Major Changes Announced -- Councils Impacted

[mashmaster]

As a Skipper, I hope you are wrong.

[fred8033]

2 hours ago, desertrat77 said:

Let's meet our obligations in a scout-like manner ...

I agree that we must keep a stiff upper lip, but this is wholly unfair.  BSA has been a huge net positive.  BSA had a youth protection program in place years before others.  BSA did the best to track and remove violators before society and police had similar structures.  BSA is being uniquely targeted because of assets without parallel targeting of structures with similar assets that had arguably statistically similar abuse history:  schools.  sports.  and almost every single youth serving organization.  BSA is being targeted using 2020 standards / expectations / judgement that were not existing for 1970s / 1980s.  

BSA's huge mistake was not purging records that were decades old and of zero value / use to BSA before any hint of lawsuits happened.  Every company I've worked established in the 1990s document retention policies, in large part due to liability risk.  I think it's negligent BSA's legal team did not address this long, long ago.  

We must meet this as scouts, but I will never accept this as an acceptable penalty.  This is a money grab.  This is a smear campaign.  Shame on the law firms.  Shame on the individuals.  Shame on the legal system that is blind to this.  

[MikeS72]

8 hours ago, carebear3895 said:

Get your red berets, gents!

Still have it!

[Protoclete]

I'm sorry i missed the call,  it was just a little too late in the evening over here. 

Overall, downsizing and streamlining is a good thing. For the size of the organization, we have far to many layers and levels that don't actually seem to contribute to the mission of the organization. Maybe necessary at peak membership levels fifty years ago, but seeming only to exist because they have always existed these days. I'm glad people are taking seriously the pandemic - and even, if unfortunately, the lawsuits - as a real crisis, a turning point, and an opportunity to redesign and come out leaner and more efficient at doing what we do best. The idea that the current volunteer and data management systems - and the whole recharter concept - could be scrapped in favor of something that actually makes sense, and uses the technology we have to limit the amount of 'paperwork' we all have to do is probably the best news in this whole thing. 

It'll be hard, yes, but better than if we just tried to weather it all by doing nothing. 

[Cburkhardt]

Fred 8033:  I agree with all you have stated.  Plaintiff lawyers figured out that there would be support at the state level to eliminate the statutes of limitations for youth abuse.  The big urban states passed those laws at their urging and that enabled all of this.  The lawyers just pursued their economic interests, plain and simple.  They will personally gain billions in the process.
 

Events also drive outcomes and the corona virus has done that in this circumstance.  It has put a choke hold on councils, National and unit operations at precisely the worst moment.  The ceasing of cash flow greatly increases the risk that the BSA will not have the cash flow to effectively defend itself or arise after the case.  The lawsuits will now expand geometrically against the councils and then the chartered organizations of the involved individual churches.  Whew!  Can’t believe how much all of this is cutting against Scouting.

To keep positive, I suggest focusing on how units can come out of this unharmed.  The key tools will be to maintain or rebuild a great relationship with the chartered organizations so that when the tough times come, the units of today are not turned out as a matter of liability reduction.  
 

I plan a posting some time in a few weeks that will center on what units should begin to do in order to emerge from all of this in reasonable shape.  

[InquisitiveScouter]

9 hours ago, carebear3895 said:

Get your red berets, gents!

Oh, Lord, no!  Not the berets 😰  Campaign or Expedition Hats!!

 

 

[InquisitiveScouter]

9 hours ago, Cburkhardt said:

Venturing membership is imploding for reasons I am not entirely aware of. 

My daughter and her friends were in Venturing primarily for the outdoor program.  They have that now in Troops.

Most young men I have spoken with were in Venturing for the outdoor program, to get away from "babysitting" in Troops, to leave the advancement program behind, and for girls 😜  With the young women leaving for Troops, many young men are bailing out.

[69RoadRunner]

We need to change. Even without the lawsuits and bankruptcy, we need to change. We're going the way of bowling alleys right now. I'm 50 and as a kid, I lived in a bowling alley.  It was tough getting a open lane at times.  People belonged to leagues. Since then, society changed and belonging to a league is not something people want to do.

We can't be nostalgic. We have to figure out how we can serve today's youth. Lots of people think they have the answers. I don't claim to know who has the right answers. I suspect adults younger than me with younger kids will know better than people 50 - 70.

 

[Cburkhardt]

2 minutes ago, 69RoadRunner said:

We need to change. Even without the lawsuits and bankruptcy, we need to change.

Yes we do.  The re-branding as we come out of bankruptcy will either get the job done or we will just slowly fade into a small highly-specialized group.

[Cburkhardt]

No press coverage today.  Apparently the media was either not aware of or not able to access the online meeting yesterday, because there seems to be no mention in the media today of yesterday's revelations.  Most articles are simply focused on generally covering the recent ramping-up of lawsuit filings against councils and the expectation that councils will be required to contribute to the Victims Trust Fund. 

