MattR

Welcome to the forums. But I wish it were under better conditions. "I have all the postings from his facebook page showing the pool, the check the Troop cut for themselves afterwards" So, the unit raised funds via gambling and then paid themselves? Just a hunch, but isn't that illegal? I suspect the chartering organization, which is likely a 501 c 3, would go ballistic if they knew what was going on. After you find another troop please come back with some good news.

Just a thought: it seems that the size of the BSA, the infrastructure that supports all of the units, has become a huge liability. Not only is it expensive to keep, it's also a big target for lawsuits. Could an "open source" model work? Essentially, a small group of expert scouters keep a wiki that explains how to do scouting. All the nuts and bolts of running a unit. From program to training to liability and YP. That replaces all of national and all the camps. So there are no deep pockets. If people get unhappy with how merit badges are done they can fork off a new "code base" and roll their own. No more targets for lawyers, no more arguing about the best way to do things. If you have a better idea then try it. No more complaining. If people like your version you can create a patreon thing and get paid.

Sounds like a lot of stress to me. The questions are good. Some are really old, as well.

It has to be done for a non profit. Not sure how a personnally owned lake fits into that. Also, trees don't sink unless they're weighed down. I had a scout do such a project. He set 5 trees in concrete and then pulled them out with a boat and dropped them. This took 2 fairly busy days. So I'm not sure the big truck is needed. What is needed is for the scout to figure this all out. My suggestion is give the idea to the scout and then stand back and see what, if anything, happens. The scout needs to do the research, planning, advertising and problem solving. If someone else does all that then it is no longer an eagle project.

Truly is an unfortunate situation. But all you can control is your own reaction. If you don't want to sign then don't sign. I've not signed for much less. Council did sign. I'm fine with it, as I didn't sign. I hope that helps. Best of luck.

Try the ellipses in the top right corner, it works for me.

Or maybe we should step back and ask about the point of this topic. Besides the fact that "cultural changes" is just asking for a fight (that I'd like to wave off right now), how does it help? The only thing we can control is how we respond to our environment. I don't see a point in discussing the what-ifs. Rather than describe, discuss and explain a future that we're all clueless about, how about talk about what we're doing locally, to help our units get through what has to be the worst year for scouting ever. This is like the predictions that magazines put out around new years, only it's the 10 most horrible things that might happen rather than the 10 best.

That person was likely laid off a week ago. Me thinks there's a lot more change coming.

Hi @LoriT. Welcome to the forum.

Good point. I looked this up and 4H came out of a 1914 law that set up the cooperative extension programs at land grant universities to help farmers. While the BSA got a charter, 4H got funding. Sounds like a better deal to me. They also have plenty of donors, though. Either way, compare 4H's national budget with BSA's and they still run a tighter program. 4H has revenues much higher than expenses and all of their numbers are in the 10's of millions of dollars whereas BSA is losing money and they're in the 100's of millions range. Think of your favorite expense, the summit. I've been to my local cooperative extension office and they're set up to help everyone. I don't know the relationship between 4H and the Dept of Agriculture, but it just seems to me that there's just enough oversight that when someone proposed this incredible fair ground in WV with zip lines and all sorts of fun for the entire family that kids from all over the country would pay thousands of dollars to go to, that the guy at the USDA would have said, umm, no, get back to basics. Oh, and fix your hiring practices, you're so inbred it's horrible.

The difference between 4H and scouting is the overhead in capital and labor. 4H has little and the BSA has an enormous amount. Properties and staffing are huge for a non profit. 4H sets up a stem program and it's a few documents of ideas for the youth. The bsa does it and it's millions of dollars poured into camps. Bechtel? That said, camps used to be profit centers. It reminds me of college dorms. They used to be really cheap and students were okay with it. Now dorms are really nice and come with good food and activity centers. Well, now students are leaving colleges in droves. Community colleges are a much better deal. So, how does the BSA lower costs and still have fun stuff to do? It's a fine line between too cheap and just right. Rather than pour money into toys I'd rather see a little money poured into teaching scouts how to create their own fun. Another thing 4H has is a definite project. Raise chickens or make a soap box car. I think the bsa could borrow that idea. Make fun MB's for a patrol to work on that takes around 3 months to complete. Something about working towards a final project rather than a patch sounds much more appealing to me.

Not at all. I think you've just clarified what I'm thinking. Really bad things happened. And yet there is no simple answer. Social norms have changed. The BSA has done a lot of good. The only way forward I see is to be honest, get a complete understanding of what happened and go all in for preventing it from happening again. I hope you stick around. I'm sure you'll have lots to add. Oh, and welcome to the forum.

