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It is 10 times more expensive to cultivate NEW customers than to retain an old one. Does that mean you don't market to new customers? No, of course not. But a successful business NEVER punches their old, reliable customer base in the face, introduces a new product they know their old customers won't like, increase the price and continue doing all the things that tick off their current customers. NO ONE DOES THAT and is successful.

Are they doing a wholesale replacement of management at National?

Once again decline in participation in social organizations is not the same issue as changes in physical products for sale. It is a facile, shallow argument. I see why you use it, it is the language National keeps using but I think they are wrong too. @Col. Flagg has a point...if they are rolling the dice on this they really show no signs of that they had an organized plan.

Council should follow National. National has actually said they prefer that Scouts not raise funds through fundraising, and some Councils say you must raise funds through fundraising. Makes no sense. My oldest son solicited funds through the beneficiary organization where he raised all money that way. There was a change in leadership at the beneficiary organization and when my youngest had a project approved by the same org, they said he would have to raise money differently. I really don't see why Go Fund Me is any different than soliciting checks from people. Actually provides be

Currently BSA only reaches about 10% of available scout aged youth. The CSE has pretty much stated he and key leadership is out of ideas on how to remedy that issue. Honestly at that point he should have resigned and had some new management come in with a vision. Rather than seriously examine that, determine what growing troops are doing to be successful, do lessons learned on what troops do to grow, they have decided to plunge ahead and basically fundamentally change what BSA is going forward. Putting aside the discussion on whether BSA should go coed (yes that's what's coming), to

Meh...yes, that's obvious. HOWEVER, there is no successful business that does what I noted above and remains successful. Oh, and the Fortune 500 don't spend as much on new clients as they spend on retaining current clients. Anyone who has been in the business world knows that "marketing and advertising" is just a small percentage of the money spent on clients. Even more money is spent on non-marketing/advertising activities designed to retain CURRENT clients.

Those that forget history are doomed to repeat it. Constantly BSA seems to not play to it's strengths, not be true to the mission, and play for the short term gains...that never seem to come. Our troop is a big troop, +/- 100 scouts. About 8 - 10 years ago we were shying away from really emphasizing the size, trying to downplay that part. Some of us were not happy with that and we have now really emphasized this is who we are. Large troop, if you join us we have functioning patrols, we are large and diverse, we have older scouts (HS) in charge, we do large outings. That is who what w

Where has the BSA ever said this was about equality? That's been the motivation for many advocates of co-ed scouting, but never what the BSA has stated this is all about. The documentation we've gotten on this has stated that this was done in response to declining membership, to offer a "Family Scouting" program to busy families, and to share scouting's benefits and leadership training with as many youth possible. Of course you can read between the lines there and say it's about equal opportunities for girls in the BSA, or likewise read between those same lines and say it's all about mem

So your DE is suggesting creating a Junior Boy Scout Troop. Think about that for a second. The DE is not suggesting a traditional split of a Pack, the DE is suggesting one Pack for Tiger through Bear and one pack for Webelos. I would call that second Pack a Junior Boy Scout Troop. In the late 60's and early 70's it was fairly common to have large packs. My pack had 8 dens and 2 Webelos dens for a while. Most of the packs in the district ran from 50-100 cubs. It certainly didn't hurt the program. I can't think of one positive reason for splitting a Pack this way - not one. It c

I would not split. I remember the pack I was in, when it was a 3 year program and Tiger Cubs was optional, was 3 Wolf dens, 3 Bear dens, and 3 Webelos dens. That is approximately 75-90 Cubs, not including the 8-10 Tiger Cubs who showed up 1/2 the time.

Hey there all, This summer I will be the aquatics director for one of the camps in my council, one of the most important events for Aquatics is our Water Carnival (Aquathon, Aqua Carnival, Beach Party). Recently, I've seen the decline in unit participation and wanted to get some ideas for different events we could do to increase our troop and scout involvement. For reference we have an on our property a 300-acre lake, with three camps, each has two speedboats, one pontoon, about 10 Standup Paddle Boards, 25 kayaks, about 30 Canoes, 6-row boats, an inflatable Iceberg, and about five small

If you're wanting the media to get the terminology right I wouldn't hold my breath. The UK Scout Association dropped the term "boy scouts" in the 1960s and has been fully coed since 1991 but read some newspapers and you'd be surprised to learn that. As someone else said, just roll with it!

See there, you can agree that it is unequal and unfair. . . . and you are okay with that, because you have reasons that justify being unfair.

Bet you can't get everyone to agree on that...

Or..... just don't volunteer as a Den Leader and avoid the whole drama. As a paid professional teacher, there are enough risks to go around, not much sense in volunteering for more.

It is one thing to disagree. It is entirely another to be purposely obtuse merely to further one side of an argument. As leaders I expect a bit higher standard than I have seen on display from some here. If this is the future of Scouting, I am deeply saddened.

