TAHAWK

https://boyslife.org/wayback/

We had some OA types like you describe in my first council. One day they looked around and discovered no one was paying attention to them any more.

In my current district, the Chairman is a business exec who wouldn't know Wood Badge from wood smoke. He may attend 10% of the meetings and scarcely says a word. The effective leader is the Program Chair, who has not taken Wood Badge training. Sorry you were bitten by a Wood Badger at some point, but you overgeneralize. As the SE has unilaterally decided to eliminate districts, the whole "problem" will go away soon. I have never seen the SE in uniform, so I don't know if he is a Wood Badger or not.

One, two, three, four or five Patrols may form a Troop, but the Patrols are the working unit whenever practical and the Troop organization is designed to provide supervision, coordination, institutional loyalty and service. B.S.A., The Patrol Method, 1938 ed. at p. 3

An illustration of "momentum," which could be called "me too." "The McMartin Preschool case was the first daycare abuse case to receive major media attention in the United States.[21] The case centered upon the McMartin Preschool in Manhattan Beach, California, where seven teachers were accused of kidnapping children, flying them in a plane to another location, and forcing them to engage in group sex as well as forcing them to watch animals be tortured and killed.[21] The case also involved accusations that children had been forced to participate in bizarre religious rituals, and been used to make child pornography.[22] The case began with a single accusation, made by the mother - who was later found to be a paranoid schizophrenic[3] - of one of the students, but grew rapidly when investigators informed parents of the accusation and began interviewing other students.[22] The case made headlines nationwide in 1984, and seven teachers were arrested and charged that year.[22] When a new district attorney took over the case in 1986, however, his office re-examined the evidence and dropped charges against all but two of the original defendants. Their trials became one of the longest and most expensive criminal trials in the history of the United States,[22][1] but in 1990 all of these charges were also dropped.[21] Both jurors at the trial and academic researchers later criticized the interviewing techniques that investigators had used in their investigations of the school, alleging that interviewers had "coaxed" children into making unfounded accusations, repeatedly asking children the same questions and offering various incentives until the children reported having been abused.[21] Most scholars now agree that the accusations these interviews elicited from children were false.[23][24] Sociologist Mary de Young and historian Philip Jenkins have both cited the McMartin case as the prototype for a wave of similar accusations and investigations between 1983 and 1995, which constituted a moral panic." More ghastly detals https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/McMartin_preschool_trial

So let's all give up.

Interesting that people who have never experienced Boy Scouting are sure it won't work these days.

