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LATEST POSTS
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In our Troop there was a big change pre and post Covid. We have had a few den chiefs and traditionally Cub scouts participated in a hike, meeting and our winter Klondike. We held a pretty elaborate crossover ceremony as well. That died since Covid. The packs had substantial losses, we had no Scouts interested in being den chiefs, the pack leaders and parents were no longer interested in hiking or camping with the Troop (at least vs the numbers we had 2019 and prior). 1 of our feeder packs collapsed once the Catholic Church stopped their recharter and the adults no longer cared to continue. The other pack dropped down to 8 kids and the leaders there were no longer interested in continuing so they disbanded this spring. We are left with the one large pack, who does extremely well as a pack but their leaders and parents show no interest in Scouts. We have met, had personal invites to hiking, camping, etc. and no one attended. I do think Den Chiefs would help and hopefully the Packs new Cubmaster is more engaging. The change since 2019 has been dramatic. I'm not sure about other Troops in my area. But all of them are struggling with low membership at this time. -
By BinTharDunThat · Posted
I'm continuously surprised that my Scouting experience is so different from others, or at least is appears that way. When growing up 35 years ago and in our Troop today, we put a special emphasis on Den Chiefs to engage with a Den in a Pack. Its a near-certain way to recruit a whole Den of new Scouts. The Troop also puts a premium on engagement with Packs. The Troop staffs the Cuboree. The Troop staffs the Webelos Woods/Trail to Troop. The Troop hosts an October open house directed to AOL Adventure completions. The Troop hosts an October campout with Webelos. The Troop tries to camp with the Pack and to cook meals for them. The Troop helps to recruit Cub Scouts. We go to the Blue and Gold and receive new Scouts. We don't wait for them to find us. They have too many choices. Are we a rarity in this? -
I find high school recruits make a different sort of scout. They discover their friends are training to go on high adventure: Philmont, Sea Base, etc. They decide they want to go too. So they join for a year, go on the shakedowns, go on the high adventure trip... Once the trip is over, we rarely see them again. Crossover scouts are more interested in earning rank advancement and merit badges, especially in the middle school grades. So that they are ready to go on high adventure in high school. Occasionally we get a lapsed scout who comes back later in high school, deciding they want to advance to Eagle at the last minute. -
From where we are, many kids drop travel sports (which consumes weekends) when they reach high school. They transition to high school teams which play during the week. The sports conflict is then usually limited to practices conflicting with troop meetings. -
Scouting must be able to operate along with sports ... our Troop always has; however, there are limitations. It is tough to form solid patrols if kids are absent every weekend all year. The only benefit of the increasing cost of scouting is I see fewer scouts who have low participation rates. One of our ASMs brought up a good point. From what she has seen (two kids both high school grads), sports picks up a lot during middle school, but drops (for many kids) early in High School. I've seen the same ... many kids & parents drop sports Freshman year as school gets more challenging and sitting on the bench watching games loses its appeal ... especially sports that take high time commitments. The ASM said we should be recruiting 8th - 10th graders as they may have dropped out of cubs, never did cubs or didn't bridge over to Scouts immediately. The ASM is a member of our Council's executive board and has raised this suggestion, but the focus is on recruiting Cubs.
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