Who decides?

[Scoutfish]

I have a question. I am only in my second year of being involved in scouting, and I am currently a Asst Den Leader for a Bear Den.

 

In order to be the best I can be as a ADL, I went out and bought leader books, activity guidline books and such just to help me out.

 

I cannot tell you how much I have learned from this site. "Real word" stuff that the books just don't talk about.

 

But tghis is my question: "Who actually make the final decisions on what is allowed and not alowe? Who make the final decision on policy?

 

Is it a collective of Cub Pack and Scout Troops across the Us? I mean, following the example of US citizens vote for house and senate who are "supposed" to represent us on a federal level.

Is that the same system in Scouts or does National just make up what they think without any input, reference or thought to what any consensous of scout troops and cub packs want?

Does my council make a vote on a state level which in turn is represented at a National level when policy is made?

 

I have no issues anywhere a this time, I am just curious.

[BDPT00]

The decision makers are at the national level (regarding changes in policy and guidelines). Many decisions are local, but the ones we usually argue about here are national.

The national committees are made up of volunteers, but most often those volunteers are quite a distance from working directly with Scouts and units. The dirt Scouter gets offended when a policy affecting him is made by some big dog in Dallas who may not even own a uniform.

There's lot of posturing and politics. We at the unit level don't know the reasons for many decisions, and we get frustrated.

You'll get plenty of replies to your question.

BDPT00

 

[Scoutfish]

"The dirt Scouter gets offended when a policy affecting him is made by some big dog in Dallas who may not even own a uniform."

LOL! Sounds familiar! I used to belong to a NASCAR website that you were not allowd to mention,reference or spel certain NASCAR phrases that were commonly mentioned on tv.

The result of lawyers worrying about the super PC police. Members of this site would get so bent out of shape over the mods who enforced the rules. I'd tell them that most rules are writen by lawyers who wouldn't know a racecar if it ran over them, much less NASCAR jargon.

So, yeah...I totally get the concept!

Ahhh...isn't life great!

 

[acco40]

When I first became a Scouter the 'McDonalds' analogy was usefull for me.

 

Think of the BSA like McDonalds. As an Asst. Den Leader, you 'work' for a Pack which is owned by a Charter Organization which was 'franchised' from the BSA (National Council). They tell you what food you can serve (handbooks, advancement program, uniforms, etc.), how you should cook and serve it (guides, policies, etc.) and retain the right to remove or drop you if they wish. You get some leeway (when do we meet, what will we do each den meeting, etc.) and are allowed to give feedback to the parent corporation (National Council) but they may or may not listen (i.e. you don't have a "vote" exactly.

[Mike F]

RE: "The dirt Scouter gets offended when a policy affecting him is made by some big dog in Dallas who may not even own a uniform."

 

I have met several of the big dogs at National and have been told by each of them independently that everyone in the office also serves as a volunteer at the unit level.

 

There's still plenty of room to get frustrated by their decisions.

[Basementdweller]

There is may levels of policies.....

 

An example.

 

Sheath Knives are not specifically prohibited by national.

 

Some councils may ban them

Some Districts may ban them

Some Camps may ban them

Some Troops may ban them.

 

Now you ask what is the repercussions for National or Council Policy........ I don't know of any, I suppose they could remove you as a volunteer.

 

I have been in Packs where anything goes and in Packs where we debate the rules for hours, guess which one was more fun to be a part of.....

[Scoutfish]

Basement, funny you mention the knives:

I had a few minutes to kill yesterday during our PWD woorkshop. I was in our scout building/shed/workshop and just happened upon an old colection of scout books. One in particular was a 1964 printed edition. No pictures...just all drawings. It discussed camping and what was practical.

Without quoting in any certain way, it basically said that sheath knives were not the most important/realist thing to have , but there uses had been proven to be ...well...useful and practical.

 

No where did I se banned,outlawed,disallowed or even shone in an unfavorable light.

But then within 3 pages either way, you could carry an axe, use kerosene and what not.

Oh, within a few chapters were a few paragraphs about smearing kerosene on chigger bites or shoes to prevent those bites.

I'm pretty sure scouts wearing kerosene would bring out the debate hounds too!

[Scoutfish]

My apologies!

When I asked who made final policy on what is allowed or not allowed, I meant as far as "offical policy" and what is ultimately printed in the offical scout books.(This message has been edited by scoutfish)

[Basementdweller]

Policy is the Guide to Safe Scouting often refered to here as the G2SS

 

There are a lot of copies floating around on the internet of varying age.

 

Here is the link to the one on national

 

http://www.scouting.org/scoutsource/HealthandSafety/GSS.aspx

 

To answer your question. Something happened to force a new policy. lawsuit, injury, ect.

 

Right after the Iowa tornado they came out with the severe weather training.

 

When I was a Youth scout it was the Bicentennial and our Troop built a revolutionary war cannon. We marched with it in parades and shot it. 30 years later I laughed when I saw that artillery was banned in the G2SS. Now was it ban when we did it????? Did the G2SS exist then?????

 

In the coming years it will be interesting what happens to scouting as they continue to remove it from the woods.

[Oak Tree]

There are lots of different policies that get published in a variety of publications. I believe that most of these decisions are made by committees of volunteers.]

 

I think of Scouting more like a school textbook company than as a franchise. Lots of different teachers use the book, and classes look very different, even while they are going by the book. Every now and then the textbook manufacturer gets together a focus group of teachers to give them feedback on the book and come up with some changes that they want to see.

 

Something like that, anyway.

[Beavah]

Yah, Oak Tree is closest, eh?

 

Different publications are "owned" by different divisions at headquarters. Some input and decisions on program changes come from focus groups and volunteer committees. Some get decided in-house. When yeh get down to specific text, that could be drafted by anybody from an exec to a volunteer to a secretary to a contractor to a copy editor. Might get approved somewhere, might just get put in.

 

Where the stuff gets really weird is when it's stuff that crosses program divisions, eh? When stuff stays within a program division, the continuity editing is likely to be better, with only one group responsible for it and contributing to it. If it crosses program divisions, that means there's likely to be some loss of coherence as different folks contribute pieces and the thing jogs hither and thither.

 

G2SS, Insignia Guide, ACP&P and such are documents that cross program areas. They're more like compilations than they are like separately crafted policy documents, so the editin' and review isn't always the best. Stuff in those compilations can come from all sorts of different places, with all kinds of different levels of vetting ranging from "none" to "lots." Another spot you're sure to see editing errors is between program and Supply Division.

 

The CSE did a major re-organization at HQ when he came in as well, which in some cases shook up which folks were responsible for which documents, so that's added some more shuffle and kerfuffle.

 

So to answer Scoutfish, nah, it's nuthin' like a representative government in the way you describe. The BSA is a resource provider, not a policy-making body. The program resources are put together by program resource people who are hired or recruited for that purpose.

 

When it comes to big self-governance kind of corporate policies, like whether we admit girls to the elementary school programs, those get decided by the national executive board, which gets nominated and elected at the national meeting, by members-at-large and council representatives.

 

Beavah