skeptic

The subject made it onto the "news" feed on AOL, which is Huffington Post. I was pleasantly surprised to see the comments, and there are many, are almost all slamming the lawyers and the whole situation. A number loudly note what has been said on here for a long while, including noting how media hype is almost always aimed at negative stuff, and that the far greater good that has come from BSA is brushed aside. The amount of comments about the ads and the "ambulance chasers" were very high, and many recognized that it is a societal problem. And, while there were the few ignorant comments referencing the Dale period, most of those were met with their own negative responses. Also were a number of ominous mentions of other groups needing to hide, and calls for fixing the legal system.

Unless the focus can be moved to the very real fact BSA tried where nobody else did, and that their current YP is the model today, the mess will continue. You would hope that there might be a real writer somewhere that might find a media source that could get the real story out, the one that shows BSA had a lower percentage of verified problems during that peak time; that they came up with a way to hopefully avoid some of these people that prey on society everywhere; that the current YP is the model for others, even as the lawsuits continue; that the idea that BSA or anyone could have stopped these problems, especially in an age that had different points of view and methods of dealing with things; and that holding today's BSA responsible for what were often decisions of parents and past societal norms is simply wrong, especially since BSA is attempting to come to a fair accounting, even though it is an unfair expectation in our warped legal system. As I have noted before, this likely would not fly in hardly any other country, and our legal system needs a serious overhaul.

Two things in regard to the most recent posts. The Ineligible Volunteer Files were not secret to the councils, they were simply not public information, due to their actual nature. All councils had access to check a volunteer if they felt it necessary; that was the whole point to begin with. That was by phone or mail initially, and at some point, likely became available in some electronic form. They did not hide this information within the organization. But it was not developed to share with anybody, though I believe if asked by another group, they likely would have reviewed it on a case by case basis. So, the idea that they were "secret" is over hyped. Again, they were simply an internal check based on the era in which they started. And many of them had nothing to do with "perversion", but rather other possible poor models such as major felons and so on. Secondly, anybody that is paying any attention and has involvement with Scouting should be completely aware of the ongoing lawsuits and the bankruptcy. I seriously doubt many CO's exist that would not have the awareness to see where they might stand in this regard. Recharter has not hidden the information from the CO's, and certainly the yellow press has done their best to make sure people know about it. So, IMO, the hyperbole regarding that is simply foolish and not a real concern. I was at our Methodist church today, and they certainly are aware. The National Men's group, who is the representative for Youth Serving has notified all units to file as needed. Our Pastor told me it has been done, and that the local Conference is keeping up with it as well.

Showing my age again, and I REALIZE that we do not live in the fifties now, so just take note that I do understand there are different views today, though I do wonder if some may be overreach much of the time. Anyway, when most of my peers were kids this would have been settled by themselves and they would be friends again soon after. My dad brought a set of boxing gloves home for my brother and I, and on occasion, neighbor or two. At times, I wonder if there might be some in between place that would put the onus on the kids a bit more to simply figure it out. But, I realize, as noted, we live in a different world, and there were some really bad situations that happened back then as well, though most of us would have a fight, sometimes physical and emotional, and very soon be friends, or at least, accepting, with the other kid. Where to draw the line to not interfere is the question. But helicopter parents sometimes are flying military grade ones now. One more reason to find a way to get the foundation of Scouting back into play with the youth of today.

No, I am suggesting that IF a claim is being brought against the BSA against a specific individual that "other" possible responsible entities might also be investigated to determine IF they did everything to make sure abuse did not happen, and it it might have, follow up both on the possibly incident and the addition of that entity into their broad brush lawsuit. We all know that the more checks and investigations of someone that occur, the more likely something might jump out. If we are going to beat the bushes, lets beat those on the periphery as well. Meanwhile, exercise due diligence against the lawyers who, if the postings here are accurate, have suspicious or non existent addresses for contacting them. That, in itself, might be grounds for a judgement of some sort, or so it might seem to a non legal individual. It just seems to reflect that they are shysters to me. Again, I am mostly spitting in the wind. The two main posters here seem to obviously not really care about leveling the playing field, or the survival of BSA. JMO of course. Since real logic and simple common sense appear to be in slight supply, I will go back to reading and shaking my head at the absurdity of most of this whole thing.

Another question that has come to mind is are these "lawyers" investigating cases where the actual perpetrator is known? If so, did they go beyond their participation in BSA? Were they possibly employed by some kind of youth related group or agency? Did they also work with youth sports or the Y, or Boys and Girls club? If so, were there possible similar complaints there? Finally, it is odd, at least to me, that there are claims that are saying they do not remember who, or what unit, or where they met, and so on. IF it traumatized them from that long ago period, you would think they might remember some of the details, and not just that some "ambulance chasing legal group" suggests that they may make a vague claim with little or no need for documentation. Not suggesting there is no validity to some of the claimants, only that the openly vague option is just that, open and vague. But what would I know. I keep thinking that we should maybe look beyond the accusation and require at least a modicum of validation. And I also feel that the comparative stats related to other groups should be in play as far as the claims that nothing was done. We have already noted that nobody else kept records, or at least none of which we are aware. That in itself is more effort to root the worst out, than most.

