NJCubScouter

Maybe it does, but my council just (last year) completely reorganized the DE-level professional staff, supposedly to provide MORE professional staff (but I get the feeling that the people newly hired into this new structure are getting significantly less pay than the DE's.) Essentially each "group" of 3 districts has 4 executives handling different areas for all 3 districts, such as membership, development, unit service and one other that slips my mind. Those 4 report to an FSD. No more "DE" handling everything for one district. But each district still has its own volunteer structure. It took them about 2 years to transition to that. So now they are going to reorganize AGAIN?

I don't know the "buzzword" meaning of most of those. As I have said before, in my profession most of the "buzzwords" are from the 16th or 17th century.

I guess that raises the question, does any of this "method" involve directly asking unit Scouters what would allow us to more effectively deliver the program to the Scouts? And actually listening to the answers? Or is it just going to be a buch of guys with gold and silver shoulder loops talking to each other? (No offense to those here who wear gold or silver loops.)

You might, but I definitely am.

I think my personal answer to all this is, if National sends me a memo or issues a new Troop Committee Guidebook explaining what I, as a troop committee member and advancement chair, am supposed to differently, I will read it and decide what to do. (Meaning, either stay and follow the new protocols, or not stay.) If on the other hand it doesn't affect my position, I am not going to worry about it. This is one of the main reasons I have never gotten involved at the district level, there is less "insulation" from all the "great ideas" and fads coming out of National. The other main reason is the politics at the district and higher levels.

Can anyone explain to me what this actually is? I don't mean what they think the results will be, I mean what is actually going to happen differently in order to try to reach those results. And who is going to be involved? Are unit Scouters going to be involved, and if so, how? And you can assume I know nothing about "Lean Management," because I don't. Is it anything more than trying to get the work done with the least possible number of people?

In my council, MBC’s had to take it by Sept. 7 or we would be dropped from the counselor list. For everybody else the deadline is Oct. 1. I do not understand the “special treatment”, but I complied with it.

I did learn a new word on that page, “delayer”, meaning to reduce the number of layers. If anyone had said “delayer” to me before just now, I would have guessed that it meant a person or thing that causes a delay. And I love the bullet-point where they say that one of the ways they are going to streamline things is by creating new jargon. As opposed to the dozen or so other times they have introduced new jargon in the last 50 years or so. I can hardly wait.

I don't think the new G2SS rules mean the "end" of the patrol method. I believe that in troops where it is working, the adults and Scouts will find a way for it to keep working despite the fact that two adults need to be "present." In other words I think that in troops where it is already understood that adults need to stay out of the patrol program, the adults will be able to distinguish between being "present" for safety purposes and being "present" in the sense of meddling with the safe activities of the patrol. In troops where it wasn't working anyway, well, it's still not going to work, because the adults don't know what their limits are. I do recognize that the new rule may make it m ore difficult for troops to move from the "non-working" to the "working" category, or from "partly working" to "working." Difficult, but not impossible.

Well, you definitely can't do THAT. And that's totally apart from the fact that you probably paid for those meals when you paid your son's camp fee. He (and you) forfeited the meals from the day(s) he was no longer there, but for a wide variety of reasons, he was entitled to eat while he was there. If you want to give your son "a taste of real hunger" that is your call, except that if any child protection agency folks got wind of it, they might decide it was not your call. It definitely was not the adult troop leaders' call.

We do that, for every rank through Life. Under the Guide to Advancement it is absolutely prohibited. We do it anyway. It was being done in the troop before I started and nobody has ever questioned it. When I became Advancement Chair there were several aspects of our BOR's that were not by the book, and I proceeded to change the important ones. I never thought this one was very important.

They do not re-run the criminal background check for a recharter. I believe, though I am not 100% positive, that they need your written authorization every time they run the criminal background check on you. That authorization is contained in the adult leader application. So, if you apply for a new position where a new application is required, they re-run the check, which you have just authorized. That would include a registered unit leader registering with a different unit (i.e. pack to troop, or troop to crew, or troop to another troop, etc.); a registered unit leader registering at a different level (i.e. district or council); a registered adult registering to also be a merit badge counselor; etc.

