What BSA Rules get in the way of a Good Program/Image?

[Beavah]

Yah, BW, there's always ways of tryin' to justify restrictions.

 

The presence of risk, by itself, does not justify a prohibition, IMO. Lots of adults die from drowning every year, eh? Da proper policy response is to teach children to swim, not ban water activities. Same with chainsaws and ski-doos.

 

The presence of risk, by itself, says nothin' about whether a particular response to the risk has merit. Lots of Scouters die from heart attacks in da field every year. That doesn't mean we should come up with our own BSA version of CPR, and ignore da industry standard. Same with water activities.

 

The presence of risk must be balanced against da presence of benefits. AFAIK, da Catholic Church, for all its sexual abuse publicity, still justifies one-on-one private confessions and spiritual direction, eh? Beginnin' in 2nd grade! The benefits outweigh da risks. Same for a scouter dealin' with an upset teen.

 

Da presence of one or even quite a few successes does not justify a policy. A teacher might be so bad that more than half of his students are failin', but he can always point to a few kids gettin' A's. Same with Cub Programs. Just because there are some successful Cub Worlds and packs that camp ain't enough, if we also have high cub scout attrition from boredom and a lot of weak cub campin' programs.

 

Just because someone doesn't like somethin' doesn't mean they should tell everyone else not to do it. I knew an SPL once who wasn't much of a backpacker and tried to veto all backpacking activities. Even cited risk! Yah, a troop can be successful without backpackin', but that doesn't mean other troops can't use backpackin' well. Same with lasertag and such, eh?

 

Ain't enough to look just at the risks. Ain't enough to look just at the effect of the rule if it were understood perfectly and implemented perfectly by everyone (and blame them if not). Ain't enough to look just at the benefits of a rule, real or imagined. In da real world, there are benefits that are worth the risk, rules are never understood nor implemented perfectly, and rules have costs and negative consequences.

 

So of course they can get in da way of deliverin' a good program! Da cost of rules, includin' people who don't understand 'em or implement them well or follow 'em blindly or debate what da meaning of "is" is are a part of the effect of a rule that has to be taken into account when evaluatin' its merits.

 

Beavah

 

P.S. BTW, it was indeed true that da poorly written bylaws created and perpetuated da Chicago council mess. In a properly written set of Bylaws, the matter would have been resolved in one evening. Sadly, it's also true that a few folks told Irving that years before and even tried to do da edits for free.

[Bob White]

Horizon

You gave a great example of how misunderstanding the rules causes more problems than the rules themselves. There is nothing that requires a parent or legal guardian to accompany the Cub on a campout. The BSA policy states In most cases, the youth member will be under the supervision of a parent or guardian. In all cases, each youth participant is responsible to a specific adult."

 

The BSA recognizes that there will be instances when a parent or guardian is unavailable, and allows for the Cub to be supervised by another adult parent on the trip (other than the event leader). The only stipulation is that the adult cannot be in the tent with, or alone one-on-one with the scout, since they are not the parent or legal guardian.

 

 

Beavah

Again misunderstanding of the rules is what causes the problem in your case as well. There is nothing in the BSa youth protection that prohibits a leader from being able to have a one on one private conversation with a youth. They simply need to be in the view of another adult. That does not mean that the other adult must be close enough to be privy to the conversation.

 

As a practicing Catholic since birth I can tell you that second graders do not go to confession alone. There is either a whole class of second graders and a teacher just outside the door, or they are their with a parent or family members.

 

There is risk... and then there is unnecesarry risk. As I said there were 40,000 deaths or accidents related to chain saws last year alone. You can bet that the vast majority of them were men who thought they knew what they were doing.

 

"Just because someone doesn't like somethin' doesn't mean they should tell everyone else not to do it.

 

That depends on who's paying the bill. If you want to do whatever you want but then have the BSA foot the bill when you screw up...uh uh. Life doesn't work that way. The man who pays the piper names the tune.

It is not your kids or your finances you are risking when you do unsafe things, so you don't get to do anything you want to do while representing Scouting.

 

Trevorum

More problems come from volunteers who don't undertand the program than from the rules of the program. Highly paid Scouting professionals do not make the decisons on membership. Volunteers make those decisions and the ones that are hioghly paid are highly paid by their businesses or organozations other than scouting.

 

With only a few exceptions the BSA executive board is made of volunteers. The role of the professional at the national as well as the local level is primarily to facilitate the decisions of volunteer committees.

 

 

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[evmori]

I would propose that most problems come from leaders who misinterpret the rules & regs. This happens more often than not!

[Beavah]

Again misunderstanding of the rules is what causes the problem in your case as well.

 

I'm not havin' any problems here, BW. Well, besides Mrs. Beavah given me da "look" last night, eh? 30+ years workin' with youth, and not a serious incident to mention. Mrs. Beavah even forgives me most of da time!

 

As I said there were 40,000 deaths or accidents related to chain saws last year alone.