Meanwhile, back at the ranch: The perpetrators, the ones actually responsible are long gone for the most part. The local authorities and political or power brokers that protected the actual perpetrators are basically ignored, since they are either some civilly protected entity or are conveniently untraceable. Most of the claimants likely are not in the so called Perversion files, as they were shielded by those connected entities or their family's chose, at the time, to NOT put the claim into the public eye. And, if the claim is actually in the Ineligible Volunteer File, there are notes as to what was done outside the BSA that resulted in no charges or minor charges. After fifty plus years, most of it is really like the charges lodged against political people that date back decades. Yet we do not see them being held accountable. Why? Because there is power and money that is willing to sweep it away, and the lawyers do not see a pay day.

This reminded me of my foolish young scout days. I was in a troop as an 11 or 12 years old and we were camped for a few days, summer of 1955 or maybe 56, in the mountains near Slide Lake which is in the Pomona area of So Cal. Anyway, two of us were hiking and we ran across deer tracks and started following them. I was wearing my proud acquisition from selling Christmas cards, a belt ax with sheath knife, and I had a hiking stick as did my buddy. We noticed the tracks were farther apart and wondered if we were close and scared it. Then we realized there was another set of tracks now, and they were not deer, but large cat imprints. That was when we decided tracking the deer was not a good idea. We took my hatchet and knife and put points on our hiking sticks and then we turned around and headed towards camp, constantly jumping at noises and peering into the scrub and mancinita. We never saw the cat or the deer, but when we turned around, the deer was obviously moving much faster, as were we in the opposite direction. Funny how I had almost forgotten that. As an adult, we were camped on the Sespe at Bear Creek. It was early summer or late spring, and we had not pitched tents. I got up the next morning and wandered away to water a tree, and on the way back into the site, I saw fresh tracks in the damp sand of the river bar just a few dozen feet from where we were sleeping. The tracks came within about ten feet of one scout, who was still asleep. When he woke up, he did not see the tracks, but when I pointed them out to him, the look was pretty funny. Wish I had had some plater, as the tracks were deep and fresh. Would have been great to capture them.

Interesting comment. Harks back to the early days of Scouting and one of the requirements. What to do about a rabid dog? That was actually an issue in those days.

Glad there is a video attached. Otherwise, I might have referred them to YP guiidelines.

Reality is that Ms. Ireland likely met and surpassed most of the requirements in her other earlier Scouting involvements, and that she is qualified in spades. Most of the push back seems petty to me. As far as First, or leading the list, or whatever, it is really not important. What is important that we have pushed past another barrier that can do nothing but improve the reach of the program, and may even enhance it much more than many realize. Congratulations to them all, and perhaps special kudos to Ms. Ireland for sticking to her guns and helping to open the program to young women who so choose. Like prejudice, misogyny has no place in Scouting.

We might add the possibility that society as a whole was equally responsible in that the responses to these things were completely different in that earlier period. So, once again, taking the sin/bad behavior out of its own period to be measured against a different view and response mechanism is blatantly unfair to most involved. And to remove the actual perpetrator from the picture, basically because they are dead or too senile to be held accountable to modern "standards (?)" seems even more unreasonable. As we have noted before, ours is almost the only country in which this would even be happening. I truly do not understand why these bottom feeders are even allowed inside a courtroom. It would help of course if the yellow press would change their stripe and tell the complete story, rather than just the most heinous and headline grabber. You would think that other groups, especially youth serving, would be doing all they could to aid the BSA, as it will move to them too soon enough, as the GS already have found; along with at least one youth study group in university research.

I simply want to know if this is the original Beavah posting? If so, great to see you are still keeping the eye on things.

(Comment) The fact that she thinks having earned Eagle Scout in 20 months means she's gotten everything possible out of the program does not say great things about her mindset with regards to participating in scouts. Though I'll admit this viewpoint isn't exactly uncommon. While I cannot vouch directly for this specific young woman, my overall observation to date on those in this "special category" of Eagle candidates almost all are from long established Scouting families with traditions that they often had to view from the outside. But many families in these situations simply let the female children participate as they could, without the official recognition. Many of those young women have shown themselves to be head and shoulders above the male candidates we see. These young women were already getting more from the program than many male youth. It will all shake out in time, just as most transitions tend to do. Then many will look back and make comments about why are today's young female scouts seemingly not as bright as the the earliest ones. When push and shove come into play, it is not really much different than our experience with previous youth. Some are highly motivated and balk at barriers, sometimes pushing us to our limits, but great Scouts. Others are not likely to advance far without the interference of adults that do not understand the intent of the program. IF most of them come out of it with a positive experiences and have a better grounding in the foundational tenets, then we have accomplished our goal. It has little to do with rank, but rather "Character".

We can never have too many well placed and well constructed benches. When you get to my age, that will be more obvious.

