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Today's scouts don't have 10% of the skills I have from my scout youth days of 60 years ago. And, granted, who NEEDS to know how to make fire, purify water, navigate in rugged backcountry, read a compass (what is that?), read a road map, build a shelter, signal for help, teach your cat to speak French (well, maybe not that), sharpen a knife, tie knots (and bends, splices, whipping (gee-a number of ways to do that (Clifford Ashley) and lashings)), pitch a tent… BUT, all those out-dated and antiquated skills have made me extremely confident that I can take care of myself and reason my way to good decisions. Can I build a fire in the pouring rain? Yes. Do I know WHY I can build a fire in the pouring rain? YES. And that is why Scouting is valuable.

To be honest, I think the program is too easy to get wrong and consequently scouts are not joining or are leaving because they're not having fun when they're younger or not being challenged when they're older. It's just that simple. Add to that the economy and work environment (always on) and the parents aren't having fun either. The program is confusing, contradictory and looks like it's been evolving over a hundred years in high level committee meetings.  @Jameson76's comment that the BSA needs to focus on what the program is really rings true to me. If it's teamwork/ patrol method and skills then why are there ranks? No other youth activity has ranks so why have them for scouts? If the answer is that it's been done forever or it's the only way they know how to motivate kids (my suspician) then maybe that should change. Why are there so many Cit in X merit badges? Citizenship really isn't a skill and so these just look like an extension of school. It certainly has nothing to do with the outdoors. Only needing 20 nights of camping to get the biggest patch certainly looks like the outdoors isn't really important. And what about physical fitness? Wishful thinking? If scouting is supposed to be in the outdoors then why is 90 percent of the time spent indoors at meetings. That's just confusing. This is why adults don't volunteer, the youth are not getting much out of the program and the numbers continue to drop. Here's an idea. The aim is living the scout law. The method is learning skills in the outdoors. Go back to First Class is the last rank and all rank skills are about the outdoors. Merit badges are about other skills that can be learned in the outdoors, to be done in the outdoors, by patrols. Patrols decide what outdoor adventure they want to conquer. Since MBs are patrol based, MB fairs are where patrols go to learn new skills for new adventures. Summer camp is patrol based outdoor skill learning and adventures. Roundtable is a place where adults learn new outdoor skills to teach their youth. This won't take years to understand. It will take a half hour to describe and maybe 3 months to get comfortable with. But none of that will happen because too many people feel that what was working 60 years ago should still work now.  That's ridiculous. Times have changed.

And that an extended full-size passenger van (Chevy Express, Ford E-Series) must be a 2005 or newer currently - although as both of those didn't have head restraints for the passengers, to my mind they don't make great transport vehicles anyway (Chevy and Ford didn't/don't care about passengers and whiplash...). The newer (well, maximum 10 years old now..) Transit, on the other hand, does have head restraints for every seat.

Personally, it wasn’t about any anti-male culture. I just remembered benefiting from multiple adult men in my life, and in scouting. I wanted my sons and daughter to have similar exposures in a weekend/week setting.

You are not thinking like many young teens who now have jobs, the earnings from which are expected to pay for activities. If their patrols can’t go shooting at their trained ASM/RSO’s club every month, they can spend their dimes joining the club as junior members from what they save on Scouting America registration fees. You might say only a small number of COs and families will let their scouts be so reactionary … just like families who react to the removal of dodge ball, or the removal of unisex program, … It becomes a decline by a thousand cuts. If a troop wants to maintain routine range time it could result in merely exchanging hazards For us the nearest commercial range is at least a half hour drive away (and I think this applies to most scouts) … twice as far as the nearest game lands or gun club, we double the risk of traffic accidents.