ParkMan

I am very sorry to hear the news. My heart goes out to them both. I was them the very best as they recover from it.

Right. As I see it, and the BSA materials describe, the unit is just another program of the CO. The BSA cannot own it any more than it can own a sunday school class. The BSA can come along and say - stop using our materials or can prevent certain adults from being volunteers because it controls who can use the materials. But it certainly doesn't own the unit.

In my own life, I've stopped thinking of it as the CO owns the unit. That suggests that the unit is a separate entity from the church - it is not. I've come to prefer the term "part of". The unit is a part of the CO. The unit is simply using the BSA materials as they put on their own program

@ChristianB - welcome to the forum. It strikes me that the core problem here is one of adult leadership. The Committee Chair should be working with the Scoutmaster to ensure that the Committee is correctly doing it's role. Further, the Committee Chair should be setting direction for the entire adult team to ensure that all the adults are working together so that the troop runs well. The Troop model in the BSA is that the Committee Chair is the leader of the adult team of the troop. That the advancement and finance chairs are feuding with the Scoutmaster is the Committee Chair's responsibility to sort out. Individual adult leaders should not be undermining the Scoutmaster on program questions. Advancement is the purview of the Scoutmaster. The Advancement Chair's role is to facilitate the advancement process, serve as a champion, and provide oversight of the advancement program in a way to identify when kids are getting missed. The Advancement Chair should not be deciding how quickly anyone advances. Again, the Committee Chair should be involved here. You want to do this the nice guy way, have a conversation about your concerns with the Committee Chair. Talk to him/her about the adult drama you see and enlist the CC's help in getting it cleaned up. The pace of advancement for a couple of Scouts is not an issue that should derail a well functioning troop. If you want to do this a bit more aggressively, go to the next Troop Committee Meeting. At the meeting bring up that you are concerned that there is friction between the adults. Be prepared to say that you see the advancement chair superseding the Scoutmaster on advancement and that it's a problem. Be prepared to point out that it's leading to Scoutmaster and his kids likely to leave. Call these folks out and stir it up. BTW - how big is your troop. This sounds like the kind of nonsense you see in very small troops where the adults politics are preventing the troop from growing.

I'd tell them to pound sand myself. I believe that quoting a cost of $250-$300 a year per scout to fund council operations is probably pretty typical. If you look, a council of 10,000 scouts probably does have an annual budget in the $3 million dollar range. The problem is that councils are expected to raise most of that through donations. The council is capped at $66, meaning that if they want to get all their funding through fees then they are limited to an annual budget of $660,000 for 10,000 scouts. They want to raise more, then they have to do it through real fundraising and appeals to families - not coercion through mandatory donations. Frankly, I would tell the DE that they can feel free to come and solicit donations. Tell him that you'll even encourage families to give. But, he's got to knock off the coercion.

Hi @RichardB, As always, thanks for taking the time to share some insight with us on these topics. I've got very little insight how to communicate this feedback to national, please permit me to proactively share a few constructive thoughts. This is not criticism. Also, don't feel compelled to respond - I'm not asking you to defend this new program. I just wanted to share what I think are pretty common thoughts from out here in the trenches. Frist - and to be clear - I'm taking an open minded approach to this particular topic. I sat through the recent webinar and am likely to take the short term camp administrator training. I do this because I generally try to extract the value from these sorts of opportunities for our programs. My motivation is to run the best Scouting programs possible and I will take input from whatever quarter I can. Second - I would share the perception that this is being perceived as yet another bureaucratic imposition by national. No one I know likes this. If I, for example, look at the two things listed in the materials you quoted as the purpose: This seems fair. I would tend to agree with others that I don't see why this is needed all of a sudden. Yet, I can certainly imagine that national is receiving pressure to tighten up the application of health and safety rules. If this is part of the motivation, I would strongly encourage the national staff to simply admit that. We all can appreciate that liability rules continually place increasing challenges on everyone. The problem is that the language in the materials provides no compelling reason why national needs a new program for this. We have many thousands of very capable adults across the country doing a great job at this. To now say that these individuals need to sit through a course to teach them how to do this is a difficult sell and strains our credibility with these valued volunteers. I have inferred that this is for a) insurance reasons, b) to try and cut down on the number of safety mistakes being made. So I tell people that and they generally can accept it. If this standard is really about making programming better, then this needs to be communicated very differently. If this really is all about communicating and teaching best practices for event programming, then make this all about national providing increased program training for district and council volunteers. Hold seminars and webinars on best practices for events. Record them, put them on a website. Play it up. Provide some sort of recognition after a person has completed enough of the different units. Rejuvenate training at the local level and incorporate this into it. Imagine a yearly ongoing training for district/council event planners. Again, this could be great stuff. Selling it The problem NCAP has it that is comes across with all the excitement of a new rule from my state's Department of Motor Vehicles. It could be (and hopefully is) great stuff. Yet, it's being imposed on everyone. Pronouncements of new required training, new administrator roles, new forms and rules, are very heavy handed. Just look at the first paragraphs on the website at https://www.scouting.org/outdoor-programs/camping/short-term-camp/. The intro page on short term camping immediately jumps into the rules and standards. It makes national come across as being more concerned about the rules than about the program quality. In our area we do all these things. Other than filling out more paperwork, we do all of this. These first two paragraphs do absolutely nothing to make me excited about the national team's great work. Again, it's important for us all to understand why. There has to be value in it for volunteers and clear impact to local programs. If the value is not obvious, then people need to help us see the value. This is crucial. Volunteers will eventually comply to rules that are rolled out, but it costs National and the Council credibility with volunteers when decisions are imposed on them. Helping volunteers see the value goes a long way towards building credibility for national amongst the volunteers. Thank you! If you made it this far, thank you for reading through it all. I do greatly appreciate what the national professional staff does. Thank you very much.

