Unit Recharter in Question

[Eagle94-A1]

1 hour ago, johnsch322 said:

What is it that parents want their pound of flesh for and what are they threatening litigation about?

Worse threat I have encountered involved an extension for Eagle.  Long story short, Life Scout majorly screwed where he was kicked off the benefitting organization's property, and professionals had to intervene ASAP to fix the mess he caused. This was a week or two before his birthday. Scout wanted an extension to do a second project. Troop said he would have to petition National for an extension. And all hell broke lose with mom. She belligerently threatened to go to the media,  get outside organization involved, and sue everyone: SM, CO, Council and National,  if the extension was not granted.

[fred8033]

8 hours ago, qwazse said:

By that logic … if you were a CO … would you have a youth program AT ALL?

I had long talks with our pastor about that.  ... Is scouting core to the CO purpose and would be significantly less without it.  Almost always the answer is NO.  

For our CO church, the church has it's own long standing youth group and it's own long-standing faith formation program.   Even more, scouting faith components are generic and not well aligned with the CO.   i.e.  the church can't use scouting to pass on their personal beliefs and values. 

So if it's not core, the church members don't invest the time and money to oversee and run the program.  That's when negligence and liability become an issue.  

 

[ValleyBoy]

We have a good group of parents that support the troop but all it takes is one rotten apple such as mentioned in the above posts.  In the instance listed above with the scout bring the playboy on a camping trip as a scout leader we know that boys will be boys and we try and deal with these issues with this thought in mind.

[fred8033]

4 hours ago, qwazse said:

... so due diligence was in order. The word "liability" may not have even been uttered, but "keep our kids safe and leave the building tidy" motivated in the same direction. ... The most egregious thing about UMC's action seems to me that diligent COs are bearing the brunt of those professionals who knew slack charter's were being signed, but pushed their DE's to generate quantity over quality (also a familiar theme here). ...

You may have had due diligence, but prove it.  Most of these incidents are from 1980s or earlier.  That's effectively 40+ years.  The average CO/COR/elder was probably 50+.   So, we need to pull these CO/COR/elders out of the nursing home or the grave to testify.  Good luck finding the CO records or proof.  

Zero COs have a way to prove they exercised due diligence or worked hard to keep their scouts safe.   Even then, the reality is a perpetrator is not easily identifiable in-advance. 

 

Edited November 9, 2021 by fred8033

[fred8033]

4 hours ago, qwazse said:  Then the worst thing litigants could do for our nation's youth is to discourage duly diligent CO's from engaging with them.

4 hours ago, johnsch322 said:

Are we blaming survivors once more?  When will it end?

It's not blaming survivors.  It's a statement about society.  Youth need somewhere to spend their time.  Youth need opportunities to learn values, responsibility, skills, etc.   Scouting has had 100+ million youth.  The vast majority have benefited.  

The statement reflects the belief that a good portion of youth in scouting will be worse off.  ... I know for one of my sons that  would easily be true.  Without the weekends camping, he would have spent more time with his friends that drank, smoked and worse.  I'm glad scouting was there to provide an escape to build friendships with kids who did not have those issues. 

I'd draw a similar analysis from high school sports.  I know multiple  youth by name that have long-term physical damage from football, hockey, etc.  Concussions.  Broken vertebrae.  Paralysis.  ...  Society generally beliefs youth sports are a large net positive.  I'd argue the same is true for scouts ... if we can get past the lame parts.  

Edited November 9, 2021 by fred8033

[ValleyBoy]

4 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

I had long talks with our pastor about that.  ... Is scouting core to the CO purpose and would be significantly less without it.  Almost always the answer is NO.  

For our CO church, the church has it's own long standing youth group and it's own long-standing faith formation program.   Even more, scouting faith components are generic and not well aligned with the CO.   i.e.  the church can't use scouting to pass on their personal beliefs and values. 

So if it's not core, the church members don't invest the time and money to oversee and run the program.  That's when negligence and liability become an issue.  

 

Our SM who is also a deacon of our CO, abstained in voting during the deacons meeting along with one other former scout parent that was registered leader in the past due to there involvement with the scouting program.  I was told by the SM that the deacons that did vote to end the relationship did so with heavy hearts just due to the fact that the liability  to the church was just to great.

[DavidLeeLambert]

15 hours ago, ValleyBoy said:

Was told at tonight's scout meeting that our CO might not recharter our troop & pack for next year.  Our units are sponsored by a church and the Deacon board of the church will recommend at the next church business meeting that the church ends it relationship with the BSA [...]

