AwakeEnergyScouter

My NSO didn't have this CO structure, so I guess my mental model is hands-off by default. Perhaps not coincidentally, our pack is also very independent of the CO, and the CO also isn't a church. We have an active, outdoorsy pack with no drama so I'd say it's working well. So the idea is that no religion is required for BSA membership, but BSA members can be barred from specific units on religious grounds?

It occured to me that I was just writing something up for a Duty to God adventure meeting, and I copy-pasted BSA information about not requiring membership in any spiritual organization nor a declaration of specific faith. See for example https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2015/11/02/beginning-next-year-boy-scouts-will-discuss-duty-to-god-at-each-rank/ It seems against BSA policy to require either scouters or scouts to be members of not just a specific religion but an even more specific sect of that religion. I mean, they explicitly decline to define the words "God" and "religion" in the declaration of religious principle, which they kind of have to in order to not go against BP's example and the current WOSM constitution. If there really are churches doing this, they really shouldn't be. Part of why scouting can't be their youth program. Can't assume everyone agrees on religion.

Heck, I am a (low-level) religious leader who used to lead a religious youth group, and in scouts I still want to be a scout leader leading a scout program consistent with my religion. Scouting isn't religion, and scouting is always "mixed company".

You guys need some of us folks from "ordnung, ordnung!" cultures as administrators 😂 Ordnung muß sein!

I'm neither mrjohns2 nor MattR, but I'm betting my internal reaction to Soros being mentioned was similar to theirs. Let's see if I'm right. George Soros being some sinister dark force controlling bad things behind the scenes is a decades-old internet trope. There doesn't seem to be much George Soros isn't ruining. If you believe the internet, it's George Soros' fault if I burn dinner. Ok, not really, but he's cast as the evil mastermind ruining everything when most of the time, he's not actually involved. Of course, his philanthropy and its aims can and should be discussed and it is fair to disagree with what he's actually doing. But because of all the decades of internet conspiracy theories, any such real, serious, fact-based discussion needs to be very carefully framed before digging in, or eyes will predictably roll. Forbes is a serious media organization, and I would expect them to have verified that Soros really did fund those election campaigns, but because of the sheer volume of false claims about what Soros funds my first thought was "is this really true though?" Normally I trust Forbes fact-checking, but even so I found myself wanting to see if any other serious traditional media are reporting this. In the 00s, I couldn't figure out why Soros was blamed for so much random stuff, especially for being some kind of leftist when actual leftists were protesting Davos (where he was almost a dignitary). So I googled it, and it turns out it's the old Jewish cabal lie. https://www.cbsnews.com/news/who-is-george-soros-and-why-is-he-blamed-in-every-right-wing-conspiracy-theory/ https://www.bbc.com/news/stories-49584157 https://www.forbes.com/sites/sethcohen/2020/09/12/the-troubling-truth-about-the-obsession-with-george-soros/?sh=5c34404b4e2e https://www.adl.org/resources/blog/antisemitism-lurking-behind-george-soros-conspiracy-theories https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Soros_conspiracy_theories

I'll agree with that, too. You can always learn from others. It's when you think you know everything that you're really in trouble. But it seems the common conflation of the organization BSA with the scouting movement as a whole makes it hard to have that conversation, so step one seems to be to point out that BSA != Scouting. From my POV, BSA and a lot of its members are too attached to the overhead you mention - owning camps, land, headquarters, etc as well as huge numbers of employees - to acknowledge that it's a ball and chain. Not just financially, but also mentally. If you maintain land and buildings on it, shouldn't you use it? Now you're not going backpacking in the wilderness because you have to go to your camp. It's no different than what happens when you have a summer house. First you have to go out there in spring to re-oil the boat and put the dock in when the ice has melted, and then you have to spend your summer vacation there instead of Greece because, well, it's there and it's yours. In theory you don't have to go there, but you will. Several people here have had great scouting stories of relatively cheap but amazing trips they took scouts on. That's the way to go and keep going for all socioeconomic classes. It's better AND cheaper - it's rare that things work that way. And scouts are going to learn a heck of a lot more from organizing their own camps and trips than rolling up to a pre-made camp run by paid staff. Our whole thing is McGuyvering, why also have Q on staff?