The "We don't know what to call this, and what the heck troops are gonna do what they want anyway...so Enjoy program"

Well Hal was in 2001 and 2010...so possibly. But it is great dialogue

Are we confusing dialog from 2001 and 2010?

Cardboard boat race, always a fun time. Some troops go all out.

God forbid they push units to Scoutbook. We use if for our Crew but it would be a nightmare for troop management. It is way too clunky and the app crashes or is slowed down a lot. They have no idea of what a maintenance window is. If all units were to access their current environment, it would drop to its knees and grab it's chest and die.

Have you not been paying attention to the circus in Irving? There is no girls program in place to date, yet they've marketed a product they don't have. That's evidence plenty. The fact they've announced a new product -- yet to be developed -- and are marketing the heck out of it is proof they are doing this backwards. It doesn't require any inside knowledge. Just read what national has been saying and doing. It is obvious to anyone with any education and experience in running a large organization. No one is arguing that she hasn't been tagging along and doing stuff for years. The point

Equal is different than fair. I have 2 kids- a son and a daughter. I try to treat them fairly. To treat them equally would be a disservice to both of them, as their needs are individual- based on gender, age and interests, just as a start. The same thing goes for the Scouts in my Troop. They all get fair treatment, as they should. But the SPL doesn't have the same needs as a Scout who has just crossed over from Cub Scouts. Not sure why anyone is having such a hard time grasping the concept. As far as YPT goes, my opinion is that any new YPT will be a combination of the current (and horrib

I agree with everything said here. However, I found that messing with units at the top of their game rarely brings more success. Instead, and I pushed this to our district and council, learn what makes the unit a success and give their tips to other units. Over the years I found that district and council leaders don't always understand why particular units standout, so their advice is most often out of place. Our troop grew to have the largest group of scouts between the ages of 14 thru 17 in the council. Council's response to us was to start a Venture Crew to split off some of the s

As a former HR executive, what I tell people is that anything you have on your resume should have a purpose, usually either to convey an argument about why someone should hire you, or as a prompt to a discussion that will then allow you to make the argument why someone should hire you. An additional consideration is the amount of space you have available on your resume. Since you're young, I assume you don't have a lot of other experience and so using some space to highlight scouting is good idea. If you want to put something about the prospect of becoming an Eagle scout on your r

Unless they want or need to run the money through the troop, you would not. Most of our Eagles handle their own, keep it under the threshold, turn over any excess funds to whomever was designated in the original fundraising request. I would say well over half of ours, and we have 8 - 10 per year, get their funding from families and close friends. No mass appeal.

I tend to take a little more optimistic view of the councils. I've gotten to know our DE and some of the council staff. Yes, they have goals for new units started, but they also have goals for membership. A successful unit like this one is gold to a DE and the council. It helps make membership numbers, it helps make FOS numbers, etc My gut tells me that this isn't the "Council" so much as it is the DE & maybe Director of Field Service. I'm thinking they are trying to figure out how to make a successful pack more successful. They probably fear that the unit is getting too big t

So you’re arguing that the oath and law don’t imply that scouts should treat people equally and fairly? Really? Yes a scout gives weaker people more help and stronger people less but that doesn’t mean we treat them with regard to their rights and how we trust them differently. This is a trust issue and we don’t trust people differently. I sometimes think you guys just like to poke holes and argue. Are you really saying that all this isn’t about equality in some way.

Does the Scout Oath and Law imply equal treatment or helpful, kind and courteous treatment? If equal treatment, I'm either not helping any more little old ladies across the street or I am helping everyone cross the street. If helpful, kind, and courteous treatment, I will help others based on their needs and my resources. Do I treat everyone in my troop equally? No, all scouts are different with different needs. IMO Surbaugh is talking about the latter, helping families who want all their kids in the BSA program. My $0.02

We had our Scouts submit 5 targets that met the score. They got to shoot 5 groups of 5, and if they only had 2 targets that qualified, they could shoot again later after everyone else who wanted to shoot got a turn. At the end of the campout, if they could show us 5 targets that met the scoring requirements, we signed them off. The rifles we used had iron sights, however I don't see that optics are banned in the requirements. If I remember correctly, when I took the NRA course, we were restricted to iron sights only. You may use sand bags or some other means to support the rifle,

Representative democracy is pretty common, but so is provision for direct vote under certain circumstances. But most of us are not voters for any purpose. Just volunteer labor.

At the end of the day, here in the real world, the electors of our western district unanimously voted for a candidate for District Chairman and the ruling Scout Executive vetoed their votes. Since then, they have reused to elect a Chairman. We are in the second year of this impasse. The SE wanted "community leaders" ($$$$$) in the top spots. That SE is gone, but his replacement is sticking to being the Caudillo, Bylaws notwithstanding.

