AwakeEnergyScouter

I read about this, but didn't think of how it would apply to the pack! Good call. Thanks for reminding me! First park is in two weeks so just in time 😄

Our pack planned our calendar for 2023-2024 to create the opportunity for our scouts to earn this badge! We're hitting up all the NPS parks within driving distance plus a few printable junior ranger awards that relate to our nature in this part of the country ♥️

Isn't this a pretty common practice? Sounds like a general legal system problem to me. I've certainly read more than a few articles that mention that the reason the suit in question was filed in that jurisdiction was some perceived advantage. Perhaps this is me being from a small country where the laws are the same everywhere and no one thinks that's objectionable, but I personally agree that it's a bit distasteful. However, it seems to be the result of having different laws in different bits of the country; either the legal system is exactly the same everywhere or there's going to be incentive to "shop" if you can. Unless you can write an enforceable federal law against it somehow, although that sounds incredibly hard.

There's no real way out of the tradeoff between ease of signup and thoroughly vetting and supervising volunteers. Yes, more vetting of all volunteers in direct contact with scouts may well make it harder to get volunteers. But there's not really a frictionless, free way to vet them, either. Background checks for all scout-facing volunteers is kind of an obvious way to keep the super-obvious pedophiles out. I mean, keeping kids safe from CSA 101 is don't accept convicted pedophiles into your organization, no? It's not covering all the bases, but not insisting upon it is... less smart, shall we say.

I haven't followed the legal play-by-play - could you give some examples? Does US law generally require the use of legal philosophy from the time of the crime or infraction?

I'm definitely starting to think that the time when COs made sense is past. Many reasons, but assuming that the explanation you got is true, one is that BSA isn't really in control of their volunteers. That's just a hard way to operate. Too many cooks in the kitchen. And I'd say scouting in the US cleared the credibility hurdle a long, long time ago!

That's us, too. We also have grandparents. Adults can outnumber scouts sometimes. Probably related is that most (but not all) adults were scouts themselves. All grandparents that have come have at least one person in the couple who was a scout as a child. Everyone wants to share scouting with their children and grandchildren.

Apologies for the lack of clarity - I'm referring to @HICO_Eagle when he kicked this tangent off with