Looks like we will be trying to find a new CO to sponsor a new troop and pack when both units drop at the end of the year.  [...]

Anyone else having to go thru process with [their] unit[?]  We do know of several [issues] that will come up in this process such as unit equipment and unit finances [toward which] which the present CO has not contributed any resources[].  .      

As far as I know, not with any of the current units I am registered with, but:

• My younger kids' pack switched COs at the end of 2020, from a public school's "Parent Council" to a church
• Several boys joined my older sons' troop after the CO of their prior troop (a Catholic parish) was dissolved, mid-2020 (and the parish's dissolution was announced in late 2019)
• Another troop (or at least one boy and its Scoutmaster) has been meeting with our troop for over a year now because the fire-station where they used to meet has been closed to outside groups since the beginning of the COVID pandemic
• Another CO in a nearby town is a church that voted to dissolve, just this past week
• And I was a registered leader in a couple of LDS units until the end of 2019

I hope that "might" turns into a decision to keep your units (and perhaps even "support" them more meaningfully), but if not, switching to a different CO should be doable.

But a few days before the board meeting, and a few weeks before the end of the year, is not a good time to be organizing your equipment, reconciling your accounts, and tracking down copies of paperwork. Just as program planning for camping and advancement a year or more in advance is helpful, it's probably prudent for the committee to have plans in place in January of "what will we do if our CO won't recharter us in December?"

[johnsch322]

 

46 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

It's not blaming survivors.  It's a statement about society. 

Normally I would probably agree with you but this poster just previously to that post said

"Is there any victims’ attorney out there who said they will take a CO off their list of intended targets if they drop a charter?"

And not a big leap to connect:

46 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

Then the worst thing litigants could do for our nation's youth is to discourage duly diligent CO's from engaging with them.

with survivors.

Edited November 9, 2021 by johnsch322

[Eagledad]

12 minutes ago, johnsch322 said:

 

Normally I would probably agree with you but this poster just previously to that post said

"Is there any victims’ attorney out there who said they will take a CO off their list of intended targets if they drop a charter?"

And not a big leap to connect:

with survivors.

So, I think you are only thinking in the perspective of sexual abuse. But, there are many actions in the outdoors that motivate litigation. Are we only talking about sex abuse here? That would be easy. But, I think, and please correct me if I'm wrong, but I think we are talking about all litigations at units. 

Barry

[ValleyBoy]

58 minutes ago, DavidLeeLambert said:

As far as I know, not with any of the current units I am registered with, but:

• My younger kids' pack switched COs at the end of 2020, from a public school's "Parent Council" to a church
• Several boys joined my older sons' troop after the CO of their prior troop (a Catholic parish) was dissolved, mid-2020 (and the parish's dissolution was announced in late 2019)
• Another troop (or at least one boy and its Scoutmaster) has been meeting with our troop for over a year now because the fire-station where they used to meet has been closed to outside groups since the beginning of the COVID pandemic
• Another CO in a nearby town is a church that voted to dissolve, just this past week
• And I was a registered leader in a couple of LDS units until the end of 2019

I hope that "might" turns into a decision to keep your units (and perhaps even "support" them more meaningfully), but if not, switching to a different CO should be doable.

But a few days before the board meeting, and a few weeks before the end of the year, is not a good time to be organizing your equipment, reconciling your accounts, and tracking down copies of paperwork. Just as program planning for camping and advancement a year or more in advance is helpful, it's probably prudent for the committee to have plans in place in January of "what will we do if our CO won't recharter us in December?"

I am not blaming our present CO due to the time frame.  First deacons meeting after receiving paperwork from council regarding CO responsibilities from present lawsuit. Our present CO did support the unit by allowing the unit to use there building and church van and the church members supporting unit fund drives.   We were not supported financially by the CO but they did know what the troop and pack were doing.   Only drawback will be the time frame of getting new units registered.  One of our biggest council events we always attends in the last full weekend in January which my be missed if new unit is not in place  by that time.  We do have several different options for new CO to approach, several which will not be ideal but would still work.  What I mean by not being ideal is the location of possible CO meeting location.

The closet scout troop to us will not be rechartering for next year which have been known for months.  This will leave the closet troop in our district to us meeting  at a location which is about 30 miles from our present location.

[qwazse]

On 11/9/2021 at 10:42 AM, johnsch322 said:

Are we blaming survivors once more?  When will it end?

Their advocates will have us believe that not all victims of childhood sexual assault are litigants. So, no, by their own argument, we are not blaming survivors, or even a majority of them. If the current body of CSA litigants do comprise the majority of survivors, then BSA would be statistically 10 times as safe as the general population. It can't be both ways ... either yours are the minority of a sea of victims or, were we to investigate an organization with a similar number of youth, we would find 10 nightmares for every one of yours.

