fred8033

Absolutely agree with this. BUT the question is what challenges? I view that as the pride of successfully camping in a torrential down pour or cross country skiing at -20F or a 50 mile camping bike ride or a ... Youth also want responsibilities. Setting up tent. Cooking. Being responsible for themselves. What youth do NOT want is to be preached at. It's why the scoutmaster's minute works so well. A light reflective moment that SMs can leverage. ... example ... I hope never again to see adults hovering around injecting as a patrol creates their meal plan and decide who's going to shop.

Yes. Many of us still went by XXX. It's that our registration and all documentation became #XXX. Scouts learned quickly to deal with it. Over time, everyone just called it #XXX. ... It's really a transitional issue. Scouts and parents age out. Very quickly scouts are asking why we just don't use our full number #XXX. In fact, most scouts do use #XXX as it was a ten year ago change and all their advancement cards (MB, rank) and their hand book says #XXX.

Though I want to avoid the baiting ... I do fully agree with you. I daily think scouts has lost it's path. At the tail end of twenty years ago where my wife told me to bring my first son to a cub joining event, I really question whether I'd do it the same again. I kept my son in it for the activities, the outings and the friendships. We tolerated much of the rest as part of paying the price to be in scouts. BUT, the price was a too much too many times. I wanted my sons to camp, canoe, ski and get outside. I did not bring my sons to be preached at repeatedly.

Giving back to the community is the reason that I have always seen. "Marketing" or promoting depends. I have never seen CO's use it as a tool to get more CO members or more CO revenue. Heck, they'd be even more involved if they wanted to do that. I have SLIGHTLY seen it as "pride"; which in today's era could also be called hubris.

An extra 4th digit was prefixed on when our council merged with another. We can always tell which legacy council units were in.

I'd love to see the bill versus payment. A lawyer friend of mine made the comment that he's sure the court was not necessarily paying 100% of the legal bills. Courts can reduce fees as they see fit. ... I'm not seeing that in this case. If you have a link to it that I can see, I'd appreciate it.

MattR wrote: .... Enron it was 2% and for the BSA it's already 40%. 2% wouldn't have much impact on what survivors get. Numbers need context. 2% of Enron's 63.4B bankruptcy is $1.3 billion in legal cost. BSA's case is probably as hard if not harder due to the ugliness of CSA and the many competing factors and other plaintiffs. Also, it's hard to find BSA's value alone, but it's way smaller than Enron.

When you write "billed to the estate" ... that being the estate of BSA (old, pre-bankruptcy). QUESTION - Is that money flowing out right now? Or pending settlement? I ask as if it's being billed and paid now, what is the closure incentive ? Closure would mean a dried up revenue stream. ... If as I suspect, the BSA estate value is being diminished at a rate of $10m+ a month to handle the legal fees against a $200m/$300m settlement from BSA. It reminds me of the divorce of a friend of mine. He and his ex-wife spent well over $600k on the divorce legal process as it was not a nice divorce. His comment was that there was no incentive for the courts, the lawyers or his wife to work it efficiently. ... His wife was a lawyer too.

So 10% is not in the retainer agreement? It's a good-will basis?

Settlement trust is money from BSA's bankruptcy. The bankruptcy needs to pay debtors in sequence and some justified percent. ... I am far from an expert ... If I was another plaintiff if this bankruptcy, I'd be saying that the firm's fees are padded to give their client cash out of BSA's bankruptcy. If the firms were not padding their fees, then there would be more funds to pay all the debtors. It's raiding the cash to pay the debts. ... It's the whole problem with kickbacks.

So the TCC lawyers are not members of any law firm that are representing victims on a contingent basis? Really? If so, I did not know that.

I intentionally avoided asking. It makes me ask if it's legal. Effectively, that "fees" kickback gives one debtor more than other debtors are getting.

Is it all money? It can be intentionally vague. Fees? Hourly fees to administer claims and make payments? Court case fees? 10% percent of their share of the award? I'd want to see the explicit wording on what is in and not in the 10% kickback. Say they bill $100m for court case, $100m for administering claims / making payments and 40% of their victim's share of the award ... say $250m. Of the theoretical $450m, are they sharing $45m or $10m? Or something different.

May 2020. Wow. Reminds me. We're way past two years of talking about this. BSA announced opening for girl membership Oct 2017? Shortly after that lawsuits started. GSA. CSA. I was at a council meeting in 2019 (or earlier) discussing the lawsuits and possible bankruptcy. I'm betting we'll be having these discussions for another two years.

Yeah. I'm just going off the larger 8*,*** number. Originally, the prediction I heard was 1,500 to 2000. Perhaps that was wishful thinking with a rumor mill that kept reducing the estimate.