If this is true, then there's the membership problem right there. We're not delivering our "core product". We've got a right unit in a right council, which is exactly why I stepped up as a leader also.

My first console was the classic Nintendo 8-bit, and my scout does what your grandson does. They have a Minecraft friend group going. But my scout loves the adventure all the same. They love the opportunities to lead and be in charge. (I run the hiking club, and because I'm a big believer in scout-led I put two scouts in charge every time.) You can't actually watch TV and play games until the heat death of the universe. I agree - there's still demand for what scouting offers. But we need to actually arrange the adventures. @InquisitiveScouter's recent river trek and upcoming hike and @qwazse's Jamboree leadership come to mind. If we arrange adventure, the kids will come.

I don't really know what's going on in Swedish scouting organization- and strategy-wise, but their recruiting video inspires me to get outdoors and seek adventure, too. It's at the top of their "become a scout" page at https://www-scouterna-se.translate.goog/bli-scout/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true that also hits hard on that scouting is exciting outdoor adventure. Their homepage also leans hard into outdoor adventure: https://www-scouterna-se.translate.goog/?_x_tr_sl=auto&_x_tr_tl=en&_x_tr_hl=en&_x_tr_pto=wapp&_x_tr_hist=true And there are queues to join in some places. The pitch to become a leader is partly to get your own kid in faster 😄 Bear Gryllis as Chief Scout in the UK also promises adventure. Last Child in the Woods is trendy. https://www.amazon.com/Last-Child-Woods-Children-Nature-Deficit/dp/156512605X IMO it's quite clear that outdoor adventure is what people come to scouts for, so that's what we should deliver. In spades. Ultralight backpacking spades.

The Knights who say Ni!

Guess what's left is classic small town manipulation. Kill him with kindness, especially in front of the scouts. The more obvious you can make it that what he's saying isn't true, the better.

@InquisitiveScouter Now that's proper scouting! Bravo! That's what every scout should get to experience. And as you note, it can be done much more cheaply than maintaining anything that contains a flushing toilet. You need good gear, which costs money, often a fair bit for performance ultralight stuff. But you don't need the kind of infrastructure that leads to the camp fees and - back to topic - the participation fees. In fact, it seems to me that all this stuff that the BSA owns is dragging it down. The stuff that paid professionals manage without a lot of transparency. There seems to be a lot of overhead, which leads to this cub scout cost problem among other problems. You can't experience that freedom while loaded down with stuff and attachment to that stuff. Probably US Americans don't know Snufkin from Moominvalley, but I always think of him when I think of that freedom. He doesn't have much and doesn't want more. 🎶 I listen to the song of the wind it has no name I listen to the song of the wind it has no words I listen to the song of the wind and I can see: The wind is free. The wind is free. I listen to the song of the wind it has no name I listen to the song of the wind it has no words I listen to the song of the wind and I can see: We are the wind, And we are free. 🎶

According to People Power Party (PPP) lawmaker Kweon Seong-dong’s office, some of the contracts that the North Jeolla government signed regarding the construction of foundational facilities at the campsite, as well as provision of supplies, have deadlines set after the World Scout Jamboree began on Aug. 1. Some even have construction deadlines set for the end of the year. (...) Among the 256 contracts that the North Jeolla government signed with private contractors, 15 had overdue deadlines set far past the official opening. While most of the 15 were services contracts, three were for constructing essential facilities. (...) “While having services and goods supplied late was also a problem, it is more difficult to understand how the deadline for construction projects that would physically impact the Jamboree was set for after the opening ceremony,” Kweon said. (...) The Jamboree's infrastructure plan included the construction of a 26-kilometer (16-mile) water pipe and 31-kilometer sewer system, as well as three water treatment facilities, three parking lots and 3.7-kilometers of shading. However, the contract to build them was signed in December 2021, less than two years before the opening ceremony and more than four years after Saemangeum was picked to host the World Scout Jamboree in 2017. Another problem is North Jeolla only allowed companies that are based in the province to bid for Jamboree-related contracts. As a result, a construction company based in Buan County ranked 964th nationally in terms of construction capacity was picked to build the basic infrastructure. The company won the 4 billion won-project and broke ground in December 2021 but failed to finish construction, leading to drainage problems. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/news/2023-08-14/national/socialAffairs/North-Jeolla-accused-of-sketchy-Jamboree-contracts/1846289

