ParkMan

I would encourage you to get a more deliberate in planning with your parents. My suggestion: aim for a pack camping trip with 20+ scouts attending set the location to be a nice group campground within a 45 minute drive. set the location 6 months ahead of time. start planning 6 months ahead of time. Have dedicated meetings on the camping trip 5 months out, 3 months out, and then 1 month out. These are parents meetings - involve an adult beverage or two Define roles. Be obnoxious about filling them. Stand up at pack meetings and ask parents to sign up. If someone isn't signed up ask if they can help in the kitchen. At the event... camp for two nights. Have an informal campfire Friday night - roast marshmallows. all meals are joint meals among the pack. FInd a main chef. Always have 2-3 other people helping the chef - always Don't worry about Friday dinner, but do have Saturday breakfast, lunch, dinner. Have Sunday breakfast. Have a combination of events and downtime during the day Saturday Have a pack campfire Saturday night. Do some skits, songs. Do marshmallows again Bed time is 9pm for Scouts. Don't enforce it till 10pm. Adults stay up and shoot the bull. As Cubmaster be enthusiastic. "Hey guys, what did you think of the game today? What should we do next time?"

I'm not really beating up on professionals. I do believe that volunteers can run a great program and provide resources far beyond what a professional staff could ever do economically. Yet - I see a role for some professional support in Scouting. Where I think this gets messed up is that the volunteer/professional relationship is confused.

In a nationwide program how do you define that beyond it's most general application? How do you build a program around that? To me this is a good example of the BSA's problem with programming. We have defined what it is - but not the point. Lots of steps and hoops - but why? There's substance without context or purpose.

Yes - I get your point. I don't mind a simple log of camping trips out of council, in certain high risk situations, etc. But, a TP for a change of meeting venue is ridiculous. The BSA is known to be very autocratic. Do what your boss says or else. It does lead to some of the problems we have. This is yet another reason why it's important to have strong volunteers. As a district volunteer I have no problem interacting with the professionals as colleagues - including the SE. I love hearing their ideas and welcome their contributions. They have a ton of wisdom to share. But, I don't work for the SE or the BSA - so I can make an independent decision without fear of my job. That's a good thing for an organization that is 99% volunteer driven. I'd love to hope that the BSA in this re-org process will rethink it's HR practices.

I love the vision! I do believe that what we lack is description of what successful venturing is and then a path to that. It could be said this is true of much of Scouting. By execs I presume you mean professionals... I groan thinking about how much we care what they think. I love my professional colleagues and value them immensely, but they are here to support the volunteer efforts. That we defer to them is fundamentally wrong. We volunteers are dropping the ball.

I was involved in a crew for a little while. I found that the issue with the crew was that no-one really understood what the point was. The only value proposition I could find was that it was co-ed. 1. Venturing for the 18-21 age range was pointless. Everything changes when you go to college. 2. With very limited exceptions, everything that a crew could do a troop could do. 3. Crews are too small. Units less than 30 people struggle to exist because it's really hard for them to provide enough adults to carry out an active older Scout program. When you've got a crew of 12 Scouts - it's hard for the adults to provide enough stuff to do. It's hard to field a decent Crew committee. 4. Both Troops & Crews really struggle with older Scout retention. Our accepted trainings do not really teach how to keep older Scouts involved. This is the least understood age range for us to retain.

Can you please remind me again how big your pack is? The strategy for a pack of 20 is different from a pack of 50. You need a strategy appropriate for a pack of your size. As Cubmaster you are program leader - not doer of tasks. You need to make sure there is a fun, engaging program for the Cubs. You can't do that when you're worried about the food for the meals, setup, cleanup, etc... In my larger pack, one of the best things we did was establish a parents camping group. It was a simple ask 6 months ahead of the next camping trip - "can you help me in coming up with plans for the next camping trip?" We met three or four times over the next six months and came up with a plan. Who would handle cooking, gear, etc... We ended up with lots of parent involvement and help. As for bed. You cannot got to bed at 8:30. The evening time after kids go to bed is when adults build teamwork. You sit around, shoot the bull, think up ideas for next time, etc... Those people are the ones who become your leaders. That's really important. It's a required part of every trip.

@Mrjeff - sounds like you feel that you joined the BSA because it ran a certain way. Now, you feel that the BSA has changed and no-longer operates as you feel it should. Is that correct?

