HashTagScouts

Yes, I would agree that only having half your staff as lifeguard cert is a concern. In the specifics of this tragic event, under the BSA aquatics policy, having the aquatics director as the sole individual over the age of 21 then would place them as the "supervisor". But if that individual isn't in actual position as to truly observe the operations and movement of that motorboat, is it really actually supervision? Knowing Hidden Valley, the swimming and canoe/kayak/rowboat area is on one side of the lake and the motorboat launch is on the opposite side (that is at one of the lakes, they also have a waterfront on a different lake that was mainly for small boat sailing). Then there is Camp Bell (both together, Hidden Valley and Camp Bell make up Griswold SR), where the main waterfront is a good distance to the opposite end of the lake. ultimate question is how many staff 21+ do they have at each of the waterfronts? I'm sure that is the angle this attorney is going to use in arguments, if that aquatics director age 21+ was on the other side of the lake when this occurred, then to the family the camp is negligent that it would be unreasonable to assume they could observe and react to what is happening several hundred feet away.

Can't speak to all parts of the US, but there have been several examples of Councils in New England trying different things. Narragansett Council effectively transferred ownership of their properties to an "outside" group- Rhode Island Boy Scouts, which in turn leases the properties back to the Council. That also allows RIBS to explore opportunities that can use properties for non-Scouting programs. One example they do at one property: Camp Norse Co-Op Spirit of Adventure Council, Daniel Webster Council and Narragansett Council are partnered to run weekend "Base Camp" half-day and full-day programs at various properties, which are open for sign-up to both Scouts and non-Scouts. Knowing several folks who have worked these weekends, their feedback is attendance could be higher if it were allowed to have one adult bringing their child and say 2-3 of their friends, but to ensure they are compliant for youth protection each youth has to be accompanied individually by an adult.

Too few adults, and resulting drop in expectations resulting by BSA are not a good combo. Not that many years ago, it was a requirement that at least one adult leader on a Scouts BSA overnight outing had to be IOLS trained. That is no longer the case (why the requirement that there had to be someone BALOO trained for Cubs, and not any requirement in Scouts BSA, IDK). IOLS can be run poorly, but by and large in my experiences those who staffed the trainings I was involved in knew what we were doing (at least within a certain skillset- I was usually woods tools and knots myself), and were dedicated to make it as fun and informative as we could, while emphasizing the real objective was to demonstrate the Patrol Method. I'd love to see some reports from a national level on just how many units don't have someone who has been IOLS trained. If you have units rolling with adult leaders who don't truly get the program, it's a big ask to who may have been the only willing volunteer to be a Commissioner and expect that person is going to impart anything onto that adult. Most of the Commissioners, whether they be Council, District, or Unit that I have interacted with in the last decade+ have been retirement age, long since been active to a unit, and often have been pressed into it. The results often were mixed, especially in light of the later part.

I'm glad you'll welcome comments. Membership started steady decline after 1999. Gay youth were not openly admitted until after 2013. How do you explain those years? “Good riddance,” SmartyPants might say. But the straight kid’s smile is the same as the trans kid’s smile when he learns to swim. But the straight kid is not at camp. Momma said, “Sorry kiddo. We’re not doing that.” 1 - 9 = -8. Don’t erase boys. Apparently, your presumption is that gay youth are not "real boys". As a youth, my son was a Scout. My son is an Eagle Scout, Vigil Honor recipient, spent years on camp staff, spent years as NYLT staff, Lodge officer, served stints as Den Chief, Quartermaster, Scribe, ASPL, and SPL for his troop. My son is also bi-sexual. He never hid that, it was never an issue that he felt was a necessary topic within Scouting and felt the same for anyone who is straight/gay/bi. That is who he is, and he who he has always been. Period. I would say your "smiles at the waterfront", while holding a bigoted view of those youth when you are away from the waterfront is far more of a problem than someone like my son having been a part of the BSA.

