T2Eagle

My early YP training as a rec league baseball coach AND as a CYO coach 20+ years ago had the same directives. I challenged both orgs on it. The explanation I received from both was about the same: law enforcement would only act if there was clear evidence of a crime. Which jibes with one of my earlier posts about the limitations of a law enforcement approach. In addition, the authorities wouldn't reach back to the organizations, especially if they didn't investigate or didn't find any criminal activity. That left the orgs in a tough place without vital information: someone that's a jerk but not quite a criminal shouldn't be a coach or a scout leader So this was likely not so sinister, just best, or at least common, practices for a while in the earlier days of widespread formal YPT. I gave feedback to both orgs that it should be both not either/or. Within a couple years the directives had changed, even before volunteers were designated mandatory reporters.

Respectfully, you don't ever want law enforcement involvement if you're the accused. Law enforcement never "exonerates" anyone. The best conclusion they can ever reach is that they don't have evidence of a crime. They can't say a crime was not committed --- because they don't know --- because, --- and here is the magic phrase I learned in law school --- "(I) (they) don't know, because (I) (they) weren't there." Investigators don't have magic powers of discernment that allow them to KNOW whether someone is or is not being truthful, they are just as fallible as anyone else at that. And, different people seeing the same events, even participating in the same events, will have truthful, but differing, recollections about exactly what happened, and different, but truthful, interpretations of the meaning of the what happened. BSA, or council, or whoever in scouting is investigating this is not really trying to divine any ultimate TRUTH about what happened. Again, they can't because they weren't there. As mentioned above, they are deciding what is the safest course of action for BSA and for the scouts when they are under the responsibility of scouting. They are going to be very cautious, and may err on the side of safest is removing one, both, or multiple scouts. I hope things work out for your son, but it's important to remember that membership isn't scouting, living the Oath and Law are scouting, and there is a lifetime of opportunities for him to do that.

There's a pretty big divergence in operations between councils. I find my own pros to be just that, professional, and generally outstanding. I will say money is where they are the funniest, I think because they never can relax about it because they don't have a dedicated income stream the way national does with registration, so it feels like the wolf is always at the door. My guess is that there will be some questionable actions in some councils, but I suspect what will most often happen is that things will become more bureaucratic and annoying, especially in comparison to the near total independence most units now have, but with no real change in the end result.

So there's a lot of misunderstanding about the idea of "liability". From council's point of view their liability, and their risk, is based on their actions. If they are negligent in some action they take or fail to take they will be held liable for that action and damages based on that will be paid from their assets. Whether the CO has or doesn't have assets doesn't affect their risk. In the new model they are probably taking on more risk because they are now acting as CO and have a greater responsibility for supervising the actions of a troop's leaders --- and so more chances to be negligent. Keeping that risk on a CO is probably less risky for them. As to actual assets, I would guess that many current COs have effectively no assets. Your average Elks, VFW, small old line protestant congregation, etc. probably has a few months operating cash in the bank plus their building, which in many instances is probably a restricted asset in fact, or effectively so because it is core to their mission and wouldn't be forfeit even in the event of bankruptcy.

I don't want to down play the risks here, but they also shouldn't be over stated. The whole point of a corporation, of any type, is that they protect individuals from liability and leave it all on the corporation. Churches may be being sued, but the church elders who run them are not. The limit of liability for a corporation is the assets that the corporation owns. I do think an umbrella policy is a good idea for anyone involved in youth activities irrespective of what the over lying organization is; I've had one since I became a Tiger leader decades ago.

Interestingly, these folks, speaking of this kind of PR stuff broadly not just BSA individually, sincerely don't see it that way. One particular argument I remember was when we decided to change a rarely used employee perk, payroll withholding to pay for a discounted car insurance through the company. We were going to keep the discount but eliminate the withholding. The reason we were eliminating the withholding was because it was cumbersome and took up a lot of someone's time, but was used by very few employees. When the PR folks wrote the announcement they were describing the reason for the change as being made to benefit the employees because in the few instances that the perk was used it was so often screwed up in its administration (which it almost always was) that it was more trouble than it was worth. They really didn't understand that just because that could have been a reason it wasn't actually accurate to say that was the reason when it was purely a cost cutting measure. My stance was just tell people the unvarnished truth, it cost more than it was worth and the company was always obligated to think about such things. I believe that adults can handle bad news if you're honest about it. The PR folks just really instinctively felt that everything had to be given a positive spin. They genuinely saw that as right and proper. and not an untruth.

Pure speculation on my part, but I would think that whatever uncertainty there may be for the buyers, that is priced into their offer. But these are pretty straightforward real estate transactions, there shouldn't be much trouble in closing them. Multi-million dollar houses close in 45-60 days. As to where the money goes right away, hopefully into some nice safe investment held by the LC. I know my own LC isn't and wouldn't turn over any money until the settlement is all blessed and kosher. I haven't read into the bowels of the plan to see if there is a process for LCs to pay in and thus secure their release when the time comes. I consider the people who run my council to be friends, but there is such a strong culture of only speaking about things with upbeat and positive spin that it is innate to anyone who has been steeped in that culture. They instinctively avoid describing situations with precision and depth; even with me, even in casual conversation, they speak that way. It reminds me of my old days in the Fortune 500 world, where I had to wrestle with the PR department to not put out statements that were so obfuscating that they became both meaningless AND inaccurate.

