ParkMan

I'm truly sorry that you felt so hurt by the offer. $50,000 for 85,000 claimants is $4.25 billion dollars. I can't imagine that with 85,000 claimants a settlement that high is even possible.

While I cannot speak to senior executive salaries, I know that several executives have been laid off. Right now they are thinning the executive ranks as they reduce the numbers of areas and regions. Both national and local councils have been laying off staff as well. Why is this a concern for you?

I think we're very much on the same page here. I'm all for finding a level where the BSA and LC can really contribute to a meaningful settlement. What I fear is that regardless of what the BSA offers, the lawyers will continue to call it shameful. $500+ million is a lot of money but it's called shameful. Is 2x or 3x that going to change anything? Scouting simply cannot get to $1,000,000 a claimant - it's just not there. I have no idea how one arrives at a reasonable number. Open every book and have an independent audit of everything and pay that - perhaps that's it. Of course then we'll get into debates about what is really needed and what is not. The lawyers for the claimants will always try to extract more and more - it's their job and obligation. What I worry immensely about is that by making this discussion so abstract (i.e. national and LC having assets of $4 billion or vilifying national and LC), we're hiding the real conversation. People are picking sides and trying to figure out the winners and losers. Really - the only winners here are lawyers. Everyone else here loses.

Nice try to spin my statement. Granted - 85,000 cases of abuse occurred by volunteers in Scouting. If the organization was more vigilant, it could very likely prevented most of those. The BSA was not more vigilant and as a result many kids were abused. That's without question. Today, that same organization is trying to put a number on a settlement. The assets of the organization are almost entirely all program assets. The more of those assets you sell, the less the organization can serve youth. The higher the settlement, the less Scouting can do it's job. My point is - let's just be honest about the tradeoff here. Increased settlement for claimants results in fewer program assets (camps) for kids. That's the tradeoff - no?

Thanks! I'm curious to explore that reaction: 1. Why is $6,000 bad? 2. Why is $14,000 or $20,00 better? 3. What is the right amount?

I think we need to be clear though. The LC do not have billions - they have camp properties worth billions (maybe). As far as I know it, most councils are struggling to just pay their bills on time. That is why Churchill added in a 90 day liquidity goal. These are fairly small non-profits that have a few major assets (camps and maybe an office building), a fixed set of salaries to pay, and a donation stream to fund those salaries. Some may have an endowment that they can draw on for improvements and capital expenses. These are not companies with fixed revenue streams and numerous assets they can sell without impacting those they serve.

I have the utmost sympathy and compassion for those who were abused. Please accept my comments with that in mind. I find it very difficult do discuss this topic because of my sincere compassion for those who were abused. What's happening now is two sides are negotiating a settlement. The side that wants more and the side that wants less. The BSA and those representing it have a duty to Scouting to preserve as much as they can. The claimants and those representing them will try to extract as much as possible. Am I wrong here? It is in the best interest of claimants to paint the BSA in the most negative light possible in order to apply pressure to the BSA to increase their settlement offer. Any advocate for those pursuing the BSA would be doing exactly the same thing that we see being played out now. I dearly wish it were not the case, but it's the unfortunate truth. I have no doubt that claimants have conflicting emotions about that fact as well. The proposed settlement has been called shameful. Why is it shameful and $500 million not enough? Why is $1.3 billion good, but $500 million is not?

As I expect that you would. Are you not a member of the group suing the BSA? Seems to me what we really have here is two groups: those was hurt a years ago trying to extract as much money from Scouting as possible those who are involved in the program today trying to preserve as much of Scouting as possible I know the media has portrayed this as victims vs. the national BSA - but at this point, it's really gone beyond that. This is about how much of Scouting in the US do the claimants want to dismantle. Of course the claimants are going to try to make national look awful and belittle the offer. That's in their best interest. You've stated that the claimants want the BSA to contribute 1.3billion or more - not the $500+ million being discussed now. The way the claimants get to that requires the BSA to sell of camps and facilities used by kids today. Facilities that have been assembled over 100 years and countless contributions. Facilities that have been improved by countless millions of hours of sweat equity by kids and volunteers. Yep, few of us love the Summit, but Philmont, Sea Base, and our local camps are important to the program. If our council has to contribute 2-3 million dollars, we'll have to sell our camp. Summer Camp is gone, camporees and other large events are gone, low cost camping is gone. Strikes me that the BSA is doing the responsible thing for Scouting here - trying to protect as much of program as it can for kids today and in the future. If I look at this dispassionately, its just a group of people just trying to preserve as much of Scouting as possible while claimants are trying to extract as much as thy can.

