Leaderboard

Having worked in various joint commands in plans (J5), exercise (J7), and operations shops (J3), I have to tell you these things are FAR from free. Military exercises, deployments, employments, redeployment, and reconstitution (after the fact) are quite expensive, in fact. Literally hundreds of millions of your tax dollars are spent on these each year to maintain unit readiness. Difficult to stage? yes... Scarcity of opportunity? no. Quite the opposite. Military commands at all levels routinely have to cut exercises and practices from their schedules to support various "hobby horses" or "pet projects" the military is tasked to support based on political pressure. The National Jamboree is a good example of such a "pet project." Do the units supporting these get good training? Absolutely. Could the resources spent on the Jamboree be better used supporting other valid military training objectives? Absolutely. Do I support the use of military resources to enable the Jamboree? Absolutely 😜 (Sometimes the troops would rather support something at home like this, rather than flying to a third world country to practice their "wartime" skills there.)

In my opinion this is a sign of burnout in the leadership. In my opinion you want to meet every week unless a holiday falls exactly on the meeting day. What I have seen personally is that units who are looking for these excuses are suffering burnout in the leadership. The two week gap screams to me that the leadership is burned out and that their scouts are probably in a situation where they don't need the meetings to advance so it's just a burden meeting to those families.

There is one thing that you can do... Do not participate in the masquerade. You are only responsible for what you do, so maintain your integrity, and do not sign off anything you know you shouldn't. I have made many a Scout a little frustrated and many a parent perhaps a little angry when I refused to sign off something that I did not personally see or test. Scout: "I tied a diagonal lashing on the camping trip last weekend!" Me: "Excellent, let me see it you do it again." <Scout cannot tie a diagonal lashing.> Me: "OK, let's review how to do this lashing." <demonstrates> <Scout ties diagonal lashing.> "Ok, will you sign me off on that?" Me: "Yes, I will sign you off next week when you show it to me again. Practice and read your Scout Handbook if you need any more pointers." <Next week, Scout cannot tie diagonal lashing.> <Wash, rinse, repeat.> At some point, I get push back from parents or even other leaders. Then, I pull out the Scout Handbook and reference the four steps of advancement. (which every Scout must know, as a requirement for the Scout badge.) 1. You learn. ..."you learn and practice skills that are required for advancement..." 2. You are tested. "Once you feel that you have mastered a skill, a leader tests you and passes you on the requirement." I explain that, in my world of Scouting, if a Scout cannot tie a diagonal lashing from one week to the next, then he has not mastered that skill. There are other leaders who do sign off something immediately, or upon the Scout saying he has done it, without seeing a demonstration of mastery. I am only responsible for what I do.

Why cant they do the SMC prior to the BOR? In many units I have been in, that has been the case.

IMHO, Scouting America should ask well-spoken Robert Gates, former president of the Boy Scouts of America and Secretary of Defense for Presidents Bush and Obama to respond.

Your idea isn't new; the BSA has made these kinds of promises since the creation of the program. I do agree that at this age, cost isn't as much of an issue as the cub program, but a results-based program is very subjective. And most of the time the adults go the easy route of Eagle for their results-based program. However, youth at this age aren't advancement-driven. I found that most Eagle-driven programs lose 70% of their scouts by age 15 because advancement gets boring. Adventure-driven programs thrive because they are fun in the outdoors, and because independence in the patrol method drives more maturity in their growth. Go look at units where scouts age out, and you will find they are more scout-run with adventure. Also, adventure-driven programs typically have a high number of Eagles because the scouts are in the program a long time and earn the Eagle requirements by simply participating. Barry

Putting on my Membership Chairman hat. Almost 95% of scouts in troops come from the Cubs. If the youth aren't recruited in Cubs, the troops will have to recruit from other sources. When National added additional requirements to the Tiger program in 2000 (increasing meetings to every week, an adult required for each scout), many units were unable to meet the new demands, and the Tiger numbers dropped significantly. That drop became obvious in 2005 when the troop membership suddenly dropped. If you don't get the Cubs, you don't get the crossovers. Barry

That's the risk of pouring millions into improvements of a property you don't own.

During COVID, we did our own summer camp for 5 days. Forgot how much it was, but it was under $100/person. Only out of pocket expense for the Scouts was the stop at the Hardees for shakes during the bike ride. We came up with different activities for the Scouts to do: cycling, canoeing, wilderness survival, emergency first aid drill, and the schedule was flexible, except for Thursday Night Dinner. We had troop committee visit to do BORs. The Scouts had a blast, and many said it was the best summer camp ever. But they didn't want to do it again because, "we didn't earn any merit badges." My kids were included in that. And yes, BSA shot itself in the foot on this matter. They are the ones that pushed advancement and getting Eagle.