Man it's been a long couple of years, such that I now think of ThenNow as not just a regular but maybe even an old timer on these threads. TN's original post was, I believe. most relevant because it was about the insufficiency of the settlement for individual victims, and spoke about how instead the bulk of the settlement was going to (hopefully) prevent future harms. In the same vein many of the victims of CSA that occurred in scouting will receive an amount smaller than they would be entitled to if these cases were being settled outside of bankruptcy, but there is at least some hope that the structural parts of settlement will prevent future abuse in scouting. The parallels between the Purdue case and BSA as bankruptcies are pretty clear: both current settlements rely on extensive involuntary non-debtor third party releases, which may not actually be permitted within the bankruptcy code. Purdue's has already been kicked back by a higher court, BSA's may yet. In Purdue, the releases protect the Sackler family, in BSA the releases protect Chartering Orgs and local Councils. As to perpetrators, charter orgs and councils aren't ancillary entities, in virtually every law suit they are co-defendants with BSA. They are in fact the perpetrators. Given the structure of scouting, it could be argued that they are more responsible as perpetrators. The Charter Org is responsible for the unit, and in the cases where the abuse was done by a unit leader it was the Chartering Org that selected the leader and then failed to supervise them. The councils similarly are responsible for not supervising both their units AND their chartering orgs.

This is the really critical part to understand: the money is never the scout's, it belongs to the unit. The scout isn't entitled to it, the unit can decide to spend money on a scout that a scout helped raise, but it can also decide not to, even after the money has been raised. It's not for the scout or the family to decide what happens to money that be in a "scout account", that's a decision for the unit. The scout or family can express an opinion, but it's critical to understand that it's not their decision.

I would add some nuance to that. My troop may have higher standards than council or BSA. The CC and COR are the people who recruit, select, and are responsible for troop leadership. Something that might not be full stop grounds for ending scouting membership might still be grounds for a change or even an ending of the individual's role in the troop. Additionally, I would really want to understand in depth any incident that was concerning enough for one of our parents to believe it worthy of reporting to council. This is the type of thing that make it really important to remember how the chartering model works and how responsible the CO is for what goes on in the unit, irrespective of the views of the umbrella organization.

Councils in open states like California are going to pay, whether through BSA bankruptcy or through their own. It's probably prudent to get that liquidity lined up.

Everybody in the troop is allowed a "chaos" bucket: generally a five gallon bucket and lid. Any personal food, especially all the junk they buy from the trading post, is kept there. They're stored in the trailer at night so there's no temptation to have food in the tents. In addition to food storage, scouts tend to keep in them stuff they're working on like their handbooks, mb paperwork, projects, etc. That way they're not going in and out of a hot tent as often. They also make great seats for sitting around the campfire As SM I used a plastic toter rather than a bucket, but for all the same reasons.

That is just gross on oh so many levels. I always made sure to have my own jar of peanut butter and box of crackers at camp, plus various other packaged semi healthy snacks, for nights like that. At our camp breakfast was always the best meal, and I made the most of it. Lunch and dinner were more hit or miss. Dinner always included a salad bar and I could usually do pretty well there. My consistent feedback on our camp's food was that they could do better providing healthier versions of what they served. Not everything has to be prepackaged, highly processed frozen stuff from GFS, pre-loaded with sugar, fat, and salt. I specifically told them to check out videos and books from Jamie Oliver showing you could do cafeteria food just as well with fresh ingredients if you just put some thought into it, especially as they had a fair amount of free or discounted labor they could call on for help

This is a really big misunderstanding about the relationship between BSA's legal troubles and the IV files. The files aren't the reason that BSA is in trouble. BSA is in trouble because tens of thousands of boys and young men were sexually assaulted and brutalized while and because they participated in Boy Scouts. Most of the attackers were not in the files, most of them were not found out at the time. You don't need any kind of files when you have living witnesses who can testify about what was done to them and by whom. The absence or presence of files doesn't change the facts of the assaults or the failure to prevent them. That's what BSA is being sued for, the assaults and the failure to stop them, not whether or not they kept some records about some predators that they sometimes prevented from their predation.

For years I pretended I didn't know they existed, two years ago I was getting frantic calls from my DE begging me to finally fill one out. We have two troop fundraisers a year, I fill out an application for one of them.