It's taken me quite a while to respond, because I went to watch all the available documentaries about CSA in the BSA and read a large number of articles about it so that I can be more precise and accurate. I want to return to this: In order to be kind, friendly, helpful, courteous, trustworthy, and loyal towards our fellow scout and now scouter survivors, we need to have the bravery to live through some (very minor compared to that of survivors') pain. It hurts to see an organization you hold dear fail ethically and fracture due to the fallout of the ethical failure. It does. But let's be loyal to our brothers and sisters in scouting first - and process our own pain around the organization fallout in a way that doesn't detract from the survivors' pain. Serious crimes were committed against our fellow scouts en masse. That really happened. That is the real problem. (And I'm glad you did acknowledge it in a sentence.) Everything else is secondary. For us who aren't survivors, the secondary problems move up to the mental primary slot easily. (That's how "first world problems" arise.) But the survivors are here, this isn't a private conversation between non-survivors with "first-world problems." So when the conversation goes in a the-lawsuit-is-all-just-a-malicious-attack direction, the implication from a survivor point of view could very well be "I care more about the BSA as an organization than my fellow scouts and scouters". I can't speak for the survivors, but that's what I take away from what you're arguing. You're really mad about "leftists", but apparently not pedos because you spend your time typing about the conspiracy. Presumably this is only an appearance, right? You are actually really mad at the pedos? Make sure to say that out loud then, please, so that the survivors can be 100% clear on that you do believe and support them. Why that's important brings me to the next thing: I have no reason to disbelieve that your family says this, but it is far from clear to me that this is some general "leftist tactic". You mentioning it is the first time I've heard of it (and I'm pretty sure I hang out in a lot of what you would consider "leftist" circles and have for years), and I cannot pull up any instances of "BSA" or "Boy Scouts of America" on the same page as "rape culture". But having reminded myself of the definition of rape culture, it does seem to describe parts of the BSA. "Rape culture is a setting, studied by several sociological theories, in which rape is pervasive and normalized due to societal attitudes about gender and sexuality.[1][2] Behaviors commonly associated with rape culture include victim blaming, slut-shaming, sexual objectification, trivializing rape, denial of widespread rape, refusing to acknowledge the harm caused by sexual violence, or some combination of these.[3][4] " (from Wikipedia) Scoutmaster CSA jokes are shocking to me exactly because this is absolutely not normal and frankly not funny because they're trivializing rape. (Same problem as with adult rape jokes - and that's exactly how I perceived them as a teen.) Obviously they aren't a thing in all of the BSA. But we can't "round down" to say it's not indicating any problems because it's not present in the entire BSA. It does indicate a general pervasiveness of CSA problem in parts of the BSA - and pretending it doesn't is in and of itself part of the definition of rape culture. https://news.harvard.edu/gazette/story/2020/08/how-rape-culture-shapes-whether-a-survivor-is-believed/ Rape is the nation’s most underreported violent crime, according to U.S. Justice Department statistics, as survivors fear that juries will believe the perpetrators, not them, and if they pursue justice, they may suffer further physical, economic, or social harm. This stacked deck, known as “rape culture,” is the set of social attitudes about sexual assault that leads to survivors being treated with skepticism and even hostility, while perpetrators are shown empathy and imbued with credibility not conferred on people accused of other serious crimes, like armed robbery. If you say "rapists gonna rape, all you can do is protect yourself" or "the BSA did try to keep pedos out" in a policy discussion to argue that nobody needed to do anything differently in the past, you're declining to deal with a specific crime at a society level. In a policy discussion, you need to be talking systems - systems like policing and how to catch all criminals without falsely convicting innocent people. Talking about the BSA's reputation, it being attacked, about the perpetrators' reputations, instead of crime prevention and prosecution does match the definition of rape culture. It isn't that you can never talk about those things. But in order to make it crystal clear that you do not condone crimes and therefore want the perpetrators prosecuted, tried and convicted, and that you aren't accusing your fellow honorable scouts and scouters of lying about the abuse they report, you need to say those things out loud. And since this attack on the BSA is clearly not universally experienced, it would be better to make that a whole separate topic because that alone will hijack the conversation. Much like, @InquisitiveScouter, mentioning Soros will. Guaranteed derail. You have to frame those conversations so much before getting into your real point (I acknowledge hundreds and even thousands of scouts were sexually abused in BSA scouting, I believe the survivors, the perpetrators should all have been prosecuted; I don't believe in conspiracy theories, I am aware that Soros is the subject of a lot of anti-semitic propaganda, I fact-checked this, etc) that you can't expect to just drop them in as a small part of some other discussion. Since you're not clearly blaming criminals either, this comes off as... blame-shifting onto "socio-political forces". Can we agree on that the primary problem is criminals in the BSA? That this is, even if it were very rare, a problem that requires us to sit up straight and DO SOMETHING as part of being kind, friendly, helpful, courteous, trustworthy, loyal, brave, and morally straight? Even if it happened to a single scout one time? SiouxRanger is right about the following as well: What the BSA should have done in each case of alleged abuse is file a police report and let them investigate and worry about the prosecutability of each case. That's the "do more" that people think they should have done. (Including me.) It isn't the BSA's job to prosecute crimes, so while you're correct in that the BSA was in parts indeed trying to keep scouts safe (and sometimes succeeded, as detailed in both documentaries and as people here on the forum know cases of), the responsibility of enforcing laws and ensuring public safety lies with police. When you think a crime has been committed, you call the police and you help them as best as you possibly can. This is the principle, including but not limited to when the crimes involve the BSA and/or pedophilia. If you honestly believe a crime has been committed and you report it to police, they investigate, and they find that this isn't the case, you haven't defamed anyone. You haven't even given a false police report. What stopped the BSA from reporting? Sounds like you're saying it was right to go soft on the rapists because "it was complicated". If this isn't what you mean, please do clarify for everyone's sake. As for the civil tort lawsuit and blame - the crime was