fred8033

I agree. I might have been a bit to quick to state. I found the statement funny. "There are no uniform police." ... Many of us have defended or advocated for scouts when they are confronted by self-appointed uniform police. The advice is correct though. Focus on a good experience and get out and doing things. Uniform is not required.

LOL ... Ideally, I agree with you. Reality, many adult leaders think there is one. https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/510784(19)_Scouts_Uniform_Inspection_Sheet_WEB.pdf

I need to hire a personal professional editor. I re-write, but I never clean up.

I was going to post this response with T2Eagle ... I agreed with the earlier comment that it's not really a PLC decision ... ideally. I'd add on ... even if the unit has an official uniform ... I'd applaud a patrol that wants to form it's own identity. A patrol is the fundamental unit of scouting. SO ... if a patrol wants their own specific hat, go for it. The patrol is the fundamental unit of scouting. We want strong patrol cohesion. We want other patrols to admire and want to be like other patrols. It raises the bar. So, if one patrol wants a specific patrol hat, I'd really like to support then and NEVER push back that it conflicts with troop standards. The flip side should also be looked at. What happens to patrol / scout initiative if they take the energy to discuss / decide / want and we as adult leaders push back or even just say it needs to go to PLC. I fear I'd be doing a disservice to patrol identity and scout excitement for the program. I fear I'd also be telling them one thing and then delivering another. We want strong patrols with patrol identity and scouts that take initiative and get excited for the program. ... This is something that should be met with excitement and not worry that much about.

This is right up there with can the patrol vote to have an official pencil color. Sure. Your patrol. Why not.

It's okay to feel strongly. We're in very emotional times. Everyone of us can easily pull ridiculous events from daily news. For me, it's the constant resistance to police these days. Protest in public opinion and fight in court. Don't add pressure on them as they their immediate job. For me, the title "scoutmaster" carries little long term weight and has a lot of baggage due to mis-interpretation. ... But, that's me. And it's not the biggest battle.

Good point. Interesting. I still remember 35+ years ago watching a play with James Earle Jones, "Master Harold and the boys". My concern was always about the nuanced implications of words. I've never been that concerned with PC, though I do try to be PC. ... or at least stay quiet at those times. ... My focus was more on the nuanced implications of "master". The term "advisor" is much much much more closely aligned with my vision of the adult contact for a troop. Even "coach" is not as close as many see the coach putting the players on the field and the coach calling the plays. ... It's not the biggest battle, but I think it's an important one. Our young scouts and their experiences are constantly affected by adults that over step their bounds and it often destroys the youth's experience and the youth's passion for scouting.

This is a whole topic in itself. When the scoutmaster is not available, troops do need to find an ASM to assume the role. BUT the ideal is there is one person at the helm scoutmastering the troop. The rest is done by the youth. Doesn't matter if it's a 10 person or a 100 person troop. That's the ideal. In reality, I had a great experience for about 12 years with one man as the scoutmaster. The troop has several ASMs, but the SM was clearly the SM. The ASMs had their individual roles supporting, but were not "scoutmaster".

State laws do apply. Federal laws are significant though because they were often the driving force to change state laws. The early example is the the 1974 CAPTA law would withhold federal funds given to states if the states did not pass laws. That is how federal laws often drive state changes.

We will have to differ on this. It's an ugly situation and people can be rightly upset. I've read many of the files. They are all about ugly situations. BSA is not 100% clean. Generally though, I see people trying to deal procedurally with very challenging problems and incidents. Many of the files have requests to update the files. Many have statements about trying to block the person in the future. Or trying to tell if it is the same person. A common theme is communication between BSA, council, units, charter partners about the cases. Often about the person being recommended to not be registered or about the person being removed. https://www.crewjanci.com/resources/boy-scout-perversion-files/?filter=true&&state=minnesota The one thing that I see as being perceived as daming that probably needs to be taken in context are statements about "deleting records". I'm taking that about how the registrars updated ScoutNet. aka in database = registered and approved. Deleting record = unregistering. I don't think "deleting records" is infering hiding evidence as these large large paper trail kept a very good evidence of what was happening. The simple fact of almost every file containing a record that they were going to delete the record indicated it was not about hiding data. It was about maintaining records.

