fred8033

But you've also said ... other parents knew / suspected ... other leaders "volunteer" leaders knew / suspected ... That's really the issue here. Directly the SM is to blame. He's the direct action. Secondly others that visually saw hints / behaviors that abuse was happening. Thirdly, probably where you were attending / structure and even your own family. The issue is whether BSA has issolated liability separate from the whole of society before everyone including society understood and created laws and expectations to stop. You've gone thru hell. Absolutely. I 100% recognize that. The question is who is to blame. I just don't accept that BSA is more to blame than pretty much the whole of the rest of society. I recently listened to a news article that helped me understand that there are whole other areas of youth programs where they've yet to come to grips with abuse. I really thought around year 2000 the country's YP infrastructure had matured. Apparently, not yet. We still have a far way to go.

Yep. We moved our PWD to a weeknight when janitors were already there. From $250 for cafeteria and janitor to about $30 for only the cafeteria. Another option we did was adopt a local county / state park and reserve one of their shelters for big events. But that's pricy too.

$4,000? WOW !!!!! Our pack met in a local school and dens in family homes. School charged us $6 per hour for the room. I doubt we ever paid more than $300 for the whole year of reservations even when it included special events big events. It was cheap because almost always (except weekend B&G and pinewood derby) the school was already staffed with janitors cleaning at night. If Janitor was not there, it would have been unaffordable because we'd have to pay janitor costs.

You might want to be ashamed of police, schools, churches, police and most people you meet on the street then. Here's a cheerful recent read. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/05/08/sex-assaults-in-high-school-sports-minimized-as-hazing

My apologies if I extend a worn out discussion .. that if BSA is especially at fault ... my asserting this is more a society issue than BSA. I was on a long drive yesterday. And, I'm a news junkie. I was listening to this on the radio. HIGHLY SUGGEST YOU READ THIS. ... I was hugely surprised at the extent / numbers. https://www.mprnews.org/story/2017/05/08/sex-assaults-in-high-school-sports-minimized-as-hazing Associated press news search found 17,000 cases in recent four year period Modern laws. Modern society understanding of abuse. Mislabeling / minimizing incidents Rape / penetration reported as hazing or "inappropriate physical contact" Multiple cases where coaches knew and failed to intervene or, worse, tried to cover it up Modern laws require "mandatory reporting", but failure to report BSA lawsuit mostly were before "mandatory reporting" laws applied to scout leaders This is consistent with my past and recent experiences. When I was in high school, multiple hockey players "hazed" other new players. Players were suspended, but victims dropped out for awhile (not 100% sure what happened). Recently, discussion with other school dads ... Traveling tournaments ... dads went out drinking at night ... team (20+ players) stayed behind at hotel with one adult as contact watching over them. Multiple hotel rooms. Players roaming. That was the standard for all traveling tournaments.

I'll move to separate thread.

Yeah ... but you can take them to a 3000 acre summer camp and let them disappear for large blocks of time, hiking as far and long as they want, etc ... all without an adult within site of them. The rules are not always 100% clear. Three scouts live down the street from each other. One drives. They normally drive everywhere together. It's hard to prevent them from going food shopping for the campout until they have an adult with them.

With my sons, each has gone thru ups and downs with scouting. Lots of ups with friends and wanting to see and spend time with them. Lots of ups with adventures, etc. Sadly lots of downs with conflict and boredom. A recent highlight was my 3rd son's last several years. Did it look like the perfect troop? No. But those scout sure had a lot of adventures and they were everywhere and active. Did they run their program, grow in independence and responsibility? Absolutely. I'll put those scouts against any in the country. Extremely proud of those guys.

I should probably stop posting. I feel strongly on this topic. It makes me sad.

Cynicical versus positive. "They only care about money." ... I really disagree with that. No one starts a professional scouting career to become rich. Yeah, you can argue whether executives are paid too much, but running a million member organization takes a large infrastructure. The same complain about BSA execs can be made about almost every school principal and superintendants. They are paid too much. They should be volunteering more to educate our children. "benefit from these lawsuits" ... Scouts are benefiting from the drastic learning that happened in the 1980s/1990s and matured around the year 2000. Much came from lawsuits against day cares, churches, scouting, etc. Much came from opening up medical understanding of the abusers. Nothing new will be proven or learned by this lawsuit. No one will be made whole or even close to whole. We are digging up mostly old cases before a modern understanding of the crime and before current youth protection. This is just digging up old dirt ... only benefiting lawyers. I feel strongly because the worse is happening. Fewer youth will be in scouting because of this lawsuit. In no way is the average youth better by not being in scouting.

Not exactly parallel, but with interesting points. Analogy is Diocese = BSA Diocese own / hold parishes ... at least as strong connection as BSA to councils ... if not stronger. Parishes fund and run their own churches same as local councils Diocese does not give money to parishes same as BSA does not give money to councils Diocese has same or stronger control of parishes than BSA over councils. (staffing, funding, etc) https://www.mprnews.org/story/2015/01/16/explaining-archdiocese-bankruptcy "In most of the 11 other diocesan bankruptcy cases, parishes and schools were treated as separate entities. "

If you pull in local councils, what about troops that own their own building. Or scouter friends that established a foundation for to own their own camp (I know two locally). ... I suggest you also pull in almost every school district in the country as every school district actively supported scout recruitment and made space and time in their schedule for recruitment until the late 1990s ... and the 12000 that chartered troops ... now that's deep pockets ... and churches ... and so many other groups that did not pursue things. The government recognized the separate legal existenance of councils thru incorporation and taxes. Non-profits were structured separately. How far do you really reach back? This whole thing is wrong and abuse of the legal system.