I will be interested to hear if you get a response. I am not connected to these discussions even tangentially and everything that I have ever heard is that our own council is involved in a good faith way in what is going on. Each council will get advice from legal council and so will and will not say certain things. Those statements may seem adversarial - but in reality they are simply protective measures trying to navigate this process in the most responsible way possible. In a world where it is very likely that that victims and their lawyers will drive liquidation of the BSA and cessation of the program, no one wants to do or say anything that would increase the chance of that.

And the only way you get to those levels is to: close the BSA at the national level - sell off all national assets and HA bases. merge all councils in a territory in to one organization. Sell all camps and facilities - leave one camp per each of the 16 regions for a summer camp. My guess is that a year from now the BSA is a confederation of 16 territories with 16 regional camps and no local councils.

I don't know if $1.3 billion will be enough. I suspect that they will ask councils to contribute $1 billion. The language I've read suggests that the victims lawyers believe that the councils have more assets than national. I expect the victims target number is $2 billion.

Which is why I try to avoid these kinds of discussions in my life. I don't see that we can ever reach a conclusion on these debates - even amongst Scouters. Myself, I think the message is: it's without question that abuse happened Scouters in the BSA should always do whatever we can to prevent the abuse of youth. When abuse occurs, we should focus on learning what happened and work to learn from those cases so we can prevent it in the future. To me, the relevant question is whether the BSA is safe today. Regardless of whether it was safe in the 1980s and before - is it safe now? Have we learned the hard cultural lessons that led us to not address this aggressively as we could have? What we did back then does not have to reflect on who we are today - unless we let it. This is why I don't think we should engage in defending that time period. When we defend it, we suggest that we agree that they made the right decisions - that given the same information we'd make the same choice today. I don't think that's the message we want to send.

This is why it's important for supporters of the BSA to never try to defend the actions or inactions of the BSA back then. What was wrong was wrong. But it is fair to argue over the appropriate punishment. This is why SOL make sense.

Thank you for the context. I am intellectually curious to know more about what happened, what the BSA did, and what the BSA did not do. I've heard various anicdotal comments, but do not recall seeing an impartial authoritative piece. Yet - I've come to the conclusion that making an argument about whether the BSA did enough back then is a mistake. The BSA and it's supporters will always lose an argument of whether the BSA did enough to prevent abuse. Even one single case of abuse is too much. To me the better argument is that "we believe the accusers, we have learned, we are working as hard as possible, and will continue to work as hard as possible to make sure abuse can never happen again." Be recognized as the leader on this issue today.

That's a tremendous honor - to be recognized by your Scouts. Congratulations!

Uncle - I give up. To me, this is a big part of the reason the BSA is in decline. It's always easier to take the safe road. It takes some vision for the BSA to define itself for 2021 and beyond. This is probably why the BSA doesn't have a stronger PR organization because we lack that willingness to have a vision and lead here.

Thank you. I will recognize that I'm describing a goal more than a solution here - but it strikes me that must be cases nationally where organizations and politicians have been able to craft a PR strategy that takes historic bad acts and lawsuits and turns them into a positive message. I understand that these approaches must make lawyers squirm - but there has to be a way here. My sense is that the BSA typically has something of a bunker mentality. As such, I expect that the discussion in the national offices are indeed focused on limiting exposure in the lawsuit. I appreciate all that has been said here by you and others. I suspect that these sorts of issues are why the BSA has always had a very weak PR presence. It's why despite the population of the US going up, participation in program has gone down. It's why the BSA has routinely been late to respond to trends in demographics. It's why the BSA has been overshadowed time and time again in the media. Good PR strategies and hard and require skilled, knowledgeable people to run them. They know how to deal with the concerns of lawyers and lawsuits. They require teams to be proactive and understand the media process. In short, we need the PR team of Apple, not of Blackberry. Sadly I think we hired the Blackberry team. I think we're going to have to just agree to disagree here.

To use another political concept, I essentially keep thinking of a concept I heard a lot about in the Clinton days - triangulation. Instead of the BSA defensively responding and requiring surrogates to defend it, why not simply own their history and become an advocate for those that were harmed? In essence, change the narrative. If someone wants to talk about 95,000 abuse cases - talk about 95,000 abuse cases. Ally with the people making the claims. Ally with the people leading the cause. Don't make it about victims vs. the BSA. Make it about Scouting being a leader in protecting children.

