Tron

National announced a grace period; the problem is that it looks like people stop getting emails at renewal date + 7 days. That grace period is massive, 60 days. I am just waiting for the new YPT and training requirements to drop if that gold leaf certification is for real; that's going to blow up 50% of the leaders in my opinion (because they are lazy and can't be bothered to do free training online in my experience).

I am still re-reading front to back. National has removed some of the gray area that bad leaders have lingered in for years. I think we all need to make sure we understand the nuance difference. Statements on MBC and SM authority seem much clearer and designed to reign in ego-mad SM's.

I have been a leader in troops that have traditional patrols, age based, and the age based also had a new scout patrol. My observation is that hands down age based is better. There is that 8th-9th grade teenage boy thing where the 5th-6th graders drive them insane because the 8th-9th are trying to be so much more mature. There is also the friendship and sibling thing; some scouts regardless of age are friends, some siblings want to be together, some siblings want to be as far away from their brothers as possible. I think the answer might be somewhere in between; something like the SM provides a framework, like "hey we have 36 scouts and I want to see 6 patrols of 6, keep tenting and buddy system age requirements in mind, figure it out scouts+, and then the scouts take it from there. A couple of oddities that I have seen is that I have seen older scouts ask to go back down to the NSP because of younger friends from clubs/sports/relatives; I have seen younger scouts that present much more mature than their age ask to get assigned to an older aged patrol because their personalities were more aligned with the older scouts. The biggest mistakes I have ever seen revolved around either the SM, the SPL, or both making decisions in absence of input from the scouts themselves; that patrol design always leads to some sort of s-show. I have seen parents who's kids get split between multiple patrols that do patrol level stuff lose their minds at having to figure out how to get their scouts to 2 different places at the same time for patrol functions (when a troop starts to function a higher level and the patrols start functioning at the highest level it adds complexity and independence that you should have the foresight to plan for). I think the answer is a mix of how many scouts you have, aligning them to the best possible patrol size, aligning personalities, following the rules, and making sure that everyone's voice is heard. Start with the scouts, make as few adjustments as possible; justify those adjustments when the new troop structure is presented.

I was told the same thing about multiples; I am not happy about it but I understand and I am willing to do the extra paper and leg work as long as my primary membership goes through. Both of the units that I directly work with are doing renewal mostly on your own. Unit 1 is doing adults are paid for by the unit, and that only encountered 1 issue, and it was with a multiple who had already paid; council has to drop him from our roster and then re-add him after Jan 1, it makes no sense. Unit 2 is going it all on your own. Both units are basically planning on revisiting peoples membership issues after Jan 1 due to the various grace periods. Overall no-one seems upset except some people with multiples. The multiples thing is a problem, and I think mostly due to a lack of a good job aid to walk people through that process.

I know of at least 3 scouts in my area that have potentially thousands of dollars in their scout accounts, I know of 1 scout that for sure has over 10k. I look at these scout account discussions more along the lines of, when is the IRS going smack a unit, not if. When you look into all of the case law that has been discussed, the public positions, etc ... it's all about the IRS doesn't want the media black eye unless they can really get something bigger than a handful of dollars of abuse.

Let me churn the fire of this thread back up. The following link is getting posted everywhere else today. Looks like scout accounts are probably a big no-no. https://www.irs.gov/pub/irs-wd/02-0041.pdf

This is unfortunately true. The individuals with the power and money to affect the timeline of any court case often are the winners regardless of the law.

Is BSA going to announce this? I've been sort of waiting for them to announce it on their end but nothing. Is this a spoof?

It says Dallas/Fort Worth area but you know it's in Fort Worth where your opportunity to be on some cop ride along show is astronomical.

I think the big one here is actively recruiting district level volunteers. The average volunteer obligation is 2-3 years; BSA has a policy statement that a volunteer obligation is 1 year (membership renewal to membership renewal). If the DE is not actively recruiting district members it just falls apart and then the DE ends up doing everything, and doesn't have time to recruit district members. Every subcommittee at the district level should have 7-9 members. I think off the top of my head the advancement committee is literally dictated in the GTA to have 12 members; my entire district committee is 8 (including the paid members). How does anyone run an affective district without opening the door and inviting in people to help? Is everyone in BSA a 90 year old bachelor fighting to open a pickle jar, too proud to ask for help? This is all tough right? I read this, I immediately pictured this as a few different units in my district. What I have seen is that they have a couple of bad leaders, they are clinch positions, they do it their own way without regard to the BSA way, without regard to safety and ypt, because of connections they never get hit with the naughty stick, and when they move on the unit is in such shambles, all of the other leaders have been taught to hate and distrust anyone outside the unit, and then the unit implodes due to all of the bad habits and insular paranoia.

Some MBC use blue cards, some use Scoutbook; either way the progress is recorded the same way, the MBC signs off on requirements as they are completed. Do the free MBC training at training.scouting.org to get a better picture of todays MBC process.

I get what you're saying here; that ties into constantly recruiting. DE's are constantly pushing recruitment of scouts for units but they never seem to push constantly recruiting district committee/commissioner corp.

BSA is pretty much already there, from the list of action items what is missing?

Have this filled out and turned into your council registrar. https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/training/pdf/34169_forms_wb.pdf

Had some MBC situations this year myself; it's all about if you don't like that I run the MB program as designed find someone else. People hate it when I say it, but it's like running a Walmart, people hate it and complain but we'll see them shopping here again tomorrow. Having IOLS is still required it's just buried a bit. The requirement is that you have to have at least 1 trained SM/ASM on every overnight outing. To be considered a trained SM/ASM you have to have IOLS. BTW hazardous weather is required to be trained now, it's been moved by national into DL/CM/ASM/SM training; can't wait to see people start to fall out of trained status when their hazardous weather expires in a year or two.