Horizon

All:

I am interested in seeing the historical numbers of registered Scouts (and perhaps Scouters) by year, preferably going back to the 50s. I want to run that against census data of available youth to track the actual popularity of our program at different times. I also want to run total numbers of Eagle awards granted in a given year as well.

I have seen this data from the 2011 Report to the Nation:

1,583,166 boys ages 6 to 10 in Cub Scouting

909,576 boys ages 11 to 17 in Boy Scouting and Varsity Scouting

231,127 young men and women ages 14 to 20 in Venturing and Sea Scouts

511,359 boys and girls in elementary through high school in Learning for Life charactereducation programs

112,783 young men and women ages 14 to 20 in Exploring career-based programs

But I was wondering if anyone had seen a historical list of these numbers by year.

Thanks.

In a lot of the Eagle discussions, there appears to me to be two areas of concern:

1) The true mastery of Outdoor skills. To me the ultimate test is whether or not an Eagle candidate could be handed any given outdoor situation and be trusted to handle it appropriately. Because we have an annual District Camporee that focuses on Scout Skills PLUS it is our most popular campout in the Troop (we have had Eagles come from college to bolster the Venture Crew attached to our Troop for competition) - I believe that my guys get the skills.

2) Leadership vs. Responsibility. I think that this is one of the misunderstood issues in Scouting. We have Positions of Responsibility, NOT Positions of Leadership. A Scout can earn Eagle without ever serving as a Patrol Leader, ASPL, Den Chief or SPL. One of the great candidates in my Troop right now is a boy who makes an amazing Quartermaster, and each SPL keeps on going back to him and asking him to serve again. He gets it, he works well with the youth, and he knows how to keep the gear lined up. He also knows how to work with the adult member of the committee. But...He is not a "leader." He is not the one that has a group of Scouts following him into the woods. He is more of a lone wolf type without the natural outgoing charisma that leads to elected positions in a unit.

I would love to see real membership numbers, by age, as a percent of eligible youth over the past 40 years. That might help us set a real baseline to determine what the effect is/would be.

Lots of people keep on saying that we are going to lose a ton of numbers if we allow local control. The suspicious part of me assumes that BSA would take all of the paper members and paper units and drop them from the roles - blaming the gay issue. But if we have been losing people since the fiasco of the 70s, how can we separate losses from either the Dale decision or our eventual allowance of local control.

Basement - elections every 6 months (which I think is the norm for most Troops). He was elected, then re-elected - served as Patrol Leader for one year. Plenty of positions after that.

His Patrol Mates, once they earned First Class, started moving into positions as well - though not all of them were leadership types. They went hunting positions of responsibility, but not always those requiring leadership as well.

It really depends on the boy. I had a boy in my Troop, 2 years in, was still Tenderfoot while his buddies were all First Class or above. He had actually done everything, knew the skills, had a ton of merit badges - he just never had his Handbook with him to get signed off, nor did he ask for a SMC and BOR. He caught up fast.

My son was Patrol Leader the day he bridged - his buddies in his New Scout Patrol elected him Patrol Leader, and then re-elected him because nobody else wanted (or needed it). During that first year he made it to First Class and almost to Star as I recall (led his Patrol to two consecutive Camporee titles as well).

So it wasn't me driving it (I did not join the Troop for 6 months on purpose - I wanted him to go solo first). It wasn't an Advancement mill either. It was just a Scout with the right charisma to lead a gang, like old BP told us to do.

Once he had done that, he was quickly picked to be an ASPL by the SPL. He never once had a period without a POR (currently he is a JASM and also Crew Treasurer).

Basement - 16 months is the sum of the requirements for POR.

- 4 months in a POR while First Class to earn Star.

- 6 Months while Star to earn Life.

- 6 Months while Life to earn Eagle.

So if a Scout bridged over with the AOL at 10.5 years old, that is still 2.5 years / 30 months of Scouting before they turn 13. Certainly possible for a Scout to complete the POR requirements and more in that time frame. If the unit does New Scout Patrols, then he might be the Patrol Leader in his first year, with the time in position counting once he earns First Class.

nldscout - I trust Gallup, that is their business. They run a good statistical model, and are careful with their questions. This also syncs up close to the exit polls in California when Proposition 8 was passed - it was very close and in line with this data set.

I would not use that as the only measure, but it does point out this issue is not one of a small minority going against a large majority.

Basement:

Gallup shows it a tossup nationwide:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/154529/half-americans-support-legal-gay-marriage.aspx

If you go back a year, they did an age breakdown - the more important cut (in my opinion) for a program that serves youth and therefore younger adults:

http://www.gallup.com/poll/147662/First-Time-Majority-Americans-Favor-Legal-Gay-Marriage.aspx

Some good data at Gallup to get a feel for the national mindset.

Yep - we would castrate the lesser bulls, and make a roast of the lesser roosters. The good ones got the rest of the herd and the hens.

Shall we implement that natural law again in America? Do some genetic, IQ and physical testing and only let the top of the scores be allowed to breed?