It is not "my" approach. It is the approach everywhere except the U.S. I do raise the question of whether Scouting, as distinct from BSA, gets it's money's worth from West's approach. If we stopped hiring the council staff would fall by half in a year - no firing required. (Well, one respected DD came back after two years at a higher level, but quit again after six months.) Had West gotten everything he wanted, all Scoutmasters would be council employees. The culture where everything council is "bad" is a minority culture. Most volunteers judge council decisions and employee's on an individual basis. But a series of "clunker" decisions or people will produce a culture of suspicion, and it probably should. "Fooled me once, shame on you. Fooled me twice, shame on me." Example: I was promised certain changes as a condition of agreeing to a major additional commitment of time last Summer. The changes were promised as of September 1, 2017. Still waiting, but more leery about future commitments. Capiche? One problem I see is Scouters who spend almost all their energy and time complaining about council or National to the extent that they are not doing their jobs. The vast bulk of the service is volunteer work, and what council or BSA does or does not do is no excuse for failing to do our jobs. After all, BSA did not start Scouting in the US. For Example, every Scoutmaster is now empowered in The Guide to Advancement to torpedo merit badges that cannot, in fact, have been properly earned, signed Blue Card or not. So the solution to the summer camp merit badge mills - Personal Management in 250 hours over five days - is in the hands of the volunteers, subspecies "Unit leader." A "Professional" is great, just not to be confused as synonymous with "employee." Some employees are pros and some are not. A title does not equal competency or designate who leads - one of Bill's points about appointed Patrol Leaders. Most, but not all, of the real professionals I have seen have been volunteers. Bill was a "professional" and a professional. He was also a paid volunteer - that is he thought like a volunteer, wore the volunteer's field uniform, was a Scoutmaster, liked to interact with volunteers, and kept on Scouting after "retirement" until his death at 92. My favorite Bill story. In 1985 we had a tri-council camporee to celebrate the 77th anniversary of Scouting - well, really, the 75th anniversary of BSA. Bill, retired from BSA for sixteen years, attended the entire event. The Saturday night show was in the blowing rain - mid 40's. A pavilion was erected for the "professionals" as the Scouts and adult volunteers sat in the mud and misty rain. Although repeatedly summoned, Bill would not go under the pavilion. He stood in his red (volunteer) jacshirt, olive drab shorts, and campaign hat in the rain. When the head "professional" sent an underling out with a golf umbrella to shelter Bill, he kept moving laterally out from under it. This was noted by the Scouts; a wave of whispering swept the seated crowd: "Look at Bill." Finally, all the big shots came out from the pavilion -- but each with an underling with an umbrella. With them, this business of solidarity with the Scouts and volunteers only went so far. Our SPL allmost had his heart explode. Bill was wearing our troop's red paisley neckerchief, gifted to him by a young Scout earlier that day. Most, please note "most," - DEs who talked to me about why they joined BSA - several dozen - have told me, face-to-face, that they took the job for lack of any other choice and were actively looking for a "better" job. By "most" I mean all but four of that several dozen (the four are examples of what I call "the Golden 10%"). If they are being accurate, that means that natural selection leaves us with many otherwise unemployable "professionals" - good only at council/BSA bureaucracy. The marketplace made their career decision for them. Even dedicated council employees may leave out of duty to their families. When performers, 10% or not, find that "better job," their leaving is regretted by those who pay attention and understand. The loss of the 10% is absolutely mourned by the aware. ("Remember Tom, our DE back in 1983-82?" I was asked last Saturday. Darn right I remember!) Over the years, my district alone has lost three very strong and dedicate DE's. - great Scouters and great people. One transferred to escape our dysfunctional SE and ended up as No. 2 in a vary large urban council. The other two left BSA, and one left Scouting. They each told me they absolutely needed more income and more family time. It is certainly the case here that it is hard to find enough volunteer hours - as it is for Masonic charities, PTA, and Red Cross. Brighten the corner where you are. Do what you can as well as you can. Thank your fellow volunteers and all the good council employees for their work as you may be the only one extending thanks. I would thank our respected DE at tonight's meeting, but he was discharged last week for questioning receive wisdom.

