Eagle1993

BSA has clear rules that the unit violated. I'm not sure what else the BSA could have done to prevent this. Now, the council who owns the camp. If any council employee was aware of this situation or gave approval, then the council should be held liable. If it simply happened at their camp, without their approval nor seen by any employee ... then I struggle to see how they are liable. If all the council did was having unapproved targets, I struggle to see how that would be blamed for this incident. Unit leaders & CO ... could be held liable. How was the barrel not pointed down range? No safety official overseeing the range is disturbing. Ammo on tables happens all the time and is fine. Same with guns (though these clearly violate BSA policy).

Lawsuit filed against the council & BSA. Suit against Boy Scouts: ‘Pattern of failures’ led to fatal shooting of 11-year-old at Hawaii campsite (hawaiinewsnow.com) one of the Scout parents brought about a dozen firearms, including an AK-47 semi-automatic assault rifle, an AR-15, an M-4 carbine, four shotguns, and four Glock pistols. As children were shooting high-powered rifles, the lawsuit says, no safety official was overseeing the range or tables filled with guns and ammo. Carvalho was sitting in a chair behind the firing line, when another boy picked up the AK-47 and set it back down, an act that discharged a round that hit Carvalho in the back of his head. There was no magazine in the rifle, but a round had been left in the chamber. something the family believes could have been prevented had safety protocols been in place.

I'll start by saying I hope I am wrong ... GSUSA, seeing BSA as a threat, continues their focus on girl only scouting in successful fundraising campaigns. Those funds help them maintain/increase staff, increase offerings and help with advertising, keeping them the organization of choice for most girls. Parents looking at organizations see GSUSA with more camp offerings, more STEM opportunities and in general an organization that doesn't look in financial ruin. BSA leadership continue to struggle to communicate their vision & purpose. Prior supporters who were conservative do not come back as they consider BSA too woke. Progressive/liberals who left during Dale do not come on board given religious requirements & fight with GSUSA. BSA exits bankruptcy in financial peril. Debt payments to JP Morgan outpace their ability to pay due to lack of significant fundraising and membership stagnation. BSA quickly merges councils, cuts programs/offerings and raises fees at HA bases and registration to help offset their debt load. They stop offerings that are not profitable and nearly every activity is looked at as a P&L line item. (Offer this merit badge as we can make $$$, kill camping at this camporee as food costs are too high). This causes further disruption in the ranks and prevents a response to GSUSA's aggressive recruiting of girls. BSA enters bankruptcy in 2028 and loses several HA bases, sold to Elon Musk who uses them as Space X launch locations. Girls represent 25% of their membership by 2030, but membership is still at only 1M members. Colleges see Eagle Scout as less and less of a benefit and therefore, parents see less benefit driving kids to stay in or join BSA with a goal of obtaining Eagle. This further erodes membership numbers. Trails Life announce record recruiting ... but yet still at 30,000 members. GSUSA buys the Eagle Scout trademark. .... it could definitely go @Cburkhardtpath & I hope it does. I just think National Leadership is going to have to improve how they lead the organization as we are still in financial peril. Navigating the financial situation while addressing the needs/wants of millennial/gen z parents & gen alpha youth is going to be difficult. I'm not convinced they have it in them.

In my area, to get into the selective private middle schools you just need to ensure your $25,000 check doesn't bounce.

