Eagle94-A1

REI will not partner with BSA because of our shooting sports program. There are also other differences, but the shooting sports is a big one. None of their partners have anything to do with shooting sports. Why you no longer see ALPS Mountaineering sold by REI.

As a former National Supply employee, I can tell you first hand that most folks working for them have little to no experience in the program. I was part of a pilot program because I had the experience they needed. EVERY. SINGLE. DECISION. WAS. QUESTIONED. BY . THE. BOSS! (Major emphasis). We had merchandise we did not need, and not enough merchandise that was needed. I routinely told them stuff that was coming down the line would be a waste of time and money, and was right. Sadly the same thing happens today. I have heard a lot of complaints about the women's uniforms not fitting. All yo need to do is look at the designer, and her bio with no outdoor experience. Marketing folks who have no idea about the product. And I can go on.

I bet the loss is greater than that. I just checked my Charter last night, and one of my Scouts who aged out last year is still listed, despite us dropping him and not paying for him. He has already stated he will not stay on as an ASM because he refuses to give up his friends, and he is in college.

Wasn't that because they placed restrictions on who could work, and then later rescinded those restriction, to late for many prior Staffers who were rejected to make arrangements to staff?

Forgot to add, these are some of the reasons that unit serving folks are not happy with councils, and see no reason to support them. Also when a council asks for 20%-50% of a unit fundraiser in order to approve it, and they are doing nothing to help you, folks get resentful.

With respect, some councils do an excellent job supporting Scouting, and others do not. When folks ask for help from the council with recruiting new Scouts, and the council gives none, that is not supporting Scouting. When folks provide a budget, list of supplies, vendors, and costs with enough time to get them, only for council to ignore everything, causing the event organizing to run around last minute to get supplies locally for a higher price, and then blames them for going overbudget, that is not supporting Scouting. When folks secure a donor for an event, covers the cost of the event so prices can drop the price allowing as many Scouts to attend as possible, and they still want the original budgeted price so they can make more money, that is not supporting Scouting. When a group of volunteers who are experts in architecture and construction come to you with plans to build a needed facility comes to the council with building plans up to code specification, environmental studies, etc and a list of vendors to build it AND folks pledged to pay for the building, And council you dismiss it out of hand, that is not supporting. Scouting. You can guess what type of council mine has been

Respectfully disagree. Even though the IVF has been used against the BSA in the lawsuit, at the time it was one of the best protections for youth. There are cases in there where the parents refused to prosecute the perpetrator, so it was never brought to court. One victim posted information about his perp where the records stated the parents did not want to have their children tesitify in a court martial. Perp went to a psych hospital, and was medically discharged. Only the IVF prevented him from working for the BSA, as he applied to a job. NOW, if you are declared innocent, then I think you should be reinstated.

My friend above didn't even get a trial. She was removed, even when the criminal investigation supported her side of the story. BSA considered her "damaged goods."

Good luck. I am not trying to be a pessimist, but a realist. I have read of only 2 cases of reinstatement, and you cited one of them. The other case was a guy who walked into a bar in uniform. Long story short, before the age of cell phones, scout bus broke down in the middle of nowhere. SM walked over a mile one way to the first place that had a phone, which happened to be a bar. He called a tow company and a parent to let folks know what is going on, and left the bar. HOWEVER someone saw him, and reported him. It took him over a 18 months to get reinstated. Sadly the case I am personally aware of the Scouter was never reinstated, despite the fact the accuser had a history of lying to get out of trouble and the criminal investigation showed that he was indeed a peeping Tom spying on the female Scouter in the shower after hours. She was able to attend the Council awards banquet, as a parent, when her son was recognized as an Eagle. It got awkward when it came time for Silver Beaver recognition. They asked all previous SB recipients to stand and be recognized. Her friends that supported her urged her to stand as a Silver Beaver recipient the previous year, and she did.

This is what I wonder about. Will BSA, and the insurance companies, actually honor those policies, or see it as "3rd party releases" and not valid.

Crazy Questions, so here it goes. if SCOTUS rules against Perdue, and hence against BSA current plan, and all councils and COs are responsible, A. does that mean those organizations that contributed to the fund get their money back and B. for those post 1976 claims, will BSA honor their obligations with COs, or will COs have to sue for BSA to honor their obligations to the COs?

I am old school. I remember when Scouts could sit on BORs (1972-1989, but I know of some troops that did it later than 1989). I also remember being able to sign off on advancement, especially the First Aid Skill Award since teaching it was a requirement for First Aid MB, and hence First Class Rank. So I do let select youth sign off until 1st Class. In my experience the Youth tend to do a better job of this than adults.

I wonder who will sue who over the term Rovers. I know BSA used it in the past, but I do not think they have legally defended the term, and thus may have given up rights as a result.

The GSUSA Promise and Law are similar, but different. Some of the differences include the following: Organization Model BSA uses the charter organization concept, think franchisees, whereas GSUSA owns each and every unit. As a result you get Scouts BSA units that are 25, 50, 100+ years old GSUSA units last until there is no longer enough folks left to be a troop, and have short histories, Philosophy BSA believes that "OUTING is three-fourth of ScOUTING," and in 2019 had 85% of its members camping at least once per year. GSUSA in 2019 was proud that 12-15% of its membership camps at least once a year. More later

Campfire. If memory serves, Campfire Girls, now Campfire was the official female counterpart to BSA, started by a bunch of the same folks.

