Buzzfeed - CSE Surbaugh - Girls - Scouter.com

[RememberSchiff]

And then we have this young Girl Scout who also joined Cub Scouts  “Because it’s really fun. They get to do a lot of camping, and den meetings, and car racing,”

And her Cubmaster father,  “We have been bringing our daughters with us forever. And this now is a great opportunity for them to join along with us. It’s what they’ve always wanted to do with us, and we’re ecstatic to have them... I’ve been saying for years, ‘Why can’t my daughter be an Eagle Scout? She does the same work. She does the same activities,."

Photos and video show her in perfect Cub uniform including new skirt.

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/01/26/girl-joins-boy-scouts/

[gblotter]

20 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

Photos and video show her in perfect Cub uniform including new skirt.

http://denver.cbslocal.com/2018/01/26/girl-joins-boy-scouts/

After so many hatchet jobs on Scouting, now we are to view the media as friendly? The contrast is abundantly clear when they want to promote a cause. The collapse of traditional values to political correctness is a gleeful victory for them, and they portray it as such.

@RememberSchiff At least I trust Surbaugh more than liberal media.

[RememberSchiff]

21 minutes ago, gblotter said:

After so many hatchet jobs on Scouting, now we are to view the media as friendly? The contrast is abundantly clear when they want to promote a cause. The collapse of traditional values to political correctness is a gleeful victory for them, and they portray it as such.

@RememberSchiff At least I trust Surbaugh more than liberal media.

I see a kid who wants to be a scout, that's good enough for me.

[Eagle94-A1]

2 hours ago, gblotter said:

How did this noble organization of the Boy Scouts of America end up with executives who are so divorced from the founding principles of Scouting? A Scout is trustworthy, yet they have repeatedly displayed examples of dishonest, deceitful, manipulative, and opportunistic leadership. The first qualification for the job should be that you actually believe in the movement. I am truly embarrassed to have this bungling group of mismanagers at our head, and I am immensely sad for all that has been lost under their misdirection.

 

Nothing official, but my opinion based upon talking to long-time Scouters, Professionals, and my own personal experience as a former pro 20 years ago.

The divorcing of Scouting principles from the executives started around the  early 1970s when membership started dropping. When membership drops, so do the donations. And both are key factors in an professional's performance. DEs at that time did all kind of things to keep their numbers up. Some were caught and dismissed. But alot survived and moved higher and higher within the organization. As they did so, they covered up their tracks pretty well, and "encouraged" their subordinates to do the same in order to keep their jobs. Remember a lot of DEs are fresh out of college, are heavy in debt, and may be facing other challenges in their lives. They may feel they cannot afford to lose their job. Some bust butt to try and fix the problem. Only to face increased pressure since doing things right takes a lot longer than the "shortcuts," stressed out because they are working 2 and 3 times harder than their peers, get health issues, burn out, or in my case given an ultimatum by my wife: her or the job. And some fo the higher level pros enjoy "breaking" folks trying to fix the problem. My DFS gleefully announced my resignation after it was tendered. And he commented on friends' resignations after they left.

I was lucky. My wife saw what the job was doing to me, didn't like it one bit, and was willing to drop her dreams of grad school to support me while I searched for a new job. Thankfully, she was only delayed in grad school a semester. But I have had friends suffer nervous breakdowns over the job. I and other started having physical health issues over the job. And I have had too many friends get divorced over the job. And all of that could have been solved if they didn't do the right thing and try to fix the problem.

 

Not all pros are like the above. But too many are IMHO. part of that is they are not in the field dealing with those of us actually workign with youth.

[Back Pack]

Thanks for the advice. Bsa was recruiting on my campus for staff. The pay was never mentioned but figured it was low. 

[gblotter]

3 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

When membership drops, so do the donations. And both are key factors in an professional's performance.

Using me as an example, I have to believe the unpopularity of this latest bungle has decimated donations. I have given my last dollar to FOS and I cannot in good conscience encourage others to donate.

They obviously don’t care what I think, so I’ll let my checkbook speak for me.

[NJCubScouter]

1 hour ago, gblotter said:

After so many hatchet jobs on Scouting, now we are to view the media as friendly? The contrast is abundantly clear when they want to promote a cause. The collapse of traditional values to political correctness is a gleeful victory for them, and they portray it as such.

I don't see any hatchet jobs in that news clip.  As RS said, I see a child who wants to be a Cub Scout.  (And, interestingly, the reporter says the girl is also a Girl Scout and the implication is that she is staying in Girl Scouts while also being a Cub Scout.)

As for "the collapse of traditional values," I did not realize that being male was a "traditional value."

[Jameson76]

16 minutes ago, gblotter said:

Using me as an example, I have to believe the unpopularity of this latest bungle has decimated donations. I have given my last dollar to FOS and I cannot in good conscience encourage others to donate.

They obviously don’t care what I think, so I’ll let my checkbook speak for me.