I think you make a good point and I agree, most councils struggle with their current responsibilities. I started the 1st girls den in my council and my daughter was the 1st registered girl in Cub Scouts in my council. It started with ~10 girls or so across several different grades. The biggest group came from a GSUSA troop that folded. Over time, GSUSA did a better job in my school with retaining Troops and girls decided to stay in GSUSA. My daughter ended up dropping out of Cub Scouts in 4th grade when there were no remaining girls in the Pack. She is happy hanging out with the boys, but also wants some girls present. We attempted recruiting, but every girl interested in scouts went to GSUSA (my daughter did as well). Similar story with our girl's troop. We started strong with some very active girls. However, it never really rose above 7 girls. They were adament, they wanted to remain linked to the boy's troop ... but over time, more and more dropped out. Most dropped out as they are very active with sports, rock climbing, dance, etc. and just didn't have time for scouts. Some had similar comments to boys who leave ... scouts is becoming boring (they don't want any meetings, just go out hiking, camping & canoeing). Perhaps if we had a 20+ girl Troop and the girls all had friends they would have stayed. We are now down to 3 girls (including my daughter). If we don't get more, the Troop will fold. I've talked through my council and many girl units have similar stories. Initial surge, then this decline. I am interested in a council by council breakdown of girls in scouts as the story may not be consistent nationwide. Personally, I would welcome the council coming into my town and setting up a dedicated girl Troop. Grab the 3 girls from the 3-4 different girl troops in the area to form a 10-12 member troop & recruit to grow that. I simply do not have time until I leave my current Troop ... which I won't do until my son ages out. But ... I agree, that is a lot to but on councils, so I fear we will simply watch this limp forward. GSUSA's dominance of recruiting K-5th grade girls will limit girls in packs and that is the main feed for girls in Scouts BSA. If you don't change that somehow, I'm not sure this will succeed.

Correct, most of the issues are above-unit levels. At the unit level, the program works well for girls. While GSUSA has a great K-5th grade program, it drops off significantly after which is where Scouts BSA shines. What would I change going forward? Just a few ideas .... 1) Councils need to be much more active building up Girl Troops. Perhaps even finding district/council level volunteers to help create the Troops. I have heard of several stories where girls in Cub Scouts had no Troop to transition into. 2) Support new Troops to help build up equipment. One girl Troop I met at summer camp was in sad shape in terms of equipment. It is expensive and takes years to build up patrol boxes, stoves, troop tents, dining flies, Klondike sleds, white gas stoves, etc., etc. I expect Councils could likely find equipment from Troops in decline that could be used by these new Troops. We need strong girl Troops in all districts and councils need to be more active helping to ramp this up. 3) National & local advertising campaign ... most girls have no clue this is an option 4) Tools and direct support from councils to recruit 11-17 year olds into Girls Troops ... most of our recruiting experience is at the Cub Scout level ... GSUSA dominates there 5) National working on corp. partnerships (GSUSA destroys BSA in this area). Many of these could apply to boy troops as well. My #1 issue is Roger Mosby. Seems like a nice guy, but not a great leader of an organization.

What is BSA's goal? I think the only way you can say anything is a success is to set a goal and measure against that value. UK scouts has 443,777 6-18 year olds in scouts and a goal of 547,000 by 2025. They have detailed breakdowns of this goal. What is our goal and a council by council look at progress to that goal? UK scouting has about 4% of youth registered (excluding waiting list of 90,000 youth).. BSA is about 1.5%. UK is at 87% of their 2019 numbers... BSA is at 50%. I struggle to see much to cheer about in terms of BSA youth participation. In terms of girls and the summer camps I have attended, the number of girls seemed to jump quickly in 2019 and haven't grown that much since. I typically only see 1-2 patrols of girls out of 25-30 at camporees. What should be done varies by council and unit. I believe drastic changes are required and most if not all of those apply to both girls and boys. It all starts with our national leadership.

For those closer to the case, any details regarding the hearing Feb 21? Looks like the Coalition is asking for $21M and Pfau/Zalkin is looking for $3.5M. Is this coming directly from BSA (who has around $80M of cash) or out of the settlement? Will coalition law firms reduce their 33 - 40% commission or are they simply double dipping?

This is not true. OA is struggling for many other reasons. One is council mergers. OA meetings prior to our council merger were a 30 min round trip away. Now they are 1 hr and 45 mins. OA ordeal used to occur at our council summer camp. Our council no longer has a summer camp. Service was at a local camp (35 mins away). That camp has been sold and service is now not linked to camps. Yes, AIA is one aspect that should be discussed, but changing that won't mean OA has solved it's long term role or relevence. In fact, removing AIA without lodge involvement could kill OA.

