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This mirrors my observations in my area: There is a big hole in the program, the bubble is currently at the age of crossover scouts. These kids missed the first years of Cub Scouting during Covid lockdown. Then when these families returned to activities, they limited themselves. Some chose to stick to sports or other activities, so they didn't consider scouting. So fewer kids made it up the ranks in Cub Scouts. It doesn't effect younger scouts as much: Lions, Tigers, Wolves... because they began school/activities after lockdown. Families are in a crunch. It takes more and more comm
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What am I missing with the "travel sports" thing? It seems far more time stealing and financially draining to me. And few of the kids ever will go beyond to make a living, though perhaps it will help some gets scholarships. Again though, I missed most of those options as a youth due to the time period of the late fifties. Local sports groups often were very selective, or developed on civic lines. In my case, while I wanted to do Little League, I could not, as we lived in an L.A. County area surrounded by the city of Azusa, and my address did not allow me to join. Of course, that was befo
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" Folks spend way more time figuring our how to game the system than, well, I don't know, going camping." Triple plus star for this. And that applies to most of the more popular and consistent parts of the program.
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I just did a crossover with our primary feeder pack. The pack has 90 scouts. Roughly 20 Lions, 20 Tigers, 20 Wolves, 15 Bears, 10 Webelos and 5 AOL. Of the 5 AOL only 1 wants to continue in Scouts. That 1 only joined Cub Scouts this year.... I talked with the other 4 parents. - They are looking to reduce activities after 5th grade - All are planning to increase their kids involvement in travel sports.... So no time left for scouts
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This thread is bumping with all of the controversial topics. I don't buy the stages of decline. Most of the changes are in line with the international scouting community (the name is more inline with international naming conventions, 173 of the 216 WOSM members are full coed at last count, shooting sports is heavily regulated in most countries, this seems like standardization not grasping for straws.). I've heard the moms discussion points, it's what BSA teaches the professional scouters to focus on. For some reason there is an emphasis on hooking moms on the value of the program and lit
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I had to go looking to make sure I understood the terminology used. Admittedly, I was not cognizant of the definintion of cisnet and its related terms. Perhaps they are more precise in the current atmosphere, but I am not sure that they may also play into the greater confusion so many seem to have. Most of the confusions and conflict appears, to me anyway, to simply be that emotions that once were sublimated are now often expected to be shared, even when the person with them is still confused and not sure about it. Are we as a society, here in the U.S. at least, too conflicted within to al
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NAM used 2023 numbers. In March, the 2024 actual membership numbers were posted elsewhere on this forum and they were around 870,000 or 890,000 -- can't remember which. BSA also changed the registration scheme so that anyone signing up after August 2023 would not be prorated but signed up for a 12 month membership so that number likely includes some dropouts that normally would have been cleaned up on December recharters. Renewal notices will be issued for six months after that, so anyone on the roles now is going to stay on the roles as a member for 18 months rolling forward. In a way, i
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I find it interesting - and I don't mean strange or wrong, but literally interesting - that you ask a woman for examples of how traditional gender role expectations hurt men even though another man just gave a whole list with a lot of passion. Because I'm not one, all my examples are going to be second-hand, parroting back what I've heard or seen men say about their own lives. My personal contribution can only be checking that what they're saying is consistent with what I see from the outside. Why ask me, not @Eagle94-A1, when he's the one arguing that I underestimate the problem? I did find a
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Well said though though I can easily flex on the "provider" view. I know many very feminine women who have strong professional careers earning good money and I know many very masculine men who daily wash dishes, do laundry, vacuum and bathe their kids. I agree though that we scare too many of our young men away from being masculine.
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I have found that pros come and go, usually on a yearly basis. And most folks stay around until their kids age out the movement. There has always been a cadre of long time volunteers, whose knowledge. skills, abilities, time, and treasure could be relied upon to keep things running. I have been in multiple councils in my 42 years of Scouting. And that fact is one of the few constants. -
I would say that, here in the US today, a "man embracing the traditional 'provider' role" leads to many fathers who aren't present in their child's life - so many people have to work really long hours, whether that is actually working or with a 2-hour commute each way, that they barely see their kids, and they can't rock the boat because their health insurance is tied to keeping that job, or the mortgage/rent they have to pay is so high they can't move to a job with a better work/life balance ...
