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I’m a band geek as are many of my scouts, but no band that I know of has monetized their service and reported it to their school board. If they had done (in some credible fashion), the IRS might have backed off — but the Musician’s Union might come knocking!

Nothing new to see here. So a scout assigned responsibility of 10k in the troop treasury. He spends it on gear to be properly prepared for some high adventure trips. The skills gained preparing for those trips inspire in him some ideas for a community service project and he mobilizes 700 volunteer hours to complete the project. The scout is publicly recognized for his benefit. Logging those hours, BSA will translate that many hours into a dollar value amounting to about 10k benefit. It has nothing to do with P-R. Any private benefit is balanced by the public good. That is why it is much harder for IRS to go after scouts compared to athletes who raise funds to attend an elite competition.

A falling tide grounds all boats.

@AwakeEnergyScouter I feel your perplexity. But, that’s only because you’re not the first European scout who I’ve dialogued with. Americans thrive (wallow?) in paradoxes. The YMCA is chock full of non-Christians and women. My brother went swimming at the YWCA. Everybody in my town has participated in Jewish community center activities. None of that makes anyone feel trans or religion-fluid. Likewise, girls don’t shed their femininity being in programs for boys. For some it’s a status symbol. Being on-the-ground with American youth revealed this peculiar mental framework. When I started my Venturing Crew almost 20 years ago, the girls — especially Girl Scouts — who signed up were thrilled to be Boy Scouts. One told me as much and I had a hard time convincing her that she was a Venturer! There is something very valuable for many young women in this country to know that this “for boys” organization lets them work their program. I think it partly had to do with a “victim mentality” foisted upon them by activist types. GS/USA’s “girl power” mantra sort of plays off of that. In BSA, nobody told them they had any special powers. They could work the goals of this program (or not) and nobody made them feel like they were some kind of revolutionary. (Most GS/USA leaders who I knew avoided the whole “girl power” rhetoric. It was the literature that gave off an “us vs. them” vibe.) So, for some young American women, being a girl in Boy Scouts of America carried more prestige than being a young woman in Scouts BSA or Scouting America. Who really wanted there to be Scouts BSA Handbook for Girls and a Scouts BSA Handbook for Boys? No youth ever! All my boys get the one for boys (although I’ve offered to get them the one for girls if they wanted). I’d be curious to know how many girls there are who, given the choice, would ask for the “for Boys” edition.

I would say BSA intentionally obfuscated! It’s not hard to be plain-spoken when describing the programs. We currently offer: Cub Scout packs Boy Scout troops Boy Scout troops for Girls Venturing/Sea/Exploring Scout Crews/Ships/Posts for CoEds in High School and early adulthood. Tell the truth. Market accordingly. It’s not hard.

Moms who were fielding a very active GS/USA unit in our neighborhood retired. So we are a little behind in girls joining the pack. I’m starting to give those parents a warning that their daughters will need to recruit a critical mass for our CO to support them. The parent remain clueless that “family scouting”, “scouts BSA”, and “Scouting America” are just corporate doublespeak for the program of BSA4G that now operated in anddition to BSA.

So funny. When I was a PL, we raided our parents’ pantries for what we would need for the weekend. Each member was responsible for an item. Stopping at the store was usually a Thursday evening activity. My kids recently described me as “chaotic good.”

They didn’t beat Pitt football, but at least they’ll have more straight shooters!

You’re right. Networking is one of the great benefits.

Krone: This (NOAC) is the largest gathering of scouts outside of National Jamboree. World Scout Jamboree: hold my beer.

I hope this can be the case, but I’m skeptical that a broader-based ineligibility list will give us better data for statistical inference. The good news is that with greater market share represented by youth-facing programs with YP trained leaders, we should see persistent reduction in reports of abuse on independent health surveys of youth.