Respectfully - I think you're reading this backwards. YPT isn't about the BSA making statements about you and your trustworthiness. YPT is a series of rules that describe good, solid practices for keeping kids safe. The BSA requires that we follow them at a Scouting event. The BSA is telling us that we really ought to be taking these same precautions outside of Scouting too. I wouldn't look at them as rules you have to follow because you are a Scouter. Instead because you are a Scouter, you are more aware of the issues surrounding child abuse. Because of that you know where to take precautions. Because you know more about how abuse happens, you should want to set the example for other adult leaders. It's not about you abusing kids. It's about having a culture in your unit where it's difficult for abuse to happen and go unnoticed. I'm a Scouter and have been for a decade. My daughter still has slumber parties. I still take my son's friends home after they hang out at our house. But, I'm also going to be more aware of how I interact with kids.

We have to put this into the larger context. The BSA has these rules because of a reaction to the cases of child abuse in Scouting. The rules are the BSA's attempt to create a program with as many practical safeguards as they can. Yes, some of these rules also help in a CYA sense. More importantly they help create a culture where it's harder for abuse to occur, and if it does to go unnoticed. When we start looking at these rules as requirements - somewhat like tax code - we're missing the point. Following BSA rules because it's the BSA is not the point. Say you've Joe the ASM in your troop. Joe's a nice guy. Joe's got a son Tom who seems very nice and well adjusted too. Do we know if Joe is an abuser? Do we know if Tom is an abuser? In the most protective scenario - we apply YPT rules in all scenarios. If Tom & other kids are friends through Scouts - no sleepovers. If the other kids know Joe from the troop, then they shouldn't be alone with him without another adult. If we as other volunteers learn that it happens then we should say something. Why? Because you never know who an abuser is. Further -someone who is serious about abusing kids is not going to make it easy to notice it. So, if you get a clue - you say something. In the most "human" scenario - we all YPT rules only in a true Scouting context. If Tom wants to have his buddies over - great. If Joe is working on his car in the garage, he shouldn't have to stop when once of Tom's friends come over. Hey - Joe & Tom are people and so we need to respect that. What's the right answer... who knows? My gut tells me that if you know someone through Scouting - follow the rules whenever you can. If you really have a case where it causes you to stop being a normal parent - then I think you've got to decide what to do there.

Similar story here. I looked at going to Scoutbook - but found that the online version of Troopmaster better fit what we needed. It cost us something like a dollar per scout per year so I didn't even think twice about it. But, if you switch I'd love to hear how it goes for you

Our council camps are free to use for units within the council.

We're treading in difficult waters here. It's really tough for me to argue what progressives will or won't do. My belief is that as long as Scouting is identified with promoting particular views, it becomes a target for one political group or another. The BSA promoting anti-progressive (aka conservative) views makes it a target for progressives. The BSA promoting anti-conservative (aka progressive) views makes it a target for conservatives. My point isn't that we should be actively organizing conservative or progressive packs - but that they will develop organically. As people we tend to group into communities of more or less similarly minded people. As a parent looking for a Cub Scout pack, you're going to be able to tell quickly is that pack holds a Sunday service or not. You're going to get a sense for the values of the parents that make up that community - are they more conservative or more progressive? You'll know sitting around the campfire. You'll know by conversations at the troop meeting. As a BSA community, we really ought to play it straight. There's really no reason to associate Scouting with any one political ideology any more. Make it about great adventures with your kids.

But it doesn't have to be so. At our core, Scouting is a fun activity for kids that gives them new experiences and adventures. Along the way the kid learns some self reliance and independence. The program is led by parents from withing our community which means it reflects the values of the kids in the program. If you look at it like that, there is very little that most parents cannot get behind. There is no reason to want to destroy Scouting. In fact, it is exactly the kind of supportive, nurturing environment that progressives want. The problem is that we all want to label it. Many of our former and current members want to label it as a conservative, religious, based program. Many of those outside of the movement see that and want to criticize it for that reason. It is well within the reach of Scouting to move past all these labels and get to what it really is - a fun activity for kids, that installs self reliance, and led by people who share your values. Further, if one pack is too progressive for your liking, join the more conservative one down the street. I live in a pretty progressive area. We have had numerous parents who are of exactly the type of people who you'd think would oppose Scouting on principal. I've heard several parents remark that they never thought their child would enjoy Scouting, but then for some reason or another took a chance and learned more about our pack & troop. As a result, we've had great membership success.