It works for me. But, here is the item again, I hope.

https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=10105193357292214&set=gm.1708260512655110&__cft__[0]=AZVhjhg0Pp-4lPkTeWKdf_gCzK9L8mfYCUgri0vhKn1gVy8J0klAMKxR5vx220y2G8nZX0yZocJ3cHB2miJjiruPGl9E9tdufnFZ5tBVjFtP5ClYAWyaqytBpNGCQ1sXffLkY2WqYPmKK_sbfKfGQjycBXf_MPM81uHzUArUsojCtvEMiT7Q1TbuM0nMDXeb4JwPrE3Ox4tSl_qHi6_6B28k&__tn__=EH-R

Yes, we were far more rural in the earlier days. I am hoping to find more now that I have added Newspaper.com to my list. They have actual Ventura papers, but not all the way back to 1910. It is that first couple of decades that is so sparse. I stumbled across the first apparent unit in 1910 just scanning through microfilm. Have yet to find anything more on that unit, other than the Congregational church minutes officially terminating the group in 1914. I suspect it was not overly active during that period, or it would have shown up a bit. No names of even the leaders. Good news is that I have been contacted by the local museum to start working with them, once they can let me in again. I just wish I could find a bit more help with the digging. Funny things pop up though;

As I continue to probe for historical bits and pieces for our local area Scouting, I have discovered one seemingly fairly common thing. Most of the earliest units were formed at churches and often in conjunction with the Y. Since our council did not exist until 1921, tracking down records is pretty hard, though we have found a few through National. Ironically, we know that we had a unit at the Congregational church in 1910, and that it was there in some manner until 1914. But, other than the newspaper notice of its formation in 1910 and some records of the church officially dropping it in 1914 we can find no National verifications. Similarly, other than newspaper mentions of at least a couple dozen various "scout groups" in the period from 1910 to 1921 when we started our council, there are few found items in National, so we do not know for sure about those early groups. Furthermore, while we can validate our first council Eagles in 1921 and 1922, we cannot validate other rank issues prior to the council. With the number of charter scouts when the council began, and that the first two Eagles happened almost immediately, one would think a possibility is there that someone might be lost in the maze of the early records. But, National has declined my request to have access to the Eagle files that were the basis of the great CD compilations that they issued that were the result of serious work by dedicated people. But, based on the duplications in our files, and also just the fact that many early registrations were small rural locations that have literally fallen off the map, there is the strong possibility one or two even earlier Eagles could be sitting in limbo in an undetermined file. Also, confusion with current councils and the many defunct ones surely caused some misdirections or simply unknowns. It the unknowns that I wish I could see. I hope those records are still actually properly stored. It is odd how few news articles actually designate awards to the earliest scouts, but only talk about courts of honor generally and Tenderfoot tests. Lots though on outings and such, which is great. Just figuring out what units of the time were there is more difficult, as it often just mentions names or towns. Fun and games working on our centennial next year. The most common CO's in those early news accounts are the Congregational, Methodist, Presbyterian, and Catholic Churches, along with the Rotary, Kiwanis, Lions and LDS, though it is rarely noted, even though became official for them in 1913. Our area may not have had enough members for the early scout units, since it was mostly agricultural.

Why?

The hostel angle is just one of many to think about. The main thing is to hopefully have usage for local youth and small groups in some manner while also having service opportunities for the serious needs that abound. The church appears to already be decided on it being a place for outreach.

Specifically VCC, Council 57. The city is Ventura, and of course right on the beach, as well as fairly easy access to the larger So Cal area. It is still in the early stages of local discussions, but some small uses may be allowed in the discussion periods. My thing is doing whatever we can to display the best of Scouting and just do it. That is the real challenge, not getting led from our primary reason to exist by ignorance and people with tunnel vision.

So confused with tags and such. Just give me a basic forum and let me type. Anyway, we have an interesting possible opportunity locally with the closure of a major church with considerable property with its campus. The church is being run by the Methodist District and there are plans in the works for using the property for outreach. I have proposed that part of that be a distinctly inexpensive spot for traveling youth, Scouts or otherwise. Also, picture us developing a resource center with historical material that can be reviewed and possibly utilized in modern context, or a "How it was" way. It might include locally run uniform banks, even for non scout groups, a possible motor home capability with limits (it has a large parking lot), and some on site things like maybe a couple of compass/orienteering courses. It is in a prime location in the middle of the city, and right acrross from the local JC as well. In conjunction with local non-profits it likely will include homeless and indigent options, great service ops and the, or so it seems to me, a chance to just do what scouts do, at the core. Any thoughts on how a hostel type thing could be included, and various ways the Scouting Community might be at the core? As an extension; are there similar options that in our re-inventioning phase might be considered on the BSA nationally.

So, another "go get the stick" distraction. Maybe we should simply "do our best" to save the basic and solid foundations and grow them with the youth in mind, no matter their variants in beliefs or other seemingly important distractions foisted by a messed up society. Just saying; these scenarios are fun, and even have some place, but our focus needs to be where the compass point meets the direction arrow.

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2020/08/28/saving-grace-scout-creates-inspirational-worship-videos-for-eagle-project/