That would be the natural way.

Very interesting information and thoughts.

One issue is whether Natural Law supports the success of the society, or of the individual. For example, monogamous relationships help children, but they can prevent the best genetic material from being maximized. The Stanford men represented on the Olympic Men's Water Polo team are the peak of both intelligence and physical fitness. If we wanted to build a better society, they should be fathering more children. Given the physiological differences between men and women, they should perhaps have multiple wives while lesser intelligent and physically capable males have none. That is what the natural world shows us in Wolf Packs and Lion Prides. That is the society we even see in the Bible as well. So should law reflect that natural world?

We don't follow that model anymore, and for many good reasons. We have adjusted our perspective. We have evolved.

The education of women leads to smaller families, as more opportunities become available to them. It also leads to women being able to be pickier about their choice of a mate, to later marriage, and to the ability of the women to financially support single motherhood. Should we close to the universities to women so that they will stay home with the kids? Perhaps only allow women to go to university after they are past child bearing and child rearing years?

Divorce and marriage are both arguable too easy to engage in. The loosening, however, was in part a response to the entrapment of people in unhappy relationships. The modeling of poor relationships is ALSO something that is emulated by children. A husband who beats his wife will beget a son who beats his wife, and a daughter who will marry an abuser. I would rather those children be raised by a single mother than by an abusive father. FInding the balance is tough. I like it that my church requires pre-marital counseling before the Minister will officiate, for example.

Another comments is that we all approach morality from a different perspective. A recommend this TED talk from Jon Haidt:

I thought I would spin off a new topic on Natural Law - it is separate enough, then we won't hijack this one any further:

http://www.scouter.com/forums/viewThread.asp?threadID=365036

SeattlePioneer has brought up Aquinas' Natural Law in a few recent threads in regards to the gay issue- I thought that I would spin off that concept into a new thread to avoid hijacking others, and also because it interests me (what can I say - I took a lot of Philosophy courses in my undergraduate years).

To help others, here is the wiki link:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Natural_law

And here is how the introduce it:

"Natural law, or the law of nature (Latin: lex naturalis), is a system of law that is purportedly determined by nature, and thus universal.[1] Classically, natural law refers to the use of reason to analyze human nature -- both social and personal -- and deduce binding rules of moral behavior. Natural law is contrasted with the positive law (meaning "man-made law", not "good law"; cf. posit) of a given political community, society, or nation-state, and thus serves as a standard by which to critique said positive law.[2] According to natural law theory, which holds that morality is a function of human nature and reason can discover valid moral principles by looking at the nature of humanity in society, the content of positive law cannot be known without some reference to natural law (or something like it). Used in this way, natural law can be invoked to criticize decisions about the statutes, but less so to criticize the law itself. Some use natural law synonymously with natural justice or natural right (Latin ius naturale)["

While I vehemently disagree with SeattlePioneer on the issue of the morality of homosexuality, anyone willing to cite Aquinas deserves a modicum of respect - and I thought I would give him a chance to further explain his use of this philosophical concept as part of his justification.

Folks, I spend thousands of dollars every month on Google adwords for my company. If you were to go to my company website, my banner ad would follow you as long as you have cookies enabled on your machine. Right now the ad I get is for a consulting firm I am doing business with, for example. They dropped a cookie onto my machine and so their ad pops up on any site I surf. To the right I have a software company that is appropriately tangential to my work as well.

It has nothing to do with Scouter.com - I assume that Terry simply uses the Google ad program plus an adult filter to avoid porn and gambling.

"they have obviously been prompted by the political arm of the Gay movement "

Who or what is this political arm of the Gay movement that got this guy to go public? Do you have an address, a spokesperson, or anything else? There are many gay rights groups focusing on different issues, and then there are many gays who stay out of it. Do you think there is a central organizing Gay Mafia that pulls the strings of groups like the AIDs Coalition, the Pink Pistols and the Log Cabin Republicans?

The reason this hits the news?

- It is August, a typically slow news month.

- Once again we have a leader who has to quit.

- Thanks to the prior recent articles, this makes it easier to report on without needing to explain to the readers the complete background.

- Boy Scouts have a big enough presence in the public eye that it makes for an article that people will read.

- It will trigger letters to the editor and the usual trolls and troglodytes on the internet to comment on the paper's website, driving traffic.

After all, who cares about a single country club admitting women? I don't play golf, I don't watch the Masters, and I think that the green jackets are ugly as sin. However, Condi Rice was a professor of mine so I was interested when she became one of the first two women to become a member. Instead of covering the protests at the Masters next year, at most there will be one article commenting on if Condi is present (nobody will care about the other woman - she is a local not a national figure).

Why did this guy go public with his leaving - maybe he felt it was the right thing to do. I am sure that his CO and his unit knew of his orientation, given his partner and sons. Obviously on the local level there was not an issue - so his decision to out himself to the Council and resign was an action to raise awareness of here again is a leader we are losing. He is a living contradiction to those who wish to claim that there are not gays who want to help, they just want to attack.