Woke is not a real thing; just a hot button prod. Simple adherence to the Scout Law, Oath, and so on is not Woke, just civility and basic kindness for others, no matter their beliefs or how they may look, o what their name are. Ignorance held up by stupidity and sheeple.

Found this on Sam Houston Area Council website: Family Troops The National Executive Board for Scouting America approved the implementation of the combined troop option. The family troop option will become available to all chartering organizations as a third option on December 15, 2025. The chartered organization must be a part of the discussion to decide to change to a family troop, and they must approve the decision to change the model. Troops will continue to be able to organize as boy troops and girl troops. Resources: Converting from a Family Troop (3 page pdf) Family Troop Best Practices (5 page pdf) Family Troop Decision Guide (5 page pdf)

We are not making participation mandatory for Scouts or parents. In Scouting, there really isn't "skin in the game" unless you want to put it there. Yes, this is it. When I had the reins of the Troop, we went camping every month, with two or three big events every summer... 50-miler backpacking trips, week-long beach adventures, 50-miler canoeing, 100+ mile cycling trips, etc. Now that I have pulled back a lot from the Troop, there is no one who is willing to put that much effort into the program. So, the numbers are dwindling. Agree with you wholeheartedly... young men want adventure, not academics.

It is dying. And the majority of folks do not want to put quality control measures. They want 'High Speed, Low Drag" advancement and increasing the number of Eagle Scouts. They would rather celebrate the 13 or 14 year old with all 130+MBs than the troop that is doing trail work on the AT, or the troop running Red Cross evac stations.

I do wonder what the "Actual" BSA National Numbers are at this point. Nobody really knows. Nobody knows where to get the information. Most people have stopped asking. Main success is judged by funds raised. Most of our council staff is focused on getting cash, to support all the staff that is raising cash. In our district we have and continue to lose troops and packs, but not sure there is any effort to save any of them or figure a way to stem the tide. We have not witnessed an actual DE or other council staff in the wild in forever. It's not that we have a bad relationship, that would infer our units actually knew who they were, we literally have no relationship. There are maybe 20 units in the district (though I think less) and one would assume they may come by annually to see what's up. In the end BSA (sorry SA) will likely not end with a bang, it will just not be around the professionals that were supposed to be the managers and provide vision will go raise money elsewhere.

I'm doubling down on my "Eagle Scouts who can't congratulate a new Eagle without making it about themselves and mentioning that they are an Eagle" pet peeve to now also include non-Scouters who just know an Eagle personally and seem to be afflicted with the same condition. The comment below was on a post announcing a new Eagle Scout and the commenter didn't even bother to offer any kind of congratulations or accolades and jumped straight to making it about themselves (and their husband).

Thank you so much for sharing this! We are the writers of this book, and we are happy to chat with Scouts and volunteers about this new series. You're the real heroes of our story!

Encourage you to do this! Our Scouts chose to do a week long Troop camp in lieu of an "corporate" Summer Camp. Scouts planned menus and cooked all meals themselves, by patrol. We rotated those duties so each Scout could either finish the requirements for First Class, or complete Cooking Merit Badge, if First Class was already done. We rented a private island in a nearby river, Sunday afternoon to Saturday at noon. Included archery (IAW BSA rules 😛 ), canoes with all gear, and a 4 hour float trip on the river (with transportation). Adults taught Archery. Wilderness Survival, Cooking, Fishing, Motorboating, and we even offered Environmental Science, but had no takers... Scouts loved playing in the river every day (with life jackets on). We went off island daily for fresh water and to renew our reusable ice packs. Each patrol brought their food for the first few days, and went went off island for shopping trips on Tuesday and Thursday afternoons. Scouts had a great campfire on Friday night where each Patrol did a Song, a skit, and a cheer. It was one of the best campfire programs I have seen in all my years. And the average cost was $303.40 per head. (Some patrols cost more or less, depending on the food they shopped for.) That is less than half the cost of "corporate" Summer Camp fees in our area. If we could find a place to camp for free, then your number checks... it would have cost us about $75 per head. If you can do a week program for $71 per head, the go for it!!!