You seems to dismiss from the calculation all the work of all the Scouters and Cubbers in their units, without which there would be no paperwork to push. Unless you drink the "hour a week" Kool Aid, that effort exceeds all paid hours, even if including hours devoted to raising funds for council, by orders of magnitude. Our new SE says only units Scouting counts. One hopes. Ending the scandal of Council merit badge mills and rationalizing paperwork requirements would reduce the "Eagle paperwork" load that you mention. Camp? In our council, and many others (each of our bordering councils to my personal knowledge - and often participation), volunteers put in thousands of hours a year for camp upkeep, often buying the materials out of their own funds and supplying almost all the tools. many are Union tradesmen - "professionals" in the correct sense of the word. Camp McKinley, near us and used for its own summer camp by a troop I volunteered with, had a $0 maintenance and operating budget for three years and no ranger. Yet the camp emerged in tremendously good condition. Mere volunteers. They renewed the septic bed BY HAND. It was the "home" of a district and used heavily on weekends for camping (All sites in use often.). They WOULD NOT let the camp fall to pieces, council to the contrary notwithstanding. In 2017 I put in over 400 hours recruiting volunteers for summer camp program, and served over 300 hours at camp delivering that program with dozens of other mere volunteers. We had no camp ranger at our council Scout summer camp for five months last year after the incumbent ranger, very good with fixing but poor with people (especially his superiors on the TofO), was discharged. (There was also his habitual, loud and public use of the "F word" to modify "Scouter or "Scouters." By using the camp, Scouters and their units necessarily added to his work load, unlike the WIlderness Engineers who replace roofs and place pipelines. Ideally, we would have gotten the Camp in great shape and then closed the gate.) I was with the same troop in my present council for 25 years. I never once saw a council employee at the troop for any purpose. (I did the FOS presentations.) I did see them as a district volunteer and I did ask the two ladies at the Service Center front desk (Who knew everything bureaucratic that was worth knowing) how to do some stuff. ( I miss one - just deceased - terribly, but the other happily came back after "retirement" to soldier on for a few more years.) I valued several council employees. Got to actually know only a few as they left so quickly and spent so little time with the district or unit Scouters. One I did know is perhaps my best Scouting friend since my old patrol. He retired at 25 years - earliest possible. In short, all in all, council employees have not been a big part of my Scouting since 1981. The same was true from 1954-1967 in California. The California troop was eighteen years old when BSA arrived out there. My longest hitch here was with a troop also founded in 1908 and four year old when BSA arrived in what became the Greater Cleveland District. Scouting without B.S.A. As a district leader I had a choice of who to rely upon on issues of health at district events - a mere volunteer with a PhD in microbiology and another PhD in Public Health (Later worked for the WHO) or any of the DEs who passed through in an average of weeks. Pioneering events? George, who ran the pioneering at CanJam last year, or a newly-minted DE? Legal issues? The people who said I should report abuse only to the SE (In fairness, that bizarre direction came from National.), or the Ohio Revised Code, with which I, at least, was professionally aware? I could go on. We are relatively weak on bureaucracy, but, some of us, professional, if financially uncompensated, on unit and district program. In the rest of the world, our council would have two office/store employees (I did not count the BSA employees running our Scout Shop) and two field reps to help with starting new units and helping with interventions at "sick" units if asked. All else is done by volunteers. Somehow, with all the paid help, our membership plummets just like the bowling leagues and garden clubs. In the UK, membership has been climbing smartly - without the massive personnel budgets - just those volunteers. If we reduced to a world standard of payroll, most of our need for council funds would disappear. Based on historic data, a 75% reduction in salary and benefits expense translates into almost a 70% reduction in my council's general funds expenditure. (Our super and very professional "development" specialist has raised piles of money for capital expenditure as the Scouts of the Golden Age become the honored dead. The camp has not had better physical facilities ever, so far as the oldest memory can recall.) I am not advocating drastic change in how BSA staffs as we have enough change with which to deal. And I do not see it happening soon, but those are the numbers and necessity may produce change will he nil he.

The bulk of services - like 99% - is supplied by volunteers. The money is raised by council to meet council payroll. Our new SE tells us that the model that most of the council employee time being devoted to raising funds for council is going to change to spending time on unit service. Alternative? Follow the model of the rest of the world and spend lot's less on employees. I once met the entire paid staff of a Canadian "district" that served more youth than my council - all four of them. Windsor District. Our council employed twenty-seven at the time with a couple of vacancies, spending 93% of its income on salaries and benefits..

The "organization" in question is not "we." It's BSA. I am not BSA. You are not BSA - probably.

The judge typically tells a jury that a trial is not a contest of skill but a search for the truth. The entire process is very often a search for convictions, not the truth. As such, it is very much a contest of skill - as much as medieval trial by combat. For years the contest was uneven when wealthy defendants were the targets. They could afford lawyers far more skilled than the prosecutors. That changed some years ago with the monstrous oversupply of lawyers. Any job became a "good job," and the People are much more competently represented - often well and ruthlessly represented. The poor defendant was often - and is still often -- stuck with lame representation. I was once waiting for a judge to squeeze in a civil pretrial during a murder trial. The defendant's assigned counsel arrived and had to ask where to sit. Neither did he know what his client even looked like - contact was made by the lawyer calling out the defendant's name in the courtroom and out in the hall. The paging of clients was common at preliminary hearings, which can be important.