OGE - Orthodox Judaism doesn't like gays, but conservative and reformed Temples do allow Gays. A local Rabbi told his members to not support Scouting due to their policy, but we were able to bring him around with a lot of effort.

Bravo! The system allows for Scouts of all stripes, motivations and time availability.

-Horizon (Eagle awarded a few weeks before his 14th birthday)

The plural of anecdotes is not data.

I have a Webelos 1 who can recite the Oath and Law perfectly.

I have an Eagle who blew the Oath when going for his third Palm.

Of course, to earn Palms, you have to actually earn your Eagle with enough time to get the 3 months in per Palm.

You Know You Add to the Requirements When:

You never award Palms, because all of YOUR Eagles EARN it at age 17 like they should (seen this)

You don't allow someone to run for SPL unless they are at least 16 (seen this)

You place "logical" speed bumps in the way of energetic Scouts, telling them to slow down.

You sneer at other units, calling them Eagle Mills or Eagle Factories

I was able to work with the youth in a transition by scheduling some backpacking trips. The adult led types weren't into high altitude and long hikes, but they were happy to have a month off while I took the Scouts on a backpacking run. While on the trail I started a conversational PLC discussion, and everytime they asked what was next - I told them to decide.

It was a good way to get started.

I wonder if they (they being the unnamed Cabal of Eleven of course) will try to push him off of the Board? This could get interesting now that his stance is public like this.

CalicoPenn raises a good point - we as Scouters need to be aware of the situation and keep an eye out for negative nicknames that are applied to the outcasts. We have to do this while also understanding that nicknames are a badge of honor and inclusion.

Makes this Scouting stuff interesting.

I had a nickname:

Elementary - Rooster (a comb never touched my hair)

Junior High - nothing. I was an outcast

High School - variation on my last name

College - two name, one for the little farm town I came from. I had our weekly newspaper mailed to me and I would read the critical news at dorm meetings. I was then named for my town. People who got to know me later though that my last name WAS the name of the town.

Fraternity - nicknamed there based on a penchant for outside of the G2SS activities. That is still my name 25 years later to several generations of young men from my fraternity house.

I have been to summer camps that did not issue blue cards - they just gave the troop a print-out and a digital copy.

As a Merit Badge Counselor, I keep a computer record in Excel of each Scout and each requirement. I enter the date they start, and the date they complete each requirement. Since some boys have been working with me for 3+ years on certain badges, it makes it a bit easier. When completed I sign the blue card with my signature across the requirement lines. Never had it kicked back by anyone (people know me and my adherence to the spirit and law of each merit badge).

A challenge we continually face:

For some camps here in Southern California, we need to book 6+ months in advance. With an election cycle every 6 months, this means choosing sites for the next group of youth leaders. We had a summer camp chosen by a group of Scouts who later did not attend in the same force that they voted.

So we try to get the youth involved (like - lets hit a beach site again!). Then we put a couple of adults on the task of securing one of the few group campsites available on the beach around here. Ditto with backpacking treks - multiple permits have to filed so that the Troop can take the most boys backpacking. You can't count on Philmont lotteries to be won either, and those too must be filed well in advance.

So we keep on working on putting the youth in control, while making sure that the adults are there to make sure that the program does not grind to a halt just because a couple of boys dropped the ball on something. Do I think that our pendulum sways between youth led and too much adult led - yes I do. It is an ongoing project, and its successes and failures is heavily dependent on both the youth and the adults who are engaged at the time.

It is great when it all works, and we keep it good enough when it doesn't.

Ugh - re-reading my post - most horrifying is, of course, the abuse.

This was my breakfast reading this morning. Some of it shows how much we have changed over time, with the concept of Mandated Reporters, etc. The fact that they would let a guy walk without calling the cops, just banning them from Scouts, is hard for me to understand.

This part (if accurate) was the ALSO (not most) horrifying to me: "In 1988, for instance, Scouting did away with probation; its policy now is to expel anyone suspected in "good faith" of abuse. In 2008, criminal background checks were required on all volunteers, and in 2010 the organization required all suspected abuse to be reported to law enforcement."

We didn't start doing background checks until 2008?

We didn't require abuse reporting until 2010?

I thought we were the model for this stuff! AYSO has had criminal background checks for longer than that, and has roles in the organization that are Mandated Reporters. Cal South Club Soccer also requires a fingerprint record to be made. Surely we weren't behind the soccer guys in protection?

(This message has been edited by Horizon)

One great boycott was Los Angeles boycotting Arizona businesses because of the AZ laws on immigration.

Except that they found out that they could not get out of some contracts, and others they could not replace (like, say, electricity that is bought from Arizona). The cops still use Tasers, for example.

Oops.

http://articles.latimes.com/2011/jun/05/local/la-me-arizona-boycott-20110605

When I was growing up, Jane Fonda movies were not allowed to be shown in our house. My father despised her for her actions during the Vietnam era. I don't think that hurt her much.