It's called a kick-back. Customer manipulation. A common form of business fraud. I would not brag too much about giving back 10%. We had a local auto glass replacement company that bragged about giving a box of steaks with every job. Insurance companies complained. Because a job that was $200 then became $230. Common hourly rates in the hundreds (or thousands) of dollars. Who will notice the padding. ... I really liked the article that an auditor was hired to look at legal fees in this case. They were able to reduce charges by $200,000 or so. Then, billed the case $200,000 (or so).

It's like war. Plan all you want, but plans fail when the court battles start. This escalated 10 to 50 times larger than originally expected. It's like difference between walking and driving or driving and flying. The predictions drove the planning and predictions were way, way, way off.

It's like summer camp. Our camp has at least 50 troop sites. I really bet that 30+ of those sites are really good. In those sites, I'm betting scouts think their site is the best. They know it. They have good memories. They want to go back next year. So when your troop chooses to stay mostly separate, I'd bet it's more that they like your troop and have had good experiences. They want to avoid change and the unknown. Those same scouts ... if they had joined with a co-ed troop ... they would only know that co-ed troop and would be perfectly happy with it. ... again ... generally ... most scouts ...

Ummm ... The words manage, direct, operate, etc are not explicitly there. What is there are words such as: "The Chartered Organization, as a duly constituted organization that serves youth, desires to use the program(s) of the BSA to further its mission respecting the youth it supports." The CO agreement says CO wants "to use the (scouting) program". By use, it means it's running the program. Further words are similar to that. Then, each leader app requires a charter org rep signature. The charter org selects the leaders and can setup the program as they want. Those unit leaders are effectively CO representatives running the scouting program. Unit failures are CO failures. Units that don't follow G2SS or leaders that don't get trained or ... etc do reflect CO negligence.

Parents can hang out at all the 2 day and 2.95 day camps. It's when a single camp is 72 hours long or the parent stays cumulatively at that event for 72 hours. Cost ... I don't see much of a solution. I know some game it by registering as MBCs. It is significantly cheaper. Free. Most should register as committee members. I say that as having a parent hang-out at camp but register as an ASM causes issues as they are direct-involvement role. They need to be in-sync and coordinated with SM. Sometimes it's better to have parents hang-out with other adults and let scouts be scouts. Only a few SM/ASM should be directly interacting with the scouts.

Yes with the exception that we don't want side-effects of visiting parents to be a structured youth protection mechanism. It's too haphazard with too much variance unit-to-unit and event-to-event. Related ... G2SS explicitly says ... "All aspects of the Scouting program are open to observation by parents and leaders. The BSA does not recognize any secret organizations as part of its program" ... This might have a slight conflict with the 72 hour rule. If the parent is to be at the camp longer than 72 hours, BSA wants them registered with a background check. ... My view is ... The 72 hours is a threshold to say "Come on, the person is really a registered leader and not just a casual parent observing. They need a background check". There is no reason units can't register people who only attend for 24 hours. BUT, if longer than 72 hours (a summer camp or extended adventure issue), they must be registered. FYI ... Parents can still drop in for visits ... cumulatively up to 24 / 48 / 71 hours for that event. BUT, if longer, they need to be registered. I view the 72 hour rule as a YP protection mechanism to call units that might game the system on "who is a leader". Parents attending for less than 72 hours might reduce incidents. It's just not a structured / dependable YP mechanism.

Big swing against the BSA, but I'm not sure it helps the claimants. I could easily see a failed bankruptcy resulting in less dollars for many victims. More for some by actions against their specific LC. Only path out seems to be a BSA only bankruptcy exit. The other parties maintain their liability.

... Electing seems to also beg the overly heavy focus on advancement. Adults fear SPL/PL appointing positions won't be fair to kids looking to advance ... which ignores the reason that Eagle scout was originally so valuable. Eagle scout did reflect someone that could work with others and get things done. ... The more I think about it, electing or adults appointing subverts the program significantly.

Our troop elected most positions. In hind sight, I'd like to have gone by the book. It's part of being a leader to select your team; develop the individuals; figure out how to work together; assign jobs and expect results. With electing, it weakens the chain where the SPL asks others to do something. At least if the SPL says "can you be our librarian", then the SPL has started the conversation and the two youth know results are expected. And a scout asking the SPL for a job is part of growing too. IMHO ... more we can get the adults out and let the scouts work together the better. But electing vs appointing is not a do-or-die. I prefer the BSA published method, but that's me. IMHO, the do-or-die is getting out camping and having adventures. The rest supports being an active youth program.

In my 15 to 20 years of following these discussions, I've seen repeatedly the answer that legally the CO owns the assets. It's the right answer. ... But people still argue CO liability; insurance and who really oversees the leaders.