One issue for some Troops, including ours. OA election in March and our council doesn't have a summer camp. So, for Ordeal you have two opportunities. One a few weeks after selecting and one in the fall. If you have a fall sport (many youth) you really only have a few weeks notice and may have a conflict. Some Troops don't let scouts know until summer camp, so for those, they really have only one opportunity for Ordeal. This will give scouts a bit more time to attend Ordeal the next spring. Will it make a big difference, who knows.

Just 1 example here: Boy Scout OA Dance Teams - PowWows.com Forums - Native American Culture Just one of many negative quotes from various forum members from tribes about order of the arrow... Then there are articles about BSA and NA: Boy Scouts ‘have been one of the worst culprits’ of cultural appropriation - ICT News Order of the Arrow is a ‘secret’ scout society ‘in the spirit of the Lenni Lenape’ - a Lenape leader disagrees - ICT News Personally, I think we make a mistake when we generalize or even reference "Indian" culture. There isn't an "Indian culture" in the USA. There are tribal cultures. If a specific tribe is working with a lodge, I'm not sure why anyone from the outside would have an issue. I know there are several lodges that have good relationships with tribes. I hope that can continue. That said, to think no one from the NA community has a problem with this is completely wrong. However, BSA & National OA can make whatever decisions they think is best.

BSA v Dale .... BSA has the 1st amendment right to revoke membership of someone who is gay. I am 100% certain they have the 1st amendment right to revoke membership of someone who violates their policy on usage of regalia. BSA has the power to set the policy for their organization (with some limits on protected classes in some cases). If they decide that usage of regalia in the OA would violate their principles, they could kick them out.

Good timing ... we actually have some movement. Looks like 2/9 & 2/10 there will be appeals hearings.

When I took over for my pack several years ago it had a negative balance. I had to loan the pack $1500 to pay for room reservations, etc. that were due before we were able to collect annual dues and complete the popcorn fundraiser. Running negative or close to negative is a bad situation. I fully agree, stick to the budget. Cash flow per year should be 0 (assuming you depreciate your equipment to ensure that can be maintained). $35 per scout seems a bit high and a nice to have. We purchased a real arrow for each scout and wrote their name & date on the arrow (someone with good hand writing). The cost was on the order of $3-5 each and the kids loved them.

My Troops interest in the OA is now gone. After seeing two camps sold a few years ago and various council mergers, OA service was limited to one of the two remaining camps and meetings were a 1.5 hour round trip commute. Now we have sold the camp the OA spent the most time on. I see no remaining interest in the OA from my scouts. I think there are ways to save it (change OA to districts, perhaps align to closer to venturing (with service/leadership)). There are options. If it remains unchanged I expect it will be a footnote in my council.

100% agree ... GSUSA has 1.7M youth ... far more than BSA (who as everyone knows allows girls in). While in my area, GSUSA is still going strong, girl troops and girls in packs are languishing. I see perhaps 1 girl patrol at Klondike and other camporees and a few girls there and there mixed in with boy patrols. Many girl troops in my area are struggling to hit the minimum 4 girls to register. I talked with a leader of a council next to mine ... same situation. While it is great to see a few good examples of girls doing well in scouting, it does not appear to be widespread. I would love to see numbers across the USA, but that is hard to find (they were highlighting those early after adoption, but no longer). Where GSUSA struggles is post 5th grade (my daughter's Troop of 25 girls will not exist in 6th grade). I wonder if BSA could have partnered with GSUSA for a program for older girls. Now that will never happen. So, I still see the vast majority of girls enter into GSUSA (vs Cub Scouts) and then have little post 5th grade. I think BSA has a chance if they could organize and recruit those girls into Troops ... but that is not happening (at least systemically).

