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We are saddled with Modern thinking in a Post-Modern world. There is nothing intrinsic to Christian principles that suggests its members are incapable of falsehood. In fact the opposite is true ... they are in a perpetual state of penance for a variety of sins, or they aren't Cristian. Fifty years ago, somebody looked at an atheist kid family who may have been having trouble with reverence and duty to God, equated them with Godless Muscovites, and made a federal case of it. They violated my rule #1 Don't ask someone for a rule, you'll regret it. The answer, on the other hand, is built into the plain English of oath and law: It's ".. duty to God and my country ..." Not "my God and country" ... Not "someone else's god and our country" ... Certainly not, "the Judeo-Christian God in a Theocracy" The more appropriate expansion of that phrase would be "God as I my persuasion understands and my fellow citizens' as their persuasion understands." Reverent always had two parts: 1) giving honor to God as my family and I understand, and 2) defending others' giving honor to God as they and their family understand. Accomplishing those two necessitates the free sharing of each others' understanding. I would argue that the forming of philosophical gerrymanders around whose "in" and "out" religiously precisely undercuts what it means -- or how it is even possible -- to be reverent. I don't see Buddhism as an exception that BSA has a problem with, but rather one of a number of solutions to BSA's problem in cutting atheists out of a narrowed definition of reverence.

With questions like these, my standard reply is, “It’s a big country.” I can only base my thoughts on the CSA survivors who I know — nearly all their perpetrators were not scouters, and some folks who’ve posted on forums like these. Survivors do participate in the organizations/families where they were abused. Some even have decent work/family relationships with their erstwhile abusers. So, certainly, do many of those who endured scouting-related CSA go on to be scouters: probably at every level of the organization. I can’t imagine that it is the case for a fraction of the survivors of such things. I do hope that, because of their experience, they are contributing to all of us being proactive in putting up barriers to abuse.

Your council would be half nuts with rage if you were to do that!

Mods, it was brought to my attention that, among other typos, I mislabeled “Voice of Democracy” using instead the name of the radio station that, in the ‘80s in Europe, had the second best American accents. (First prize for flawless American accent went to Radio Moscow.) Any chance we can have an edit?

A cautionary tale … branding your councils with fancy names that leave people who see your shoulder patch with no idea where your nearest major city is does nothing for recruitment.

My sister-in-law passed along some of my dad’s awards. Among them was a pin for representing the VFW in the Voice of Democracy essay contest at my high school. I didn’t think much about it, and we teased him that it was his way of getting his picture in the paper every year. I even submitted an essay which we then had to read to an audience of our teachers while being recorded (audio, no video). Even though my classmates produced much better work — thus getting their picture in the paper with Dad, I found it to be a rewarding and thought-provoking experience. Still, it didn’t click as to why this meant so much to Dad … even after years pocked with many conversations — with veterans of various countries, former POWs (their and ours), self-described freedom fighters, occupiers and occupied. It didn’t click until last month as we witnessed the post-modern world’s most magnificent tyrant expend a tenth of a division of the most formidable army on the planet … as we are about witness him hazard as many more soldiers and arms in the coming month. Some think he didn’t expect such losses. I think he knew his special military operation would be very, very costly. Why squander so much? Why provoke the Free World? Because, scouts, this dictator’s neighbor had taken up the the most feared weapon on the planet: a populace able to speak their mind — in the language of his citizens, no less. Precious little could pose a greater existential threat. Over the past century, men like my father, the teachers who assisted him, our scoutmasters, and many other volunteers in this country and around the world have spared time to train youth to master speaking their mind trustworthily, courteously, kindly, and bravely. If you’ll allow, we will train you to do it too.

Don’t forget guys getting paid time off International Women’s Day! (I’m told it’s a thing among Russian office workers. Not so much among military.) But, really a scouter can make what he/she wants out of the diversity goal without dreading some PC police. It’s actually fun making the effort.

@skeptic, criminology is difficult. So we have to take each of these reports with a grain of salt. This report covers maltreated children of all ages, and most infants and toddlers are primarily exposed to their moms. There’s a whole lot gone wrong with a mom who kills or nearly kills her kid, but most scouters are dealing with kids after they have survived that hurdle. It’s the wise scouter who knows that one or two of the youth in his/her charge may have survived the depredations of relatives. We do what we do in hopes of steering youth away from becoming such terrible parents/aunts/uncles/siblings/coaches.