We may make more of that than is needed, just because many of us were around before and after the change, and we're more trying to find our own way on how adjust. Each country has their own flavor on how they have set up their program, but the comparable program to what many of us have known as "Cub Scouts" and "Boy Scouts" are just "Cub Scouts" and "Scouts" to them. Scouts UK Scouts Canada Squirrel Scouts 4-5 years Beaver Scouts 5-7 years Beaver Scouts 6-7 years Cub Scouts 8-10 years Cub Scouts 8-10.5 years Scouts 11-14 years Scouts 10.5-14 years Venturer Scouts 15-17 years Explorers 15-17 years Rover Scouts 18-26 years Network members 18-25 years Scouts Mexico Scouts Brazil Cub Scouts 6-9 years Cub Scouts 6.5-10 years Scouts 10-13 years Scouts 11-14 years Walkers 14-17 years Senior Scouts 15-17 years Rovers 18-21 years Pioneers 18-21 years

We'll get t-shirts and hang out in the lobby

I was thinking they were just not putting Venturing/Sea Scouts and Exploring on the plot line, but that was where the difference in the final numbers were. Slide 16, if expected total membership = 1,500,000 for 2028. Slide 17 Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA = $1,380,858 for 2028. Then expecting Venturing/Sea Scouts and Exploring to grow from ~37,000 in 2024 to 119,142 in 2028 I guess? The math ain't mathing.

The programs are still good. Locations are the issue. Nearly every lodge in our section would have several youth attend each year. Aside from one weekend in New Jersey, the next closest one for our Region is in Nashville, TN.

And you'd pretty much be shown the door... It was why I left. For the National org, they ultimately need to take a giant step back and re-evaluate what they do. I know that there was a lot of hand-wringing last year that NOAC attendance in TN didn't meet expectations (and looks to be the same this year in CO), and that NLS attendance has been a concern. Well, maybe having NOAC at a large university is no longer the need, and maybe a mid-sized university (or even Summit) is better. You won't quite have the hotels for staff and air-con dorms for youth attendees, but that isn't really the important part... As for NLS, under the new two-region structure, it's a great distance for many to attend. We used to rely on only having to go as far as NJ from New England for NLS (and got fortunate that at times they would hold one a year somewhere in New England). Now they want folks to travel to Pittsburgh, Maryland, Alabama, etc. Sorry, NLS is good, but it ain't that good that I'd spend $1,000 on airfare to travel for it, nor ask a teenager to do so.

During my time as Committee Chair, the UC would meet with me and the SM when they visited during a weekly troop meetings. Anything related to the unit, and what assistance we could use on items such as recruitment or program, we would discuss with the UC and bring back to the Troop committee as needed. A good UC is primarily focused on what the Council is doing and how the Council can support the unit, not how the sausage is being made at the unit level. In other words, the UC is not there there to be an HR manager and oversee every individual unit leader, they are there to be a coach to the unit leader to get the optimal outcome for the unit to flourish. Council (and by extension of the Council organization as fitting, District) should provide a UC to each unit, but it is not that each unit should provide a UC. UCs within our district do serve multiple units. Some may serve units that they used to belong with, but by-and-large those who serve as UCs generally are not hyper-active with any unit any longer (where they are still registered Scouters, they may still, depending on the individual, come and attend Pinewood Derby, Klondike Derby, OA events, etc.) as "district-at-large" representatives. This job description is good resource: NCST-Unit-Commissioner-Job-Description.pdf (scouting.org)

There were many. Scouting in World War II Detention Camps (scoutingmagazine.org)

Outside group is not participating in "Scouting programs". so would see it as at discretion to that council.

Merit-Badge-Counselor-Qualifications.pdf (scoutspirit.org)

If worrying about there's alcohol and smoking, then our troop would cease to exist- we meet at an American Legion Post, where there is a bar open for members while we are meting in the room next door. Been that way for over 70 years. We're OK for meeting weekly under such conditions, but not to use a range once a year? I could absolutely see having a checklist and stipulations on what is required when using a sportsmens club versus a commercial range- namely, a fully certified instructor must be present. I've never experienced a sportsmens club that would be OK with a member drinking at the bar and then staggering their way out on to the range. Can't speak for anyone else, but at my club, we absolutely will talk with other members if we see them doing anything that is a safety violation, and we absolutely have politely made some folks former members for not following rules. Apply similar requirements for what we do with any facility that would fall under "short term camping" provisions now and the council can have an "approved" list of facilities- it isn't that difficult, and not that time consuming.

Also factor in impact to unit planning. If your council is different than ours, God bless. I can look at our council calendar today for August-December, and there are no dates for camporee listed. I can see OA weekend dates and NYLT weekend dates. Our unit is not unlike many around us, that planning meeting with PLC will take place before the end of July. If we don't have event dates to consider, then those events are not going to be considered. We will give deflection to not plan our weekend for one of the months there is an OA weekend for those who wish to attend that, but we aren't going to plan around both months.

