ParkMan

Why can't I saw that? @David CO's point was correct. Principally the agreement between the CO & the BSA allows the CO to use the program of the BSA so that it can put on it's own Scouting program. The BSA ensures consistency of program, but the indvidual units are extensions of the CO. I read subset and I think of it to mean that the unit is a part of the CO's program and that organizationally they are both part of the same team delivering the program of the CO. Subsidiary by suggests a seperate entity that is merely controlled by the CO. While in practice that may happen, everything I've heard about the CO/unit relationship suggests a tighter bond is intended. So technically I believe the original point was correct. That we as Scouters should be thinking about how we can contribute to the mission of the CO - and not a completely seperate group that happens to get some space from the CO.

This is semantics - but I would submit that technically @David CO is correct. The CO pays the BSA for the right to run a BSA Scout program as part of the CO's larger offereings. So, unit is as much a part of the CO as a youth group, youth choir, or sunday school class would be. If the CO is not a church, then subsitite a similar group within that CO. The CO has the choice to closely manage the unit or to loosly manage the unit - but it's the COs choice. Further, the could require that all members of the unit are members of the CO too - but I don't think anyone does that. If I were to guess, 95% (if not more) of units are loosly managed - so they feel very much like what you descibre @DuctTape. So, in reality the situation that you describe if what normally happens. But, technically the structure is setup as @David CO describes.

These things are not comparable. Now, if Bear Gryllis had killed and eaten a protected species on purpose - like going on a lion hunt - that would be different. What Bear did was similar to fishing in a national park. What these guys did was deface a rock formation that was geologically unique and the basis for the park itself.

Hi @roljers, Here's the joining info from the BSA website:

Couldn't he hard earned AOL or completed 5th grade before turning 10? Then, as soon as he's 10 he joins a troop. Then he's got 2 years to make Eagle. Seems highly unusual, but possible.

@The Latin Scot - that's exactly my point. The guy ate a frog while filming a survival show. Yes, he did it in a national preserve - a bad choice. But, on the spectrum of offsenses the one seems pretty minor. Why does that now make him a poor roll model? I'd rather have him use it as a teachable moment. Here's an opportunity to admit his mistake and to highlight the importance of national parks and their role in protecting the environment. But instead you'd rather have him step down and no-one talk about it?

I'm not going to knock the GSUSA for selling cookies or for partnerting with WB/DC. The GSUSA has a different program than the BSA and that's fine. More power to them. That's why I think this lawsuit is inherently dumb. They are two different programs with two different sets of activities. On second thought - I do knock the GSUSA for partnering with DC. If they'd had an ounce of sense they'd be partnering with Marvel - not DC.

I guess my question would be: What's more important, someone who is the best example of the Scouting ideals, but is boring, so someone who can capture the imagination of youth, insprire them, but misses the mark on things like this. Sure - we'd like someone who is great at both - but those folks seem to be in short supply.

Thanks for sharing the podcast @AltadenaCraig. While i fully appreciate his point - that Scouting starts with the patrol method, I've found that strongest troops I know of focus on more than just patrol method. They have a great outdoor program, they develop youth leaders, they have a strong advancement programs, they build a strong adult team to mentor the Scouts, they continue to push for continual personal growth opportunities for the scouts, etc. I'd simply suggest that it's important to focus on all eight of the methods. Don't overlook adult association because you're focused on working in patrols. Don't overlook leadership development because you're foused on advancement. Don't overlook personal growth because you're focused on outdoor program.

Based on my understand - yes, the unit would be in compliance. However, I tihnk you have to look at why the BSA made this YPT rule. In essence, YPT rules exist for two main purposes 1) protect youth from situations where abuse is more likely to occur, & 2) protect adult volunteers from being in situations which are more likely to lead to accusations of abuse. I know there is a third reason - to protect the BSA in lawsuits, but for the sake of discussion, let's not focus on that at this time. I expect that the BSA leadership felt that situations with a female youth was alone with two adult males was a scenario where there was enough possibility of abuse or allegations of abuse that they created this rule. Imagine a scenario where a female adult leader is on premises but out of sight and two adult male leaders are alone with a single female youth. My understanding is that this would meet the YPT requirements. Yet, it doesn't do anything to minimize the possibilty or abuse or abuse allegations over the original rules. This is where I think that the BSA YPT rules are inherently unwiedly. The BSA would have been better taking a more progressive stand by staying with their original two-deep rules or by taking an approach where no individiual youth of a one gender can be alone with one or more adults of a different gender. i.e., two youth females and two adult males - OK. one youth female, one adult female, one adult male - OK. one youth female, one youth male, one adult female, one adult male - OK. one youth male, two adult females - not OK. etc.

I find the 8 methods are largely complimentary and go to building a diverse exerpience for Scouts. For example, if you focus mostly on advancement - then eventually Scouts get bored. If you focus mostly on outdoors - the same. So, I don't think I'd rank them - but instead ask myself - what's the best I can do in each? The strongest troops that I know seem to do well in all. Sure, not every one requires the same level of effort - but it doesn't mean it's any less important. For example, an active outdoor program requires lots of time whereas uniforming does not. Uniforming is more about setting the proper expectations early and simply reminding Scouts along the way. Sure, with uniforming you can put some energy into things like uniform closets and "Class B" uniforms - but even those don't require too much effort once they get going. I'd also suggest that focusing on all 8 of them provides opportunities for more scouts & adults to get involved. Scouts may get bored by high school with just patrol method, camping, and advancement. That's where the focus on personal growth, leadership development, and adult association pays off. Adult Assocation and outdoor program create opportunities for more adults to take on small rolls.