Have you taken PA’s course? BSA’s ain’t half bad in comparison. However, both just rattle off policy. I wonder if a better certification would involve role-playing exercises? That is essentially what makes life guard courses worthwhile. Obviously we aren’t gonna simulate victimization with YPT, but it might be possible to simulate a few victim responses, actually make that call to authorities, walk through reporting, etc …

If a national certification can be offered at camp, I’m fine with the transition. I was originally trained in ARC guard certification, then re-upped with BSA Guard. Our local pools honored BSA guard, so calling it “self-serving” is disingenuous. Guard certification serves the community. On the other hand, if instructors become hard to come by, fewer youth will pursue training. The nation’s waters could become more hazardous.

Seems like the proposed land could have all the lumber one would need to build some very stout shower houses. Ever since the one hidden camera incident, I’ve become incredibly skeptical of individual showers. (Admittedly, there are too few datapoints to draw serious conclusions.) Still, the property that’s been donated of the past 50 yearns has far outstripped the needs of the membership of many councils.

I talked to several erstwhile scouts at a D-day reenactment today. One (in his Luftwafa uniform) reminisced about World Jamboree and Philmont. He said the latter was extremely difficult, but that made it all the more memorable.

The main change is BSA membership decline. WOSM is no doubt feeling the pressure to raise funds to make up that gap. Introducing a program in a new country or helping neighboring scout associations is a costly enterprise.

From what I remember reading it was a BSA unit. I suspect it formed from the bottom up, pulling Japanese scouts and a few caring adults (perhaps even an officer on base) to make it happen. I’m sure any attempts by a BSA pro to start it from the top would have been rebuffed. It would be interesting to know how many other community interactions were made. Three years is an awful long time to watch a town spring up in your valley and not try to reach out.

Maybe for a campus that sits dormant for the summer, the ability to provide a week of housing and food (and perhaps local transportation) is a boost.

The vendors/sponsors must be flocking. They aren’t making that figure with registration fees.

Getting antibiotics as soon as you find out you’ve been bit is key. My citified docs wanted me to take a dose every time I came out of the woods! I guess if a doc ever forces the issue, I’d opt for a jab over perpetual doses of antibiotics. My buddy’s son-in-law was crippled from Gillian-Barr syndrome precipitated by a flu shot. So, I try to keep him in mind when I review vaccine outcomes. The most recent have been incredibly safe. That’s why trials like these are able to go forward. We just have to be careful about training folks to be on the lookout for side effects. I’m not sure if my logic is entirely correct, but I always tell folks who’ve reacted to a jab before to be very choosy about vaccines going forward.

As nasty as I’ve seen Lyme disease get, I remain skeptical of vaccines that are deployed against pathogens that rarely kill. Jabs rarely cause side effects, but when given to millions, we begin to observe sacrificing the well being of the few who react violently negatively to the vaccine for the sake of a few more who fall ill from the disease.

There are some advantages to starting scouting later. One is that you can be bothered when a patrol is missing something. You might think that you can’t fulfill the requirement because your patrol flag is nowhere to be found, whereas an 11 year old would just say, “My patrol doesn’t have a flag, so I’ll do my best without it.” I think if you brought this up to the patrol and told him how important the flag is and how you all should remake one (at least temporarily until the preferred one is found), you’ve met spirit of the requirement.

Honestly, most of you all who post here regularly would make great CSE’s — for the scout-facing end of things, at least. But, the boardroom negotiations really needs to find the right balance. There is clearly a lot of pressure to respond to every public crisis in the country with a “we’ll use scouting to fix that” message. We need someone with the brutal honesty to say something like “with the rollout of Citizenship in the Society MB, less than 5% of our youth members will be exposed to DEI principles”.

I saw that once in northern Indiana. Some places have unwritten rules that are more solid than legislation,

External frames + bushwhacking: bring extra cotter pins, wire, thread, and tools. Brace for snags and torque. It’ll last decades. Internal frames + bushwhacking: bring extra thread, needles and chord. Fewer snags, but one must patch rips promptly. Jury is still out if it will last. BSA is trying to work an “internal frame” to minimize litigation snags (not just from CSA, but from accidents— both physical and psychological). I think this is because the organization has used up its cotter pins, wire, and repair kits (i.e. insurance and endowments.)