Perhaps I'm not the average parent, but I'm signing my child up for scouts explicitly expecting some actual camp life at a camp site with 100% nature and 0% amenities. If there's running water it's cheating. And if you never get the chance to fail at charting your own course, you never really get to know yourself or the value of avoiding procrastination. When I realized cub scout safety guidelines require us to never stray far from civilization, I thought ok, they're still young and vary in commitment to backpacking, I get it. But older scouts in the proper program? They should know where and how to dig a latrine off the top of their heads. They should know how to cook outside in bad weather and how to stay warm and how to amuse and organize themselves. That's the whole point. And the relief! Finally somewhere where you really get to be in charge. This whole sleeping in cabins thing can be had in lots of places. Real adventures are what scouting offers that not a lot of other organizations do. I seem to be in the minority in this view since both BSA and GSUSA are heavily into cabins and amenities. But in my heart, scouting is wild and free. The kind of free you feel when the wind tussles your hair and the sun kisses your very cold cheek.

Well, isn't that what you would hope they'd do, though? I have no idea what the proportions are between councils like his and councils like yours, but passing the buck on organizational functioning to CORs seems like abdicating leadership to me. Then again, this COR thing seems like a complicating layer in the middle to me, so my view may well be a bit weird.

@Brannigan, this is all on the open Internet. Both threads you've started are visible publicly, because they're not in the few restricted forums. Most of scouter.com is visible to everyone and anyone. You can verify this yourself by logging out and then going to scouter.com. Right now, I see your reply above highlighted next to the New to the Forum? forum. Sorry you felt so attacked. I didn't post in your first thread, but wish you well and am glad that you got the help from your council that you hoped for. I'm not new to scouting, but I'm new to BSA, and it's nice to hear a story about a council stepping in to remove someone who's just mean and destructive to the organization but not a criminal. May you find happiness and the root of happiness.

Meanwhile, seasoned project managers: NOTHING IS EASY EASY IS A FANTASY

Absolutely. But how long is known, as is the fact that trees don't grow well on reclaimed land due to salt levels, and the organizers were repeatedly told that. They were quite aware and proceeded anyway. I don't want to jump to conclusions or judge someone unfairly, either. But spending millions of won on touring tourist sites with only brief occasional visits to scout-related places, the organizers clearly having identified the risks that did occur without taking any action on ROAMing them - as evidenced by that they were not prepared - and also being told point blank that their plans weren't good (by other Koreans) doesn't paint a pretty picture of the Korean government organizers. Korean media isn't exactly making excuses for them, they're going after them. South Korea is a developed country. The place is full of educated professionals who can make a risk register and manage risk, and a free press that holds their government to account. (Consider, for example, what happened after the Sewol capsized.) Things started improving once the president and the big chaebols started sending help - just goes to show that these problems weren't because Koreans aren't Americans, these problems were due to more specific bad planning. Bad planning that it's fair to criticize, especially when Korean media are already doing it. WOSM's role, though, I'm also curious about. Who knew what when is my question. Trees not being there, for example, isn't exactly buried in paperwork filed in the basement in a cabinet labeled "Beware or the leopard". And typhoon season hasn't changed.

Well, I'm going to do my best to serve my scouts, but I'm definitely not getting invested in the organization itself then. I mean, there's a definite theme to what people say about the "professional" overlayer. While people complain even in well-run organizations, charges brought for embezzlement without an embarrassed purge of criminals and enablers from the ranks is clear objective proof of that there are some serious systemic problems. Edit: just realized this could be misinterpreted - I mean that even in the best case where one person truly fooled everyone else around them, then financial systems must have been lacking to not detect the fraud. No matter what happened, it can't have been just one person who failed to do their job. I served on a nonprofit board for a professional society for a while, and they'd just dealt with something similar (severe and systemic misuse of funds by president and crony friends). They needed new people, because the offender was barred by the professional organization from ever serving as a chapter anything and all his friends resigned in protest. Good riddance, of course. So, the professional society let him keep his outward face, but quietly disbarred him from all leadership and in the process flushed all the co-conspirators and enablers out. And that wasn't even reported to police, let alone prosecuted, and that was here in the US. IMNSHO a leader in your organization being prosecuted for embezzlement is a black mark on your honor. My god, how embarrassing 😳

This sounds a bit like a good old boys network where performance is irrelevant and you don't want to be too talented or you might make someone feel bad so that they target you. Lack of financial transparency, clearly a problem if embezzlement charges were brought, sounds like a general and ongoing problem for the BSA. Demoting someone who brought embezzlement to light is very problematic, especially for an organization that's supposed to have honesty as a value. If heads didn't roll in that council, then that's an indication of the general culture.