 

Yah, so this is one of those cases where we have to use a little common sense judgment when we read, eh, or we fall victim to someone else's deliberate spin. 40,000 deaths or serious injuries would be spectacular. There'd be congressional inquiries! Accordin' to NEISS, there were zero chainsaw fatalities for da last year of record (2006). A whoppin' 25 reported cases that required hospitalization overnight. All the rest were "treat and release" or just examined and released, and was still estimated at only around 30K, so yeh must be reportin' an old year. By contrast, da number was 148,000 "treat and releases" for usin' ladders, with nearly 12,000 hospitalizations. Guess we'll see a G2SS prohibition on ladders next, eh?

 

I'm not sayin' chainsaws aren't a serious tool. Point is just that da presence of risk, by itself, doesn't justify a prohibition. And the perception of risk by well-meanin' folks is not always very accurate, eh?

 

After all, cars are a serious tool, and a much higher risk. But we do let teens drive, even in da BSA sometimes.

 

If you want to do whatever you want but then have the BSA foot the bill

 

Yah, nobody here has made any statment about doin' whatever he/she wanted. All we're doin' is answerin' the original poster's question. What rules and policies do we think get in the way of providin' kids a good program? Mine was da same as Ed's, it's mostly how people misinterpret or apply rules poorly dat hurts. But we could do better on the rules, too, and especially on buckin' the trend toward constantly addin' rules.

 

My favorite last year was "water chugging" is now unauthorized.

 

Beavah

(This message has been edited by Beavah)

[Oak Tree]

Ok, here's one more rule that's a pain. Our summer camp is offering a pistol shooting class. Only Venturers are allowed to shoot, so you have to show proof that you are registered in a crew (or ship, presumably). So if one of my Scouts wants to take this class, I can go find some crew leader who will let me sign up my Scout as a paper-member of his crew. How does this make any sense? Why does being a member of a crew make it ok for the same boy to now shoot pistols?

 

In general, I don't like that there are separate rules for Venturers than for older Boy Scouts - or even more so, for Varsity Scouts. Why can a Venturer hunt, but not a Varsity Scout?

[Be_Prepared]

Back to the original question....

 

What rules of the BSA (and by rules I mean policies, procedures, et al) get in the way of you delivering a good program?

 

Venturing Rules regarding overnight coed activities

 

Must have BOTH a male and female 21 or over for coed overnight activity

 

EX: The Venturing Crew I work with - 17, 18, 19, 20 year olds. We are going camping next weekend. No 21 or older female is available. I can't take my 20 year old, venturing member, daughter.

 

There are ways around this - We dual register as a "scout troop" and she is an adult leader - no problem there.

 

I know there will be the usual responses to this: "protect against predators"

"...don't want my daughter camping with a bunch of older men" "find a female leader to go camping" etc. I don't need solutions to the issue, or discussions on the reason for the rule -- this is just a response to the original question

 

 

 

 

[Stosh]

If one looks closely at the "rule" a daughter can attend a Venturing event as long as she is accompanied by her parent/guardian. That means she wouldn't need to be registered as a scout leader "to get by". An adult Boy Scout leader means nothing at a Venturing activity if that person is under 21. If they are registered as a Venturing crew member, regardless of any other standing in the BSA program, they are a Venturing crew member at a Venturing event. In the example cited, she would need a female chaperone over 21 for her to go, but she can go because her parent is going, and not because of her dual registration. Remember it does not specify that the parent has to be the same gender as the crew member.

 

In this grey area of Venturing, i.e. 18-21 year-olds, regardless of any other issue, the BSA adheres to the crew members as youth regardless of their legal standings. In Scouting a 14 year old cannot tent together with a 20 year-old, but in Venturing they can.

 

Stosh

[evmori]

I would also propose rules like the previous two posts stated that require an MBA to interpret are of no help.

[Beavah]

MBA? Masters of Banal Administrivia?

 

Yah, I'm with Ed and Be.

 

B

 

[Horizon]

Hold it - the MBAs like simple, bulleted lists (see most of my posts) where we can have enough wiggle room to do whatever we please if it makes us money (or helps the Boys in Scouting).

It is the JDs that make things so confusing!

 

[duck and cover]

[highcountry]

I can't provide a list of rules but there have been many ridiculous rules already noted on this thread I was not aware of, rules that provide little to no safety benefit that help get some percieved laibility off someone's shoulders but make doing or organizing an activity difficult. Do I try to put on a safe program...you bet, I also try to put on a program that teaches my scouts the fundementals we are trying to achive, hard enough in these days where parents and kids want out the easy way all the time. I sometimes read here and elsewhere of scouters who seem to derive some sort of pride or ego that they can tell everyone else how their breaking some minute rule from BSA that provides no benefit otehr than to say I am a good scouter and follow the rules to the letter.

How safe do we all want to be ? remeber personal responsibility ? or are we going to bow to the pressure of lawyers and special interests and regulate everything to the point it becomes too much of a hassle to do or it is no longer fun to go on ?

