Tron

I am still re-reading front to back. National has removed some of the gray area that bad leaders have lingered in for years. I think we all need to make sure we understand the nuance difference. Statements on MBC and SM authority seem much clearer and designed to reign in ego-mad SM's.

I have been a leader in troops that have traditional patrols, age based, and the age based also had a new scout patrol. My observation is that hands down age based is better. There is that 8th-9th grade teenage boy thing where the 5th-6th graders drive them insane because the 8th-9th are trying to be so much more mature. There is also the friendship and sibling thing; some scouts regardless of age are friends, some siblings want to be together, some siblings want to be as far away from their brothers as possible. I think the answer might be somewhere in between; something like the SM provides a framework, like "hey we have 36 scouts and I want to see 6 patrols of 6, keep tenting and buddy system age requirements in mind, figure it out scouts+, and then the scouts take it from there. A couple of oddities that I have seen is that I have seen older scouts ask to go back down to the NSP because of younger friends from clubs/sports/relatives; I have seen younger scouts that present much more mature than their age ask to get assigned to an older aged patrol because their personalities were more aligned with the older scouts. The biggest mistakes I have ever seen revolved around either the SM, the SPL, or both making decisions in absence of input from the scouts themselves; that patrol design always leads to some sort of s-show. I have seen parents who's kids get split between multiple patrols that do patrol level stuff lose their minds at having to figure out how to get their scouts to 2 different places at the same time for patrol functions (when a troop starts to function a higher level and the patrols start functioning at the highest level it adds complexity and independence that you should have the foresight to plan for). I think the answer is a mix of how many scouts you have, aligning them to the best possible patrol size, aligning personalities, following the rules, and making sure that everyone's voice is heard. Start with the scouts, make as few adjustments as possible; justify those adjustments when the new troop structure is presented.

I was told the same thing about multiples; I am not happy about it but I understand and I am willing to do the extra paper and leg work as long as my primary membership goes through. Both of the units that I directly work with are doing renewal mostly on your own. Unit 1 is doing adults are paid for by the unit, and that only encountered 1 issue, and it was with a multiple who had already paid; council has to drop him from our roster and then re-add him after Jan 1, it makes no sense. Unit 2 is going it all on your own. Both units are basically planning on revisiting peoples membership issues after Jan 1 due to the various grace periods. Overall no-one seems upset except some people with multiples. The multiples thing is a problem, and I think mostly due to a lack of a good job aid to walk people through that process.

I know of at least 3 scouts in my area that have potentially thousands of dollars in their scout accounts, I know of 1 scout that for sure has over 10k. I look at these scout account discussions more along the lines of, when is the IRS going smack a unit, not if. When you look into all of the case law that has been discussed, the public positions, etc ... it's all about the IRS doesn't want the media black eye unless they can really get something bigger than a handful of dollars of abuse.

Let me churn the fire of this thread back up. The following link is getting posted everywhere else today. Looks like scout accounts are probably a big no-no. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/02-0041.pdf

This is unfortunately true. The individuals with the power and money to affect the timeline of any court case often are the winners regardless of the law.

Is BSA going to announce this? I've been sort of waiting for them to announce it on their end but nothing. Is this a spoof?

It says Dallas/Fort Worth area but you know it's in Fort Worth where your opportunity to be on some cop ride along show is astronomical.

I think the big one here is actively recruiting district level volunteers. The average volunteer obligation is 2-3 years; BSA has a policy statement that a volunteer obligation is 1 year (membership renewal to membership renewal). If the DE is not actively recruiting district members it just falls apart and then the DE ends up doing everything, and doesn't have time to recruit district members. Every subcommittee at the district level should have 7-9 members. I think off the top of my head the advancement committee is literally dictated in the GTA to have 12 members; my entire district committee is 8 (including the paid members). How does anyone run an affective district without opening the door and inviting in people to help? Is everyone in BSA a 90 year old bachelor fighting to open a pickle jar, too proud to ask for help? This is all tough right? I read this, I immediately pictured this as a few different units in my district. What I have seen is that they have a couple of bad leaders, they are clinch positions, they do it their own way without regard to the BSA way, without regard to safety and ypt, because of connections they never get hit with the naughty stick, and when they move on the unit is in such shambles, all of the other leaders have been taught to hate and distrust anyone outside the unit, and then the unit implodes due to all of the bad habits and insular paranoia.

