elitts

Oh, I'm certain an advisory group is important to the TCC and the establishment of one is a central part of what the TCC wants out of the bankruptcy. Though what the TCC is looking for isn't so much an advisory group as a watchdog. (which I don't find fault with either) What I was trying to get across is that even if we were looking at a working group that was everything the TCC desired, once that group is created, the bankruptcy and the acrimony involved, the struggles of the people who pushed for it... none of that should be relevant to operation of what is intended to be an independent advisory/watchdog group. In a really simplistic way it's much like raising self-sufficient kids. You put in tons of effort, try and shape them based upon your beliefs and past history, possibly bicker and fight with your co-parent, and then when they are ready they go off to live. But once they do, the past history of the parents that shaped their strategies, the fights they may have had, the goals they may have had; none of those are really relevant to the ongoing life of the child. (if you did it right) It's not a matter of underestimating specific people, its just knowing how people work. Very very few people I've ever met would be able to set aside their animosity towards someone/thing that they viewed as having destroyed their life and work with them with an open mind and heart. And frankly, those people I have met who could do so were so dispassionate that they'd be unlikely champions of anything in the first place. I have no doubt that John Humphrey is sincere about his stated purpose in life, I just think expecting anyone who has been in his place to stop viewing everything related to the BSA with suspicion would be asking a miracle.

They were selected to represent survivors as one side of a fairly contentious bankruptcy proceeding. But nothing about the "Survivor Advisory working group" is directly related to bankruptcy other than the fact that something of it's nature was desired by the TCC. Knowledge of the workings and machinations of the case isn't relevant to what the group should be working on and shouldn't really be viewed as an asset in my mind. Now I'll grant you that their knowledge of BSA Youth Protection probably IS a benefit, but if it were me, even if the coalition didn't exist, when it came time to fill positions the actual members of the TCC wouldn't be anywhere on my list of desirable candidates. Not because I'd be looking for stooges that would let me get away with anything, but because I truly don't think any actively involved victim could come out of 2 years of emotionally taxing contention in a bankruptcy case and be able to switch to a "lets work together to make it happen" role instead. I can see letting the TCC pick some of the survivor members of a group, but not take the positions themselves.

LOL! You aren't kidding! I remember my first awards night as Asst. Cubmaster. We had one new Tiger getting awarded like 22 belt-loops, 3 months after joining; with the average for every other scout being about 3. Cubmaster's comment after handing them to the scout was "Wow, mom and dad you sure did a great job of signing his book!" The next meeting we had a conversation with all the parents while the scouts were out playing a game about what it means to complete requirements. In particular about how "Oh, we all did this once as a family 3 years ago" is not the same as completing the requirements him/herself.

I initiated the last action against CynicalScouter because he had become abusive towards others, was posting replies that were entirely irrelevant to the comments he was replying to and was doing so in such volume that it was functionally the same as spamming the forum. I'm not certain what triggered the change in his posting from the fairly cool and concise analysis that he had been offering but no forum moderator can allow someone to behave that way and retain any legitimacy as being impartial. I even reached out to him via direct message when the 1 week pre-approval began and explained that it was temporary and that we were not attempting to make him change his message in any way and asked him to continue participating in a civil and thread relevant manner, but he declined. However, I know that he has been absent for several months in the past and returned so there is still a chance that he'll return at some point.

If the group starts talking about the case in any way, I'd become skeptical really fast, but I certainly wouldn't expect them to be putting people into a working group that are openly antagonistic to the BSA (for whatever reason).

