Update On Adult Leadership Standards

[perdidochas]

With all the posturing, the most interesting part of this is that scouting is going to change very little.  The arguments will be remembered way more than any noticeable change.

 

Maybe the biggest change will be that we'll eventually change to completely private and individual bathroom and shower facilities.  No more scout facilities, adult men facilities and female facilities.  It will just be all individual bathrooms.  And given society today, that might be the best thing that happens.

A lot of camps have already done that. The camp my troop went to in 2014 (Camp Daniel Boone in NC) had individual rooms for showers, and for bathrooms.  As an adult who has had to wait until 10 pm at other camps to be allowed to shower, I thought it was great. 

[eagle77]

With all the posturing, the most interesting part of this is that scouting is going to change very little.  The arguments will be remembered way more than any noticeable change.

 

Maybe the biggest change will be that we'll eventually change to completely private and individual bathroom and shower facilities.  No more scout facilities, adult men facilities and female facilities.  It will just be all individual bathrooms.  And given society today, that might be the best thing that happens.

 

 Already has begun in my area. (eastern PA) Quite a few camps have added private bathroom and shower facilties (where they can) some of these camps refer to them as "comfort stations". Chances are the more remote camps this may take awhile or may not happen at all.

[Gone]

"Scouting is going to change very little"?

 

Let's wait and see how many Scouts and Scouters we lose, shall we? 

 

We've been averaging 6+% losses since 2013. I am willing to bet that number doubles with this new change. The average person will not understand the BSA-speak of "local option". It is already being portrayed in the news that I have seen as "BSA allows gay leaders" and NOT as "Local units can elect to allow gay leaders or not".

[eagle77]

"Scouting is going to change very little"?

 

Let's wait and see how many Scouts and Scouters we lose, shall we? 

 

We've been averaging 6+% losses since 2013. I am willing to bet that number doubles with this new change. The average person will not understand the BSA-speak of "local option". It is already being portrayed in the news that I have seen as "BSA allows gay leaders" and NOT as "Local units can elect to allow gay leaders or not".

 

  And we already know that the "news" always reports the entire story.

[David CO]

NJ,

 

I took the kids to a Civil War reenactment yesterday. They had infantry, cavalry, artillery, the whole works. We had a great time.

 

With 600,000 lives lost, the Civil War may not have been the most elegant way to settle an impasse.

 

To answer your question, I have already said that I would like BSA to allow Lone Scouting again. Let boys join BSA as Lone Scouts and let them choose for themselves who they wish to associate with.

[fred johnson]

Let's wait and see how many Scouts and Scouters we lose, shall we? 

 

Scouting as practiced will change little visibly.  But this subject has upset people before and will now.  This is not about keeping everyone happy.  It's about stopping the hemorrhage and getting to a final state.  

 

Sadly some will leave because they can't see past their hardened positions.  Hopefully though, this will help close out the controversy of the subject. 

[NJCubScouter]

Maybe the biggest change will be that we'll eventually change to completely private and individual bathroom and shower facilities.  No more scout facilities, adult men facilities and female facilities.  It will just be all individual bathrooms.  And given society today, that might be the best thing that happens.

It seems to be that I read somewhere on this forum, probably within the past 6 months or so, that Scouting was indeed moving in that direction.

 

(Later added note: Maybe I should have read perdidochas's post before I typed that.)

Edited July 20, 2015 by NJCubScouter

[NJCubScouter]

It is already being portrayed in the news that I have seen as "BSA allows gay leaders" and NOT as "Local units can elect to allow gay leaders or not".

I've seen both.

[Gone]

Scouting as practiced will change little visibly.  But this subject has upset people before and will now.  This is not about keeping everyone happy.  It's about stopping the hemorrhage and getting to a final state.  

 

Sadly some will leave because they can't see past their hardened positions.  Hopefully though, this will help close out the controversy of the subject. 

 

I fail to see how ticking off a large percentage of the membership will stop the bleeding of membership. If anything, it will facilitate it. And I highly doubt there's some pent up demand from a group of folks who've been waiting for this change that will back fill those leaving.

 

We all have "hardened positions". You have yours, I have mine. Let's not pretend one is better or more enlightened than the other.

 

We all have ideals we "can't see past". That doesn't make any one group more right or wrong.

Edited July 20, 2015 by Bad Wolf

[packsaddle]

You joined the grouping KNOWING of this policy!! I hope someone joins something you hold dear and totally changes it to something you can't abide by so you can walk a mile in our shoes.

