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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.

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