ParkMan

Makes me wonder if we never had the abuse lawsuits if the BSA would allow more things like this. I imagine that with all the abuse suits, the BSA is a bit gun shy on more suits. When I started, a leader reminded me that the most dangerous activity in the BSA is biking. Even with helmets they have seen more and worse accidents from biking than anything else.

This is one of that areas that the BSA can certainly clean up. They need to be clear what is a YPT rule and what is a program rule. Mixing the two dilutes the importance of the YPT rules. It has to be clear what rules require a YPT violation and which rules do not. Tenting with your special needs child or bringing your son to an event with a troop for girls is not a YPT violation. This needs to be separate FAQs.

Depends on the district & council to be honest. As others have said, some councils require it and so I expect that in those councils it's a big deal. In general, from the district & council perspective, the goal is well run packs & dens. Knowledgeable, engaged leaders can have a big impact on the quality of the programs. Training is one of the best ways to increase leader knowledge. To that end, having trained leaders is important to improving Scouting which is important to a district. The problem you run into is that a single leader can probably do fine by picking up the concepts somewhere else. So, for a given individual the training may not be critical. However, one individuals start to skip the training, it sets the expectation that others can as well. It's not too long before you have a culture where training isn't important. So long roundabout answer to say - yes, encourage you fellow leaders to take the training. They can be part of the culture that leads to better trained leaders overall in your pack.

Right - and that's much of the problem discussing the YP program here on this forum. People here are looking for the what they feel are weak spots and are amplifying them. When people here start to think bigger picture, they start to let the worry creep in. Are we enforcing it enough, are we making sure everyone is 100% trained at all time, and so on. We're all trying to find out how to make it perfect, but are glossing over the fact that it's already good now. When I've explained YPT to parents, they are all generally quite happy with what we do. That's why I give it a B-.

The problem is always one of perspective. Many see as a solid program that is working and yet someone will always come along and point to something that improve safety. Yet, may of these safety increases do come at a cost. We will always be asking ourselves if the cost is worth the gain. Since we're talking about kids and safety, we'll almost always say the cost is worth it - but we need to be honest that there's is a cost. I would submit that the BSA's YPT program is not ineffective nor is it inconsistent. Yes, there are places where interpretation can occur and in those places it is inconsistent. But it generally is pretty clear on what is meant. This will happen until the G2SS is 10 times longer. All volunteer programs have the same question. How much supervision and oversight is appropriate. I don't believe there is a general consensus on this question for any group at this point. Whether it's the BSA, GSUSA, sports, youth group, or any other youth program.

I've never heard of anyone suggesting that you cannot work on advancements outside of a Scouting activity. This is a very conservative reading of the text in the G2SS. Yes, the G2SS could be clearer, but it is not as stringent as is being suggested. If two Scouts who are friends get together and work on a requirement together, no-one is going to tell them to stop or that the activity doesn't count. The problem is that if two scouts who are friends get together and something happens, a lawyer is going to try to pull the BSA into the lawsuit. Feels to me that we need some sort of better tort guidelines on what constitutes negligence in volunteer youth activities. Perhaps something that says that the BSA has some responsibility for safety, but so too do the parents. A parent who blindly trusts the BSA and it's volunteers without doing parental oversight is themselves negligent.

We're conflating different issues here. - Scouting is a good program that many kids benefit from - regardless of "cool" status - Scouting can certainly do a better job of marketing to youth. That doesn't make Scouting bad - it's just the reality.

Executive salary doesn't define the BSA. It's simply a measure of what the national committee feels is needed to retain the senior national employees. In my decade in Scouting, I've now see several CSE. I do appreciate that there is always frustration with executive compensation - be it companies or non-profits. In my time with the BSA the compensation of the national leaders has had just about zero impact on what I see happen day in and day out. Scouting is defined day in and day out by the thousands of volunteers and professionals who are working to put on strong programs. The BSA isn't a perfect organization, but it is far from being a bad organization. Day in and day out, the professionals I know are trying to do the right things for the kids in the program. They are all trying to help our packs and troops grow. They are trying to start new units. They are trying to encourage more and stronger programming. They are trying to raise money to keep costs as low as possible. The volunteers are spending countless hours of volunteer time to build strong local units and deliver programming. So while I think it's conceivable for Scouting to exist without the council structure or national BSA, I still don't think it's best for Scouting. Could council and national function better? Sure. But they far from being fundamentally broken or corrupt. If our council, our camps, and our support staff go away - I'll mourn that. I'll pick up the pieces and keep it going, but will be sad if it happens.

