yknot

I hear you but you are simply being a babe in the woods. No organization today can exist without liability insurance. You can't get liability insurance without infinite safety regulations, waivers, etc. Scouts, like many youth organizations, will never be able to operate the way it has been able to do in the past without significant tort reform. Every youth organization has to be a safety organization today or the doors don't even open. I don't know why people even rail about this. Fight it politically, lobby for tort reform, but you can't fight it individually or you will just get sued.

Whatever it is, if kids don't want to wear it, then we shouldn't be doing it if we are trying to increase membership. My baseball kids love to wear the hat, the jersey, the team T, the team towel, whatever. Not seeing the same kind of enthusiasm with the stiff and itchy button up scout shirt or pants.

Agreed. But where else does the paramilitary mindset come from other than the LEO or "para" paramilitary outlook? Random SMs and ASMs or religiously affiliated COs don't come up with it.

I don't think you are being honest. My unit does not have a team wear or spirit wear site associated with it but all the teams I have coached do, where the kids and parents buy oodles of local team gear. Hoodies, t shirts, warm up pants, shorts, sweatshirts. etc. It is not a hard sell, because the stuff is well made and is suitable for active wear, unlike the scout field uniform which seems designed to be an item of torture. I wear my (free) coach shirt made by underarmour in 90 degree weather and I'm pretty comfortable. I wear my (not free and quite expensive) BSA leader shirt and sweat to death.

Once again, another really media tone deaf choice by BSA. Do they not even watch CNN? Churchill was a great man, but his statues are being toppled because of his racist opinions. What was wrong with Eagle Project? Why are we always shooting ourselves in our media foot? It's mind boggling. Is this whole organization run by 70 or 80 year old men?

As I've said before, the best thing about this forum is that it shows just how varied experiences are across this great country and that we all need to keep an open mind and strive to be relevant to our target markets if we want to survive. What makes sense to you does not make sense to me. And whether it makes sense to either one of us is not what ultimately matters -- it's what makes sense and is appealing to the kids we are trying to reach.

Along with making things cheaper and easier I would also look to increase functionality and value. There are some sharp looking t shirt like performance wear options that would be more appealing and weather/activity friendly for kids. Something between a class A and a class B that is truly functional. Anyone who has coached a sports team knows the kids never complain about wearing uniforms or team gear. That's largely because it's comfortable and weather friendly for activity. On the other hand, lots of complaints about the cub and scout uniforms -- it's hot, it's itchy, it gets caught on everything, I gotta wear bike shorts under the pants.... yadda yadda. Let's come up with something that kids don't complain about and that is cheaper and of higher value for parents. Scouts is not a paramilitary organization. I know this is near and dear to some, but I'm convinced we'd do better with recruitment if we didn't force kids to wear something a lot of them don't like. For cubs, lose all the rank related expenses. Come up with one inexpensive thing that changes in order to identify each rank, whether that's a hat or a scarf, and forget about the socks, the belt, the slide, etc. Get rid of nonessential patches. Why are we paying for JTE patches? For cubs, rather than patches I'd go back to belt loops. You don't have to sew them on and the kids love them. Or do epaulet loops for each rank as someone else suggested. All program materials should just be pdf downloads. For scouts, consider digital credentials vs. actual cloth merit badges. Make scout membership more portable. If you pay national dues, you should be able to participate anywhere nationally. Develop an online tool that allows local units to access whatever information they need to feel comfortable allowing a visiting or seasonal scout to participate in local adventures. Scout membership should be a scout passport to the out of doors.

According to the laws, ICE detainees may contact pro bono legal advisors, consulates, and certain nongovernmental agencies free of charge. Fees often apply for calls to family, which is where some of the problems occur if detainees don't have access to cash. Each detainee is also assigned a case officer. Detainees don't disappear but they can be left twisting in a dysfunctional and overloaded system. Situations like Guantanamo Bay however are completely different. People have been held there incommunicado which is why there was such pressure to close it.

You really can't compare EU to the US, or US to China or US to Russia. The cultures and experiences are very different. The EU in general is more tolerant of such things as drugs, prostitution, and other soft crimes. There is a debate whether the US should be as tough as it is. In addition, European and Asian societies are generally more orderly and respectful of authority figures than the US. But one of the reasons why our incarceration rate is higher is because our rates of hard crime are higher. The murder rate in the US is three times that of the EU; our burglary rate is four times as high. We have seven times the burglary rate of China. When it comes to capital punishment, however, we rank the same. The other problem when trying to compare international statistics on anything whether it's crime, education, or economic indicators is that the US is far more transparent than virtually all other societies. In our legal system, for example, if you are arrested, it becomes part of the public record. People do not just disappear the way they do in places like China and Russia.

Look for a local watershed and maybe he could do a stream/waterway cleanup. That might be cooler than trail clearing. Also, check with same or with municipal or county parks department to see if they would be interested in a bio blitz of a particular property. That's a cool project and totally covid friendly. Ditto bat or bird boxes. He might also build signage for an organization in support of a conservation project, such as stay on the trail, etc. See if a nature center wants help setting up a nature cam for their web site if he's techy.