CSA. The BSA is not being prosecuted criminally for CSA - ergo, they are not being blamed equally with the perpetrators. Rather, they are in civil court for tort of negligence. I read up on the history of tort law in both common law and civil law systems, and not surprisingly the legal philosophy of economic compensation to crime victims is very, very old and very, very widespread. There is no possible way you can claim that current US tort law is a leftist blame-shifting conspiracy to ruin the BSA. From https://www.forbes.com/advisor/legal/personal-injury/tort-liability/: "A tort is a civil wrong. This may sound complicated, but basically a tort happens when a person or company, called a tortfeasor, violates someone’s legal rights (other than by breaching a contract). Under tort law, the tortfeasor can be held liable for that violation. Tort liability arises in a number of ways, including the tort of negligence. (...) What Is Tort Liability? Tort laws govern the rights of victims to pursue legal claims against tortfeasors. When a victim is harmed or suffers damages, the victim can pursue a claim in civil court under tort laws. If the court finds the defendant liable under tort liability laws, the defendant is required to compensate the victim. In civil court, there’s no risk defendants will go to jail. The purpose is to determine if they committed a civil wrong against someone and if they should be required to make that victim whole–usually by paying monetary compensation for damages. Types of Tort Liability There are different legal rules that can result in a tortfeasor being held liable for committing a tort. These include negligence; intentional torts; vicarious liability; and strict liability. Tort of Negligence Negligence is extremely common. The tort of negligence occurs when a tortfeasor harms someone by failing to fulfill a legal duty to act with the required level of care. In negligence claims, a victim does not have to show a tortfeasor harmed them intentionally. Instead, they must show: The tortfeasor had a duty to them. This could be the duty of a doctor to provide professional care for a patient or the duty of a store to offer customers a safe environment or the duty of a driver to exercise reasonably safe behavior on the roads. The tortfeasor failed to live up to the duty and was considered negligent. In some cases, a reasonable person standard is used, and a tortfeasor can be held liable for failing to exercise the level of care a hypothetical reasonable person would have. In other circumstances, a different standard is used. For example, in medical malpractice claims, a doctor’s acts or omissions are compared with what a similarly-trained medical professional would have done under the circumstances. The plaintiff was damaged as a direct result of the tortfeasor’s breached duty. The damage must have been a direct and foreseeable consequence of the negligent behavior. The plaintiff suffered compensable harm. This means showing actual losses occurred as a result of the negligence of the tortfeasor. (...) In other words, in every case - and again, let's be clear, such cases really did happen - in which a scout was a victim of CSA by a scout leader (who had a duty of care), reported it, and the BSA didn't successfully (even if they tried) boot the criminal from the organization and file a police report (excepting cases where parents were fully told and requested the BSA not to) the BSA seems legitimately liable for tort of negligence. We know that in some cases, the BSA did go to police, police investigated, prosecuted, jury convicted, and criminal went to jail. Those cases of CSA were handled appropriately. We know that in some cases, parents did not want to pursue a case with police. That was their right, and so in those cases lack of prosecution was handled appropriately. In some cases no police report was filed, but the BSA did successfully bar pedophiles from re-entering scouting with the IVF files. But there's a whole other set of cases in which not even one of these things happened, and again we can't point to the complete and partial successes in doing everything possible to protect children from pedophiles to excuse the cases which were completely and totally mishandled. Those, very unfortunately, also really happened, and some are nightmarishly egregious like Adam Steed's case. After you mentioned rape culture, I realize that Frank Vandersloot jumping to defend the perpetrators and the scouters covering up their crimes is a prime example of rape culture. He ultimately admitted that he made a mistake in trying to defend the undefendable, but before he realized it he put massive resources behind going after victims and the journalist drawing attention to the rape culture in the Grand Teton Council. It's blindingly obvious that for example Kim Hansen and Brad Allen were negligent in preventing further CSA. For example, Steed said "I can tell you directly what I know: in a camp where I'm being sexually abused by a man, and he's abusing other kids, there was an entire subculture of 'it's OK,' and when it wasn't OK, I tried to get them to turn him in. They called their leaders, and they talked to me on the phone, and they tried to get me to not come forward, not talk about it, make me promise I wouldn't tell my parents, and make me feel guilty that I'd destroy all the good in the organizations if I came forward." How is that not rape culture? Your relatives seem to be on point, even though I hadn't thought about it like that before. Unless you're calling Steed a liar despite his abuser Brad Stowell confessing (which would also seem like more rape culture), this really happened. And it is, of course, absolutely ^&%*(& ^%^#$&^ (&%&%^$&^% unacceptable. Stowell is a criminal, but Hansen and Allen are by the same token tortfeasors. USA Gymnastics had a single pedophile on their hands, and they are also defendants in a negligence tort lawsuit because Larry Nassar's abuse was also an open secret. Like with the BSA, had USA Gymnastics gone to the police as soon as they got the first allegation there might not be any tort at all to pursue against them, and even if they weren't 100% perfect about it, it wouldn't be anywhere near the monster of a lawsuit that it is now. Same thing with a number of other sports bodies. There's even a federal law requiring certain sports organizations to get on handling sexual abuse cases. The existence of CSA outside scouting - at any rate comparison to scouting - does not make CSA inside scouting ok, or not a problem. All CSA everywhere ever is a problem. In other words, there is absolutely no ideology of either left or right or a BSA-specific attack involved in the mere existence of a negligence tort lawsuit against the BSA given the facts of crimes that were actually committed by scout leaders and both actively covered up as well as not effectively prevented from being committed again. And, more importantly than being right on the internet, it isn't helping either survivors nor the BSA to talk about leftist conspiracies instead of straight up accepting responsibility - down to each one of us scouters here - to make gosh darn sure every single report of CSA gets handled 100% appropriately and compassionately from now on. You know what really going to stuff a sock in critics' throats? No further cases of CSA connected to the BSA. Hard? Sure. Our moral duty? Absolutely. At least, I see it as mine. What about you?