It's just not that clear. Crimes were not prosecuted because of challenges. Civil actions for child sexual abuse were not legislated until 1984 admendments to the 1974 CAPTA law. ... I'm not a lawyer. My simplification and facts are no where near 100% clean. Generally, I believe I am accurate. The whole topic is just not that simple. Also, the ugliness of this topic blurs clear thinking on the past. I just don't think people understood the nature of the abuse until late 1990s / early 2000s. ... In 1970, child sexual abuse was still mostly unspoken. Male-on-male child sexual abuse was inconceivable. ... 1970s required witness to testify. aka putting the child on the stand. No hearsay. No video taped evidence. Prevented pursuing crimes. ... 1973 most child abuse not reported ... by anyone. Senator Mondale, 1973, congressional hearings. ... 1974 CAPTA law. Focus again on physical abuse. Mandatory reporting was aimed at physicians who saw physical damage (broken ribs, bruises). ... Focus was on physical abuse, aka the BATTERED CHILD syndrome. ... 1980s / 1990s ... Era of stranger danger. ... No mention of "grooming" or trusted friends and family. ... 1981/1985 ... laws start to change about hearsay evidence and child video taped testimony ... 1986 - Meese pornography congressional report ... 1986 - Child sexual abuse and pornography act ... 2003 mandatory reporting laws started to broaden. I'd strongly argue that before late 1990s, child sexual abuse was not well understood, not well handled and preventative training was poor. Personal reflections ... 1977 & 1984 ... I was in 7th grade in 1976/77. I took a photography summer school course. I remember being creeped out that the photography magazines had ads in the back for trading pictures that would TODAY be a felony just to have. It was common and well known then. It was not illegal. Why are people not suing big publishing companies now? Time Warner? Etc. 1990s early - I was newly married. We lived in North Carolina. My wife and watched the news each night for years. Every day was coverage of the Little Rascals Daycare trials. Recovered memories. 500 charges against seven people. Years of prosecution. Eventually all charges were dropped ... except people who accepted pleas for time served or lesser sentences. One of the saddest is a husband / wife. Wife took the plea and served jail. Husband went to trial. Eventually all charges were dropped against him. Eventually "recovered memories" from children were strongly questioned. ... I often wonder about this related to scouting. Memory is not perfect. Misconnections happen. Memories can be formed and implanted of things that did not really happen. Often, people can clearly remember things that did not really happen the way people remember. The who, what, when, where changes. Was it me or a dream or someone else changes. https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/innocence/profiles/ I really think that we are so angered by the ugliness of the abuse that we are not clearly thinking about how the society was in the past or about what is fair to accept into the legal system.

QUESTION #1 - Are the new dues a recognition that on-going operating cost of BSA will be based almost fully on incoming dues? Recognizing that current endowments are lost and there will no way to subsidize ongoing operations? QUESTION #2 - Are any of the dues such that they can pay debt on assets (camps, buildings) that may need to be mortgage to pay damages? Essentially, bankruptcy is a line in the sand. New dues and new fundraising will be needed to keep BSA afloat and pay new property mortgages.

I understand the anger and frustration, but these cases did not happen in a vacuum. Parents were usually involved. Often police, educators, church, etc. Society was involved. IMHO, these files should be applauded as a BSA effort to nationally block volunteers before police, schools and society ever tried to do that. In the 1970s, there was no such thing as a national predator database. There were no instant background checks. IMHO, BSA should be applauded they had this system in place. My question ... how many people were identified and blocked as ineligible because these files existed? IMHO, we are trying to hold BSA to a higher standard than schools, police, church and the rest of society. The nature (grooming, common occurrence, etc) were not well understood. IMHO, BSA should be applauded.

I'm still baffled how liability that had long ago expired against situations that society did not understand and that did not have the laws we had today can be reversed. It baffles me how past incidents can retroactively have liability applied. It seems we should be applying the laws and liability in placed when the incidents occurred. Anything else is unfair and immoral.

Absolutely. People might have not known the extent or the specific individuals, but people knew these things happen. With specific incidents, I'd be interested how many involved only the BSA paid staff. I'm betting with almost every case, there were outside individuals who knew.

