimized by near peers.

This is sort of 3 now for high adventure now that high adventure requires 3 wilderness first aid and CPR qualified participants.

Absolutely true.