I don't agree that aggression and violence and natural and cannot be contained. What I do think is natural is a desire to compete and succeed. That's largely in our genetics. In order to eat, we need to be able to win the food gathering game. To win the food gathering game we need to be able to best nature and we need to be able to best any adversaries. In nature the rules allow for physical violence to succeed. In people, this is really guided by where we are competing. On the school playground, it's what can you get away with - including violence. In a bar fight, same thing. As adults the rules often change. At work, I win by being a stronger leader and more competent. And so on. In a Scouting context, it's important that we recognize our desire of youth to compete and succeed. Yes, part of that is leadership as some kids will see success in being the leader of others. The trick for us a leaders is to establish the rules of Scouting - i.e., no violence and intimidation. But, we have to be very careful to forget that many kids want to compete and succeed. In this process, you can certainly remove some of the more toxic elements that the movement is highlighting - physical violence, bullying, hazing, derogatory comments toward others. You can have lots of competition, success, and leadership without it turning into a "Lord of the Flies" kind of environment.

The problem in all of this is two fold: 1) Our standard materials and adult training lead to lecture/school approach. A volunteer needs to use some imagination to avoid this. 2) Some units are doing this well today. They know how to lead with adventure and make it fun. My takeaway is that this isn't a general condemnation of Scouting. Again - some leaders do this very well. But, for your rank-n-file leader it's too easy to fall into this trip. I'm not sure how to correct this.

This is where BSA training could really help. What are effective ways to handle advancement without it feeling like school.

I find it interesting that today brings news about the GSUSA council in southern Illinois selling all their camps. To the points raised by @dkurtenbach & @desertrat77. I concur. Yes, our purpose is the build character in and develop young adults. But, we cannot lose sight of just what our game is here. It does indeed seem that we often get too wrapped up in our purpose and lose sight of playing the game better. Our game is outdoor adventures and the patrol method. The attraction to youth is the quality of our game. Let's do those well. This again is why I'm opposed to top down restructuring and mega councils. Here we have this great opportunity to loosen the reigns and foster innovation around delivering program. Realign people around the game - outdoor adventures and patrol method. Leave councils free to innovate. National can certainly jump in to make sure councils have a good financial plans - we want to avoid needless loss of camp properties to mis-focused local council boards.

I just come back to a simple question - "what's the primary program of Scouting?" To use the BP quote "Scouting is a game with a purpose". What's their game? As this GSUSA council continues to erode their "game" in favor of funding experiences, they become less and less differentiated. Truthfully, my daughter's GSUSA troop shows the same symptoms. Their program has turned into an every two week's meeting with little other substance. They get together do some crafts, the older girls provide some crowd control for the younger girls. It all seems rather boring to me. I'm not saying this council has to organize programming every month at camp. But goodness, provide a camp. Provide training and leadership so that unit leaders use it. Don't just let the camp languish and then say - "well, looks like no one is using it and so we might as well sell it."

I agree with that quote 100%. If I were the BSA in Southern Illinois, I would start a focused campaign to recruit girls into Scouting touting the outdoor nature of the program. The GSUSA needs to understand that what you do in your program is what distinguishes you today. In 2020 people are focused on results - what will my child do in this group? Turning into just another group for youth without a core program vision is just going to turn them into another "me too" group. The high costs of maintaining camps. Why does it cost them $375,000 a year per camp? Council boards need to stop looking at camps as palaces to the outdoors and as places that require dedicated employees. It's OK to have a camp with nothing more than some dirt roads, a lake, and some cleared off areas for campsites. You don't need a staff person for that. That seems like a very strange comment from their council CEO: "Together, the camps cost about $375,000 each year to operate. That cost was determined to be too high, while offering experiences Girl Scouts could get elsewhere in the area". Organizations provide competing services because it lets the differentiate or do it at an economic advantage. What does Scouting become without the outdoor part? Awful, awful decision. I hope that the BSA is smart enough to recruit here and grow next year by 50%.