Why disappointed? The TCC isn't even technically an independent organization it's just a temporary collection of people involved in a bankruptcy with a sole focus on the bankruptcy; I wouldn't expect any activities occurring outside the bankruptcy to include such a non-entity until such time as there is a likely agreement and the group becomes likely to have ongoing authority based upon the discharge. As far as the group size goes, I don't think you are seeing everything that is being said there. The group size is 15-20 with 8-12 survivors. So survivors will compose 40%-60% of the group with the remainder being made up either BSA officials or outside experts. I'd fully expect there to be some manner of independent CSA expert added to the group so that leaves 6-11 spots for BSA officials; so it's not like they can pack the group with sycophants to drown out the survivors. But the important point here is that the stated plan specifically names the positions that will be a part of the group rather than leaving it open. So you will have an advisory group with either a large minority or an outright majority survivor membership with direct access to: The CEO, the Chair of BSA's Safe Scouting Support Committee, the Executive Vice President and Youth Development Officer, the Director of Membership Standards, the Chair of BSA's Audit and Risk Management Standing Committee of the Executive Board Essentially they'll have all the levers of power relevant to Youth Protection within the BSA sitting in the room with them. In less desirable circumstances you'd see a working group like this made up of survivors and then various executive assistants or assistant VPs and you'd just be hoping that any recommendations actually made it in front of the top brass.

Except that the federal government has no jurisdiction over the Statutes of Limitations in Child Abuse cases in state courts. Even if this passes, it would only be relevant to cases that could be filed in federal court.

The portion of the article I amended I did so because the author is evidently making a misstatement. He says ["no one on one" specifically states that adult/youth interaction is not appropriate without another adult"] The term "specifically states" is used to indicate a direct quote. However, there is no portion of the G2SS that says what he claims to be quoting; therefore I looked for the closest possible piece of text and found a very near match, one that is in keeping with the rest of the author's points. The only other explanation that makes sense is that the author was referring to rules regarding social media/phone/internet interactions where the G2SS now explicitly states that another adult must be included on EVERYTHING. Most everyone over the age of 9 or 10 knows the difference between being told "This is not allowed" and "This is not a good practice". I'm not sure if you just can't tell the difference between the wording or if you are just trying to go with the gist of these statements and getting it wrong. So just to make it super duper clear. When an authority figure is asked "Is X allowed?" if the person responds by saying "NO.". Then that action is against the rules. If they respond by saying "We Recommend", "We Suggest", "We Prefer" or "It's not a good practice", then they are saying "It's technically allowed". And just to confirm that this person BOS is quoting was indeed offering "best practice" advice rather than a "rule", here is what the BSA says first hand about travelling in a car: Q. How do the Barriers to Abuse apply to transportation? A. An adult may not drive or be alone in the car with a Scout unless that Scout is their own child. An adult may drive two or more Scouts. https://www.scouting.org/health-and-safety/yp-faqs/ So. 2 or more scouts = Not Alone.

Try reading all of the article instead of ignoring the parts that don't support your position. You are currently arguing that a lone adult is breaking the rules even though the author references THIS EXACT SITUATION by saying: What about if there are only two adults present on a campout of eight Scouts, and one group wants to go hiking while the other stays at camp to fish? While Youth Protection policies don’t expressly forbid it, it’s not the recommended approach because of health and safety concerns. That's either poor phrasing or a typo. I inserted the missing text for you. ["no one-on-one" specifically states that one-on-one (inserted text) adult/youth interaction is not appropriate without another adult...] Since several points earlier in the article explicitly state that there ARE times when adult/youth interactions are appropriate as long as another scout is there. You understand what "alone" means right? a·lone /əˈlōn/ Learn to pronounce adjective adjective: alone having no one else present. "she was alone that evening" So, by definition, if multiple scouts are present, an adult is not "alone" with with any scout. No, that's not at all what they are talking about. "Program appropriate supervision" means that you have someone knowledgeable enough about the subject matter to provide appropriate supervision. ie: a Lifeguard when swimming, a climbing instructor when climbing. "Age appropriate supervision" means having the correct ratio of adults to youth depending on the age of the scouts. ie: Lions and Tigers must have a parent/guardian present. Cubs at summer camp must have a youth:adult ratio of no more than X scouts per adult. You can tell that this is what they are talking about because "Program appropriate supervision" must vary depending on the program and "age appropriate supervision" must vary depending on the age of the scouts. Otherwise they are using meaningless descriptors to talk about the types of supervision needed.