I am starting to think that Scouting has done this to itself. Scouting is without a doubt significantly cheaper than club sports (which some estimates state are growing at as high as 43% year-over-year for membership); however, summer camp is expensive, way more expensive than a troop setting up it's own 7 day long term camp. I can simply not blame a parent for wanting their scouts to come home from any resident camp scenario with maximum merit badges and awards. Over the last 3 years, summer camp has cost me $350-$500 a head depending on the year/specific resident camp. I know for a fact that I can feed the scouts like kings and set up a 7 day camping experience at a state park for $71 a head. At the same time the Camping MB and OA eligibility require long term camping, not resident camping. My kids and I might stop going to summer camp after 2026; they are getting tired of the experience, and I am getting tired of the price and lack of ROI. My youngest would rather go on a family based wilderness campout, my middle kid would prefer cooking higher quality meals for himself, my oldest is sick of all the younger scouts, and I can't believe how horrible the cost to return ratio is. Summer camp 2026 is going to cost my family $1600 and a week of missed work (if we even go in 2026, my oldest is currently pitching a competing national park trip to my other two 😛 ).

The BOR is NOT the place to correct for years of advancement failures. ... If a lower advancement standard has been used for years, then it's too generally too late. The BOR checks if the requirements were signed off ... and to encourage the scout ... and to collect feedback on how the troop advancement program is doing. My apologies if I sound harsh, but if we criticize the scout's advancement at the BOR, then we are really criticizing the troop advancement program for the last few years. Each rank had many requirements to be met and that the troop designated approver signed off on. The SM (and his team) should have been watching. Merit Badges are only one part of a larger more complex set of requirements. ... AND, sometimes a scout (and his parents) game the system beyond the controls of the troop leadership. It's ok to be sad for the scout, but not necessarily mad about.

100% agree. ... Could have some adjustments such as Dakotas could be one council to save cost. Or Dakotas + Nebraska. ... Or one per state to keep it simple.

If I can find it, I will post a pic of my Beavis and Butthead OA flap from 1994 NOAC.

Wish we would go back to these: Those would never change. (Well, almost never...)

The reality is that BOR really are a feedback session. The board should ask questions to the scout to gauge their experience; so instead of "Here's a rope, how do you tie a bowline?" the question should be "Tell us about the last time you tied a bowline and why you did it?"

My troop folds at the end of the month. But we survived over 15 years without a Cub Scout pack because we focused on fun and adventure. Almost all of out scouts since the pack folded were either already members, or transferred from other troops. Those troops are now dead. The remaining ones got smart and started being more youth led and adventure driven, while focusing less on advancement. Basically they became more like us. Fun and adventure retains Scouts. And prior to national denigrating 18-20 yos, we retained young ASMs. This is coming from folks with education backgrounds without any experience in Scouting. This is folks focusing on one thing that is easily trackable, advancement. Instead of asking Scouts what they want, they use their theories to create program. The entire reason why Scouting took off was because BP created a program on the desires of the youth.

I would rather a troop not have a "meeting" if they are doing a different activity that week. Meetings are there to support the program; most of the program exists (or should) outside of those meetings. IMO Scouting has dropped off b/c there is too much focus on the meetings, and classroom stuff and not enough in the out of outdoors. When scouting is too much like school with some weekend field-trips then it isn't scouting. Retention and engagement metrics in an adult-led, classroom style program is bad data.

I don't know. I told him to immediately hit up the SM for an SMC on Tuesday and then we'll try to knock out both BORs.

Well, I know this one won't drop - he's mine. I retired from the Army this month, so now dad has plenty of time to support him in Scouting. His best friend (who became his First Class requirement 10) also has a retired guardian, so they are hitting as many Scouting events, with or without the troop, as we can.

We got notification that there will be Boards of Review this Tuesday. It's starting to feel like there's an intent to hold him back. Normally the BOR night is the second Tuesday. The plan was for him to have his SM conference this Tues so he's ready to go next Tues. All of a sudden, the BOR gets moved up a week, so he can only do Second Class, even though all he needs for First Class is the SM conference.

Hard to say. If they have the fortitude to stand up to the ignorance that continues to grow out of this sorry administration, maybe. Not going to hold my breath though.

We are potentially making much ado about nothing here. As outlined in another post, this is a leaked draft memo that could amount to a whole lot of nothing. When SECWAR or POTUS comment on it, or you see a memo with a signature on it, then it will mean something.