A statistical resource from the US Department of Health and Human Services: https://www.acf.hhs.gov/cb/report/child-maltreatment-2020 It took a couple of hops from Bryan on Scouting to find it, so I thought I'd drop it at a top level here. There are overall national stats as well as executive summaries from individual state agencies. Regarding maltreatment Regarding fatalities

Hi @GeoJeff83, welcome to the forums. The possibilities are endless. And how you shape it really depends on your current role. Teach scouts about the different religious awards. Register as a counselor (or recruit counselors) for Citizenship in Society or Disability Awareness MB. Invite your unit to visit a unique community or cultural center who is hosting a special event. Make a round table presentation on the first scout or first Eagle Scout of a minority group who interests you, The trick: think of something that you would consider fun to do in your current scouting position, but you just haven’t got around to it yet. Do that.

Welcome! And thanks for all you do for our youth!

@yknot, by “people”, I am specifically referring to people who are not parents who will insist that a given pack should persist in their community under the sponsorship of their organization. My parents were thrown into chaos two years ago, but I told the committee that I would take a troop to any camp on any week that they could find if one other adult with integrity would go with me. Given my offer (it wasn’t charity on my part … I needed it as much as the scouts did), the parents from what was then two troops rallied to make it happen. There were a half dozen folks like that … including our COR who was in no condition to meet with any of us, but kept in touch with each committee chair to let them know that the CO wanted them to keep up the good work. That got passed along to parents. Not in a “you have to do …” tone but in a “what you’re doing is really important…” tone.

As I’ve mentioned before, a pandemic is a terrible reason to halt program. I understand that’s harder to do in some places than others. From what I could tell in our pack it was done with tremendous cost in outlay of time and talent. They rarely asked us in the troop for help. They are still working on a delayed schedule. They mentioned cost concerns at a committee meeting that was primarily about crossovers and B&G, and I emptied my wallet in the spot. (Don’t worry, it was mid week, there wasn’t that much in it.) But, like any youth program, you need people who have to want it to be there. We have those people. I’m sorry @mashmaster’s successors do not.

Net is net, so it is unlikely that here is some “other revenue” that wouldn’t have also been reportable to the IRS. What’s more likely is that your council had a very large operating reserve (likely true if 2000-2014 netted as much as 2015) that has been spent down gradually. You would need to gather your council’s annual reports to understand that better. If your COR has been attending board meetings , he/she might already have them.

Definitely contact the SE. Also, file an incident report https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/incident-report/. If this were COPE, it would constitute a "near miss". Once emotions cool down, you may want to discuss with your scouts about unlawful orders and orders unlawfully given. This probably won't be the first time in their life where they will feel pressure to comply against their training. For some, they may find themselves pressuring others to go against their training. Note that I said training vs. better judgement. There are times when your better judgement is neutral, or maybe wrong. That's a different lesson. Regarding @yknot's "common sense". My mom grew up during the Depression in a house that wasn't grounded. She remembers watching the balls of lightning roll across the floor. So, general ignorance is probably a victim of successful building inspection over the past century. I just relayed to my scouts the story I got from an old-timer camp staff from when I was a kid about the camp where we stayed. They had gotten everyone out of a storm and moved indoors to the craft shed. The lightning strike found it's way down the walls, across the floor, up the table and through the stamp of the one scout who was making contact with it on the down-stroke. The poor lad instantly went into cardiac arrest and could not be revived. These aren't stories that I like to retell, but it's all I have to enable scouts to increase awareness of their surroundings.

@Eagledad and @InquisitiveScouter are so cute ... 'round here if it's before Easter (sometimes just after), the precipitation tilts toward solid state and back. We had rain, hail, snow, sun, wind, calm ... lather rinse repeat ... about six times over the weekend. The winds never approached 50 mph, and there was no lightning so I chalked up to a good day. The land navigation exercise was to send the boys to things on the map that aren't there anymore. It was generally cold and sloppy and hilly (only 200' change in elevation, over 1000', but slippery). But one 11 year old was begging to know how soon we can do this again. I slept outside the cabin on a picnic table. Sunday, a robin was foraging through the snow next to my bunk. I didn't have any leavings, but I'm pretty sure lots of goodies from previous campers were wedged between the gravel. In other news, there's been a lot of trees fallen. One very large dead-fall had just missed the latrine I helped roof 40 years ago. I think the porcupines will enjoy continuing to nibble a way at it for a couple more years.