I can't beleive BSA says our touch football games are of limits, Lazar tag was ridiculous, we continued to do it as a non scout event, no troop funds. I had someone who has since left my troop tell me dodgeball is out due to interpretation of G2SS, I told them too bad, they persisted and I told them to get lost. When I was involved with cubs the restrictions on camping didn't get in our way, we had safe and fun campouts but we called them non scout family events. Our troop has done firewood for years, we are safe, never had so much as a splinter, but with worries about council and rules on chain saws etc we took this offline. We created the local firewod for fitness club, the club madse money for a "good cause"...by the way teh causse is out trop and when we donated teh money we credited boys who helped according to the work they did.

The entire Eagleproject/uniform thread is part of this mess, if someone wants to pontiifcate on minor ruels fine, but sometimes my boys wear a class A on an eagel project, as a matter of fact, the local town paper just published an article on our troop and one of the boysis shown in his class A, nice positive exposure to the troop and BSA in a small community, I could care less if it breaks oen of BSA's endless useless rules. I am trying to run a good safe program where teh scouts are learning and having fun, hopefully I can leave a positive impression of BSA and out troop in teh community, I'd ratehr do this than be an expert on BSA's ever increasing list of rules, many pointless and counter productive.

[FScouter]

"I'd ratehr do this than be an expert on BSA's ever increasing list of rules, many pointless and counter productive."

 

Most of the "useless rules" posted here are not rules at all. But it's still fun to trash Scouting.

[Bob White]

"How safe do we all want to be?"

 

I would hope that you would want to be as safe as you could be and stil enjoy the activity. There is a reason that race car drivers are safer today than 20 years ago even though they travel at higher speeds. Safety does not mean "not fun" it means "not dumb".

 

"Remember personal responsibility?"

 

Sure do. Do you remeber you are responsibible for other people's children and they might not be as keen about seeing them come back sick or injured?

 

"or are we going to bow to the pressure of lawyers and special interests and regulate everything to the point it becomes too much of a hassle to do or it is no longer fun to go on? "

 

Is it your contention that Scouting can't be fun if you can't take unneeded risks or play laser tag?

 

How far should lawyers get to regulate things? That is up to your courts and the state and federal governements not the BSA. But since the BSA is the one that has to pay the bills they get to set the rules for BSAA activities.

 

Would you rather lose your house or follow some safety rules? It's a personal choice. What would you say was the personally responsible thing to do?

(This message has been edited by Bob White)

[GaHillBilly]

Reading through this thread, it becomes evident that many of the perceived obstacles created by BSA rules actually can be worked around, in one way or another. But, what's also clear is that doing so requires an extensive understanding of the details of the rules, as well as an active awareness of which requirements are actually rules, and which are troop or council custom!

 

It seems to me that this 'need for knowledge' is the real barrier. In order for adult leaders to navigate 'the rules' successfully, they are going to have to do a LOT of reading, and a fair amount of real thinking about things like, "what does this really mean?", and "how would this actually apply?".

 

This is a problem partly because many adult leaders are not avid readers. Even if they were, it takes time to work through the mountains of BSA material. And speaking for myself, I don't often think, "Hey, I believe I'll sit down for a relaxing evening spent carefully reading the G2SS".

 

I've spent much of my adult life working in areas where I was required to 'thread the needle' of various competing, and sometimes conflicting, codes. So the idea of paying careful attention to the details comes naturally to me. These experiences also mean that I'm accustomed to the ideas that (a) all codes suck to a greater or lesser degree, but that this does not mean that (b) they are not needed or should be discarded entirely. I know that © it is impossible for any set of regulations to cover every real situation well, and so (d) some 'creative' interpretation is often necessary. But, I also know that far more often than people realize, (e) codes commonly are less restrictive than a careless reading would suggest.

 

But all these solutions still require that adult leaders spend hours getting to know and understand the BSA 'codes'. This is hard, since Scouting already takes many hours and since most leaders aren't comfortable 'interpreting' code documents. Another difficulty is that no organization is going to TRAIN its members in "How to Interpret Our Codes Effectively and Creatively, without really Violating Them", even though this is ultimately an pretty basic organizational skill.

 

GaHillBilly

[Bob White]

It really isn't the reading juggernaut you suggest it is.

 

In order to make it easy the BSa puts the info out in topic specific documents rather than one large unwieldly book, if you have a question on boy scout advancement you can look in the Advancement manual un the Boy Scout program, it is only a few pages long.

 

If you have a question on Cub Scout Uniforming you can look in the uniform manula under cub scouting, it is onley a couple of pages long.

 

If your question is on fundraising you can look at the Unit Money earning application it is a 2-sided sheet of paper.

 

For saftey look at the Guide to Safe Scouting, it is organized by activities so you only need to look under that specifc activity you are doing. there is no need to read the entire document.

 

Granted it takes knowledge, but someone unwilling to learn should not have been selected for leadership, and yest it takes a small amount of effirt, but again, someone unwilling to put out any effort should not be selected for a leadeship position in any walk of life.

 

So hopefully the people who are chosen to lead a scout program already understand and expect that they will have to learn new things.