Eagledad

Is this really a problem? What percent of scouts were abused? OK, give me some details of how those abuses occurred. You can't fix it if you don't know the problem. Ironic really. During the gay debates, nobody wanted to discuss sex abuse risks because they wanted gay youth in scouts really bad. Activist say youth know their sexual desire by the age of six. Is there a safe age to camp with other youth? The discussion crossed a line away from scouting. Now its about youth overnight stays with other youth. Is shutting down overnight sleep overs healthy for society? Will our grandkids know what a pillow fight was?

Ah, teenage cub scouts. That's healthy for the culture. Adults will never grow up. Barry

LOL, really! Please expand. Barry

Another nail in the Patrol Method coffin. Patrol Method works best with mature role models. Prepubescent scout are not mature enough for a mature program. Barry

My posts aren't being posted, so who knows what we will see. Bending to culture will always be social activism to somebody. The Oath and Law are moral principles to guide right decisions. Using Oath and Law as a weapon is not a right decision. Barry

Really! The BSA policies was part of the culture then as much as gays and girls are part of the culture now. Using the Oath and Law in a broad brush is a two edge sword. One has to respect the Oath and Law in their personal character to have any integrity for using them to attack whole organizations out of context. Barry

Your kidding right! The Catholic issue was on the news almost every day. TV shows and light night comedians hammered on it. Folks may not of knew of an incident personally, but they certainly knew about the issue. I don't see it being the same. Barry

How much of the article would change if they didn't wear the uniform?

I've mentioned before on this forum that the few folks I've talked to personally about this subject is they don't believe the abuse is substantial. It's not hardly even in the media. We are surrounded by media reports almost weekly of sexual abuse in our schools, government, family and so forth. But, most folks can't think of a single incidence from in scouting. In fact, most parents will say when it comes to sexual abuse, Scouting is a safe place. There are a few folks here who are passionately involved, but you can see even in this forum that there isn't much of an audience who are appalled at the BSA in general. And a couple of the louder folks here were BSA haters even before the bankruptcy started ramping up. So, I believe the pragmatic answer to the bankruptcy is we have to wait it out. As for the sexual abuse, we have to do a better job protecting scouts. Barry

Hmm, I'm trying to understand why the girls are wearing BSA uniforms. Something isn't right. Barry

Oh, I certainly agree. A mentor who I give the most credit for my style of Scoutmastering quit scouting when he realized that he was more of a babysitter of their new Venturing unit than advisor. He got no sleep even with his tent was set up between the Venturing tents. Barry

There are people running around who were the result of a BSA campout. I've wondered if that was the reason behind restricting scouts from camping without adults. Barry.

I admit I have little tolerance for hypocrisy. Barry.

Wait a minute. That is hypocritical considering you gave me numerous copious and indiscriminate downvotes. You didn't see me complain. Barry

And if some here have their way, more will be required for YP. Barry

Lots of good suggestions here about teaching skills. My advice is use as much everyday useful activities as possible so the scouts are learning how to apply their newly learned skills in their activities. Each knot is designed for a specfic purpose. Learn the purpose and use it for camping. Using a small tarp as a tent can require at least 3 knots. Have the scouts race to set up that tarp using only the materials of tarp, rope and a couple of sticks. Look at all your skills that way. Well done. Yes, dodge ball in not an authorized scouting activity, but the approach and planning by the scouts and the hanging in the shadows by the adults letting the scouts do was great practice. Keep practicing. Questions? Not every action should be a growth review. Let the scouts have fun and learn from the fun. You will know when to push it for growth and when to let the scouts go home remembering how much fun they had. It's very OK for adults to be passive with scout growth so long as they are active in giving the scouts a place and process for the growth. Finding ways to learn scout skills is a place and process. A new SM called me to ask how to keep his campouts from getting boring. His campouts for the first six months of his new troop were scout skills for advancement all day long. My first suggestion was give them at least 2 hours of free time. His response was the scouts would get into to much trouble without controlled structured activities. Scouts cannot develop the skills of self control and self discipline until the are given the freedom to practice. The troop needs to be a place where scouts feel safe making the wrong decisions because wrong decisions are the teachers. Our troop never does advancement at troop meetings or campouts unless those skills are required for the theme. We save two hours on Sunday after breakfast and Scouts own service for the scouts wanting to learn skills. Skillls are for making scout activities more fun, not for advancement. One complements the other, but your scouts will get bored if you go in the wrong order. Good luck. Remember, adults have to learn more faster to keep up in a mature scout run program. If the adults aren't learning and changing, they are likely taking to much control from the scouts. Barry

I was not expecting this answer. I assumed wrongly that the abuses (reports?) were categorized. I know of a hand full of sexual abuses that occurred in the council while I was leader, and none them were physically sexual in nature. There could have been some, but, the few I knew of not only were not physical, the complaint was at scouts. Not adults. Just seems the numbers shouldn't be used in these discussions. Could the number just 10 percent of the published discussed numbers the circumstances are whittled down to specifics? Who knows. We know scouts were physically abused, but seems we have no idea how many. Barry

CO's rarely know all the adults except for the leaders who suggest the approval. To say CO's dig in for a fight requires context because CO's don't like to dig in an fight in normal situations. There has to be more to the story. I'm questioning how a CO would turn down an application that isn't checked for abusers. Aren't all applications checked now? Barry

I understand how it works. And, I also know how much leverage adults can have in the process. I blame the adults in our lodge. In our case, it wasn't adults having fun running the program their way, it was adults ignorant of how to let the scout lead the program. They were terrible. I was even recruited to fix the problem, but my one hour a week was all used up fixing other problems. Barry

I'm curious, Do we know the 637 is sexual? Do we know if they are physical? I ask because the abuse situation I know of that was physical was not sexual. And the sexual abuse situation was not physical. The sexual report came from an adult who was standing outside of a scout tent listening the scouts having a sexual discussion about girls.. Barry

I'm good with it. I have 30 years of scouting experience in one of the most violent storm states in the union. We've camped in zero degree weather as well as 110 degree weather. We have camped in more thunderstorm than I can count. Take the training and know what to do and you are good to go. Barry

There is a saying, "If you are uncomfortable with the weather, you aren't dressed right.". Barry

Covid alone throws the data out-the-window. The other stuff, at best, would just be polling opinions. The smart action would be for the BSA to stay the BSA for a while and for them to work together with the GSUSA on a national marketing campaign to promote scouting. More difficult for the BSA because it is a co-gender program, but it could still be done if the two groups worked together. Barry

Record making stuff? Probably never enters their minds. And if it does, that is also choice. My son had some friends in another troop who were famous for never wearing long pants. They always wore scout shorts, even in the coldest weather. I'm sure they some kind of record. I don't think this is that hard of an accomplishment. Our troop had a least one outing a month the whole time I was there. It wasn't about records, it was about adventure and activities. Patrol method needs a place to practice. Provide the place and the scouts will grow from practice. Very simple and it works. As the program matures and grows, so will the activities. There are some years we have at least 8 outside the program adventure activities planned and run by the scouts. We had some months with three activities. We were busy. Scouts weren't required or expected to attend all activities, so some of them were small. Some of those are a simple weekend experience and some are two weeks. The Scuba experience required several months of training to get certified. There was no sight on getting a record, just having fun. Some troops are more active than others. Good for them. Barry