Advancement Resources
Scouting ranks, merit bades, and the advancement programs
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LATEST POSTS
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Last year there was a rumor out of the national meeting about a new program for older scouts to replace venturing. I think national is still baking that one, I cornered a local who is on one of the national committees and he was like "I know of the rumor you're talking about, I can't discuss that." and he wouldn't say a word. So I would say there is legs to the rumor but no one has details/will provide. Venturing is really in the decline where I am at. What I see is that some troops sporadically have a handful of engaged older scouts and so they form a crew for a couple years and then when those scouts go off to college the crew folds. In my area I think venturing is more of certain troops having a high adventure patrol than actually forming a crew per the BSA doctrine. -
Wow, lot of stuff to digest here. The cub program is fine. It has been fine. The updates that are kicking in June 1st (or abouts) will be an improvement. The key to the cub program is what many of you already touched on; disengaged parents will provide a poor program no matter what the program is. I do feel that there will be some more advanced WEBELOS that will get held back due to the new program; however, the overall 4th and 5th grade cubbing experience is going to be better for the majority of scouts. The key to retaining AOLs/capturing them into the troop level program is going to be troop to pack interaction. When I was at the pack I pushed the attitude of "Next years crossover starts this June!" and by the time I moved on the pack went from 25% or fewer AOLS crossing to about 80%. Your local troops have to be involved, they need to send den chiefs; those older scouts talking about all the cool troop level stuff that happens year round is a big part of hooking an AOL on crossing over. I don't get the order of the arrow. Somethings broken there. As others have stated it has moved from being an honor society to being a service society. As an outsider looking in I see elections as popularity contests, I know of a scout who camps 20+ nights a year, never turns down a service opportunity, but he just can't get elected year-over-year. Half the troop doesn't like this scout and he can't get in. I feel so bad for him; he is living the scout oath and law, he is camping, and he is doing service and he just can't get elected. So many of the other kids look at what has happened to him year-over-year and they are all "F that program, we don't want to be part of something like that." On top of that I personally don't see the service; our camp has a massive back log. I know that my council is part of the problem, I've spoken with people that I know in other councils and the OA experience is phenomenal; however, it seems like those lodges are far and few between. The lack of outdoors/camping is an issue. I think this goes back to something I read in another thread, the poster stated that back in the day it was a fight to see who was going to be SM, today it's a fight to see who isn't. What I see in my area is that most SMs fall into 1 of 2 buckets: Bucket 1 is the don't know squat bucket, and so the troops outdoor program falls apart and then the troop shrinks until folding. Bucket 2 is the SM only cares about his kid bucket and everyone else is along for the ride.
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I resemble that statement. The thing is those activities that scare the parents of 10.5 year-old crossovers, they want to do them by the time they turn 12-13 years old. So in the last 2 years we have had more scouts join by word-of-mouth, by talking to their friends doing fun stuff like this, than we have had by crossing over kids on their way out of elementary school. -
By RememberSchiff · Posted
From Newsweek "An online petition is calling for the Boy Scouts of America to reverse its planned name change...The name change, which is expected to go into effect on February 8, 2025—coinciding with the organization's 115th anniversary—sparked fierce backlash on social media." Sources: https://www.newsweek.com/boy-scouts-america-name-change-backlash-petition-1899301 https://www.change.org/p/save-boy-scouts -
By HashTagScouts · Posted
The undoing for me last year was the constant push on converting Candidate to Ordeal. The Lodge was in my view bordering on harassment for kids to attend Ordeal with emails every week. By the time you got to November, many parents would be unsubscribing from our email list, and when they changed LM to take that option out of mass emails, I'm sure many just started blocking our email. When Nat'l officially changed to allow 18 months to complete Ordeal, it was the last straw for me- to obvious it was about numbers which equal $$$ than it was about nor or quality in the achievement. for our Lodge, and many in the northern climes, elections took place in spring, and we'd have Ordeal weekends in May and either August & September or September & October. So, basically 3 opportunities after election. That 18 month change, the way it lays out on the calendar, was now 6 opportunities.
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