We are a large troop, 5 figure FOS annually.  Many of us in the key roles are taking a year off from FOS.  It is a tough call as the funds are used locally.  Local councils have to live with the national decisions.  That being the case, the reality is that many decision have and are being purely made for financial reasons.  Huge debt from Summit, unfunded pensions, bloated National staff.  Only real option is to vote with the checkbook

[TAHAWK]

Our council lost it's first SE for phony membership numbers in 1926.  Just history.

I lost a DE for the same over fifty years later.

Phony membership is "Digging deep for Scouting."

As long as there is a metric for "performance," people will work to the metric and game the system.

I wonder about people who cannot support Scouting simply because they are unhappy with B.S.A.  One ought not confuse the two.  Scouting was a going movement in the U.S.A. before B.S.A. existed.  In the case of my troop as a Scout, the number of years was eighteen - 1908-1926 - before B.S.A. appeared in that area.

Our west-side district had no council employees for half of last year, yet there was Scouting.  Getting patches from Cleveland is certainly more convenient that getting them from London.

Ms. Ireland is already in Scouting.   That is not really her issue.  It's the medal.

  

[Back Pack]

1 hour ago, gblotter said:

Using me as an example, I have to believe the unpopularity of this latest bungle has decimated donations. I have given my last dollar to FOS and I cannot in good conscience encourage others to donate.

They obviously don’t care what I think, so I’ll let my checkbook speak for me.

Exactly why I would pay a mandatory fos donation disguised as a registration or insurance fee. 

[Col. Flagg]

23 hours ago, Hawkwin said:

Up until a few months ago, this person had done everything up through First Class without any official recognition or any idea that they would ever receive official recognition. If there was anyone that could say that they did scouts for the journey and the experience and not the swag, it would be her.

If anything, I gained more respect for her, not less.

Really? You might want to check out her petition on Change.org. This goes back over two years. Check out all the publicity too. You can't say she wasn't doing this for recognition or was doing this just to be in Scouts. If there were true you would not see even a fraction of this publicity. And when you read all the reasons why she's doing this (crowbarring open BSA), Eagle is one of the reasons. The irony is that the other reasons don't hold water because she could attend Jambo, go to high adventure camps and all that other stuff as a VENTURER!!!

So fast forward to today. She's not happy with girls getting in anymore. Now she wants 1) Girls to get in faster, and/or 2) Girls who have worked on requirements before they are allowed in to get credit for that. 

No...she doesn't want any special treatment.

[MattR]

1 hour ago, Col. Flagg said:

So fast forward to today. She's not happy with girls getting in anymore. Now she wants 1) Girls to get in faster, and/or 2) Girls who have worked on requirements before they are allowed in to get credit for that. 

No...she doesn't want any special treatment

I read a few of those posts and I was confused. How can anyone really get upset about the fact that the BSA is not letting girls into scouts a year earlier than planned? You do podcasts and change.org things for that? I would not want her dad in my troop. I've seen this before. It's never enough until you just roll over and have no standards at all. My child is perfect and who are you to stand in their way? We had a parent/child version of this and it was a nightmare. Now it's a nightmare for the council. They finally made the kid a lone scout so he and dad would quit ruining troops. This has little to do with girls anymore. This is one kid and one dad pushing like hell.

The sad thing is this girl's self worth is going to crash like a kid that just ate a huge bowl of candy.

[Gwaihir]

On 1/24/2018 at 9:23 PM, Eagle94-A1 said:

 

 

How can folks trust national?

Because a Scout is Trustworthy... 

[Eagle94-A1]

52 minutes ago, Gwaihir said:

Because a Scout is Trustworthy... 

I hate to say it, but I worked with professionals who were  not Trustworthy. Thank goodness I have copies of my records I turned into the council office.

[HelpfulTracks]

I have avoided commenting in this thread due to my contribution to the closing of a previous political thread. But, what the heck....

The question was asked if this is real news or fake new.

My question is, why is this considered news at all?

Nothing here really rises to the level of news worthy.

We have a "news organization" with a less that sterling reputation, using unnamed sources. The article uses dozens of one to three word quotes (no real context) with only a couple of lengthy quotes. One could make the breakfast menu a Shoney's sound controversial doing that.

We have a organization that is trying, for better or worse, to evolve an iconic program. There are many varied and strong opinions that drive uncertainty on how that should happen. How is that uncertainty surprising or news worthy? It is to be expect.

We have a culture in today's society that is incapable of resolving issues through discussion and compromise. Different groups want things 100% their way or they prefer to burn things to the ground. Where opinion that gets repeated enough becomes fact, regardless of the truth. We have "news organizations" that cherry pick the verbiage and write with a bias towards advocating a position rather then even attempting to present and neutral unvarnished report.

And finally, BSA has been blasted on this forum for announcing the policy change with without having a plan in place. But if on Oct 11th BSA had come out with a complete plan for this the uproar would have been about not asking the volunteers.