Zero is the answer from my unit, and I've never heard of a unit giving any. I've been doing this for a long time, and have had several council board members who are also adult leaders in our unit. We do allow/invite a council rep to do an FOS ask at our spring COH, and our troop families give. We support popcorn sales, but we don't push hard for it as it's not a primary fundraiser for us. Broadly we're very supportive of our council and have good relations with them, so I'm not saying this as someone with an antagonistic relationship with council. A couple additional thoughts and questions. It is always important to remember that when you are fundraising you are technically fundraising for your Chartered Organization which owns your unit and its funds. The money doesn't belong to the troop it belongs to the CO who is allowing the troop to use its funds. Before you give any significant amount of money to anyone, especially council, you should make sure that's what they want done with their money. If council wants your CO to give them $2000 then they should ask the CO directly. This is the first thing I would respond to any council type making this kind of ask. The next thought I have is how did anyone even know how much you made. Again, this is your CO's money and your CO's business. I know the Unit Earning Application asks some questions about this, but you can be very vague in answering. Me, I just don't answer, but if pressed I would be mostly vague and direct them to my CO; again it's their money and it's not really for me to be disclosing their finances. The final thought I have is wondering who actually had this conversation with you. By your description I'm guessing it was the volunteer in charge of FOS and not necessarily a paid council professional. It's worth remembering that means he is someone not necessarily completely versed in how councils should interact with units and isn't necessarily following direct guidance from the Council Scout Exec.

That isn't the most common format for a meeting, but I suspect what you were expecting is also not what a common format for a meeting should be. ScoutsBSA is very different from Cubs when it comes to what the focus and purpose of meetings are. The meetings are not and should not be focused on rank advancement. The idea you have that there should be "work towards progress" is just not the focus. At this age advancement is individual not group oriented. A group of scouts can decide they want to work together or at the same time on a particular advancement skill, but the Cub way of everyone in the den working on the same thing at the same time is not the way now. What most troop meetings should be about is what this month's campout is going to be: planning for meals and duties, checking equipment, and if any particular skill is needed for the main activity learning, working on, or refreshing that skill. The most important thing about a meeting is whether the scouts are having fun. If your son enjoyed being there than the meetings were good ones. I'll give you the advice I give every freshly crossed over parent: relax, take a deep breath, watch your son grow. If you're concerned about him advancing, and more importantly IF HE is interested in becoming an Eagle scout, he has seven years to do so.

As I understand the restriction, you're most specifically not supposed to go out and simply ask for money for the troop for things like equipment or to cover the cost of outings.. If the grant your SPL has applied for is conservation projects than that's not really benefitting the troop so you're probably okay. I would however make sure your CO is okay with it since they're actually the beneficiary.

We had this situation once. We just left the scout registered as a Webelo II but had him crossover to the troop with his den mates. We like to have crossover by March so that the newest scouts get a couple of weekend campouts under their belts before summer camp. First year summer camp can be hard enough because it's usually such a big change for the youngest scouts; when it's their first ever camp where they're really responsible for themselves it can be overwhelming.

Our patrol duty rosters look like whatever the patrols wat them to look like, it's not an adult function. For the most part they slot in two cooks, two scouts for clean-up, maybe somebody on water if we have to haul it from somewhere. I'm not sure about twiddling thumbs, but there's no reason for everybody to be busy for the sake of being busy. The rest of the patrol can be kicking a ball, playing cards, just goofing off, or maybe even the dreaded "working on requirements."

What about the Facilities Use/Chartered by Council option?

There may be others from your diocese reading the forum, maybe they have ideas, maybe they're looking for help.

there are lots of questions and answers needed specific to an individual situation, but the whole point of corporations is that they separate the owners of the corporation from individual liability. When GM gets sued the shareholders of GM can't be held liable. More analogous to this situation, three guys want to start a business, say a canoe livery service, so they form a corporation. They hire an employee, that employee does something stupid and someone gets hurt, the corporation gets sued, but the only assets at risk are the assets owned by the corporation. The assets of the individuals: their homes, bank accounts, cash etc. are not at jeopardy. Somewhat closer analogy, you live in a neighborhood that has a homeowners association. The HOA is a non profit corporation, the homeowners all own the corporation, they hire an employee who does something stupid, the assets of the HOA, probably nothing more than a current checking account are in jeapordy, but none of the homeowners can be sued or forced to pay anything. Even if the HOA is sued into bankruptcy, after all its assets are gone the homeowners just start a new non profit and keep on rolling.

If BSA was an ongoing concern, they would have had to list the GSUSA lawsuit as a contingent liability on their balance sheet while it was still undecided in District Court. Once they lost there it would probably drop from the balance sheet but still be listed in a footnote. I don't know how that translates in a bankruptcy case. It would be legal malpractice for their lawyers not to argue for some money being set aside, but they really shouldn't be surprised if it doesn't happen, or if the money set aside is very small.

The short answer is that attorneys who filed claims on behalf of clients were supposed to do do some screening as to basic validity of a claim before they filed. If a claimant was pro se, that is representing themselves, then they themselves attested to the basic validity. Any claim made was made under penalty of perjury so there is the possibility of severe penalties in the event a fraudulent claim is made. At least in part because it isn't yet certain that there will be a settlement or any money actually paid out there hasn't been any greater scrutiny than that of the veracity of the claims made. How that's going to happen, how rigorous it will be, and when and how it will be done are points of contention that need to be worked out as part of the final settlement and plan.