That's certainly one approach - sure. Get rid of councils as we know it, big summer camps, and paid professionals. Districts & OA already are 95% volunteer - so there would be enough infrastructure to make things work. I'm not going to advocate it, but it it happens I'm not opposed to rolling the dice on that one. I just want to make sure we're all on the same page about what we're talking about here.

For what it's worth. Our larger than medium sized council has 17 employees: 1 Scout Executive 3 people who do administrative support 2 people who raise the bulk of the council's funding 3 people who work on programming, summer camp, and other events 1 council registrar 1 camp ranger 6 district executives who support our units Could you cut a few - sure. But I don't think this is terribly out of whack. If national liquidates, it just about pays for the pension obligations that they have. You have to liquidate councils too to get to more money. No more packs or troops, no more summer camp, no more local Scouting. That's what we're all talking about when we say liquidation.

Thanks! I was thinking of an analogy between churches and scout camps - and whether there is any sort of parallel. Having a place to camp seems a part of the Scouting experience. I wasn't sure if perhaps dioceses had to reduce a certain number of churches or go through some mergers. I wouldn't be surprised for example to see a third of camps sold based on utilization or some such thing. I didn't know if perhaps there was some precedent that might already be in the minds of the judge here.

I'm going to gather these three are the most likely: Scenarios two and five seem like variations base on whomever is in the pool. So at this point it's all a question of how much the court can force the BSA to cut before it really is no longer viable as an entity. How much did the court force the catholic dioceses to liquidate during their bankruptcies? Did they have to sell many churches? It strikes me that this is the parallel to look at.

I want to be careful not to generalize the concept too much be expanding to other organizations. This is part of the history of Scouting - the whole CO concept. If you look through some of the materials around Scouting, you'll see the concept of the inverted pyramid too - that the council is here to support the units. However - in the case of little league... When you agree to use their product (baseball in the little league system) you agree to the terms of the agreement such as using their umps and following their rules. Similarly - to your point of following rules. By the Scouting units adopting the program, they agree to follow the rules. When a unit breaks a rule, the council can let them know. But, the council needs to be very deliberate in how it works with units. Less boss and more consultant.

I think we have to start by recognizing a basic truth that few in councils want to recognize. The councils work for the units - not the other way around. The BSA is a company that provides a product (Scouting) that units can utilize to run their own Scouting program. CORs and their units are effectively little companies that buy the Scouting program from the BSA (through a local council) and then go off run their own program. Youth are not the customers of the BSA - the CORs and their units are. These little companies (aka Scouting units) agree to certain rules when they operate the program. These rules include things like YPT. The BSA has two "hammers". The first hammer is pulling the ability for a unit to use the program. The second hammer is the ability for a person to be involved with any unit utilizing the program. Councils get into trouble because they forget this. Councils make the mistake of assuming that because they are the only supplier they can force units to do things. But they forget who the supplier is and who the customer is. BSA & local councils - supplier local units - customers When you have a supplier (the BSA) with a complex product (Scouting), you deploy a team of field consultants who work hand in hand with the customers (the units). When you have a business model like this, you teach your field consultants how to partner with customers to make them more effective. Few field consultants would ever show up at a customer and start making demands. Field consultants build relationships with their customers, help them to solve problems, and demonstrate the potential in the product. In short good field consultants build trust with their customers. Yep, sometimes a customer so abuses the product that you have to tell them to stop using it - but it's rare. The way you fix this really isn't that hard. I'd start by simply having our field consultants (DEs & Commissioners) focus on maximizing the benefit the units get from Scouting. It's not the job of units to trust the council. It's the job of the council to build trust in the units - their customer base. I think if the BSA simply started by orienting itself correctly, this would all work a lot better.

Some constructive ideas: 1. Have a DE do a drop in visit on every unit once a year. A DE has something like 50 units they are responsible for. That would mean that they could visit each unit once a year and get a sense of what is going on. 2. A Unit Commissioner should have a monthly contact with the unit. At least once a quarter, that ought to be a unit meeting visit. While it's not defined as a compliance check, it also is pretty easy to see if the unit is following basic YPT rules list two deep. 3. The BSA should focus on parents. The best quality control for the BSA is the parents. If you train parents on what to look for and provide them a discrete way to raise concerns, then you create another whole set of eyes on the problem. The BSA needs to show it is serious here, but the BSA also needs to be careful about making the council/unit relationship even more adversarial. Units that are distrustful of council wall themselves off and make it difficult for others to understand what is going on. The BSA has a long history of imposing rules and regulations. Yes, some things should be non-negotiable (such as following YPT rules), but the way we increase engagement on YPT isn't always more hammers and pikes.