What value is the CO supposed to bring? Free meeting spaces? I don't quite understand why they exist, it seems extra complicated with relatively little payoff.

Strategies you can't execute don't help.

They're right - I didn't appreciate the importance of logistics until I was well into another career. Sounds like a fun program! But I don't know that one needs major sponsors for scouting... Unless one has a lot of overhead. While this program sounds fun, it's not core scouting.

My NSO didn't have this CO structure, so I guess my mental model is hands-off by default. Perhaps not coincidentally, our pack is also very independent of the CO, and the CO also isn't a church. We have an active, outdoorsy pack with no drama so I'd say it's working well. So the idea is that no religion is required for BSA membership, but BSA members can be barred from specific units on religious grounds?

It occured to me that I was just writing something up for a Duty to God adventure meeting, and I copy-pasted BSA information about not requiring membership in any spiritual organization nor a declaration of specific faith. See for example https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/11/02/beginning-next-year-boy-scouts-will-discuss-duty-to-god-at-each-rank/ It seems against BSA policy to require either scouters or scouts to be members of not just a specific religion but an even more specific sect of that religion. I mean, they explicitly decline to define the words "God" and "religion" in the declaration of religious principle, which they kind of have to in order to not go against BP's example and the current WOSM constitution. If there really are churches doing this, they really shouldn't be. Part of why scouting can't be their youth program. Can't assume everyone agrees on religion.

Heck, I am a (low-level) religious leader who used to lead a religious youth group, and in scouts I still want to be a scout leader leading a scout program consistent with my religion. Scouting isn't religion, and scouting is always "mixed company".

You guys need some of us folks from "ordnung, ordnung!" cultures as administrators 😂 Ordnung muß sein!

I'm neither mrjohns2 nor MattR, but I'm betting my internal reaction to Soros being mentioned was similar to theirs. Let's see if I'm right. George Soros being some sinister dark force controlling bad things behind the scenes is a decades-old internet trope. There doesn't seem to be much George Soros isn't ruining. If you believe the internet, it's George Soros' fault if I burn dinner. Ok, not really, but he's cast as the evil mastermind ruining everything when most of the time, he's not actually involved. Of course, his philanthropy and its aims can and should be discussed and it is fair to disagree with what he's actually doing. But because of all the decades of internet conspiracy theories, any such real, serious, fact-based discussion needs to be very carefully framed before digging in, or eyes will predictably roll. Forbes is a serious media organization, and I would expect them to have verified that Soros really did fund those election campaigns, but because of the sheer volume of false claims about what Soros funds my first thought was "is this really true though?" Normally I trust Forbes fact-checking, but even so I found myself wanting to see if any other serious traditional media are reporting this. In the 00s, I couldn't figure out why Soros was blamed for so much random stuff, especially for being some kind of leftist when actual leftists were protesting Davos (where he was almost a dignitary). So I googled it, and it turns out it's the old Jewish cabal lie. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-george-soros-and-why-is-he-blamed-in-every-right-wing-conspiracy-theory/ https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-49584157 https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethcohen/2020/09/12/the-troubling-truth-about-the-obsession-with-george-soros/?sh=5c34404b4e2e https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/antisemitism-lurking-behind-george-soros-conspiracy-theories https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros_conspiracy_theories

I'll agree with that, too. You can always learn from others. It's when you think you know everything that you're really in trouble. But it seems the common conflation of the organization BSA with the scouting movement as a whole makes it hard to have that conversation, so step one seems to be to point out that BSA != Scouting. From my POV, BSA and a lot of its members are too attached to the overhead you mention - owning camps, land, headquarters, etc as well as huge numbers of employees - to acknowledge that it's a ball and chain. Not just financially, but also mentally. If you maintain land and buildings on it, shouldn't you use it? Now you're not going backpacking in the wilderness because you have to go to your camp. It's no different than what happens when you have a summer house. First you have to go out there in spring to re-oil the boat and put the dock in when the ice has melted, and then you have to spend your summer vacation there instead of Greece because, well, it's there and it's yours. In theory you don't have to go there, but you will. Several people here have had great scouting stories of relatively cheap but amazing trips they took scouts on. That's the way to go and keep going for all socioeconomic classes. It's better AND cheaper - it's rare that things work that way. And scouts are going to learn a heck of a lot more from organizing their own camps and trips than rolling up to a pre-made camp run by paid staff. Our whole thing is McGuyvering, why also have Q on staff?