It's not you, it's them. You're asking the wrong question. The question is what specific confusion about not just scouting, but how you build a good society that they have going on. But that's more of a philosophical question, because practically speaking you probably can't help them remove whatever is obscuring clear seeing, especially not at this point. I'm from a country that has produced a nobleman artist whose most (in)famous lithography is called "Desecrate the flag". Apparently even our military is loosey-goosey in the authoritarianism department. So when I say this, it's definitely not an expectation of that scouts be ROTC or that I think the Galactic Empire is a great idea: order is essential for a good society. Including but not limited to scouting. You can't have groups of young people destroying property and/or assault (maybe, maybe not?) willy-nilly and expect a good civil society. They can have wild hair and safety pins in their noses and whatever. They can be rude, they can be disrespectful, they can desecrate the flag. (Not while also being good scouts, of course, but just looking at the bare bottom level of strong civil society, and they're not free from the consequences of other people's reactions to doing those things.) But you absolutely can't have violence become the tool of order. Rule of law is essential.

Somewhere, there is a Korean civic organization saying "I told you so." Organizers of the Jamboree would have been well aware of weather dangers. The documents of the organizing committee list the readiness against the extreme heat wave and inclement risks from storms and typhoon. The representative of a local civic group three years ago called the idea of tenting out on a reclaimed swath of land as plain crazy, because such a location turns extremely humid after rains — and after the steam rises from the wetland under the scorching sun. Defiant bureaucrats claimed they would plant trees and build greenery tunnels to create shades. They promised sufficient restrooms and shower booths, but they did not keep their promises. The venue was tree- and shade-less. Shower booths and toilets were slack and short. Typhoon shelters were loosely designated in nearby school gyms. There were no specifics on exactly where the 40,000-plus scouters should sleep, rest and clean upon evacuation. The visitors eventually had to be relocated across the country due to a typhoon forecast. (...) A K-pop extravaganza is being readied in Seoul in hopes to make amends for the sufferings in Saemangeum. We hope global youths at least can return home with one memorable experience. Still, an idol-studded concert can hardly make up for all the mistakes. Nature and brotherhood are the scouting spirit, not the sensational culture. We are truly ashamed and very sorry to all of the young visitors. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/08/09/opinion/columns/Jamboree-Saemangeum-pull-out/20230809192556254.html

Just wow. I was wondering why a site with absolutely no trees was selected. Guess they did consider that 🤷🏼‍♀️

The Korean reporters are digging. Records suggest dubious overseas trips prior to Jamboree Records show that officials from related local governments and agencies traveled abroad 99 times over the past eight years purportedly to prepare for the ongoing 25th World Scout Jamboree. (...) Broadly speaking, the trips found in the records can be divided into two categories. The first includes 54 trips related to securing the bid, mostly in the two years leading up to Saemangeum's final selection in 2017. The other trips were generally listed for the purpose of "exploration of advanced cultures" in preparation for hosting the event. While seemingly legitimate at first glance, upon closer inspection, some of the details in the reports filed by officials appear questionable, including cruises and tours of overseas hotspots unrelated to the scouts. https://koreajoongangdaily.joins.com/2023/08/07/national/socialAffairs/Korea-World-Scout-Jamboree-business-trips/20230807173928902.html

W H A T ? ? ? Absolutely not normal in the scouting movement as whole. Massive red flag. I have never heard of this joke category. That's pretty insane. I mean... WTF. Rape is nothing like wet socks. Even if this was just your local scouting environment that would still be super damning. Going to stop typing now before I lose my composure and generate unmeritorious karma myself by acting in anger. May all survivors have happiness and the source of happiness May they be free from suffering and the root of suffering May the not be separated from the happiness devoid of suffering May they dwell in the great equanimity free from passion, aggression, and ignorance 🙏