I don't believe trying to run any organization by a consensus vote of the entire membership would work. If A and B are the choices, people would scream about not having C and D as an option. There will always be those that want E and F as well. Give more than 3 options you might get a plurality, but rarely, if ever, a majority. Any more than 3 options and you are unlikely to even get as strong plurality. not to mention, current members are not the only ones that are the target market. The membership is involved in developing programs, I have seen it first hand. But there are millions of u

The way it's written I'd say they need to shoot 5 groups, and each shot must have the minimum score, but I can see how it is vague and questionable. Scopes are fine. Camp I worked at used iron sights because we didn't buy scopes. Rifle can be supported. I highly recommend it whether they are prone or seated a shooting table. Even a fairly light gun like a .22 can be unsteady in the hold of an adult, even more so for Scouts.

I don’t like the term cultural appropriation because it implies merely using something from another culture requires permission or constitutes misuse. There are things (bbq or tattoos for example) which are somewhat universal. There are things which are specific to a culture. But does using any of these things mean misuse. People argue using feathers and war paint is misuse of Native American culture. What about a chef that misused a native dish and cooks it poorly. What about Hispanic or Asian women with blond hair. These are examples of appropriation but with no ill intent. They use these th

Other than the obvious answer of not spelling Candidate as Canidate , I would not put it on my resume. Would you put Life Scout candidate if you were a Star Scout? You want your resume to reflect your accomplishments - Eagle Scout Candidate is not an accomplishment - it says you are hoping to become an Eagle Scout in the future. The only thing your resume should indicate is a hope for the future is a statement listing what kind of job or career you are desiring. For now, just state that you are a Boy Scout as one of your activities. Hold off on listing Eagle Scout until after the me

Me - I'd just stick with having a big pack Splitting any group like this is tough. There are always some hurt feelings from families or leaders that go to the group they didn't want. I'd just take a look at.how you manage your packwide activities. You just need more planning and organization as you get bigger. Bigger also brings more adults and more resources too to help you manage that.

Agreed. To me this should be the policy going forward for Cub Scouts. I understand there may Be impacts to some dens, but we should encourage dads to volunteer. I honestly have no problem with requiring an adult female present with girls... but the requirement of having an adult male present with boys should also apply.

You are an active scout with the current rank of "Life". That is actually pretty impressive.

Depends. If you are just awaiting your EBOR then put it on there. If you are still working on requirements then I wouldn’t put it on. I had my EBOR schedule in november 2016 but was filling out college applications so I put candidate on my applications and resume. IMHO you’re not really a candidate until you’ve done all the requirements and are just waiting for your BOR. Until then you’re a Life Scout.

Sounds odd to me. What exactly is an Eagle Scout Candidate? Is it like being a Parent Candidate? (i.e., pregnant). But back on point, I've never heard the phrase before, so the guy looking at the resume likely hasn't either. Then it's just drawing their attention away from what's important. If you want to add something then add that you're a Boy Scout. Talk about leadership you've done and responsibility you've held. That would be more concrete than the mythical candidate.

I would read: "Not an Eagle Scout." And I was in charge of hiring for my department at the telephone company. You have, I think, the correct instinct. Don't stretch the truth. It may lead to uncomfortable questions if you reach the interview stage.

Venturing has equal protection. If only guys attend an event either male or female leaders can attend, but there must be at least one male leaders. Same if all girls attend, a minimum or one female leader must attend. If boys and girls attend then one leader of each sex must attend. Boys sleep in their campsite and girls in theirs. Adults sleep in the adult site. So why have a different standard for coed cubs?

So we don’t trust two men with a girls den but we trust two women with a boy den. That’s called a double standard. It’s wrong.

Play Charge and have the troop run and take the COH room by force.

How ironic it will be if the largest problem that packs encounter with girls joining is membership processing via National's online software.

I was being argumentative on purpose. There are some that are quick to throw out traditions such as OA for lesser reasons than conserving natural resources. Yet I’ll bet they’d defend their need for campfires if folks came looking to ban their use too. I just find that ironic. What’s the phrase, not in my backyard. 😎 I love fires too. Would not want to ban them but I don’t think big fires for no reason are a good use of resources. I’ll bet many here agree. Sounds like you do.

Thanks. I figure I would post weekly updates on progress/findings/etc.

And yet Scouts go to Home Depot or Loews or other companies all the time for funding and in kind contributions. One scout went to Kroger for his food drive, who also happens to be a big sponsor of our camp cards. I think what ticks off council is that fundraising has gotten harder for them. Instead of coming up with creative new ways, they forbid Eagles from raising money. I ask you which is more worthy?

@Pselb We would have 1 Pack for K5-3rd grade and the other Pack for 4th & 5th graders. I don’t see splitting friends as much of a risk. Most of the scouts in our Pack hang out with their own grade level. We do have other Packs in town but all are heavily segregated by school... there are no scouts in any of the Packs from other schools. When we lose scouts, we lose them to sports not other youth organizations. Even with all of that, I am definitely leaning to keeping 1 Pack and look for other solutions for our primary issue (Webelos and AOL linkage to Troops) and secondary i