If this is true, then there's the membership problem right there. We're not delivering our "core product". We've got a right unit in a right council, which is exactly why I stepped up as a leader also.

My first console was the classic Nintendo 8-bit, and my scout does what your grandson does. They have a Minecraft friend group going. But my scout loves the adventure all the same. They love the opportunities to lead and be in charge. (I run the hiking club, and because I'm a big believer in scout-led I put two scouts in charge every time.) You can't actually watch TV and play games until the heat death of the universe. I agree - there's still demand for what scouting offers. But we need to actually arrange the adventures. @InquisitiveScouter's recent river trek and upcoming hike and @qwazse's Jamboree leadership come to mind. If we arrange adventure, the kids will come.

I don't really know what's going on in Swedish scouting organization- and strategy-wise, but their recruiting video inspires me to get outdoors and seek adventure, too. It's at the top of their "become a scout" page at https://www-scouterna-se.translate.goog/bli-scout/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true that also hits hard on that scouting is exciting outdoor adventure. Their homepage also leans hard into outdoor adventure: https://www-scouterna-se.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true And there are queues to join in some places. The pitch to become a leader is partly to get your own kid in faster 😄 Bear Gryllis as Chief Scout in the UK also promises adventure. Last Child in the Woods is trendy. https://www.amazon.com/Last-Child-Woods-Children-Nature-Deficit/dp/156512605X IMO it's quite clear that outdoor adventure is what people come to scouts for, so that's what we should deliver. In spades. Ultralight backpacking spades.

The Knights who say Ni!

Guess what's left is classic small town manipulation. Kill him with kindness, especially in front of the scouts. The more obvious you can make it that what he's saying isn't true, the better.

@InquisitiveScouter Now that's proper scouting! Bravo! That's what every scout should get to experience. And as you note, it can be done much more cheaply than maintaining anything that contains a flushing toilet. You need good gear, which costs money, often a fair bit for performance ultralight stuff. But you don't need the kind of infrastructure that leads to the camp fees and - back to topic - the participation fees. In fact, it seems to me that all this stuff that the BSA owns is dragging it down. The stuff that paid professionals manage without a lot of transparency. There seems to be a lot of overhead, which leads to this cub scout cost problem among other problems. You can't experience that freedom while loaded down with stuff and attachment to that stuff. Probably US Americans don't know Snufkin from Moominvalley, but I always think of him when I think of that freedom. He doesn't have much and doesn't want more. 🎶 I listen to the song of the wind it has no name I listen to the song of the wind it has no words I listen to the song of the wind and I can see: The wind is free. The wind is free. I listen to the song of the wind it has no name I listen to the song of the wind it has no words I listen to the song of the wind and I can see: We are the wind, And we are free. 🎶

According to People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong’s office, some of the contracts that the North Jeolla government signed regarding the construction of foundational facilities at the campsite, as well as provision of supplies, have deadlines set after the World Scout Jamboree began on Aug. 1. Some even have construction deadlines set for the end of the year. (...) Among the 256 contracts that the North Jeolla government signed with private contractors, 15 had overdue deadlines set far past the official opening. While most of the 15 were services contracts, three were for constructing essential facilities. (...) “While having services and goods supplied late was also a problem, it is more difficult to understand how the deadline for construction projects that would physically impact the Jamboree was set for after the opening ceremony,” Kweon said. (...) The Jamboree's infrastructure plan included the construction of a 26-kilometer (16-mile) water pipe and 31-kilometer sewer system, as well as three water treatment facilities, three parking lots and 3.7-kilometers of shading. However, the contract to build them was signed in December 2021, less than two years before the opening ceremony and more than four years after Saemangeum was picked to host the World Scout Jamboree in 2017. Another problem is North Jeolla only allowed companies that are based in the province to bid for Jamboree-related contracts. As a result, a construction company based in Buan County ranked 964th nationally in terms of construction capacity was picked to build the basic infrastructure. The company won the 4 billion won-project and broke ground in December 2021 but failed to finish construction, leading to drainage problems. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-08-14/national/socialAffairs/North-Jeolla-accused-of-sketchy-Jamboree-contracts/1846289