So, since my last reply, we have had two more AoL classes cross over. Last year was small den of boys who integrated with patrols fairly well, although I haven’t seen half of them for a while. This year, we absorbed another troop (officially, but they’ve been collaborating with us long before that), and last 12 AoL’s crossed over. Most of them just spent their 1st weekend with us, and it was a good time. We went over thorns and roses last night: Some of their thorns: weather (typical western PA: all four seasons each day) cabins on opposite ends of camp the other cabin had all the food my bunk was too cold in the night my bunk was too hot in the night Some of their roses: everyone was really nice playing football (perfect weather for it, really) the hike was awesome because not everyone was on it and I learned a lot about reading a map. [Trust me, that’s the short version!] Mr. Q teaching us knots and stuff life lessons from Mr. Q Needless to say, the other scouters looked at me and asked, “What are we going to have to undo?” First-years are the best! still no clue if they will stay their own patrol or split into the existing ones.

Since I'm sending this off the rails anyway, wouldn't it be a cool WB assignment for each patrol to pick a merit badge that no member has any experience with, have them work the requirements between weekends, and present their results on weekend #2.

Depends on the SPL. This weekend, I was getting a little worried about this Batman series audiobook that my older scouts were following. (One scout noted how the instrumental theme's first few bars was ... Ave Maria.) The series came with cryptography exercises, which they were mastering in order to plan some crime-solving treasure hunt at school. So ... I suggested they go the extra mile and earn Signs and Signals MB. They seemed to take me seriously. Time will tell.

Truth: I've never had to tell it to a scout. They generally are quite proud to brag about the shenanigans at our meetings. And, they are in uniform when working booths at community events and the like. They also teach survival skills to their classmates as part of the school curriculum. It seems to be the adults who often take the words/actions of the most negative scout to heart.

In normal years, January is our associated Pack's pinewood derby month. Also, like @mrjohns2's troop, we host Webelos/AoL's on a Cabin weekend. That got postponed to this past weekend, so they are now crossovers! Still, a lot of fun, and some pre-Easter weather made it feel quite like other weekends.

Um, I'm sorry (not sorry). But not wanting to publicly associate with scouting is a good reason to suspend advancement. If you're ashamed to be in my troop, it's all good, I'll just be ashamed to bling you. [Rant over.] I approach this from the perspective of leaving it up to a scout to implement, but providing ideas in case they aren't sure how to proceed. It's a big country, so each group of scouts will have a different "best strategy." Most of us are convinced that classroom settings work poorly. We're also fairly certain that mapping the order of MBs (except for those that explicitly require earning another MB) for a scout is more of an impediment than help. Most of us have seen scouts work on their other Citizenship MBs in pairs or fours and like it. I've seen them try classroom settings and hate it. So I think that will apply here. My general thinking is that by the time that you might be elected to O/A (not just camping nights and rank ... but your fellow scouts see something worth voting for) you've probably got what it takes to work on this MB. Note: that does not mean that you should ignore opportunities. E.g. ... if there's an interesting community leader who could give your troop an engaging presentation, strongly encourage your PLC to invite him/her.

First of all, the only older scouts needing to pick it up at all will be those interested in obtaining Eagle. Secondly, most will not need to do so all at once. How many 17.5 year old life scouts -- or more specifically, how many scouts dead set on earning their bird between June and September -- do you have in your troop? I am thinking 1st class as in the concept, not the patch. So, basically a mature scout that's getting out there in the world and meeting folks outside their usual spheres. It could be through other extra-curriculars ... in person or online. Those are the youth who would benefit most from this. I think.

This is why, on the other hand, I am considering counseling this MB. Part of learning to be a crew advisor was coaching youth on how to host an ethical controversy. Plus, as an Arab American, there were specific requirements for coming to dinner (or any gathering). Discussions on politics, religion or both were mandatory, so ... Come prepared to defend your opinion to someone on the opposite end of the table (room). If that person already has your opinion, defend the opposite. Do so simultaneously while other pairs/groups are discussing a different topic. So, I feel like I can bring something to the table ... even if I'm not a human resources type. My main concern about counseling is the desire for "high speed, low drag." Nothing about this badge would make me want to do this in a troop/classroom setting. ... Maybe in a patrol setting around a campfire or during a hike. An interesting approach would be getting scouts from different neighborhoods together. Also, a boy's patrol and girl's patrol might be able to hash some of this out. Best case scenario would be four First Class scouts from markedly different troops reflecting on this material. (In fact, that was the best thing about venturing ... when youth from different parts of the region got together and talked through life.)

Great, the guy who really likes co-Ed scouting gets to be devil's advocate. I’ve endured plenty of “boorish, uncouth behavior” among the male and female youth among the venturers who I supervise. It’s worse among the junior high church youth who I’ve had to chaperone. It takes a lot of determination (and, often, tact) on the direct contact leader’s part to keep it in check. I’ve come to conclude that it’s no different than a unisex group. Sometimes you draw a lot who is more noble than you ever were, while other times you’re constantly calling out one crass comment after another.