Some MBC use blue cards, some use Scoutbook; either way the progress is recorded the same way, the MBC signs off on requirements as they are completed. Do the free MBC training at training.scouting.org to get a better picture of todays MBC process.

I get what you're saying here; that ties into constantly recruiting. DE's are constantly pushing recruitment of scouts for units but they never seem to push constantly recruiting district committee/commissioner corp.

BSA is pretty much already there, from the list of action items what is missing?

Have this filled out and turned into your council registrar. https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/34169_forms_wb.pdf

Had some MBC situations this year myself; it's all about if you don't like that I run the MB program as designed find someone else. People hate it when I say it, but it's like running a Walmart, people hate it and complain but we'll see them shopping here again tomorrow. Having IOLS is still required it's just buried a bit. The requirement is that you have to have at least 1 trained SM/ASM on every overnight outing. To be considered a trained SM/ASM you have to have IOLS. BTW hazardous weather is required to be trained now, it's been moved by national into DL/CM/ASM/SM training; can't wait to see people start to fall out of trained status when their hazardous weather expires in a year or two.

I've gotten into the weeds of what publicly is disclosed on council revenue sources and there is nothing going from national to councils. Councils are just as much a franchisee as units are.

I think there are 2 problems with the commissioner corps; First there is no enforcement so the efforts of the commissioner can become a huge waste of time (If a unit repeatedly gets low evaluations or refuses to meet why are council executives renewing those charters?). Secondly to be blunt there are too many scouting bro's scratching each others back. When a commissioner witnesses YPT and GTSS violations they need to thrown the bad leaders under the bus, not sweep the issue under the rug. I think this goes back to service. At the cub level the parents can't just disappear once their scout crosses to a troop. We need a culture of lingering at the pack to pass on knowledge, hold hands a little, help those new parents get their feet under them. Most cub packs are like starting a new business with all new employees year-over-year. I think a good scout executive can fix this in every council by treating JTE/Quality Unit/Whatever the new program as mandatory to recharter, and publicly posts the scores. If units get caught lying on their JTE, yank the charter. How many packs and troops would fix their problems in a heartbeat if they had to deal with parents that really knew what was going on in a unit? An alternative, every January districts should have to run a class for AOL and perspective new parents on how to identify properly functioning units. Think of an AOL parent who gets a 15min crash course on patrol method and how they would steer their kids to units?

Maybe, most the strongest units in my area have some sort of relationship with a church that provides large amounts of space for storage and program use. There is definitely something that strengthens units when they say "We meet every week on Wednesday night at 7PM unless it's a major holiday like Christmas".

I am starting to believe that the #1 problem is quality control. So many bad units run by bad leaders. How many kids join, have a horrible experience, quit, and never come back?

This latest round of information and argument seems to forget that there are a significant number of CO and councils that no longer exist. These cases are not like a chemical company buying a going out of business other chemical company and acquiring the toxic assets with the positive assets in the purchase. The argument of being able to sue councils and CO's can also be made that other entities are not liable for those specific cases, additionally that argument could also be made by councils and CO's that they are not liable and the victims should be forced to sue the direct perpetrators. If this bankruptcy and settlement gets revoked the vast majority of survivors will end up with nothing. The survivors that get something will get a paltry part compared to what their individual lawyers suck out of the case.

What stops a "friends of" CO from going the route of the money earning application? In my experience the only time I have been told no/had a money earning application denied was when I was going to solicit an organization that I had contacts at for a unit donation and I found out that at higher levels the organization was already directly contributing to FOS in my council so I was told to not piss the source off by asking for another donation. I have never had a bakesale, or candy bar, or dinner fundraising application denied by my council. Additionally there are no rules prohibiting acceptance of unsolicited donations.

ditto

I mean just go full coed. How hard is this. The GTSS and YPT can handle the tenting and buddy system issues quite easily.

National has to fix the girl troop/blended troop/coed troop issue before any female cub scout uptick can have a beneficial affect on troops. In my area we've lost so many female scouts due to no or poor troop options over the past 2 years. National needs to pull the trigger on full coed before next April or we're just going to lose a ton of female scouts yet again in crossover season.

The brand rollout is a soft rollout starting in June 2024, the hard rollout with national media campaigns starts on B&G 2025. Nationals marketing department told us to start using SA instead of BSA but said the rebranding is really focused on starting in 2025.

BSA needs to revamp the whole Eagle process. Scouts should be able to work on BSA camps, AND, scouts should be encouraged to revisit old projects before starting something fresh.