LIBob

EagleDad wrote: My opinion is the BSA is loosing scouts from its own weight. Any volunteer with a few years experience in managing a Cub program will tell you its nearly a full time job. The number of Cub families that drop in the first year is pretty high. My first reaction is "good riddance." I am concerened about the overall numbers of cub scouts as anyone but ya gotta figure 1. The number of kids/parents dropping afer the first year of anything is going to be pretty high. A LOT of parents are going to want to try things out. Aftera a while leaving work early and going throug

I keep thinking about the "1st year 1st class" thing and here are my recent thoughts: Waaay back when I was a scout I moved twice and thus was in three different troops. Each of the troops put a pretty heavy emphasis on teaching first aid and knot tying to new scouts. That being the case, if the scout was a decent swimmer to begin with, the only thing that made "first class in first year" more difficult than falling off a log was the camp cooking requirements. That being the case I am not sure 1st class in a year is such a bad thing. The only disadvantages I recall are

When I look at the numbers from this (polictally motivated) webpage http://www.bsa-discrimination.org/html/bsa_membership.html it seems that the decline is primarily in cub scouts. Of course today's cubs are tomorrows Boy scouts, but the point is the # of boy scouts has bounced back and forth from 900,000 to 1,000,000 severl times simce 1986 or so. Cub enrollment OTOH also cycled from 2.1 million to 1.9 million back to 2.1 million and then dropped like a rock to 1.6 million.

delete double post(This message has been edited by LIBob)

Actually Boy Scout membership peaked in 2002, not 1998. The number of cub scouts peaked in 1990 then dipped, peaked again in 1998 and then dipped again. Personally I don't expect the Cub scout enrollment to peak again anytime soon. It's a lot harder to run Cubs scouts now that Scouting now has a two-deep leadership requirement.

I have not been involved long enough to notice anything locally. I do know that US birthrates have been declining steadily for years. However, that does not seem to explain it totally. Scouts joining today were born in 1999 and births actually saw a small uptick from 1995-1999. Hmm, I don't know why enrollment is declining. Anyway, here, according to USAToday are the number of live births in the US by year for selected years: 1990.......... 4,158,212 1991.......... 4,110,907 1992.......... 4,065,014 1993.......... 4,000,240 1994.......... 3,952,767 1995.......

Docdt, I hear ya, and I think you are doing everything right and for the right reasons. I'm just saying that starting a troop is . . . well if starting a troop doesn't work, out then plan "B" should be to create a GREAT patrol. B-P envisoined scouting as being patrol based. The earliet records of scouting (well at least the few of them that I have read,) reveal that B-P, William Boyce etc. constantly struggled to make things more "patrol based." I'm guessing this is code for saying they wanted to take things out of the SM's hands and put them into the boys' hands. Of cours

Twocubdad wrote: "We're in the process of examining the whole First Year/First Class theory in our troop. The push to First Class breeds a lot of problems, not the least of which is lack of time to adequately master T-2-1 skills. In the past we've always had a mad scramble for everyone to serve as patrol cook for the First Class cooking requirement. The way it worked meant that when you met the requirement was likely the only time you served as patrol cook. Our challenge to the boys now is for it to be the BEST time you served as patrol cook. So we're going at a little more slowly. Maybe we

So anyway it seems some conditions have been placed on this thread Condition 1: If a scout was taught safe swim and safe boating procedures and chose to ignore them, the drowning "doesn't count" unless it happened at a scouting event. Condition 2: If a media article does not mention the specific violation of SSD/SA that occurred, then no such violation occurred. I'm not sure what the purpose of such conditions are, but what the hey. I will cheerfully endeavor to meet the conditions placed upon me. Here's a Safety Afloat condition I routinely violate: Regardl