I don't - no. Running a large organization and leading a PR campaign are very different things. Leading an effective PR campaign means knowing how best to utilize the different media options available to accomplish the BSA's goals. A good PR person would have established media relationships as well. You want the CSE to be able to speak for the BSA, but absolutely should not be leading the effort. Most major organizations that do PR well have a dedicated PR staff. GIven the image and membership problems of the BSA, we really ought to invest here. I believe this is one of the failings of the BSA in the past 50 years. The BSA has misunderstood how to get public mindshare in the advent of TV and now digital media.

I think we have to distinguish between an advertising campaign and a PR campaign. An advertising campaign is a bunch of commercials designed to sell Scouting. A PR campaign could be a proactive effort to get out there into the media and talk about what they are trying to do. They could get spots on news talk shows, on the morning TV programs, etc. If the news is reporting it, now's the time to get out there and share our vision. I've said this before - the BSA ought to go out and hire a really good PR person to serve as spokesperson for the organization.

The BSA should be out there talking a lot more about what it is doing and why. The point isn't to blame those suing the BSA or to criticize those attacking it. The point is simply to explain and get the message out there. By doing nothing, the BSA is letting others define it. The BSA is doing itself more harm by not saying anything than by simply stating what is going on. If someone says - "the BSA should be punished", then engage in a conversation about how 1.5 million kids in the program today are paying to benefit from Scouting. If someone says - "the BSA should pay those abused", then engage in a conversation about the fund the BSA is creating. This conversation can entirely be positive and affirming. None of this is about blaming any victims or trying to avoid responsibility. It's about trying to do the best for both groups - those abused and those who are members today.

Updated proposal based on feedback: 2020 - 1st half: National focuses on the national bankruptcy National conducts financial reviews of each council in the country. National identifies councils who are at risk of default due to reductions in membership or reductions in national support 2020 - 2nd half: Councils identified as "at risk" develop mitigation plans. National provides clear goals that must be met by local councils. National goals prioritize program quality and membership growth. National works with those councils to solve issues not resolvable by the local council. All options are on the table - including changes to the basic council operations model, council staffing rules, and council mergers. National does not force a particular structure on councils. Councils are free to innovate. If national is not satisfied with local plans, they reserve the right to revoke charters and grant to another council. a.k.a. - force a merger National establishes council operations excellence team. This team is chartered with capturing best practices from local councils and assisting struggling councils. 2021 - 1st half Bankruptcy over - national "surveys" the landscape. Based on finances and needs from local councils, national determines what the new national can do to best support councils. This is conveyed to councils. Local councils receive this information and generate updated financial analysis. Council operations excellence team monitors progress of councils and assists where needed. 2021 - 2nd half National and councils jointly monitor execution of council financial risk mitigation plans. National council operations excellence team actively promotes best practices based an agenda of quality program and growing membership.

@Cburkhardt - I fully respect what you're asking here. I want to keep the thread positive, but I'd be remiss if I didn't state my concern. Pardon in advance. Fundamentally, I'm worried that we have attached ourselves to an organizational model in Scouting that is not correct for the challenges of today. I'm worried that in a effort to re-organize after bankruptcy we rush to deploy a model that has not proven successful over the past 40 years. My concerns can be summed up in: The DE to Scout ratio is wrong. We have a ratio of about 1 DE to 1,000 Scouts/50 units. If a DE costs about 40K that means we have to find $40 per Scout per year to pay for that professional. That is a significant amount of money. Imagine how different council finances would be if that money were spent on camp or on program. So many of our conversations around this topic seem to be centered on the notion that we have to maintain this ratio - but do we really? Imagine if it was 1 DE to 5,000 Scouts. Imagine if we preserved camps, but stopped having DEs. Would your world be all that different? The reliance on professional leadership. So many of the topics come back to the the concept: "Councils work when we have a the right SE." Why is our council model so beholden to one hire? I see it in our council periodically in actions such as when the SE decides to redistribute staff, we redraw district boundaries - why? Mega councils discourage volunteerism. I've not been impressed with recent updates on council reorgs. The stories we hear - defocusing on volunteerism and more focus on centralization. Councils seem to focus on reacting to problems instead of proactively providing a vision for the future. So, this led to my earlier post. Yes - I'd rather let some councils fail and then have us pick up the pieces instead of pursuing a structure that isn't working that well. I don't know what the structure should be - but I'm open to letting councils experiment.