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I think Scouting America has a good product, a high quality product. I agree with you that there is a consistency problem. Let us compare Scouting America to Walmart for the sake of argument. When a unit, district, or council are doing horrible, recruitment is down, retention is down, fundraising is down, engagement is down, etc ... what does Scouting America do? From where I am in the organization I don't see Scouting America doing a single thing. Contrast that to Walmart. When a Walmart store is doing bad, high theft, above average complaints, low sales, etc ... Walmart sends in a corporate trainer to evaluate the situation, temporarily take over certain aspects of the store, and correct the problems; if the problems cannot be corrected the trainer recommends closing the location. Could Scouting America learn something from Walmart?

So, I am at Camp Cherokee in NC and having a blast. Eating well, best camp food I ever had. Thank you .

Good to hear something positive!!

I agree in that the focus is always on recruitment, not retention. I also think part of the reason for that is that the reasons for poor retention are unpalatable and not what leadership wants to hear. It isn't so much that "bad" units are pushing scouts and families away, it is that the entire organization has become so poorly designed and managed and unworkable that it is very difficult for Scouting America to produce a high quality, consistent product at the unit level whether that's across country let alone across town. The organization needs to re-engineer itself around providing a good product at the unit (parent and scout) level, instead of organizing itself around what has become the Scouting institutionalized monolith. There are so many touchpoints that simply don't work for most parents and kids and there seems to be little recognition of it or appetite for changing anything.

Council and district advancement committees?! Send me to the promised land where these exist, meet, and care about more than eagle packets.