So the support for JAMBO is not something the department of war can just withdraw; there is a process and it has to clear congress; the actual law is that the US military has to support JAMBO at least at the level of the previous JAMBOs support. As I understand it the only way out is if we are at war and well ... we just fought 2 wars while also supporting like 10 peacekeeping forces, while also fighting a good 2 dozen "low intensity" engagements; that whole time the military was able to support JAMBO. Not thinking JAMBO support goes away. Prohibiting scouts on military installations will go no-where. First of all just plain stupid and no way enforceable considering that the US military lets all kinds of youth groups onto installations. Secondly garrison commanders have an EXTREME amount of authority as to what they allow or do not allow to happen on their bases and there are just too many military facilities out there. Toss in any potential pivot of USO to support the scouts at the troops urging. Just not worried about this at all; it's like a made up micro managing issue. In my recruiting days Eagle Scouts came in as E4; it was only 1 extra piece of paperwork and no hair off our backs to get that done for the rare enlistee that was an Eagle Scout. If your Eagle Scout is being offered less than E4 you need to take them to a different recruiter that can be bothered to press print and then sign and date a piece of paper.

In my neck of the woods, we've been doing this since I was a youth. General rule is if school is closed, we do not meet (which includes days the schools close because of snow). Over the summer we meet once for summer camp prep, then summer camp, then the rest of the summer is PLC planning meeting, and a few day events (fishing derby, troop outing to an amusement park, swim night at one of our family's house or at the YMCA, movie night, a day hike, etc. - whatever the PLC agrees on, more social gathering/engagement than skill/advancement focused. Still had the PLC/Senior Scouts in charge of planning details and lead supervision at these events. While I could understand momentum loss could result, it has always been for us more of a short time of fun getting ready for the work to return for another year= understood that way by both youth and adults. Additionally, when your own kid(s) hit the age that they are working at camp all summer, and OA starts up before school does, there's enough Scouting to never really have so much of the break that others were having.

We just had this discussion at a leaders meeting... Our Committee Chair is going to communicate with parents about this and try to tell them something to this effect... "If your son does not want to go to Scouts, please do not force him. This is detrimental to all of us, and your Scout will only wind up resenting you. Let them choose, please."

Some units just follow local school district calendars because it affects meeting locations or, for certain families, school holiday closures affect child care, transportation, etc. It's not new or linked to burnout. It's just local convention in some places.

I did not think of that. Good point. Perhaps a push for more Patrol outings instead of troop focus is in order. Depending on patrol makeup, this might mitigate the problem.?

Here's where I see trouble with this model - from the files posted: We should ensure no Scouts are excluded from events due to lack of appropriate adult volunteer leadership. If, despite best efforts, an event or outing lacks appropriate adult volunteer leadership, it should be canceled rather than excluding any youth. This has the potential to be severely damaging. No females volunteer to go on an outing, it gets cancelled. The boys blame girls for being in the program and causing them to miss out.

Concur. Now I have " The end of the Civil War was near when quite accidently..." in my brain. Thank you so very much @RememberSchiff. 😀

So as Scoutbook uses a B troop for boys and G troop for girls, will F troop designate a family troop?

Quite a few years ago, I was Cubmaster of Pack 85 in my local council. It failed to recharter a year after my son aged out, and I had moved on. I kept renewing the web address (domain name) pack85.org for many more years in case there was a chance of it restarting. By now, there is no chance of it restarting, and I would like the web address to go to another unit, rather than risk it being picked up by a non-scouting entity. Is there another Pack 85 out there, and would you like this web address? If you are interested please message me, and we can arrange transfer of the domain name. BTW, I had been a member of this forum long ago under a different user name, but it had been disabled for lack of activity.

I cringed when I read the term "Family Troop". My initial reaction was, "there's the final nail in the coffin of the Patrol Method".

I do not know about today, but I know about back in the day. The #1 membership stat was the December 31st number. That was the one used in reports, media, etc. It is also the reason why a lot of councils had recharter December; delinquent units are still on the rolls until February or March. Rational was that paperwork was a pain, and it can take that long to get things fixed. The #2 stat was the June 30th number. That was used to set goals, see how much work will need to be done in Round Up, etc. Finally you had a monthly stat, and that compared to the previous years monthly stat. That is why you can see different numbers supposedly covering the same thing. While some will say it is "apples to apples," It is more like Granny Smith Apples to Gala Apples to Red Delicious Apples.

Ok, what other side losses would there be? Sold camps and properties Loss of other jobs. Staff and camp personal Even more loss to FOS due to the loss of local connections. Most likely a house of cards that is falling apart. I'm not sure if it can be reversed under the current system.