Excellent suggestion. I know that many would think this would be in jest, but this is a wonderful idea. Imagine a Scouting campaign that showed real successful people and how Scouting helped them. Back in the 60s/70s I think there was a thing like this about astronauts. Today make it about media people.

Though I am not a PR professional, I have been around enough companies that are good at this to completely concur. You see the same thing in successful politicians. It is never about attacking the victims. The BSA should never need to attack the victims. It is all about controlling the narrative as @yknot said so eloquently. The BSA should be out there holding events, on new shows, wherever they can be having conversations about how important it is to develop youth in our complex, challenging world. They should be the advocate for helping kids solve problems, be prepared for the future, for being leaders. They should be leveraging the BSAs history to talk about how to keep kids safe in a scary world. They should be driving initiatives pushing for national registries for adult volunteers. They should be offering the BSA collateral to any youth organization that wants it. Today, when people hear Scouting - they think of the lawsuit and abuse. But, instead the BSA should be driving a narrative so that when people hear Scouting, they think - champion for protecting youth, champion for developing youth, and champion for the outdoors. Let's be honest - the BSA knows nothing about public relations at this level. The executives and lawyers at the BSA are minnows swimming in a pool of sharks. This is why the BSA needs a tier 1, blue ribbon public relations firm to drive this.

I think @yknot is spot on. A war leader would find a way to get ahead of the public relations conversation here. The BSA doesn't win by being anti-victims. The BSA could win by getting out ahead and changing the conversation. Find a way to make this a discussion about the value of investing in the kids of today. Find a way to make this a discussion about how lawyers are playing both the victims and the youth of today to line their pockets. Get the BSA out in front of the public relations message. Were I Mosby, first thing I would have done is write the biggest check - one so big I had to beg from donors to pay for it. Hire the strongest, most aggressive PR firm in the country. Change the narrative. I'm reminded of the quote from the movie The Untouchables "you don't bring a knife to a gun fight." The BSA hasn't learned that.

I think that's the best we can hope for here. Share our own views on these topics and in the process be enriched from each other. I've welcomed your comments on this topic - in fact, I had not seen the website you referenced before. I also think that as an abuse victim you bring a different perspective to the discussion here that is very welcome.

I have similar struggles with the idea of extending SOL for civil liabilities for non-profit organizations like the BSA. Extending SOL for criminal prosecution is something that I am 100% behind. I am 100% in support of extending SOL for civil liabilities for individuals. If an individual abused a Scout, 75 years ago they should held criminally and civilly liable to the fullest extent of the law. Similarly, for profit corporations that benefit financially and use that benefit to build their stock value should be held liable as well. Further - I of course want to see victims of abuse receive compensation for the reprehensible things that happened. In the case of an organization like the BSA - the organization today has very few ties to what happened 30+ years ago. The organization has taken numerous steps to correct the mistakes it made in the past. From what I can tell, the BSA today is a leader in preventing the abuse of youth in the program. The sums of money being discussed here are such that they may very well destroy the program nationally. I expect our council will have a large bill to pay next year even if the BSA survives. There is a decent chance we'll sell our camp to pay for it. The kids in the program will undoubtly be paying $100+ a year in dues next year. I expect we'll see 50% of the remaining professional staff in the BSA laid to help meet the payments. Professionals nationally were laid off in droves already. So while I absolutely want to compensate victims and I absolutely want to make it easy for victims to come forward, I do question the cost to the kids of today. I suspect that kids of today would have been better off with some sort of court mandated oversight to ensure that rampant abuse of kids 30+ years ago was never possible again. I've no idea what the right answer is here.

@5thGenTexan I'm so terribly sorry to hear the emotional roller coaster that you are on. Scouting is a funny enterprise - we as volunteers come from all sorts of different backgrounds and styles. It is very tough to know how to interpret the comments and suggestions from other volunteers. At times, I've work with some of the absolutely friendliest, nicest Scouters. Other times, I've worked with Scouters who lack a personal filter and have said things to me that drove my to lose my own mojo in Scouting. The only suggestion that I can give you is to be honest with those that you volunteer with. I've found that I've made plenty of mistakes as a volunteer - but by and large most volunteers I work with completely understand that. When I was a Cubmaster, I felt a lot of stress to live up to certain standards. But, in retrospect what I missed was that people wanted to help me. They wanted to support me and my work. So, do try not to be too hard on yourself. I think you'll find that no-one in Scouting will ever be as critical of you as you are of yourself. Most of the volunteers out there just want to see you be successful.

If you are willing to volunteer and get registered, you will most likely make the Scoutmaster's day if you show up in uniform. Welcome to the world of volunteering!