It failed. BSA declined to barely 1M youth served after admitting girls in 2019 (when they were over 2M). Outside small pockets of success, there was no mass groundswell of families or girls joining BSA. It caused dissention in the ranks just before we needed everyone all in as we entered bankruptcy. All in all, 4 years in and if I had to give a grade, it would be an F. Now, can BSA recover? Perhaps. Just not with the current national leadership.

This is required to earn their top award (Chief Scout's Gold Award)

I think many of us would agree the aims of scouting including citizenship development. The question is the how (methods). In order to achieve the top rank in UK Scouts, you have to complete 9 challenge awards. Of those, 1 is similar to BSA's Citizenship list. Below are the requirements of the "World Challenge Award". You can see all of our 4 Citizenships in this one award. I also notice that it would be tough to earn this sitting in a classroom (in fact, there is almost no classroom aspect to this award). This is about taking action (6 of the 7 requirements are about taking action, 1 is about self-directed research). Now compare to our Citizenships which use the term "explain" all the time with no linkage to actively participating in anything. Simplify & combine our Citizenships and focus on action ... that will lead to better results (from actually gaining and retaining knowledge to BSA retaining scouts). World Challenge Award Requirements: Whether you’re volunteering in your local community or learning about an international issue, this award is all about exploring the world from your doorstep and making a positive impact. How to earn your badge: Choose an aspect of local community life and find out as much as you can about it. You could learn about: local government local history different faiths and beliefs types of farming/industry found locally 2. Spend a day volunteering with and finding out about a service in your local community: What are their challenges? Who relies on this service? What positive impact could you have on this service in the future? Services could be homeless shelters, local nature reserves, care homes and food banks. 3. Take part in an activity that reflects upon and explores your own beliefs, attitudes and values (this may or may not include religious beliefs). What values do we share as Scouts? Which Scout value means the most to you? 4. Take part in an activity that explores common beliefs and attitudes towards gender or disability in different societies. You could look at this in the context of music, sport and fashion. 5. Take an active part in an environmental project. 6. Investigate and try to make contact with Scouts in another country. Make sure you and your leader read the International Links Guidance. 7. Take part in an activity that explores an international issue.

The merit badge program for Eagle is not designed well. I think it does little to keep youth in scouting, is redundant, boring and not aligned with the "outing" in scouting. It is what it is. National doesn't seem to care. So, either scouts slog through it or Eagle factories pump out the clinics for youth who want to add Eagle Scout to their resume. I've heard more positive feedback about Society than other Citizenships. However, given the group setting and Troop size, we have only had one chance to earn it... So it could catch a lot of youth by surprise if they procrastinate.

I think this is true for the whole of scouting. The lack of girl troops in scouting is because, for the most part, the bulk of citizens don't care. Same reason why scouting is falling for boys ... because the bulk of citizens don't care about scouting. In 1960, 20% of boys were in scouts. Just talking about boys, if the same ratio existed today, we would have 6 million scouts. Since we offer services to girls as well, we should have close to 12 million scouts. We are under 1 million scouts across boys & girls. I think BSA can help change this, but National Leadership is mute. BSA has a lot of choices to make. One is going to have to be if they tell girls they have no option after 5th grade while the boys they had been working with move on to Troops. I'm seeing this frequently as many girl only troops struggle to maintain 5 scouts in my area. (Boy Troops are also falling/dropping). If BSA does not want to give that message, then they could allow coed Troops. No need for additional overhead to create single gender girl troops. I would expect more Troops would be available for girls. If BSA does not like those two choices, the only other option is to stop admitting girls into Cub Scouts if there is not a path for them in Scouts BSA. Perhaps that is decided at District Level. This is a bit of chicken/egg situation as previously mentioned, but Boy Scouts of America started at the Troop level. I would argue Troops/Boy Scouts/Scouts BSA has the biggest impact on youth, is the most unique offering BSA offers and has the most important impact on the country at large. If you cannot first setup Girl Troops in your district, then you shouldn't start allowing girls in Cub Scouts. None of this helps the question at hand. You have 2 options. Lone scout OR creating a girls only Troop by recruiting more girls. Perhaps an existing boy troop will help be a linked unit.