IIRC, the annual fee goes to National, which contributes no funds to fund council program.

My council has eliminated FOS. Instead, "loyal" Scouters are to commit to a life-long monthly automatic withdrawal from their bank account to be paid to Council. The SE has told his troops the focus is on the health of units, which he attributes to strong program. Unfortunately, I think, he sees training as a problem to solve by cutting the time scheduled (which has already been cut for Scourtmaster's from 145 hours (Wood Badge was originally to teach Scoutcraft through First Class [IOLS] to 22 hours in our council [except for as little as 18 hours if they take the consolidated course at Summer Camp]) , not by upgrading leadership, staff and syllabus. He also opposes anything "old." This is not the same as "Change is good," as we are far from the old ways today.

Not an entirely new peoblem. When I did my year as a "Teaching Assistant" (grader) in 1965-66, we were all issued a rubber door stop which was to be firmly driven under the edge of the open door before any conference with a female student commenced in your office.

Effective leaders are always are valued.

See. Isn't personal choice great?

First, there are no audited numbers and a history of padding. We lost a Scout Executive in 1926 over paper membership, the executive who left circa 2008 left 30% paper members (Council took the hit the next year as the new SE would not tolerate the practice, bless him.), and NBC reported an FBI investigation of membership padding to drive charitable contributions in 2005 (AKA "the Birmingham Scandal," wherein Ronnie Holmes got caught doing it again http://www.starnewsonline.com/news/20060603/probe-finds-alabama-boy-scout-group-inflated-membership-by-13000-youths/2 ) So if we accept BSA unaudited numbers (And what else do we have?), you are correct. We lost only 25% by the end of 1976 and only 31% by the end of the last year of the ISP, 1978. But as the goal was a big increase (Recall "Boy Power"?), not much to crow about. And the bleeding was stabilized, not stopped, when BSA went BACK to the past with Bill. Cause and effect? One can speculate. But certainly the "new" did not correspond with improvement except in its title.

Who's choice? No, it's not enough.

In each case, these companies were going the way of the buggy-whip. They're main products no longer relevant in today's market. A Kodak engineer invented the digital camera. AT&T (the original) decided in 1984 that it would get out of communications and become a manufacturer of general trade computers. That's why a communications company bought the name - the new AT&T, formerly Southwest Bell Communications. Landers, Frary and Clark - first in the world in consumer products of metal. Then gone in a few years. Westinghouse. Western Electric Soon, Sears. It's complicated. If it were easy, anyone could do it. Does the talent exist at B.S.A.? They were positive the New Scouting Program would cause a big change in membership. It did - 1/3 loss in three years.

Around here, per our SE, it's under 5%.

On that theory, will the prospective new members replace the current members? This was tried in 1972 and membership plumeted.

Representative democracy is pretty common, but so is provision for direct vote under certain circumstances. But most of us are not voters for any purpose. Just volunteer labor.

Happy to help. The Bylaws provide that the district officers (who do not include the DC) are presented as a slate to the electors and take office immediately upon receiving a vote of a simple majority of the electors "present." There is no provision whatsoever for the SE to have any role in the process, apart from his power to throw someone out of BSA entirely, which was not the case here. The rejected lawful District Chairman serves as Assistant Chairman and also as Safety Officer at the council camp. Numerous other meetings have followed but the volunteers will not elect anyone else. Our districts will soon cease to exist due to the new SE's plan to create a number of service "pods" (districts) who governance is a mystery to the volunteers. See https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/mission/pdf/513-332.pdf and you too are free to Google Boy scout bylaws district election.