You absolutely could have a conversation between the commissioner staff and unit key 3. District volunteers just have to listen and then explain the goal. Of course this would have to start by having professionals and council volunteers actually talk to the unit commissioners.

Oh - I see now. You're in the category of people who will not receive insurance payments because you are outside of the SOL window. You are frustrated because the BSA raised your expectations by saying you should file a claim as part of this bankruptcy process anyways. If the BSA had not said you should file a claim, you would not have been able to sue and so wouldn't have entered into this otherwise. I follow now.

Maybe this was the case - but it cannot be the case today. You cannot register in the BSA without YPT. You cannot recharter in the BSA with expired YPT. Yet - YPT has an expiration date. My council regularly reports YPT compliance numbers. In those numbers if you have expired YPT, it decreases our percentage. I don't know the current number, but expect this is true: 100% of leaders were YPT compliant in the last year. You cannot be a currently registered leader if this was not true. 80% of leaders are YPT compliant today People are going to point to the 80% and say YPT is failing. But is it really? That's my engineer question.

We're not as far apart as you probably think. I worry both about the victims of abuse and also the future of the program. So I'm going to look for a solution that allows both to occur. You and I have been down the money path before - I appreciate that you don't like the amount. Your definition of equitable is your definition. I'm happy for the BSA to find you more money, but we just have to keep the program alive. If that means we sell Summit & Northern Tier, that's fine by me. Similarly if we combine smaller councils together and sell some camps along the way - that's fine too. I just want to see each side willing to come to the table. We don't need this to be legal equivalent of mutually assured destruction.

Lol. The engineer in me wants to understand what 20% of leaders not being compliant really means and if it really is an issue.

Likewise.... But before I do, I just keep wondering what it really is that we are trying to fix. Are units that non-compliant and if they are, what are the kinds of things they are letting happen. I'm wondering if instead of adding more enforcement we look at this from a different perspective.

And you'll get money here. They said they had some money to pay claimants with and invited all those who wanted a part to come forward. I don't see how any of this is false hope from the BSA.

Yes - the Commissioner service is the red-headed stepchild of Scouting volunteer positions. They are there to help units, to serve as trusted advisors, and to enable leaders to have a stronger program. I doubt that most would be able to navigate being both advisor and compliance officer all at once. I suspect it would kill the commissioner program. There will be one or two territory employees per 15 councils. Let's say a council averages 200 units - that's one or two employees per 3,000 units. If they are always on the road and do three a week - that's 20 years to visit everyone... What is it that we actually want them to check?

I think you got sold a false bill of goods. 1) I don't doubt that a some lawyers & activists are in this for the cause. However, like anyone who is fighting for a cause the people who get enlisted to the cause often are second to the cause itself. 2) Law is a business like any other. Like any business I'm sure that the lawyers believe in their product (getting you money for your suffering). But it's still a business. 3) Messrs Mosby & Turley I'm sure were doing their job too. I am sure they believed in getting you equitable compensation for your suffering. When this started, I have to imagine that they looked at trends in SOL legislation and thought that we will all have lawsuit after lawsuit for the next 30 years. They knew the BSA made mistakes in it's past and that the activists and lawyers would never stop. To me it seemed a prudent goal to look for a way to settle this once and for all and to pay reparations for what had happened in the past. I would have to imagine that Messrs Mosby & Turley never imagined this number of claims. You are caught in the middle.

I expect that every council does this. The issue is when councils measure YPT compliance later and discover it have gone from 100% at recharter to 75% 6 months later. The question becomes - what is the right thing for the BSA to do here: work to get everyone to 100% compliance all the time. Requires 100% for recharter and then put plans in place to proactively make people take YPT once it lapses. create a rule that requires YPT be valid for the entire year, but require the course annually create a rule that requites YPT be valid for the entire year, but lengthen the YPT certification to all for taking the course bi-annually. don't track YPT compliance during the year for existing leaders recognizing that 100% compliance at recharter is sufficient. Which of the above is the right approach? In my mind, #2 provides the most trained volunteer force. #3 & #4 results is trained volunteers but refreshed slightly less often. #1 is what we do today. I would argue that it's the least effective of the four and requires the most bandwidth and resources for volunteer leaders and the BSA professionals to accomplish. It's also going to show the worst YPT percentages of the four.