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Yeah the parents are not the ones who are ready, especially in those packs that wait until 5th grade to begin transitioning. Problem since circa 2008 when Cub Scout Leader Specific came out, IMHO. The Webelos DL section is almost cut and pasted from CSDL section. And now that training is modular and online, many folks think they are trained for all levels because they got most of the modules completed already, and they have been a DL for 1-4 years already. WDLs are continuing with CSs at 4th and 5th Webelos level. And now national will be making it worse with the new program. I expect re
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Well UK scouting holds a limit on the number of units which causes the waiting lists and I think provides certain quality control. I would agree to a degree, I mean I think there is something to the limiting the number of units geographically.
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We have faced some of the same challenges During visits (AOLs were off with the scouts as we meet in the woods behind the church) our leadership discussed with the parents the various outings (gorge trip, boating, kayaking, backpacking, biking, etc); youth led troop, servant leadership, Scouts camping away from leaders, etc etc. As I watched the parents and listened to the few questions, my comment as we huddled after...they are not buying what we're selling. They expect Cubs part 2 and we scare them. Programming for 11 year olds means the youth likely leave in a year or 2. Need to c
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Also not sure about this heading: Preparing Young People for Lives of Purpose and Impact Seems a bit vague and non definitive, more feel good than actionable.
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Wow, that is a capsule at best. Guess they are being Thrifty with their output The 6% decline in Scouts (11-17) is way concerning. As a result of that noted that Eagle Scouts are down from +/- 50K per year to under 30K per year. As was noted, we are now at 1939 membership levels. Scouts in 1939 +/- 1,000,000 US population 1939 +/- 130,000,000 Scouts as % overall population - 0.76% Scouts in 2024 +/- 1,000,000 US population 2024 +/- 330,000,000 Scouts as % overall population - 0.03%
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Determining where a unit "exists" and how it is supported
SSScout replied to MyIndianNameIsSpoon's topic in Council Relations
Waaay back when, all we cared about were counties and states. With the later proliferation of Scout units, TPTB started dividing up the counties into Scout Districts, each with a DE to oversee them, sign the Important Papers (remember that campfire skit? Still allowed?). As paid Scouters and volunteer Scouters came and went, (I worked in a government agency, and can attest to this ), they would often seek to "leave a heritage", and so would re-arrange the districts to "make things more efficient" or "more logical" or.... Since becoming an Adult Scouter, I can document living a -
Lot of good comments Summary is the BSA (SA??) has not fully defined what it is and what they do. When I joined way back when it was a game with a purpose, we had adventures, learned things, sampled many different hobbies and interests, and most importantly learned to work in groups and take care of ourselves. As we matured we went from follower to leader. Over the years the BSA strayed from that to want to become the swiss army knife of youth groups. We do everything. Also more focus on advancement and formal learning and less emphasis on experiential learning. 1/2 the required
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National Annual Reports
RememberSchiff replied to RememberSchiff's topic in Open Discussion - Program
Another decision not mentioned in National Report, FleishmanHillard ($$$) which has previously worked with the BSA, was chosen as PR Agency of Record (AOR) in November 2023 with a focus on the rebrand. BSA Chief Marketing Officer (CMO) Michael Ramsey said his team is amplifying the organization’s message to reach youth and families across the country via national press releases and a social strategy that “leans hard into” Instagram and LinkedIn. “We have a lot of our leaders on LinkedIn,” said Ramsey. “But video is the backbone of a lot of the things we are doing. We are also lookin -
To clarify, all of these decisions and actions are the BSA's to own. It was their decisions that led to the situation we are in; I think you need to go back further to see how these decisions all relate and many of the decisions were linked to BSA's concern of losing LDS members followed by reactions to losing LDS members. I went back and updated the name of the church as one of the best scouters on this forum, @The Latin Scot has mentioned the correct name to use in the past.
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I suspect Eagle1993 is correct about splitting the baby. To me it further erodes my confidence in the BSA now that they announced coed Troops. For the last 5-6 years the BSA continued to tout the benefits of single-sex environments, but oddly only for the Scouts BSA program. Now we need a 10-month pilot to find out that coed is just as good if not better. So their arguments over the last 5-6 years are suddenly incorrect? Or, they never had any evidence of it to begin with but made the arguments so as not to alienate certain groups? Tired of the nonsense. Talking to regular people at that
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I expect each time they did risk/benefit tradeoff discussions. They may have been better talking with 3 guys at a food truck. These decisions really started with Dale (perhaps you could argue it goes back to their partnership with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). I'm sure each time they weighed the risks of change and did their best.. but clearly the end result has been failure. 1999- Keeping Gay scouts out... To prevent angering the The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, BSA fought to keep gay scouts out. In 1999/2000 there was limited blow back. Howev
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BSA mentioned this, which is why they added girls but kept girls in their own den and Troop. The idea was that it would prevent any loss of boys while also adding girls. Clearly that strategy didn't work, which is likely one reason why they are adding fully coed options. No point in keeping them separated if it didn't keep scouts/scouters from quitting and many packs/Troops operated like coed units anyway.