I sure hope so. He's one of the ones who is hard to defend.

Walt Disney was a racist and said and sponsored many racist things.

I can't speak to girls today. I can speak only of girls in my generation. The number one item on my Christmas List was always a subscription to Ranger Rick magazine. I spent all my time in the woods. I tagged along with all the boys who were doing archery and camping and digging for worms and fishing. Thank God for them, they were all my big "brothers", and were so kind and patient teaching me things and treating me like a semi tolerated kid sister. Today, there are still very few safe places for girls that love the out of doors, love to hike, love to camp, love to explore the natural world, to do that with peers. I could be wrong, but if you want to recruit girls, find ways to reach the ones who are looking for those experiences. Those boys in my past -- some were scouts, some were not -- were the ones who taught me my love of scouting, even when I myself couldn't do it.

This is local. Our entire unit is totally focused on reaching Eagle and they are all boys. We have the opposite problem. We lose boys who just want to camp and be outside and hike and maybe advance some but are not doing like the Scouting AP level course.

Unless some has hijacked your account, in which case I understand. However you have not responded to that request either.

You have sent me bizarre personal messages and have not responded when I have asked you what the heck you mean. That is not a friendly tone my friend.

While I agree with the ridiculous trend of re-parsing language so it is less offensive to some, I have to say, Scoutmaster and Cubmaster are weird titles. At least I've always thought so, especially for an organization that is in such trouble because of youth protection issues. I don't have a problem with "master" when discussing technology, music, computer science, electronics,etc. I just really don't like it when we are talking about a youth organization where the use of the term kind of implies that youth are in a subordinate position to adults in a non educational sense. I'm fine with leader, advisor, coordinator, instructor, organizer, etc. ...

I agree. I'm never upset by a down vote, but I do hope that someone will at least explain, courteously, why they think I'm wrong. How else do we learn to see other perspectives? Isn't that why we keep visiting the forum? I always love to hear other points of view, even if I don't agree.

I know. But it's becoming pretty obvious that protests, bars, and tattoos have not been a great idea.

Well, as long as the camp staff and employees don't leave Summit for the summer and bring it back to their families and communities. Keep in mind that temp taking is mostly a feel good measure because a significant percentage of COVID cases don't have fevers or don't develop them until after they are infectious. It's more predictive where you came from and who you might have been exposed to, which is why the histories are probably the most effective tool. That's good if they actually tell people to stay home or leave. Also, questionable protester behavior shouldn't inform scout behavior... we're supposed to be more civic minded. I understand the need to get kids into some kind of normalcy, I'm just not seeing why

I also hope your scouts and scouters have a great time and stay in good health. I also wish the same for everyone they encounter in West Virginia as well and hope they are mindful that the county you are traveling from has five times the COVID death rate as the entire state of West Virginia. Compared state to state, Virginia has 17 times the number of deaths as West Virginia. According to CDC recommendations, we were not supposed to be doing this -- sending kids from higher transmission areas into lower transmission areas. West Virginia has so far escaped the worst of this. I am hoping that Summit is completely self contained and that everyone gets through it safely.

Nope, there was no comment with his down vote on one of my posts. I've also had bizarre personal messages from folks on here who do not respond if you ask them what they meant. We've got a lot of varied viewpoints and opinions on here. It's clear that perspectives, approaches, and beliefs vary greatly based on unit, region, religion, whatever. But we're all supposed to be friends in scouting and I hope I've always been respectful in my comments, that someone will call me out if I unwittingly am not, and that they will be respectful in return to me if they disagree with my comments.

That sounds like a great and ambitious project and one that many scouts in the area would benefit from. I know many scouts who travel some distance to find good mountain biking trails. It makes sense to reach out to other troops to help, especially if it was on request. If the SMs didn't follow through on what they suggested, then it's their Eagle feathers that are drooping. Someone on another post was talking about down votes and their use on the board. I think we all need to remember that it is OK to air personal/parental frustrations and opinions on this forum among friends. Better to get something off your chest here and then be able to turn a calm face to your son and your local scout connections. We are losing places to do that. Good luck to your son!

I like Troop or Scout Advisor. This is not so much a reaction to current events but as I posted earlier, I've never liked either term. It has a hierarchical, military ring to it to me as well as the whole weird "maaathsssterrr" vibe. It's something that needs updating along with uniforms and certain aspects of the program. Cyber Chip as currently designed, for one. Tenderfoot is another name I'd be happy to see gone. I'd combine Scout into Tenderfoot with a cut out for cubs who had earned AOL. I'd get rid of Tenderfoot and call the combined rank Scout.

That's funny because I've never liked Scoutmaster or Cubmaster. I always thought the titles were weird. For an organization trying to distance itself from youth abuse issues, it always made my skin crawl. So maybe one good thing to come out of this. Although before people immolate me with flaming brands of scout horror, I completely respect that others have a different opinion.