Eagle94-A1

Here is the crazy thing about camp staff, some will do it for the pittance because it is fun. Hard work? Absofreakinglutely. Fun, great camraderie, making a difference, Yes in deed. How do I know, I VOLUNTEERED to work a week of summer camp since I could not go with my troop. 3 squares, a cot, tshirts, and staff necker and hat. And those items means more to me than money for some weird reason. But I know some staff cannot do that. Heck it was the reason why I didn't work staff when I was in HS: I made more in 1 day working than staff did in an entire week.

And a lack of interest in council events, especially those that used to be held at the camp sold.

I guess folks at national don't realize that some places have school until mid-June.

I do not know, nor care about my local summer camp, despite being a former staffer. It was not a great experience as a staffer, and was worst the only time I went there as a camper. I cannot recommend it. And it has gotten worse since I went from folks who have been recently. IMHO, and that of many others, it is the camp that should have been sold. especially since any time there is a major storm, there is a lot of damage to the camp due to its location. Now the local council camp that was sold was a different story. Because of it's location, folks from 3 councils used it. Heck I remember trying to plan a district event, and the prime weekend was booked by another council for their district event! Also because of it's location, units travelling up and down the East Coast would use it. I do not know the attendance stats on capacity and usage. But I do know the camp made enough to pay all its bills year round AND support the summer camp. That camp actually made money for the council.

I have seen, met, and in a few cases know personally regional and national OA officers. Bill Hillcourt said it best, "Train 'em. Trust 'em. LET THEM LEAD!" (sic)

I am skeptical of BSA's IT systems, as they have had major issues in the past. Twice in a five year period, BSA's IT system lost every single person's training, first in my district, second time was the entire council. It took me 18 months to recreate everyone's records the first time, and I am glad I kept a hard copy and electronic copy. That saved me a lot of work the second time. But I lost my trained status a few months ago, despite having everything up to date. I have seen every MBC in the council disappear. I have seen advancement records that I personally inputted later go missing, or have the wrong information. And don't forget there were issues with SYT a few months back. People were taking it, and it wasn't registering. And don't get me started on camp staff training. I spent half a day doing it because of issues with it.

Folks invest blood, sweat, tears, time, and treasure in their camps. So when one is sold, it feels like a betrayal, and you no longer trust the organization.

It sounds as if you want adults running things. If that is the case, then OA needs to stop being advertised as youth run. And yes I do think youth should run both the lodge and national. I have seen first hand what happens when adults interfere and ignore the youth, and you are seeing it too with lower interest and membership.

Remember, at one point in the 1980-2000s, and possibly a little earlier, Explorers, and Venturers until sometime after 2002, could wear their rank patch until they were 21. First two scout camps I worked at had a lot of folks wearing the rank patch on their green Exploring shirts. One of my coworkers with national supply loved modeling his Venturing uniform, when official pants and shorts came out in 2000/2001, because he could still wear the rank patch with it. He had the knot on his tan shirt.

For an organization that claims to be youth led, we got a lot of old fogeys running things

IMHO, the OA made a mistake in the 1990s when they changed the election process. Prior to the change, I saw only 1 troop, get all three elected, and the SM told them how to vote so that it was possible. Now having everyone elected is the norm. And they doubled-down on adults with SMs automatically getting in. As for old blood running things instead of the youth, I agree, but it needs to start at the national level first. I do not know what the current stats are, but at one time maybe 10% of the National Committee were youth.

From talking to youth and adults who have seen the new ceremony , it is not as good. Folks were promoting the final current ceremony, saying you really don’t want to miss out.

So, I am at Camp Cherokee in NC and having a blast. Eating well, best camp food I ever had. Thank you .

Don't forget costs. National fees are up. Councils are implementing their fees on top of that. Then uniforms and books. Then activities.

Would not recommend. As an active RT member and on the district and council training staff as an 18-20 YO ASM, and as a 21- 24 YO OA chapter adviser, many adults viewed my age in a negative light. I had been ignored, told I don't know what I am doing or talking about, and even cursed out at. All because of my age. What helped was 3 adults who saw the value in my opinions. I could say something and be completely ignored. They said the exact same thing, and it was brilliant. ASM is the way to go. They adults know them, the youth know and respect them. And they probably have more influence over the Scouts than the other adults.

UNDERSTATEMENT! (emphasis). We also lose FOS support. The district chair who was yelled and cursed out at, well not only did he quit, he stopped contributing to FOS. Talked to other business leaders about this, and they dropped their FOS contributions. Today, the area that was my old district raises 10% of what I did 30 something years ago.

And those national volunteers who do have unit connections, and voice their objections get outvoted and eventually removed. I knew one national member working on the 2015 Cub Scout program. Although he crossed over to Scouts, he still had a lot of Cub Scout connections with his old pack. He asked for ideas, shared thoughts, etc. the 2015 Cub Program was a game changer. It was more active, required a lot more planning to coordinate things with the different dens, BUT it worked if you prepared. 2015 program got watered down in December 2016, and he was removed from the committee. In fact no one from the committee knew anything about the changes until after they were announced.

The quality of out professional leadership is garbage, they keep changing requirements and processes without any consideration for the volunteers, creating further problems and hassles for volunteers to deal with. Fixed it for you.

You got me.

No, it is an attitude issue. Sadly I have seen too many pros over the years who could give a flip about the program and volunteers, they just want FOS dollars and membership increases. Some of the reasons I have seen quality volunteers leave: being yelled and cursed out at by pros; having pros cancel your event ( which has been going on for decades) to push the new council event; asking council for help, and being ignored; running an event and being told you have to have a second event at the same site and time; running an event , creating your supply order well in advance, and finding out the week of that no supplies were ordered, then having the pros ticked off at you for going over budget purchasing those supplies; and I am sure I forgot a few.

I really do not care who is responsible. But if the data disappears and it needs to be manually recollected and inputted, that is a problem. And ithat is on National, not council, for creating a system that has no backup. It took over a year for me to collect records, transcribe the training codes for the council registrar, turn into council, and have them input the lost data into the system the first time. Thankfully I kept a copy of the records I turned into the council, so I was able to submit everything before the other districts, and it was done in 3 months. But it took my council almost 2 years to get the records straight.

I have been told mandatory training for position is a liability, especially since National keep changing what it courses need to be taken to be considered "trained." I was recently considered "untrained" because I had the old SM Fundamentals Course. For whatever reason, my SM Specific classes that I added myself to the rooster, for the reasons below, were not showing up. But the ITOLS class was. But the #1 problem is BSA's IT systems are unreliable. Not only have I encountered numerous errors on the scout side over the years, I have seen numerous errors on the adult side. Twice in a 5 year period, everyone in my district had their training records vanish. EVERY.SINGLE. PERSON. From the new Cub leader, to the veteran PTC Faculty member, their training records vanished. Even recently several MBs that I have been a MBC for decades were removed from my profile. And let's admit it, online sessions are horrible. It is very easy to stop paying attention. Plus there is no question and answer.

And training.

This is what happens when you have educators, not Scouters, creating program.

One of the reasons why they dropped Webelos from 5th grade to 4th & 5th grade circa 1989. Webelos was meant to be a transition, doing things more ont he order of Boy Scouts, and prepping them. When Webelos DLs no longer got separate training with an emphasis on transitioning from Cubs to Scouts, a lot was lost. Folks were not doing the 18-24 month Webelos properly, and it became a continuation of Cubs. And now that is the norm