I think we need to be clear on what we mean by "background check." The BSA contracts with a company to perform criminal background checks. Supposedly, all applications go through this process. I know they do in my council, and not just for new applications. When I recently applied to be a merit badge counselor (after an absence), I was specifically told by the council registrar that I had passed the background check - which they apparently did even though I have been registered as a troop committee member since 2003 and as a den leader and assistant cubmaster before that. (I believe the background check system probably went into effect around 2001-2002, because it was fairly new, but was in effect, when I applied to be a troop committee member in early 2003. ) Which still begs the question, what is a criminal background check, at least as performed by the BSA? It is a search (on the Internet) of publicly available databases of criminal offenders and offenses. They do not call the references you list on the application. (Supposedly that is up to the unit.) They (probably) will not find a juvenile offense, since those are generally sealed. As I mentioned in an earlier post, they will not find an offense that has been expunged. They will not pull up a speeding ticket. They will not find a drunk driving offense unless it is a criminal offense in that state (in NJ it is a motor vehicle offense, not a criminal offense, no matter how many times someone does it.) I do not think they would find a municipal ordinance violation. They will find crimes of which there is currently a public record. That's it.

I think the phrase “conditional Scouter” needs to be consigned to the ash-heap of history. And any professional Scouter who thinks it’s a good idea to insult the volunteers needs to be terminated.

Welcome to the forum! How long until your son turns 18?

It does, and now, here it is.

Can you give some examples of what you have seen?

The "optics" here are not good. Different handbooks suggest different programs, even if its actually all the same program.

I am moving this to Issues and Politics.

I see no evidence here that anyone is "encouraging" this youth toward or away from anything. I do agree that the parents should be contacted. They should be told what their child has said and they should be asked if they are aware of it. Maybe they say yes, maybe they tell you about some other wrinkle that you weren't aware of. (I doubt they say they are completely unaware of it, but anything's possible.) If they say yes, maybe you then ask them something like whether they feel it is appropriate for their child to be a member of an organization that is currently open to boys only. If they say yes, I'm not sure where you go from there, if anywhere.

Apparently he identifies as neither. I'm not sure what you do in that case (other than talk to the parents and see how THEY identify him, if at all.) My inclination is that if he does not identify as female, and identified as male when he joined, it does not seem right to remove him.

I don't see anywhere in Hawkwin's posts that suggests that qwasze's supposition is correct - or incorrect. But I also don't see anywhere in Hawkwin's posts that suggests that his son asked for an exception to be made based on his inability to attend the next two camping trips. Hawkwin, has your son told the SM that he cannot attend a camping trip until November and that he requests that the conference be held sooner? I think that is the crux of the matter. If he asks for an exception and it is granted, I suppose this is still an "addition to the requirements," but the practical effect is minimal, if anything, so personally I wouldn't worry about it. If the request is denied, then I think further discussions need to be had, because it really is not acceptable under BSA rules. (I can imagine someone saying that the Scout should not have to ask for an "exception" to something that is not a valid "rule," which this is not, but I think that whenever possible, things like this should be resolved in a practical manner rather than people waving rulebooks at each other. Sometimes that isn't possible, but it should always be given a try.)

Keep in mind that while you may know the person was convicted of a crime, it might not show up in the criminal background check. The main example would be if the conviction has been expunged. The fact that a person had a ”record” at one time does not necessarily mean they have one now. For more info see https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Expungement_in_the_United_States.

I think the "unit leader's judgment rule" works well at the margins. But the issue of whether it is enough for the leaders to be in or near the campsite while the summer-camping Scouts are elsewhere at activities or merit badge sessions, OR whether each Scout must be in line-of-sight of a leader (two leaders?) literally at all times, is not at the margins, it is more like the Grand Canyon. The line-of-sight-at-all-times rule would never work and I don't think that is how the BSA interprets its own 2-deep-leadership rule. And if someone feels that the requirement of just being generally "there" is less effective in preventing YP violations, well, that's true. We make tradeoffs. There is always a balance between safety and the ability to do an activity. The only activity that is truly 100% safe is an activity that gets cancelled. If the activity takes place, there is always a risk. I suppose the BSA could require that every Scout wear a body-cam at all times, with a live feed to his/her parents, then things would be a lot safer. Just kidding, of course. But maybe I shouldn't even joke about that, someone may get ideas.

I don't think the "mandate" is changing for either gender. The rule on adult supervision (and I looked at the new one, which I think takes effect in October) says two leaders must be "at" the activity, or "present at" the activity. We have had discussions before about what those words and phrases really mean in practice. I have never understood the rules (including the new one) to mean that every Scout must be within eyesight of a unit leader at all times while at an activity. (Indeed, there are times when that CAN'T happen even if anyone wanted it to, in light of the YP guidelines regarding "privacy.") And the buddy system, which you mention, also seems to assume that there will be times when an adult is not right there - otherwise, why would you need a buddy system? (Not counting the waterfront, where you need constant adult supervision AND the buddy system, but that's different.) The bottom line is that line-of-sight by adults with all Scouts at all times is impossible, and is not what the BSA means by "present."