All Activity

But after 13 years of pushing this the membership numbers are still going down. What bad assumptions are they making? Maybe it's a bad assumption that just having scads of documents around will make it easy for parents to pick this up and do well. Have you ever wondered why so few parents are willing to volunteer for scouts? Is it really all their fault because they're lazy or is it too complicated on top of the fact that their work life is already insane. If summer camps can't get parents to show up unless they have wifi for checking into work then that's a hint there's a problem. I coached my daughter's 6 year old soccer team. It was pretty obvious what to do. Tell everyone to bring a ball. Get some cones. Make up some games. They learned the rules, they ran around and kicked the ball a bunch and they had fun. No literature needed. No databases or patches or SM conferences. I know the guy that taught the U18 team that almost won nationals. This guy was incredible working with the youth. His approach for these older kids was pretty much the same as mine except he understood soccer a lot better than me. Maybe kids like these types of competitive activities because the rules are simple and the challenges are both easy to understand and difficult to master. Instead, we have to argue about whether a scout needs to actually start a fire to pass the fire building requirement. And then we argue about one and done and retesting at SM conferences. And the scout still can't start a fire because the PLC decided that they didn't want to do skills competitions. Just a hint, but this is one reason why some parents don't want to volunteer. I'm not claiming I have the answer or that I even know what the problem is, but there is a problem. Scouting can be a good program. I've seen some amazing things. I see them much less now and it's a shame. My granddaughter is 16 months old and my grandson is 10 weeks old. I hope they have a scout program worth joining when they're 11 years old.

We do (about) three meetings per month, with a short PLC after each.  These build up to the outing.  Then, the outing... The regular meeting night after an outing is a full PLC (so one per month), where they go over all stuff necessary.  The other Scouts/parents get that night off to further recuperate from the outing. We have one day trip/service project per month... mostly an outdoor activity. So 4 meetings and two outings per month... 1/3 of our activities are aimed primarily at outdoors. We have the most successful Troop in the council. Most meetings (mid-spring through middle of fall) are outdoors with a game or activity (pioneering/fire building/nature walk, etc)  In summer, we throw a lot of impromptu stuff in as well... swim parties, bike rides, orienteering, fishing, hikes, boating, the odd service project, etc.   Seven or eight Scouts show up and we go have fun.  Never the same group twice.  (Ice cream is mandatory ;P)

BSA has a Safe Swim Defense, Safety Afloat, Climb On Safely, Cave Safely, Trek Safely, even Drive Safely.... where is the cert for Range Safety for BSA leaders??? Same concepts as the others for the training... you assume responsibility, here are the rules and limitations, and make sure you have an RSO and NRA Certified Instructor (2 subject matter experts)!!  They could (should even) write in instructor : student ratio requirements... I think it is 1 : 5 for NRA, but Range and Target Activities, formerly know as Shooting Sports, is not my forte.

See attached for the history of rank requirements.  You can see the trend from simply... Cook for your patrol to getting meals approved against a budget following my plate.  Just an example of how this becomes an issue... My nephew was denied his first class cooking completion because he went over his self estimated budget.  The SM told him that staying within budget is part of the requirement.... Could you imagine better ways to kill motivation of a 12 year old then talking about food budgeting?  I digress... Even through the 1990s, the rank requirements were almost exclusively outdoor activities.... Then for some reason we decided to make much of this into lists and tracking. I'd go back to the 1965-1970 requirements which are straight forward, and focus on earning rank through outdoor activities. bsa_ranks.pdf

Another way to look at this. 4 indoor troop meetings a month 4 indoor PLC meetings a month 1 campout a month 1/9 activities are outdoors.....