This may be a naive question. BUT, what would BSA have told insurance companies? The laws did not exist then as they do now. Not liability laws. Not abuse laws. Absolutely not reporting laws. Also, what would BSA communicate? We had an issue with person X where parents, police, church leaders and others did not want to pursue the case? Also, how would they have pursued it? Our independent franchisee Council Y had an incident and we want to report it up? Our independent franchisee Council Y "charter partner" (church XXX) had trouble with one of the leaders that church selected as a youth leader? Also, I've had insurance policies over the years, business and personal. I'm an amateur, but I never remember an insurance reporting form where there was not a claim. Now, the claims are coming. Also, I'd argue insurance companies must have known that youth serving organizations tend to have issues like this. I'm sure they were not that naive. It seems like noise to say BSA did not let insurance companies know. Expectations are based on the time and place. Lawsuits are based on very different expectations now. The real issue is a 1970s insurance policy could never have conceived of the liability now being applied. I doubt anyone could have conceived of what is happening now with these lawsuits. The real issue here is BSA is a single-source with deep pockets ... or somewhat deep. Will the lawsuits now start being applied to every police department, church and independent person listed in these reports? I doubt it, because that would be too much work. But it could be farmed out to smaller law offices as a strong arm tactic to extort money.

Charter organization head can. If a church, that's a pastor at the church or the church council. CynicalScouter hit it on the head and addressed my main concern. When people ask how to replace someone in the scouting structure, it's because of conflict in the unit or other problems. I'd really invest in making connections, building friendships, getting to know people and seeing if you can encourage change in a friendly, constructive way ... as CynicalScouter said. Always avoid power struggles. They never work and people get damaged. I'd also reflect on the assertion that the COR is not doing his job. The job of a COR is pretty small and ideally, almost invisible. Is it really the COR not doing the job or is there conflict in the unit and a vision that things could be different?

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Our pack had class B's that the scouts loved to wear and parents loved to see them wearing. They looked cool and often were a bragging point. Most importantly, they were very functional if we bought the right base materials. Many good suggestions so far. All docs online and via PDF. Get rid of gimmicky stuff. Simplify uniform. IMHO, the biggest problem with uniforms is that they are not functional. When I'm hiking, camping, swimming, etc ... the last thing I'd want to wear is a scout uniform. Heavy. Itchy. Catches on things. Expensive to replace. Painful to re-sew. My recommendations. Shut down the scout shops. Physical stores are a huge carrying cost. We're in the era of Amazon.com. Everything scouts and units need from BSA could be shipped as fast as needed. It would save the average scout leader time and money driving miles and miles. ... I'd also argue that the huge carrying costs of scout shops perverts decisions resulting in selling expensive books, gimmicky stuff and many piece parts to the uniform. ... I'd also argue the units should be the source of materials and parents should not experiencing the scout shop "sales pitch". Related BSA "in-person" sales should be focused on scout camps that have a trading post that sells a combination of property specific, BSA specific, quality outdoor stuff ... and candy. ... If parents want impress their kids, have them shop at a scout camp trading post. Units should stock advancements to enable awarding as soon as possible. Ideally, at the same meeting. ... This would support on-line sales. ... IMHO, I've rarely seen people wear ranks they did not earn. The real risk is probably units that go rogue and do not record advancements. ... but early awarding is much more important. .... So, let's save cost by not trying to correlated scout shop purchases with unit rank records.

I'd be interested to see cost vs benefit on many scouting programs. ATVs are cool, but what's the cost. More complex scheduling. Additional staff to run. ATVs. I tend to agree. Get out camping. A mix of yearly same-spot and new experience camping. The toys are okay, but not as important as just getting out.

This is an argument that it make sense. I love the scout properties, but they sit idle a large amount of time. There is potential to increase use if offered to public for alternative use. The real challenge would be how to keep scout properties available to scouts when also available to a more public / family use. Family camping and scouting camping may not be side-by-side compatible.

I could see some value in that. As a parent, I would have loved bringing my kids to a scout camp to fish, hike, etc. The camps have great programs and resources.

Ours offered a special patch for scoutmasters who can certify that during summer camp week they accomplished certain goals including not losing their temper during the week.

It's always nice when the scout fills out the fundraiser application. It's clearly a grey threshold if the scout is only fundraising within the charter org. If the charter org pays for the project, the scout does not need a the fundraiser application. If the fundraiser is completely separate from the charter org (and it's significant money ... and ...), then yes you need it signed. The scout could legitimately argue a fundraiser application is not necessary if all the fundraising occurs within the boundaries of the charter org.

No strict rule exists. The positive view is you've got a great problem to handle. Ten scouts going for Eagle. Great! Find a fair process / rule / idea. Approved project proposal write-ups before "conceptual" projects that are not signed off yet. Time sensitive projects first. First come, first served? The tangential comment you will get is it's very unusual to get ten scouts at the same time. It's even more unusual to have ten all asking for fundraising from the charter org. Did the charter org have a list of suggested projects? Or is there an "overly" supportive eagle coach? Or are they just feeding off each other's ideas? That does happen.