Thank you very much for making me aware of that. I didn't know that.

I do believe that there is a fair public policy question here. Should the country have ever removed the statute of limitations and should organizations like the BSA, churches, and other COs be responsible for abuse claims from that long ago? These organizations all have permanence due to the nature of the kinds of organizations that they are. They have all made decisions years ago that if made today would be considered reprehensible and subject to legal action. Should quasi-permanent institutions like these be held liable for the these terrible decisions by people who are long since gone and no longer affiliated with the organization? The actions of all these organizations today are radically different than those of 40 years ago. Should groups be actively be trying to disband them because of those actions so long ago? The heinous nature of these crimes makes it all but impossible to really have this discussion though. Anyone who would argue this point would most likely be labeled as being sympathetic to abuse. Even the BSA has all but refused to fight this trend of lawsuits. The BSA made what I fear will be a near-fatal decision to not push back on these lawsuits and frame them correctly. The kids in Scouting today would be much better off if the BSA had hired some very expensive PR and lobbying firms several years ago and fought this trend.

Right - this is the claimants pursuing this. Injustices against people aside, my sense is that this started because lawyers and early claimants saw the BSA as a group with deep pockets that was easy to sue and pursue damages against. However, now that everyone has realized that this idea is running out of steam, the lawyers want to expand the pool of claimants and add COs to their lawsuits. In retrospect, this doesn't seem an awful idea. It's a toss-up if Scouting units are more aligned to the council/BSA or the CO. If a Scout was abused 40 years ago who was more at fault - the BSA or the CO?

It's not good for the BSA to add COs to this lawsuit. But, in a way isn't it the correct thing to do? If you were the CO of a unit 30 years ago that had abuse going on, isn't it their responsibility too?

Having been both a unit leader for a long time and a district/council scouter at times too, I've learned to appreciate that units often feel a whole lot more animosity and distrust of the council than is needed. I've found that units that make a good faith effort to work with the council generally have no problem with stuff getting approved. The council really isn't out there to make life difficult for the units.

They are using camp to denote an event, not a place. This applies to basically all overnight events longer than 1 day and less than 4. If your district has a camporee it applies. If you district has two troops camping together for a weekend in a field, it counts. Basically every camping event that it bigger than a single unit camping alone and is shorter in duration than necessary to qualify for resident camp qualifications. Worse than the standards is now that we have to find people to go through this training. Ugh. I want people to focus on membership, program, and unit service. Not more paperwork.

That's my understanding from the webinar. Too many Scouters breaking rules and then having issues. I'm sure there were lawyers who challenged that the BSA hadn't done enough to make sure that the Scouters knew the rules. This in turn led to more liability payments for the BSA. The downside is that this is major new initiative requiring substantial volunteer overhead precisely at a time where volunteer bandwidth needs to be focused on membership and unit support. Not the best time for some new overhead initiative like this.

Maybe it's just me, but it sounds like you've got a strong, active pack. I imagine that you also participate in popcorn sales. I'd just have a chat with your DE about getting these things approved. Yes, you can make it work "as is" and off the books, but I'm going to guess that other than a few tweaks, the council will generally go along with this. In the process, you'll save yourself the discussions in the committee meeting about doing it "off the books"

I've heard this comment before from others. I'd be curious for people to expand on this. What are examples were you've seen professionals fired who were doing a good job? No names of course.

Thank you @mrjohns2. It sounds like Mr. Lambert had a distinguished career. I thank him for devoting his career to Scouting and certainly wish them well. Of all the national job descriptions, his sounds like one of the most understandable. I really do wish that the BSA would make their national organization more transparent to us all at the council level.

I don't think it says anything negative if you wear the NESA knot. You still earned your Eagle - so you still has to earn the award. All the NESA knot really says is that you are an Eagle who has decided to become a lifetime member of the NESA. There is no harm in that at all.