I'm sure there are plenty of people who don't understand the rules and some places that have decided to implement stricter versions of the rules, but that doesn't change the fact that what you've described here isn't how the BSA rules are meant to be applied. You say this blog post is how you interpret things. Here is a notable passage: The article makes it clear the BSA would PREFER to always have 2 adults present whenever there is adult:scout interactions, but it isn't a requirement. And if the option is available, I'd agree with keeping adults paired as much as possible. But it's important that people understand that 1 adult with multiple scouts isn't actually breaking a rule so we don't end up with local SEs dealing with large numbers of YP violation reports where no violation exists.

"No one-on-one contact" has NEVER required two adults be present for anything. Here's the Scouting.com article that explicitly describes the purposes of the two rules and states clearly that you do not need 2 adults supervising at all times, as long as they are present at the event. It even explicitly states that while sending one adult off to hike with a group of scouts isn't the preferred option, it's not a violation of the rules. Just wanna be clear, being the only adult with multiple scouts satisfies "No one-on-one contact" not "Two Deep Leadership".

That's not a loophole, that's the designed purpose of the rule. Two-Deep leadership is about emergency response, not protecting kids from the adults. You regularly conflate these even though they serve separate purposes. Most critically, Two-Deep Leadership does NOT require that the 2 adults be within sight of each other. If one is sleeping and one is awake, Two-Deep is maintained. If one is running to grab a soda at the trading post (a minute or three away) and one is in camp, Two-Deep Leadership is maintained. If one runs to the store 20 minutes away, Two-Deep has not been maintained because the second leader is not accessible in the case of an emergency. You can "think" there should be two adults present and watching at any kid related task, but that's not now, nor has it ever been the rule, and your thinking that's the way it should be doesn't mean everyone else is exploiting a loophole. I will grant though that a hike can be a grey area depending on where the hike goes and how far the scouts would be from help in an emergency.

With my old pack we ended up finding that being flexible on how things got paid helped a lot. We ended up allowing Paypal (they pay the fee) or Venmo or Cash App (I think the treasurer just collected payment and then transferred it to the troop). Once we did that, it helped a ton. There's a lot of people for whom just remembering to bring the checkbook or cash is the biggest issue. Also, think about a better fundraiser. My pack used to sell christmas wreaths. We bought them for $11, sold them for $20. And we sold about 1100 per year. I did put together a prize package for the kids and we had a roller skating pizza party for everyone who sold. (though everyone was invited in the end) I think my expenses ran to about $1200 off our $9900 profit. My troop has also had good luck with selling Lilys for Easter.

Do you allow a single adult to go anywhere with groups of scouts? Or is camp your concern because there are private places (tents) where someone could attempt to get a scout alone? A troop requiring 2 adults in camp is a more achievable goal than requiring adults always be paired for everything. We always have 4 adults at summer camp, and try desperately to have 6, but sometimes 4 is the best we can do for some days; and only being able to accomplish 2 things at once because the adults need to remain paired would be a problem. I know the way we (or I at least) handle a single scout straggling into camp is by either removing myself if I'm not doing anything useful, or simply telling them to "go over there and stay there" until other folks return. A nutcase could still argue I was grooming a scout from 70 feet away by sharpening tomahawks while the scout tried to get a bottle of water to land bottom down, but that's a risk I'm willing to take. You mean Two-Deep Leadership? I'm not sure how you could not comply with that rule at summer camp given the fact that there are literally dozens of registered adults all over the place. Even if you are a single scoutmaster with a troop, by showing up to summer camp you would automatically be in compliance with the Two-Deep requirement. After all, "Summer Camp" is the activity, not "my campsite".

It's a nice dream, but simply isn't feasible in a Scout level program. My troop has oodles of adult volunteers compared to many troops and even we would find our operations severely curtailed if 2 adults were required to be in pairs at all times. Particularly at summer camp. Not to mention the fact that I'm pretty sure I couldn't function for a full week without being able to take a nap or go to bed early occasionally. (which would leave my buddy stuck in their tent too) I would imagine you'd need to go back through existing case files and try and determine retroactively whether having that rule in place would have had an impact. If you find cases over the last 30 years where some unregistered adult (who would have failed a background check) abused scouts in the first 71 hours of being on an overnight, you have evidence that the rule needs to be changed.