- Yesterday
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I gave up referencing myself a while ago, so I won’t link to the thread that shows this data, but here goes anyway … while BSA was mulling over including girls in packs and troops (under the corporate double-speak “family scouting”), there was a WOSM census that revealed that membership declined in nearly every European country immediately after their scouting organization incorporated girls. Recovery to where they would have the same number of boys as they did before desegregation would take decades, if it has occurred yet at all. The UK took 25 years. So, if BSA is indeed about serving
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Just curious..did the BSA do any risk analysis on any of these decisions? Or did they ask 3 people at the food truck and 2 said yes so they plowed ahead?
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Posts
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This mirrors my observations in my area: There is a big hole in the program, the bubble is currently at the age of crossover scouts. These kids missed the first years of Cub Scouting during Covid lockdown. Then when these families returned to activities, they limited themselves. Some chose to stick to sports or other activities, so they didn't consider scouting. So fewer kids made it up the ranks in Cub Scouts. It doesn't effect younger scouts as much: Lions, Tigers, Wolves... because they began school/activities after lockdown. Families are in a crunch. It takes more and more commitment to choose an activity. Especially sports are not one season anymore. It gets really competitive starting in middle grades: there is off-season training and competitions that last more than one season, etc. Whether it is fall baseball, indoor soccer in the winter, etc. They feel left out if they only play one season of a sport. Not to mention all the costs involved. So if the kid chooses a sport, it doesn't leave much room for scouting. Even though there are fewer scouts remaining, it means the scouts that continue in the program are more committed than ever. -
What am I missing with the "travel sports" thing? It seems far more time stealing and financially draining to me. And few of the kids ever will go beyond to make a living, though perhaps it will help some gets scholarships. Again though, I missed most of those options as a youth due to the time period of the late fifties. Local sports groups often were very selective, or developed on civic lines. In my case, while I wanted to do Little League, I could not, as we lived in an L.A. County area surrounded by the city of Azusa, and my address did not allow me to join. Of course, that was before the onset of so many other sports and parental fanaticism. -
" Folks spend way more time figuring our how to game the system than, well, I don't know, going camping." Triple plus star for this. And that applies to most of the more popular and consistent parts of the program.
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I just did a crossover with our primary feeder pack. The pack has 90 scouts. Roughly 20 Lions, 20 Tigers, 20 Wolves, 15 Bears, 10 Webelos and 5 AOL. Of the 5 AOL only 1 wants to continue in Scouts. That 1 only joined Cub Scouts this year.... I talked with the other 4 parents. - They are looking to reduce activities after 5th grade - All are planning to increase their kids involvement in travel sports.... So no time left for scouts -
This thread is bumping with all of the controversial topics. I don't buy the stages of decline. Most of the changes are in line with the international scouting community (the name is more inline with international naming conventions, 173 of the 216 WOSM members are full coed at last count, shooting sports is heavily regulated in most countries, this seems like standardization not grasping for straws.). I've heard the moms discussion points, it's what BSA teaches the professional scouters to focus on. For some reason there is an emphasis on hooking moms on the value of the program and little to no focus on dads; maybe it has something to do with the more than 50% of moms being single so perhaps BSA see's moms as the primary decision maker for kids activities? I agree with a lot of the side chatter on that chart, there seems to be a lot of outside influence on those membership numbers (post war baby booms, economics, etc ... ). I don't agree at all with the watering down of the program or gaming the system comments. Advancement is a method, having fun should run parallel to 12-18 month advancement plan. There is a huge link to staying in the program and going to summer camp; almost every scout gains some advancement at summer camp which is probably the reason. I hear a lot of beyond sub par SM/ASM in my area talk about "fun" and "not advancement mills" and they all seem to have the same problem, scouts stuck below first class and then dropping from the program. again advancement is a method, far too many SM ignore it. I don't think the LDS exodus was as bad as everyone claims. LDS refuses to share membership numbers for their internal program since 2021; meanwhile if you check the LDS contingents website and photos to the world jamboree somehow everyone LDS that went was wearing BSA uniforms, patches, regalia, etc ... oh and they appear to be coed now to. I would love to see some numbers on LDS and on the previous LDS units. Utah has like 200+ units these days; how is that possible in a permanent exodus? Too much doom and gloom.
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