Council service team 15 posted the information on FB. Someone posted on my district's FB page. It is now deleted. I wonder if council told him to take it down.

I Tell me about it. I had a DFS attempt to humiliate me by blaming me for something that he did at a staff meeting. I kept telling him let's talk about it after the staff meeting, because I didn't want to publicly embarrass him, like he was trying to do to me. After about 5 minutes and me calmly saying let's talk about it after the staff meeting. He stopped.. When I showed him the documentation that he screwed up and not me, he got angry, told me "fine" and never said anything else to me about the topic. As for repercussions for challenging SEs, most definitely. I know one volunteer who had their membership revoked. Yep he is in the IVF for questioning financial matters the SE was doing. Worse was he Pro I know. The pro found some financial irregularities, and it escalated to a criminal matter. For his efforts he was "promoted" from a Metro sized council to one of the smallest councils in the nation.

Way back when, my SE and DFS told me how to manipulate the nominating process to get "pro-council" volunteers on the district committee. They were big donors with no experience, except as a youth or parent, on Scouting. As for firing a SE by the executive board, in my time I have seen that happen once. And he ended up in another council. Sadly BSA has a history of moving folks around or promoting them.

@AirForceMom as @dk516shows, the 18+ folks not having social contact outside of Scouting is in the YPT rules, and expanded upon in the FAQs. I cannot tell you how many 18-20 year olds, including 2 of my sons, completely quit Scouting because they refuse to give up their under 18 friends. It really sucks for them, and I do not blame them at all.

So I have been involved in Scouting for over 40 years, and I have burnt out once before. At that time I was in multiple district roles, and serving as a CSDL. Getting rid of the district roles, and focusing on the DL role helped tremendously. But this past year has been different. The constant fee increases are one thing that is affecting me. Not only has the national fees gone up, but so have the council ones. To be honest I do not see the value in the fees. I see nothing of value from the national fee, As for the council fee, the council is almost useless. Only service I get from them is the office staff. Professional staff for a number of years have been useless, or worse causing problems. I have asked for help with recruiting so I could keep my unit, and other units in the district, alive instead of starting new units that drain resources, and was no, they will start new units. I have talked in other posts about problems with events and treatment of volunteers. So I honestly cannot see paying those fees, especially with some of the families. SO that is a downer. The other downer is the troop is dying. At one time, almost all of our Scouts came from other troops. We had a very active program. But with no school recruiting, we are down to 3 packs in the old district. The troops that have packs all have close relationships with their packs, as they should, and folks are staying with their COs. We are down to a handful of scouts. We have tried a bunch of different things, but have not gotten anyone. Heck we recruited more Scouts for the girls' troop than our own. As for the Scouts, most will age out in the next 1-2 years. One will quit as soon as he gets Eagle because even with financial aid the troop is giving, they cannot afford the program. All they pay is summer camp and monthly camping meals. everything else is paid for by the troop for them. Which is sad because the Scout loves the program, and we have had 4 Eagles in the past 4 years stay with the troop until aging out. So it has been depressing. We rechartered for this year, but if things do not improve, I do not think we will be around in 2025. I will take any positive feedback, anything at all. I need spirits lifted, and it ain't happening.

That, and they want income year round, not just in the fall round up season and at recharter time.

Sea Scout story reminds me of one an ASM told me of, and peaked my interest in Sea Scouts. His ship was located in Norfolk, VA. They did not have a designated vessel to use, so they went looking for one. They found a WWII PT boat in Bangor, Maine, but they had to work on it, get is USCG approved, and transport it back to Norfolk. They took the train to Maine, worked on it for a few weeks, spent a week getting approved, then steamed from Maine to Norfolk. I think all total it was 5 or 6 weeks spent getting the boat. Forgot to mention, none of the adults went with them, just the Sea Scouts. Yes, heavy traffic, especial US Navy in some areas.

You can only teach them if they are allowed, and they can only do it right if they are encouraged to do so. Sadly I have met too many Pros who have not cared how stuff is done as long as they meet goals. Does anyone remember the Greater Alabama Council anyone?

1. WELCOME TO DA FORUMS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (and yes i am shouting at ya ) 2 Why the focus on advancement, will this be something done during classes? 3. DO SOMETHING FUN THAT THE SCOUTS WILL ENJOY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! (this time MAJOR emphasis) Summer camp is suppose to be fun, not school. Sadly too many camps are turning it into school. Do something fun and memorable that the Scouts will enjoy and want to come back for more. Do not worry about advancement. 4. Good luck. EDIT: I am an old school Scouter, in that I think the goal should be fun, not advancement. Sadly too many folks focus on advancement, including my Troop CC and Scouts. When I was a Cub Scout Day Camp PD, while most activities had some advancement element to is, not all of them. Kids had so much fun, that we doubled out numbers my second year. The year I stepped down, the camp focused on advancement again, and it was not fun for the Cubs. I came back as PD. During COVID, my troop did their own summer camp. While we did some advancement, the focus was on fun.Every one said it was the best summer camp ever, but the problem with it they said was only 2 MBs were able to be earned.

I had a friend accused of CSA and was placed in the IVF. However I cannot find her file among the ones released by a law firm a while back. I can verify that one had police intervention, and she was not prosecuted because evidence supported her , not the accuser.