FWIW - when we did it, it was tied to rank. We also didn't paint the entire face, more put marks on their cheeks. Basically, we matched the color of the program: Tiger - orange Wolf - yellow Bear - blue Webelos - green & red AOL - green, red, & yellow

We did it in our pack - but I'll admit, we didn't have too detailed a script. It was normally done at rank advancement. The Cubmaster would get up with the Scouts, ask them to talk a little about some of the funs things they did. After that, he'd paint a strip on each cheek - one red, the other green. He'd explain that Webelos stood for We'll Be Loyal Scouts and that these colors signified their journey on the way to becoming Scouts. I find the goal on these kind of ceremony is to tie it to the journey they are on - celebrate something about what they earned. Or, celebrate some kind of future goal - such as becoming a Scout. I was never one for tying this stuff into NA imagery. I know some people like the NA imagery, but I also found trying to make a connection like that very awkward and forced as a Cubmaster. So, I just never did it. In our pack, it took maybe 3-5 minutes to do the whole thing - that's about as long as we could sit for a ceremony. Sorry I don't have something more concrete for you.

Welcome @Armymutt That's a tremendous Scouting background you have. A little secret I learned along the way is that it's even more fun when you are Scouting alongside with your kids in the program. Enjoy!!

Interesting situation you find yourself in. If a video goes out about your son and his work in Scouting that in turn is used to help lobby to pass a tax levy, I am fairly certain that the council Scout Executive would have liked to have known first. I'd send your DIstrict Executive and District Chair a note so that they can consult with the Scout Executive and see if they'd like to give you any guidance. However, I would not stop a discussion first. There is nothing wrong with a leader in local politics talking with a Scout about their experiences. You just need to watch out that your Scout's image and that of the BSA isn't used to lobby for the levy without being in consultation with the Scout Executive.

I've made similar comments before, but here's my take on these salaries: I think these seem reasonable for a national organization like the BSA: $794K - Chief Scout Executive and President $445K - Chief Financial Officer and Treasurer $394K - General Counsel and Secretary $349K - ACSE, Development $280K - Group Director - Supply $264K - Group Director - Human Resources $232K - Group Director - Summit You go down that list and they all have to solve very complex issues, run large organizations, or serve thousands of employees and even more volunteers across the country. I don't mind investing for quality in these roles. These seem underpaid to me: $265K - Group Director - Marketing $257K - Group Director - Chief Information Officer One of the primary purposes of the national organization is marketing the BSA. Good marketing people are expensive. We should be investing here. Similarly with the CIO. For a national organization with so many scouts and volunteers, the BSA should be investing in it's technology infrastructure. Good CIOs are expensive too. Again, I don't mind investing in quality people here. I don't understand what these do enough to speak intelligently on their salary $387K - ACSE, Nall Dir Field Service $372K - Regional Director $313K - ACSE, National Dir Support Services $299K - Regional Director $292K - Regional Director These all seem like they have roles where the heavy lifting is done by councils. I'm sure I'm missing something as it seems like a lot of high powered people to interact with councils which are almost entirely self sufficient. I'm not following here. I can only assume that these roles are going to highly tenured professionals who in turn command high salaries based on their tenure and the commensurate counsel salaries for those people. i.e., if the average Scout Executive is making 200K, then maybe they feel they need to pay an regional director 300K. I just don't know. These seem like they overlap $472K - Group Director - Outdoor Adventures $349K - ACSE, Dir Outdoor Adventures Managing the high adventure bases is important. But why so many highly compensated people in that function. Is it that challenging a task to manage four high adventure bases?

This is the part of the forum to welcome new members. Coming into this forum and telling a new, enthusiastic parent that: Is just picking on a new member. You want to have that conversation, go over to Issues and Politics and we can hash that out again. I think we've had that conversation there 10 or 20 times now. I'm not even going to get into the merits of your argument here because the "New to the Forum" section where someone else is introducing themselves isn't the place for that.

That's good to know. I always assumed it was very different, but when I read the post I realized that I simply didn't know. Thanks!

It is most likely a long shot (and not one I favor), but I don't think it's really that fanciful. I see two scenarios that make sense: 1. Councils in the US form a new national Scouting association after the current one runs out of money. It's a legally separate entity to protect it from continued lawsuits. That entity would want to acquire the IP of the BSA. I can see this has a 20% chance of happening. 2. The GSUSA has the infrastructure to run a national Scouting organization and is currently devoid of any lawsuits. The GSUSA would like the BSA to not have a program for girls. So, why not acquire the IP of the BSA when the current organization runs out of money and field a unified Scouting organization. I can see this has a 1% change of happening - but if I were on the board of the GSUSA you can bet I'd be looking into this.