 

You don't know me and you don't know when I became a scouter and yet you make this false claim as if you actually know something. You don't.

I was a scouter for years prior to the previous policy and didn't know about that policy until a DE blind-sided me (and the rest of the Pack) with a diatribe on this subject at our B&G. Until that moment, it hadn't been mentioned at RT, or in any of the notices sent from the council. I'll give that DE this much credit: at least he was honest.

[Merlyn_LeRoy]

NJ,

...

To answer your question, I have already said that I would like BSA to allow Lone Scouting again. Let boys join BSA as Lone Scouts and let them choose for themselves who they wish to associate with.

 

Do they not have Lone Scouts any more?  The BSA website still refers to the program:

http://www.scouting.org/About/FactSheets/LoneScout.aspx

http://www.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/02-515.pdf

[NJCubScouter]

Lone Scouts does exist and is primarily intended for youth in isolated areas or who for other practical reasons cannot attend unit meetings. It is true that the last bullet point in one of those documents mentions home-schooled children whose parents do not want them to be in youth groups, so I guess it could be stretched to include any child whose parent does not want them to be in a youth group. But I really dont think this is the best solution. Scouting is meant to be done in groups. There has to be a better answer than intentionally and unnecessarily isolating youth from each other. But it's up to each of us to make choices for our own children.

[David CO]

Lone Scouting still exists as an option for a small percentage of Scouts who cannot attend regular unit meetings and activities.

 

Councils rarely approve Lone Scout applications. Most adult leaders strongly oppose Lone Scouting.

 

Ironically, even adult leaders who claim to support giving Scouts more choices and freedoms will oppose Lone Scouting, which offers the greatest amount of choice, freedom, and flexibility than any other program in BSA.

 

Lone Scouting has suffered from the same sort of opposition that home schooling has gotten from public school teachers. The arguments against it have been much the same.

 

I suspect that most of the people on this website, pro and anti inclusion alike, would prefer that Scouts quit altogether rather than have the option to register as Lone Scouts.

 

I don't mean to steal this thread to talk about my favorite topic, Lone Scouting, but it was implied that I offer no solution to the polarizing effect of the gay inclusion issue.

 

You may not like Lone Scouting, but it does offer a reasoned, rational alternative to the other controversial and contentious solutions.

Edited July 21, 2015 by David CO

[Scouter99]

 Seriously you'd be wary? Someone turns up who is not just there for the time their kid will be there, instead they want to volunteer for the sake of it? I'd rip their arm off.

 

Yes, I think many leaders would exercise a certain amount of caution in this situation.

 

NJ, he's saying he'd welcome them in without the slightest question, not that he would rip their arm off aggressively.  It's funny he'd do that, because that's exactly what happened when 3 gay men applied to start that troop out of the blue, were made SM and ASMs against the advice of the council because they were unknowns, then turned it into a national sex/porn trafficking ring. 

 

Maybe the biggest change will be that we'll eventually change to completely private and individual bathroom and shower facilities.  No more scout facilities, adult men facilities and female facilities.  It will just be all individual bathrooms.  And given society today, that might be the best thing that happens.

In "society today," all categories of violent crimes are at 1950s levels —a person today is less likely to be raped, murdered, assaulted, etc. than they have been since Leave it to Beaver was on TV.

 

Well, gay scouts have already been allowed in the organization for years.

Gay scouts have been allowed for just about a year.

 

 

 

You don't know me and you don't know when I became a scouter and yet you make this false claim as if you actually know something. You don't.

I was a scouter for years prior to the previous policy and didn't know about that policy until a DE blind-sided me (and the rest of the Pack) with a diatribe on this subject at our B&G. Until that moment, it hadn't been mentioned at RT, or in any of the notices sent from the council. I'll give that DE this much credit: at least he was honest.

The Ineligible Volunteer files were established in the 1920s, with "Perversion" being one of the main categories.  You all refer to a switch in the 80s without ever linking to anything (yet you in particular love to pointedly ask for citations) indicating a new turn to ban homosexuals.  One of the few ways to get in that card catalogue was simply being gay, which is one reason BSA never made those files public.  If BSA allowed gay leaders before the 1980s, why did they begin filing homosexuals as "Ineligible Volunteers - Perversion" 60 years prior?

You're not that old.

Edited July 21, 2015 by Scouter99

[NJCubScouter]

Scouter99, I was responding mainly to Skip's first sentence. I understood what the third sentence meant. I was reiterating that I think most people would be wary or cautious of accepting a completely unknown person as a leader. The concern would be any kind of potential ulterior motive, not just sexual abuse.