walk in the woods

Back to the topic of Lawnmower Parents, my new favorite commercial from Aldi.

Second consoliation into GSLAC in two years. I wonder why they consolidated with GSLAC instead of one of the three bordering councils in central Illinois. Decatur is a long way from the bootheel of MO.

I suspect all the training folks I've worked with over the years would absolutely agree with this statement. What they and I don't agree with is National mandating training and the Council's turning that mandate into a revenue stream.

Yep, literally. My council takes their 15% off the top.

As long as councils are requiring training sessions to earn a 15% profit, requiring long-term scouters to get every penny of every expense approved in advance, stiffing the volunteers if they go over budget, etc. it'll get worse before it gets better.

This was the default in my council this year. All packs were assumed to be co-ed, unless they specifically opted out, which required a flogging from the DE before being allowed. We were also directed to sign up all girls, even if we weren't accepting (which we were), take their money, and then refer them to the district for assignment to a different pack. We declined to do that, not that any girls showed up anyway, because it felt like bait-and-switch. But, it is the new world order.

Training is important and valuable. The problem with training is it produces trained (i.e. by-the-book) scouters. I'd argue that statement is applicable well beyond scouting and has been in my experience. We've had something approaching an infinite number of threads on the site bemoaning Wood Badge scouters. Why, because too many of them are by-the-book scouters. One doesn't truly learn the program until one has the chance to experience the intangibles, the opportunity to see the quirks of their particular unit, and the experience to know when to use the book for kindling. My experience outside scouting with people who are book trained is they tend to crash into a program like stampeding elephants, waving the book, and explaining how everybody is wrong. Sometimes they are correct, but they are nearly always wrong. To @Eagledad's concern, we're about to stand up some large number of units with trained but inexperienced by-the-book ASM's and SM's. That may work for their specific new units, but, ultimately they are going to interact with other established units. How that interaction plays out will go a long way to determining the BSA's future. How would I recommend new leaders learn it? Join an existing troop, get fully trained, spend a year or two on the committee observing, then if needed join the direct contact leader ranks. But, we didn't get that option.

I had the same response from my current leaders with the same concerns expressed.

Looks like fun.

I think that sounds great, right up to the point the girl (or boy in next fall's scenario) decide they really want to join that all-boy (or all-girl) troop. They the troop is forced into the position of saying no, which will initiate another round of threats, accusations of unfairness, "but you let me camp last year" lamentations, and legitimate "I don't want to drive 30 miles to the girls troop" complaints. Or the CO has to choose to ignore the program structure.

Well, except in the new program there aren't any mixed gender dens. That's kind of the point. The Pack is operating outside of the defined program and now they are forcing the Troop to do the same thing against their will. It will be interesting to see how people react when the rolls are reversed next fall (i.e. mixed-gender AoL den visiting an girls troop).

The way I understood the thread was the girl was a member of the Pack, but, the Troop declined to have her on the campout because they aren't interested in co-ed/linked troops. Edit: I don't know anything about the situation other than what the mother shared on reddit, but, the structure is in place to be problematic for the next many months.

Saw this over on scouts-l

We charge the recharter fee ($33 BSA plus $2 I think insurance). Everything else is fundraisers, some events have fees.

It's 40 or 50 years of change coming home to roost. My Guidance Counselor in HS told me I was going to ruin my life by joining the Navy (this was in 1980). She was convinced. After I got out I worked for a year, took every test possible to get out of gen ed classes, then went to get my degree in computer science. The gen ed classes I had to take were a joke. People who had never lived life outside the academy educating/preparing me for life. Graduated in just under 3 years and never looked back. Went to work for a power company, my degree checked a box, my experience operating reactors got me the job. My friends who got out and went to work as operators still out earn me.

I wonder if this Professor is a scouter...https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/talking-about-men/201706/is-there-really-boy-crisis... or if the lies are now a conspiracy theory. These folks, https://www.youth-guidance.org/counseling/, are also clearly confused. Becoming a Man and Working on Womanhood? What kind of sexist programs are those! Clearly lies.

Or perhaps, the reality is as societies become more egalitarian, women choose different career paths, https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2018/02/the-more-gender-equality-the-fewer-women-in-stem/553592/. But instead, we're trying to force march women into careers they may or may not want because "fairness" and we search for inequality where in fact it's just choice......

Yeah, I'll take the under on that as well. My money is on the NAM in 2020. "We've heard from the field and from concerned parents that the current linked troop structure isn't working. Girls don't have troops to cross over to, etc." It will be local option at that point. Another 5 years from there to mandatory.

IoT is basically a second free space.....

They can mean anything you'd like them to mean. My experience with the buzzwords: Lean: using your front line people to identify the bloat and bureaucratic processes getting in the way of productivity, then eliminating/redesigning those processes. CM: Usually implemented after somebody blows something up. Results are committees reviewing every possible change for impact and reviewing plans, rollback plans, rollforwardafterrollback plans, etc. In short, the opposite of Lean. CI: Measure->Analyze->Plan->Change repeat. Assumes what you are measuring actually matters, your analysis isn't biased or gamed by interested parties, and the plan isn't sabotaged by the people most likely to have their fiefdom impacted by the Change. I might be jaded.

It's interesting that this program is rolling out now in the Western Region. If National has reason to believe the LDS Exodus will be large they may be trying to prevent a professional scouter Exodus while figuring out how to protect scouting in the other WR states. The loss of LDS is not only membership but FOS stream. If efficiency is the goal, is the National, Regional, Council model under review?

It's not complained about because it's widely ignored.

Maybe go Army-ish? Squad, Squad Leader, Asst. Squad Leader, Platoon, etc.

There's also a MBC training module now that at least my council said was mandatory.

Fire the Secretary. If she "hates" the Den Leader's guts, and the DL's wife is the new Advancement Chair, you've got the seed for way too much adult drama to play out. If I knew someone on the committee hated me, I wouldn't be a Den Leader for one second. Life's too short. You may be working on the wrong problem.