Yeah ... We're just 100% different on this. We can agree it should pay what it "owes", but I'd argue on what it owes. This lawsuit is fundamentally wrong. The abuse was 100% wrong, but so is this lawsuit. The whole situation is wrong upon wrong and immoral upon immoral.

Saw that too thru IT automation. Billing every phone call, every DB search, every piece of paper copied, every office expense, etc.

Timely news ... "Lawyers involved in a massive settlement of civil lawsuits arising from the Flint water crisis would receive up to $202.8 million in attorney fees, plus nearly $7.2 million in expenses, under a proposal filed with a federal judge late Monday night. Overall, attorney fees would consume about 32% of the total settlement of $641.25 million." https://www.freep.com/story/news/local/michigan/flint-water-crisis/2021/03/09/attorney-fees-flint-water-crisis-civil-lawsuit-settlement/4626273001/

There is no reasonable in cases like this. It's far, far, far too low and also too high at the same time. I just don't see any good from this. The only good is ending the case.

Continue to be amazed. Once entering bankruptcy, I didn't know a debtor could choose to route money to a specific set of claims. Rather, the court would have to settle. i.e. the $300m BSA offered in first offer would be for all debt claims and only a portion would go to abuse claims. Or was $300m part of a larger bankruptcy filing with more funds. Complexity of this case will be amazing.

I'd like to understand ... how law firm interests will affect which scenario happens. I know they are to work in their client's interest, but I'm already not sure that's really happening at all. #1 For scenario #1, would law firms suing for abuse get any proceeds? Or they are also zero because victims are zero? #2 There was an earlier post reflecting those who filed claims. Does the above scenarios reflect the order of those who filed claims (banks, institutions, victims, venders, etc)? ... i.e. When BSA said it would kick in $300m to the bankruptcy, was that for all bankruptcy claims or just the abuse claims? #3 For all the scenarios, how much would law firms earn? How much would victims earn? Example: Scenario #3 is $11,494 to claimant. Or is it $3,448.2 to law firms and $8,05.8 to lawfirms. For #4, would it be $6034 or $1810 to law firm and $4223 to victim ? I just don't see how this case results in anything except more cumulative damage on top of previous damage.

I understand your point. My doubt is that the lawyers pursuing these cases are looking for national organizations or organizations with deep, deep pockets. The local churches have a building, but often with mortgages, debt and a year of cash at best on-hand. It's too expensive to sue and pursue each individual organization without knowing who has assets to pay. For local cities and local school districts, it's too expensive to pursue each school district, city, etc. This type of civil suit wants large deep pockets. These lawyers are chasing huge rain-makers; big a wind-fall; not a life-long slow drudge campaign, one organization after another, lasting years at a time for a smaller amount of money. Your above school teacher example is a repeating pattern. I can think of several non-scouting cases in my primary school years directly in our district (full-time teachers, paid coaches, city employees, etc). Your example above also does not surprise me at all. At one time, one of the larger charters of scouting units was public schools. This own forum discussed this in 2004. Eamon said in 2004: "... in 2002 PTA'S were number 11 in the top 30 Organizations that charter Scouting units. They had 77,894 youth members in 1,593 units. Public Schools, Board of Education were number 3 with 383,657 youth in 10,566 units. This is yet another reason I find this lawsuit so simply wrong. 12,000+ units were overseen by professional educators and parents directly. People with professional and immediate expertise !!!! People vested in this topic. This was a national issue / standard-of-practice.

Sending PM.

I like multiple scouts being recognized together. I prefer unit level as it inspires younger scouts. Fellowship and setting an example is important. Our troop had an ECOH with a large number of scouts. It was one of the few really enjoyable ECOH I've attended. Everyone happy and smiling. The ECOH also taught me a lesson that I trusted each and everyone of these scouts with fire, knives, guns, etc, but strangely I was very scared when they got the microphone.

Wow. I thought I wouldn't be surprised anymore by this. But then again, this only re-enforces lawyer jokes. Does the profession ever discipline abuse like this? It's either malpractice or ambulance chasing. In either case, it only further damages those asserted as victims already.

Existing scripts are easy to modify. My only opinion. Watch time. Long ceremonies can be painful.

It will never happen. BSA and Catholic church were perfect targets. Massive targets with deep cash. BSA even provided tracking records from their attempt to block bad volunteers. Government agencies, youth and sport, parks and rec are usually city sized. Just not big enough for a national class action campaign looking back 50 years.

@mrjohns2 is pointing out where authority lies with approving the service hours. Per GTA, that's clearly with the scoutmaster. Whether he should or should not approve that type of hours is a separate qusetion. Whether a BOR can reverse him is an extremely very ugly situation and usually only results in explicit damage. With that said ... once we get to the point of discussing who has the authority and how, we're way off the tracks. As with many things in life, the best way to handle differences is by direct conversation. Get to know each others views. Repeat his words to him to see if you are really hearing him correctly and if he said it right. Try to understand why he's taking tha tposition. See if there is a compromise. See if there is a way to accomplish each other's goals in a different route that creates common understanding. Even bringing before the committee often makes things too stressful and creates annimosity. And accept, you will not always get what you want. You may need to look at the preponderance of the situation. Is the SM generally doing right by the scouts? If so, be thankful and support him.