From what I can tell, the case is going to District Court for appeal. District court accepted the case and layed out various ground rules. I could not find any dates or schedules yet.

Boring meetings: What do they want to do? Maybe focus the meetings on what fun activities you can do on your monthly weekend. This one has been mentioned by multiple scouts in many Troops. You are definitely not alone here. My son's best friend, who dropped out of scouts (from another Troop) said Boy Scouts is 10 hours of boring meetings for every weekend of camping. His thought ... just skip the meetings and go camping. His Troop had gone from ~60 scouts to 9 in the last 4 years and are on the verge of collapse. I've talked with several parents in our Troop who were scouts 20-30-40 years ago. When we met back then, we planned various outings during our meetings (in addition to scout skills). However, kids today do not typically meet in person to plan activities. They do it over Discord or other online communication tools. One thought we had was to simply allow scouts to meet over discord to do planning activities (if they prefer that method). Then, keep meetings to games/scout skills/advancement. We would perhaps eliminate a meeting or two a month. (Personally, I prefer the in-person meetings. In addition, the PLC says they like meeting in person; however, I'm not sure if that is because they think that is what the adults want to hear. We haven't changed yet, but it is on the table). You have some tough choices. I wouldn't blame you if adults step in a while to save the Troop. However, it shouldn't be the permanent solution. Perhaps adults plan a fun/engaging meeting and then meets with the PLC to show options on meetings and what can be done to make it fun. I know we have had to do that time to time when our PLC isn't really stepping up well. We debated do we allow several bad meetings to occur or step in. We have done both and have seen allowing repeated bad meetings (to help the PLC learn) has caused more long-term damage to the Troop than stepping in and then working to teach/coach the PLC/SPL. Either way, it's a tough call.

So could tripping down a few stairs. However, AK47 propel a larger mass at a higher velocity resulting in far more energy. .22 is around 250 joules ... AK47 are closer to 2000 joules. There has been studies that show ... larger caliber weapons increase likelihood of death. In Boston, if individuals were shot with only smaller caliber bullets, their gun homicide rate would have dropped nearly 40%. Simply put, higher caliber is more deadly. The Association of Firearm Caliber With Likelihood of Death From Gunshot Injury in Criminal Assaults | Emergency Medicine | JAMA Network Open | JAMA Network I have allowed my son to shoot a variety of guns, including some larger caliber long rifles. There is a BIG difference between controlling a .22 and larger caliber or higher velocity gun/ammo. You can teach everything scouting should teach with a .22 ... if you want more, then expand your experience outside scouting. I wouldn't argue against maintaining separate options for older scouts ... but it seems like most camps I go to struggle to have an RSO/instructor available to manage a .22 and shotgun range. No surprise here ... I fully disagree with the opinion piece and believe the BSA shooting sports are a great program that should continue. However, insurance companies and some anti gun parents will use cases like this to push BSA to end the program. (Shooting sports is already in trouble in many areas due to lack of trained volunteers). Hopefully BSA pushes back, but all volunteers need to ensure they follow the BSA/NRA rules or there is no doubt the program will end.

An RSO AND an instructor is required for every 8 scouts. I struggle to see how this could happen with this ratio in place. It sounds like there was lack of oversight of the range; however, it could happen if a scout purposely ignored orders ... so we need to know a bit more before casting final judgement. If the adults broke BSA rules, they should be held civilly liable and pay. They should also be removed from BSA. If the adults broke the law, they should be held criminally liable. If we want shooting sports to remain in BSA, we need the leaders to follow the rules. The fastest way to end shooting sports is to have adults break the rules. Terrible what happened to these scouts.