Here is what I can see... Post here if you want your specific council numbers, or I can see by state, also. Also, if you want to know by program, sing out... As of today, National level, all programs including Learning for Life, total youth registered is 877, 225. Same month last year number was 986,520. So, overall, drop is 109,295 Scouts, or 11.08% loss, from Dec 2024 to Dec 2025 I'll check these numbers again after 31 Dec, when many current registrations expire, and again after mid-March, when the 60 day grace period expires. We are losing about 10% in our Troop, due to those turning 18. Hope to gain those back during crossover season. Please remind me

Trust me I know. I am lamenting the fact that units can care less about growing the Scout instead of growing the number of Eagles. Sadly the SM was part of the problem. When he took over the troop, many Scouts transferred out to ours. So it was known what was going on, but nothing to be done about it outside the COR. Both family and SM gamed the system. Family left our troop because we insured Scouts actually did what they were supposed to. They specifically went to that troop because they were "high speed low drag." SM picked summer and winter camps known for giving away MBs. When discussing summer camp last year, the family referred to to summer camp as a place to "purchase MBs." It is extremely sad for the Scout. He has not really grown much over the years. He acts like a Tenderfoot still. And family is not helping as they are pushing and pushing to get Eagle. But I am mad that there is nothing anyone can do about the situation, i.e. just signing stuff off, except the COR replacing Scouters. And trust me the SM knew better; I trained him. And it is frustrating because if anyone needed Scouting, the Life Scout did.

Yes correct. I think the answer is national needs to start telling the councils that are not meeting their charter agreement that they are not getter recharter.

Every time I have seen a structured removal of voting ability or removal of input ability it was caused by the ruling bodies desire to remove or reduce dissent to a pending action. I've seen this in other non-profits and in local governments. This type of action always preceded a controversial policy change. I wonder if this is the fallout of the Nassau and Norfolk councils voting to not merge and then being forced to after all of Long Island scouting went bankrupt? There are a lot of councils just digging in and refusing to be part of the team right now. Is this a mechanism to remove the dissent at the various localish levels?

I think you are correct, the patrol is the fundamental, or I would say foundational group in a unit. I've seen that literature, and I've seen a lot about what was really going on with the LDS (such as the inflated membership numbers due to the LDS just cutting a bulk check to BSA). I would agree that you need the activities to keep the scouts coming. I would state that advancement is much more important than just project first class. I would make the argument of why do people hate scope creep and why do people hate jobs/careers where they just "run the business" and every day bleeds into the next? The answer is no feeling of accomplishment. There's no way to unwind the changes to the program. First the mixed age patrol method is basically dead in my opinion, my personal experience is that it can't work because it becomes a pseudo gerontocracy, especially if the troop institutes by-laws that restrict who can be elected based on rank, NYLT, etc ... so what ends up happening is that older scouts regardless of ability or charisma, or disposition end up the patrol leaders and assistant senior patrol leader, and patrol leader while everyone else is forced to wait their turn. Secondly the legal system forces us to create tenting buddy plans and buddy/truddy teams based on age. It is such a pain in the butt if the oldest and the youngest of a patrol show up for something and no one in between. So many bad troops without any connection somehow independently have created the same bad troop systems that have made national want to move to age based patrols. The path forward is unfortunately going to be age based patrols. The question becomes how do we make them work? That might be going back to DuctTape's patrol based operations. I also see some of the forced to attend scouts. In my primary unit I see them and they fall into two groups. Group 1 is the group that is a big distraction, they don't want to be in scouts at all but their parents are forcing them. They don't do outings, service never hits their radar, etc ... parents don't care just as long as they are attending meetings for some reason. The other group 2 is the group that parents tell us that they have to force their kids to show up, but once they are there they are happy, and we mostly see that in their behavior. We see these scouts A LOT on outings, these are the "camping club" scouts that hate meetings but will show up to basically anything outdoors. This is the group that I think would benefit the most from patrol based scouting; 8 scouts that want to camp 4 times a month year round with 2 or adults that can't say no would be ideal. You might lose a lot of scouts on this. The better answer might be "Hey parents talk with your scout, we need feedback, what do they say would make them want to come to more meetings?"

We are chartered to a civilian organization. This will be interesting for our Cub Scout pack though. I will say that there is a grain of truth in the lack of standards being upheld. As far as our troop, we have very few Scouts who are above First Class, so doing advancement at meetings is vital. However, our PLC is failing them by not actually doing advancement.

We're going to get there. Now that this hurdle is cleared it's time to fix other things so we have more resources in place for program.

Some folks had signed up with an organization that you agree with, and over time the organization changes their ideas in an attempt to attract new members..