👀 At least we are exceeding levels from during WWII

Our GT hasn't been over 5 at any point since we charted it in 2021. They elect an SPL rather than PL, and male SPL/female SPL share responsibilities they work out between them on opening/closing and planning. On outdoor weekends, they function as their own patrol so if only two attend, they divide all their responsibilities amongst the two (cooking, KP duty, etc.). I too have seen true co-ed units as well though. One unit near me, they had only a single SPL in 2022 for "the two units", and happened to be a girl that was elected. I used the co-ed Den example in another post of what these pilots amount to. Our pack had 2 females when that pilot was announced, not in the same age, but had one DL assigned that worked with them together (1 was Bear, the other AoL). Council flat out told the Cubmaster to opt into the pilot, as many other units were already doing it co-ed anyway. These pilots aren't to "discover something new", they are to affirm where others are already going rouge.

The undoing for me last year was the constant push on converting Candidate to Ordeal. The Lodge was in my view bordering on harassment for kids to attend Ordeal with emails every week. By the time you got to November, many parents would be unsubscribing from our email list, and when they changed LM to take that option out of mass emails, I'm sure many just started blocking our email. When Nat'l officially changed to allow 18 months to complete Ordeal, it was the last straw for me- to obvious it was about numbers which equal $$$ than it was about nor or quality in the achievement. for our Lodge, and many in the northern climes, elections took place in spring, and we'd have Ordeal weekends in May and either August & September or September & October. So, basically 3 opportunities after election. That 18 month change, the way it lays out on the calendar, was now 6 opportunities.

And I endorse this. Building anticipation in Cubs that at the next program level they will be on their own mentored by other kids is the correct approach. We've lost that mentality far too much IMO.

I never was a fan of units that pencil-whipped kids who had earned AoL through Boy Scout rank requirements. That doesn't mean they should have gone to an extreme and unnecessarily made kids wait to get rank requirements signed off, but rather they could actually, you know, test the kids on campouts to see where their skillset is at. I lamented (about a decade ago now I believe) when they pushed more outdoor cooking requirements down to the Cub program, that it would build more anticipation of kids/parents that would react with "I've already done that" when they hit troops. BSA seemed to knee-jerk course correction entirely in the other direction a few years ago. The bottom line I take as an outside observer to Cubs: the program was fine as was 20-30 years ago. Never should have started introducing all these "pathway" modules, as DLs just got so fixated on ticking those boxes that 1) they forgot it is about having fun, and 2) it created book learners, not experience learners, and that is not ever a good thing for troop program that should be focused on outdoor learning-by-doing.

Scouts Canada and Scouts UK, they are just called Scouts. Scouts BSA felt redundant to me anyway. I'm not concerned with a name change, nor any administrative hoopla fixes as to whether a girl unit is a troop or if it is just a patrol (or even if mixed patrols are allowed). I am concerned with long-term viability of program, and none of these changes to me are going to solve this. I'd love to share the optimism others are expressing here, but to be quite blunt, we heard all of that when girls were allowed to all programs, and what are the results? My council follows what national has directed, and that is to focus messaging on "positives", so the girl membership numbers are shared in comms but radio silence on the overall numbers. Yes, female youth numbers have had small increase each year for our council, but the male numbers have continued to drop. It's time for the organization, by whatever name they want to be known as, to stop reporting membership numbers on gender- the ship has sailed on this- and get back to talking turkey on the overall membership number. We aren't talking about breaking out the adult volunteer numbers between male and female, stop doing it with the youth already.

Co-ed Dens was a pilot too- about three years after folks were already doing it. Anything that the E board does that adds even a rationalization that they increased membership by 1 youth, they are not going to undo that. This will impact units like mine, that as of today would be in a struggle for the third year in a row to hit 5 youth to recharter. Now, being a co-ed unit, we could recharter with 1, 2, 3, 4, or even none.

@InquisitiveScouter Here's the text of that message: An announcement was made today during the BSA National Annual Meeting regarding Scouts BSA. The BSA has received feedback through member surveys, councils, and other sources that have encouraged a third option be made available to serve youth and their families interested in Scouting. This option would be a “combined troop” option to help serve all youth and families that wish to participate in Scouting guided by the Scout Oath and Law. The National Executive Committee (NEC) has authorized the Scouts BSA Committee to conduct a limited pilot from September 1, 2024, through July 2025. The Scouts BSA Committee will collect feedback from participants and make a recommendation based on the data on the program to the NEC in 2025.

Council contact shared to our unit in a text. Supposedly will be announced later this week in our council newsletter.

And there you go- there is your new logo in that email