[mashmaster]

I got confirmation from someone at National that it is real, I am bummed.  They said there will be a timeline to enable existing youth 18-20 to finish Quartermaster.  I think it will most affect people like my son who will be 18 his entire senior year.  He loves his Crew and Ship.  I hope he will be able to particpate just without advancement.  He already doesn't care much about the advancement.

 

90% of national and regional scout leadership for Sea Scouts are all 18+ now.

 

[Eagle1993]

Thanks for the updates … my biggest concern is loss of land.  Primarily Philmont, Sea Base and council camps.  I'm sure there is probably excess in some councils, but it is tough to put on good camporees (such as Klondike) or summer camp at public facilities or state parks.   It was bad enough when we went to a camp with a non private lake.  Completely understand there will be some loss, but hopefully we have enough to continue the program.

Otherwise, I simply hope we survive in some form.  I don't see how national or regional overhead loss will be negative, but time will tell.  Scouts BSA needs to go … I haven't seen many fans of the name in my area.  Explorers wouldn't be bad and could be used to emphasize the outdoor focus.  

[Eagledad]

2 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Most young men I have spoken with were in Venturing for the outdoor program, to get away from "babysitting" in Troops, to leave the advancement program behind, and for girls 😜  With the young women leaving for Troops, many young men are bailing out.

Who is babysitting who! Doesn't matter, if babysitting is a word being used in your unit, they they are doing it wrong.

And why would girls leave venturing for troops? If the boys are leaving because of babysitting, what is the attraction for girls? The unit leaders are doing it wrong. Chuckhardt has never hid his Troop's purpose of earning Eagles, but I know from experience that once the shininess of the Eagle wears off, the program better have something else. That something else is where the BSA will live or die in the future.

Our troop when I was an active leader had the largest group of scouts 14 and older in the council. We were approached several times by council to start a Venturing Crew, but that didn't make sense to us. If our troop was so successful without venturing, why risk dividing up the program. Our formula for success was adventure. Besides our fun monthly camp outs, our troop averaged 6 High Adventure Outtings a year. And there were no age requirements or limitations. If an 11 year old was mentally and physically capable, they were welcome to the crew. 

That's not to say we didn't have Eagles, our troop averaged an Eagle every 2.5 months. But advancement was the scout's responsibility. The secret to our scouts earning Eagles was keeping them around until they were 18. The average age our scouts passed their EBOR was 16.5 years old. If a scout hangs around long enough, they trip over the Eagle. We had a program were scouts wanted to come and hang out. It was program where young adults were respected as young adults and they like that.

1 hour ago, 69RoadRunner said:

We can't be nostalgic. We have to figure out how we can serve today's youth. Lots of people think they have the answers. I don't claim to know who has the right answers. I suspect adults younger than me with younger kids will know better than people 50 - 70.

What is nostalgic? Camping? Hiking? What about the experience of leadership and making independent decisions? What do young adults know about scouting that experienced adults haven't already experienced?

I propose to you that the basic structure of learning by making independent decisions in our youth is timeless and valued through all generations. In fact, if you are willing to take the time, you will observe that most successful units are typically the ones who have the appearance of being the most nostalgic. The formula for success in scouting isn't the old nostalgic traditions, the success is based form the common sense of learning by doing in an environment that forces youth to develop better habits of making decisions.

If the program got lost, it wasn't because the modern world ran past it. The program got lost because because the managers of the program got greedy added so much weight on the program that parent volunteers could no-longer give the time it needed for the youth. 

I've been on this forum for a long time and I know that if a poll were taken of one element that has hurt the program the most, "Eagle" would be at the top of the list. And yet, some here still use Eagle to drive their unit. 

I don't know how Scouting can survive the wave of media that will come with the claims of abuse. Independence is a requirement for character growth. In this day and age of protecting youth from harm, is there any room for growth learned from bad choices?

Barry

 

[T2Eagle]

I'm still a bit confused as to how so much of the council assets can be brought into this.  The councils are separate legal entities, domiciled in their own states; that's a hard vale to pierce.  

For instance, I live in Ohio, no change in the statute of limitations in other states affects my council's liability.  National does not have the authority to order us to turn over assets to it, and so neither does the bankruptcy court.  The power that National does hold over us is the charter, which really boils down to the copyrights.  So the real drop dead question for us would be how much are we willing to pay for the right to use the names and symbols.  They're certainly worth something, but I suspect the clearing price is a lot lower than what is being discussed here.

Is the problem that assets in the states that have changed are so substantial as a percentage of over all scouting that losing them would effectively doom the movement nation wide, or is it that National is determined to preserve its assets, primarily the HA bases, and so the price of keeping them is going to be paid by all the local councils?  If it's the latter I'd balk at that.  Philmont, Seabase, Summit et al are wonderful, but only a very small percentage of my or anyone else's scouts will ever go there.  On the other hand, virtually every scout attends a local scout camp. If the choice is between Philmont and my council camp I'll choose my council camp as the asset to keep.

 

 

[John-in-KC]

13 hours ago, carebear3895 said:

Scouting/USA coming back from the dead?! Get your red berets, gents!

Ding dong the beret is dead, the beret is dead, THE BERET IS DEAD