As I testified elsewhere, my lived experience has been among survivors whose abusers had no part in scouting. So I do see a palpable risk that the diminution of national youth organizations could have serious unintended consequences -- not the least of which being under-served children's increased contact with potential abusers. Tossing around rhetoric about "blaming survivors" does nothing to allay that.

As has been pointed out, not all litigants are CSA survivors, so yours may be the case of the day, but on these forums are other reports of claims against the organization. I find them helpful, because they do provoke thought.

So, you are welcome to brag about how litigation makes an organization better, how the non-monetary terms will do wonders in making it even more trusted and it's youth safer -- if indeed, you can show some evidence that the process is doing that. But some of us are concerned about all the youth of the nation. Prove a net good for them.

[johnsch322]

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

Their advocates will have us believe that not all victims of childhood sexual assault are litigants. So, no, by their own argument, we are not blaming survivors, or even a majority of them. If the current body of CSA litigants do comprise the majority of survivors, then BSA would be statistically 10 times as safe as the general population. It can't be both ways ... either yours are the minority of a sea of victims or, were we to investigate an organization with a similar number of youth, we would find 10 nightmares for every one of yours.

As I testified elsewhere, my lived experience has been among survivors whose abusers had no part in scouting. So I do see a palpable risk that the diminution of national youth organizations could have serious unintended consequences -- not the least of which being under-served children's increased contact with potential abusers. Tossing around rhetoric about "blaming survivors" does nothing to allay that.

As has been pointed out, not all litigants are CSA survivors, so yours may be the case of the day, but on these forums are other reports of claims against the organization. I find them helpful, because they do provoke thought.

So, you are welcome to brag about how litigation makes an organization better, how the non-monetary terms will do wonders in making it even more trusted and it's youth safer -- if indeed, you can show some evidence that the process is doing that. But some of us are concerned about all the youth of the nation. Prove a net good for them.

Of course not all the victims of child abuse are not litigants…..some are dead, some are so mentally unhealthy they can’t function and some are so embarrassed and have no self worth they cannot or will not come forward.

Which orginazation are you alluding to has 10 times the amount of abused youth. If you actually know of one and care about protecting youth please come forward and protect those youth. 
I am pretty sure that no where have I bragged about how this case will make youth safer but now that you bring it up I will. And as for hard evidence I don’t think you need to be a genius to correlate stricter controls will make youth safer. I am sure all youth organizations are looking closer at their own programs with the litigation that has happened within multiple orginazations hence litigation makes all youth safer. 

[Eagledad]

1 hour ago, johnsch322 said:

Which orginazation are you alluding to has 10 times the amount of abused youth. If you actually know of one and care about protecting youth please come forward and protect those youth. 
I am pretty sure that no where have I bragged about how this case will make youth safer but now that you bring it up I will. And as for hard evidence I don’t think you need to be a genius to correlate stricter controls will make youth safer. I am sure all youth organizations are looking closer at their own programs with the litigation that has happened within multiple orginazations hence litigation makes all youth safer. 

I'm curious, what controls do you think would make youth safer? Do you have experience with the program as an adult? I was involved with several youth program as a youth and adult raising kids, and none of those other program came close to the youth protection policies of the BSA. Since you mention stricter controls would make youth safer, I'm curious of the controls.

Barry

[johnsch322]

9 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

I'm curious, what controls do you think would make youth safer? Do you have experience with the program as an adult? I was involved with several youth program as a youth and adult raising kids, and none of those other program came close to the youth protection policies of the BSA. Since you mention stricter controls would make youth safer, I'm curious of the controls.

Barry

How about no non registered adults on any overnight campout? As the previous poster said how does litigation make it safer for I will ask you if there had been no litigation against youth organizations would it be as safe as an environment now or would we have less controls. I have experience with youth as my daughter was a competitive swimmer for about 8 years. 

[Eagledad]

1 minute ago, johnsch322 said:

How about no non registered adults on any overnight campout? As the previous poster said how does litigation make it safer for I will ask you if there had been no litigation against youth organizations would it be as safe as an environment now or would we have less controls. I have experience with youth as my daughter was a competitive swimmer for about 8 years. 

Umm, there was a lot said there, but its confusing. No registered adults overnight got it. I don't understand the litigation. I'm pretty sure the BSA has been involved with many litigation cases. What youth protection controls in competitive swimming do you suggest for the BSA.

Barry