Our pack had a financial model where Scouts paid for events as they go. So, one year we decided to have our B&G catered. It ended up being about $5-10 per person. We had no objections from families. In fact, most of our families told us that they preferred paying a little bit to avoid having to pull together a potluck dinner. I think you really just have to know your pack families. $20-$40 to attend the B&G wasn't going to break any of our families, so we traded some convenience over saving money. Worked well for us. Had we been a pack with a different set of families, maybe we wouldn't have done that.

Hi @PARENTinSCOUT, If you really want to see this policy happen I would encourage you to seek out your council's Youth Protection champion. If your council has one, this would be a senior volunteer who has the mandate of making Youth Protection policies successful in your council. This volunteer would not get involved in resolving what happened in your specific troop. But, they would be a person to talk with about the possibility of your council adopting a no retaliation policiy for reports of Youth Protection violations. Futher, this person would be aware of similar regional level contacts who they could discuss this process of how to get a no retaliation policy adopted at a larger level in Scouting. Best of luck!

There's two different issues here. 1) the question of which stands in court really has nothing to do with the BSA directly. In court, it will be up to whichever lawyer makes the more compelling argument. In this case the BSA has two documents - one which defines the policy and one which expands and clarifies it. Here, I think just about any lawyer would be able to make the argument that both hold. But, I'm not a lawyer - so perhaps I'm wrong. 2) I completly agree that the BSA should be more precise in this language. There's probably something like 10-20 different adult supervision scenarios that exist. I don't want more rules, but writing these exisiting scenarios out makes a whole lot of sense to me.

I think this confuses many people. They presume that the "BSA hierarchy" will overule, supervise, correct, etc. unit leaders. I recognized a long time ago that the BSA is essentially a francise system. The BSA provides the program and infrastructure for the chartered organizations to run their own program. Local unit operations and volunteer supervision is entirely within the domain of the chartered organization. The BSA does not get involved in unit operations unless there is a safety or youth protection issue. Beyond that, the BSA really attempts to stay uninvolved in local unit management.

My daughter's are girl scouts and I wish the GSUSA all the success in the world. But given how part of the GSUSA lawsuit specifically focused on the actions of individual local units, their comment seems remarkably hypocritical. Ugh - I just wish this had not stooped to the level of lawsuits.

My understanding that a retaliation clause would more directly effects those who are friends of the YPT offender. i.e., we're going to make your life tough for making a YPT report against our good friend Scoutmaster Joe.

It would seem pretty reasonable for the BSA to have a statement prohibiting retaliation of good faith YPT concerns. Simply saying that retalation in response to good faith YPT claims can result in revocation of membership in the BSA ought to be sufficient. Leave it to the BSA to arbitrate what good faith means on a case by case basis.

I have to assume that in a one-on-one meeting, either parent (male or female) could serve as the second adult. It wouldn't make any sense otherwise.

I would concur with @Sentinel947. In our area, gifts are not typical nor expected for completing Wood Badge. But, if you'd like to present a small gift, I'm sure it would be meaningful to your Cubmaster. I have a Fieldbook presented to me as a gift by the den leader where I was a den chief as a Scout. A different situation - I grant you. But, it's something that sits on my bookshelf to this day and is meaningful to me.

I'm still intreguied by the new unit Commissioner part of @Ranman328's question. I've always been of the understanding that the role of a UC is to provide guidance to the unit leaders to help them be successful. Advice can certainly sometimes be directive i.e. "you should allow the Scouts more time to individually finish ranks on their own timeline instead of rushing it." But, generally I've always thouht of the UC as more of a trusted advisor or a consultant. If a new UC showed up and started telling me what I was doing wrong, I'd don't think I'd listen too much. "who is this UC person and why do they think they can just show up and tell me how to run my meeting?" I wonder what other people thought in this instance. For the sake of discussion, assume for a minute that the Scoutmaster did the wrong thing here. Should a new UC to a new Scoutmaster critique the first meeting like this?

I'm not surprised to hear that the Scoutmaster is new to the role. The new 2019 Scouts BSA online training is really playing up the buddy part. I was struck by how prevalent it now is in the materials. I could very much see how a newly trained leader could be confused by that one.

There is no tax implication for the reason you mentioned. Theoreticallly it's like a church allocating $1,000 to their youth group.

Understood. I think this is one of those "lemonade from lemons" situations. It's been my experience in dealing with CO's that they are not terribly well versed in how to manage the Pack/CO relationship. So, when they do nutty things (like trying to bribe the pack to help out), it helps to take a step back and ask "what are they really saying here?" I think it's always worth strengthening the CO/Pack relationship. If you think that the CO is asking for too big a committment, then to @fred8033's point - start a dialog and see if there is something that does work.

You're going to need about 50 scouts to do this over the course of the year. With 40 scouts between the pack & troop, you'll probably want to ask each scout to sign up for 1 or 2 spots. That's not an awful burden to help fund the pack. But, I think my real question would be - do you want to do this? As I see it, your CO is basically asking you all to be more involved in the CO's success. We as Scouters are often commenting how uninvolved the COs are in our units. This strikes me as an opportunity to be more engaged with the CO. That can be a very good thing. My recommendation would be that you think of this as an opportunity to do regular service for your CO. Discuss with your leaders if they want to have an ongoing service project with the CO. Make it less about the money and more about the service and about being part of the CO's community. If you all decide to do it, I'd have an honest discussion with the head of the CO. Basically, explain to him/her how doing something like this monthly will become a significant task for you. Make sure he/she realizes that it will take some hard work on everyone's part to mobilize families (most of who are not members of the CO) to volunteer like this. Make sure that this is what he/she really wants you to do. I've found that sometimes these things seem better on paper that in reality and that often once people understand the real cost - they change their mind.