@vol_scouter, you seem to be a grief magnet. I suspect that's because you're as close to national as we see. Anyway, here's a slightly different perspective. I don't really care about insta-palms, the cubscout changes, the LDS, the membership changes or any of the other hot topics on this forum. But all these issues are really just side stories. There's really only one story that, at this point, raises the question of whether the BSA will even exist a year from now. The story is a steady decline in interest in the BSA for some five decades and what the BSA is doing to change that. If there were a lot of interest in scouting then all of these other issues would fade away, so they are not the issue. After watching this for so long it appears that the BSA is mostly just throwing spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. They thought it was getting eagle so there's been a push to crank out more eagles. There was scoutreach. Now there's Bechtel and STEM. Nothing is really sticking. Everyone may claim they know the answer but until anything is tried out it's all just arm chair quarterbacking. You had mentioned that all the volunteers should get behind the leadership. After 50 years of doing that I think the volunteers have lost faith in the leadership. That's why they're nitpicking every decision. And you have to admit, Mosby has not been creating any sort of optimism. Sure, he's dealing with a fire and things are so far gone that we don't know what the BSA might look like, or if it even exists, a year from now. But still, I haven't heard anything. A lot of people here say get back to the basics or core competencies of the BSA. I suppose there are different opinions as to what that looks like. How about just leadership? You took woodbadge. The very last day I was told that good leadership is servant leadership. Look out for what the people want. That might be a good place to start. I will add one thing to consider, though. There is nothing more impressive in scouts than seeing a scout that finally gets it. It's the confidence, the desire to help out cheerfully, the responsibility, just knowing that this young person will do fine. Every parent that sees this in their child knows the power of scouting. Some are happy, some are proud and some are relieved. That's what every other parent should understand as the goal of scouting. That's what every volunteer and employee of the BSA should understand as the goal. It is what makes scouting unique. Get everyone on that page and fight off the nitpicking, and everyone will start following the leadership.

Well, I suspect different sports carry different risks. That's why I was wondering about hiking in particular.

Do you know if any of the 20 got covid? We're talking about replacing meetings with patrols doing outdoor activities on weekends or after school if we can get the adults. Great excuse to do patrol activities.

I wish them luck but $7M?

Welcome to the forum, @markT262

It seems that threads that wander either discuss what went wrong or how to make it right. Lots of existential angst these days. That's why I'd really like some honest historical analysis. Sometimes I wonder if we're not just a bunch of blind men trying to understand an elephant.

Entomologists are all kids at heart. I visited the local ag school's dept. when my son was a cub scout and they were just so into it. They were bragging about how you hadn't been stung until you've been stung by this one insect that had a 5" long stinger and they only knew it existed in this one remote corner of the state that few people ever went (hence why it wasn't extinct). Anyway, if they want to change the name of the MB, it's the kid in them and I'd let them change it to whatever they wanted because it would be a great MB.

Is placing blame really doing anything? While a lot of politicians may be lawyers (I don't know if that's true anymore), all judges are lawyers and it's those lawyers that are keeping our democracy together right now. It's also a lawyer, the judge in this chapter 11 case, that will decide the BSA's fate.

Hey all, let's get back to Chapter 11.

You're leaving yourself open for a really nasty insult and I want to stop that from happening right now. Let's all stop the name calling. It's time for everyone to start thinking about what they're thankful for.

Okay everyone, I smell panic in the air. You are, however, being very polite. So thank you for that. I have no doubt there will be change. We just don't know what that change will entail. Isn't change one of the topics covered in Wood Badge? Things are unsure and that causes stress. That's all I remember. I probably got bored after that. I don't even remember what the syllabus said about dealing with change. What I do know is there's a fundamental idea of scouting and that won't change. I don't care if the camp I went to as a kid gets sold off, I'm done using it. The absolute best fun my scouts ever had, and myself when I was their age, was finding fun in new places. Mud, water, snow, rocks, sticks, fire, ice, sunsets, stars, friends, and in my case a WWI cemetery. New scouts will find new places but the basics will still be there. Talk to the UK scouts, they go hiking through and camping in farm fields and I'm sure they have as much fun as we do. People don't like the idea of after school scouting but maybe after school is a perfect time for patrols to meet and the troop only meets once a month for a night of competition. Change might not be so bad. It's not that we will lose donors because the donors are long gone. Figure out how to include kids from lower income families and a lot more charity funds will become available. This isn't the end of the world, it's just the end of how we used to do things.

I'd be more interested in knowing how many of the cases where after 2000. Just my opinion but the only hope the BSA has is to prove that they've solved this problem. If the number is substantially lower than, say, at schools, then maybe the judge will be able to look at what good the BSA has done.

And thus started the long history of not quite following the regulations😁. Great story, though. Thanks for sharing.