I apologize because I'm sure I could go back and dig up this info, but I dread the amount of time it would take. What was the estimate of time-barred vs non-barred claims and what does the averaged $/victim look like if all the time barred claims are figured at the "quick-pay" amount?

Personally, I don't think bullying should be included with the CSA training anyway. If you give people two different areas to think about, they'll default to thinking the most about the one they view as "most likely" or most common and give much less attention to the other one.

Absolutely. Where I get hesitant with zero tolerance is in areas where they violated the letter of the policy but not the spirit. For example, I'm the equipment coordinator for our troop. I said to the QM and Asst. "Hey, lets go out to the trailer to do something" then we headed off with me in the lead. But on the way, the Asst. (unbeknownst to me) decided to go to the bathroom and I didn't notice cause I was lost in my own thoughts about what we were about to organize. I was out there alone, in the dusk, with just one scout for a good 5-10 minutes before I realized there wasn't enough noise outside the trailer for 2 scouts and checked and I sent him back to wait till the other guy was ready. Now, a rational look at it would make it clear I hadn't intended to violate no one-on-one, but in a "zero tolerance world" that would result in me being referred to the SE as a YP violator and then who knows from there. But if you were talking about someone clearly attempting to violate YP rules by say, inviting a single scout over to his house without anyone else being present, I'm all for kicking them out and even referring them to the police for good measure. Regardless of whether or not any abuse happens.

That's actually a brilliant idea. and it's definitely happening next summer at our camp. Maybe on Tuesday and Friday (for the car ride home).

You are talking about something different. Zero Tolerance Youth Protection policies refer to requirements that any and all infractions be handled officially and penalized fully, regardless of circumstances. The problem with policies of that nature is that you pretty much always end up with innocent people getting caught up in formal actions over unintentional mistakes. Examples abound but include things like school suspensions or expulsions for forgetting you have a jackknife in your coat pocket after a weekend camping or kids being penalized for using "finger guns" when playing on the playground. Completely different from having "zero tolerance for CSA".

Normally I wouldn't discuss user issues, but given his profile pic and signature I'm going to make an exception: Regardless of the impression given by his profile picture and signature line, CynicalScouter is NOT banned from the forum, or even blocked from posting. He merely received a 1 week penalty that requires his posts be approved by a moderator before they are visible as a result of posting behavior that was un-scoutlike and very near abusive/spamming.

Normally I wouldn't discuss user issues, but given his profile pic and signature I'm going to make an exception: Regardless of the impression given by his profile picture and signature line, CynicalScouter is NOT banned from the forum, or even blocked from posting. He merely received a 1 week penalty that requires his posts be approved by a moderator before they are visible as a result of posting behavior that was un-scoutlike and very near abusive/spamming.

Normally I wouldn't discuss user issues, but given his profile pic and signature I'm going to make an exception: Regardless of the impression given by his profile picture and signature line, CynicalScouter is NOT banned from the forum, or even blocked from posting. He merely received a 1 week penalty that requires his posts be approved by a moderator before they are visible as a result of posting behavior that was un-scoutlike and very near abusive/spamming.

Alright folks, I know the issues get emotional but we need to stay focused on the conversation specific to this thread. If someone says something in this thread, reply in the context of this thread, please do not turn a comment here into a generic response to a user's previous postings or the conversations happening in other threads. I've hidden a bunch of posts, and I'll be going back and hiding a few more. If you think I've hidden something unfairly, please email the moderator staff and other eyes can review my decision.

In a world where a large chunk of the US population still doesn't think kids should be taught anything about sex other than "Don't do it" I am certain there's parents who would assume the ONLY way such a conversation could happen would be if their "precious innocent child" was having knowledge of sex forced upon them by another youth. This is how we get prosecutions for rape when 13-15 year olds are having consensual sex.