Hey twocub, I wouldn't know anything about the old SSD video because I have not seen it. I DO know that a quarter century ago. when I worked on a BSA waterfront we told every camper "Scouts drown every year. It's usually only one or two but that is one or two too many. And yet never, in the 75-tear history of scouting has a scout ever died at waterfront that follows BSA safety procedures." We'd pause for a moment and then add "Think about it. One or two every single year versus zero in 75 years. This stuff really works. It really does save lives and it saves lives every yea

Thank you Eagle. It's true that some of the stories I have posted are scout drownings that occured at non-scouting events. I feel these are still germaine because part of scoutings mission is to teach scouts to be prepared and be safe even outside of scouting events. A scout who learns gun safety at camp should sill exercise gun safety on his own time no? Anyway here's a story of a scout who drowned on a scouting boat trip. From what I can tell the only aspect of SA they group violated was that their float plan failed to realize the river was to high and too fast. Tha

Calico your post makes a lot of sense. (Note however that I teach my son to use the buddy sysem and follow other scout procedure even when swimming or boating at non-scouting events.) Kenny Frazier did drown at a scouting event and the articles I've read make no menion one way or another of things like "buddy-check" and "lifeguards." It could of course be slopy reporting but those words are conspicuously absent from sentences like The Iosco County Sheriffs Department received a report at about 3:56 p.m. of a missing child in the water who had disappeared below the surface, acc

This website indicates and extreme canoeist using state of the art canoes averages 4.5 mph. http://wayfarer.fit2paddle.com/speed-test.htm These two indicate paddlers on the Delaware average 1.5 to 2.5 mph http://www.nps.gov/upde/planyourvisit/planningrivertrip.htm http://www.moon.com/destinations/philadelphia/excursions-philadelphia/bucks-county/recreation/water-sports-the-delaware-river

HiNeal Perhaps I should have made myself more clear. SSD DOES apply to swimming holes, but it was designed with larger areas in mind. Roping off three sections in a 20-foot wide swimming hole can seem rather silly. but thems the rules and they should be followed. SSD should be followed at all scout related recreational swimming events. The solution I suggested regarding was not to allow recreational swimming there at all but rather to use it for some legitmate puropose that does not require roped-off swimming areas. e.g. You can use an unroped area to teach kids

Our troop has it's entire annual calendar posted on its website. http://troop229bsa.com/jan_dec_2010%20rev17.pdf It's the main tool use to plan the next year's events. Turn's out the planning session is in late August (so right now there are few fall events scheduled. The one from the year before is also on the website http://troop229bsa.com/jan_dec_2009%20rev29.pdf.

Thanks for the replies. Again I don't know what the scouts are going to put into next year's plan but it wouldn't surprise me if 2011 inlcuded a couple of night on the AT. There is a Council in NJ that has a 2-night pre-planned AT backpacking experience From Kittatinny Mountain Scout Reservation to Yards Creek Scout Reservation Friday: 3.7 miles Saturday 13.8 miles Sunday: Short Hike to Yards Creek SR http://www.cnjc-bsa.org/camps/hikes/kmsrycsr/hike2.htm We could do that, but I've been told the appalachians are different and more beautiful in New England.

I'm not trying to point fingers but rather to look for wasy to raise awareness and find ways to prevent these sorts of things. Scouts drown every year often at scouting events and typically (but not always) it turns out that at least one point of SSD/SA was not being followed. 17 year old Texas Eagle Scout Hayden O'Brien was swimming in a guarded public pool without a buddy. Hayden O'Brien, son of Wanda and Tim, was in a swimming pool "accident". It appeared he was trying to hold his breath as long as possible and passed out at the bottom. He had been seeing how long he could st

My point is that I am reading stuff at quality news websites, noting that fact taht those stories do not necessarily include every detail, you are using a differnt source and acting as though I am make wreckless use of sources. The fact is scouts drown every year, frquently at scouting events and almost inevitably when one or more points of SSD/SA were not being followed. I used google to find a news story noted that the story does not menition the buddy system and posted qualifiers like "apparently." You've decided to ignore the qualifiers,and ignore the fact that I am aware

Wow you keep posting an reposting that I used google to find these incidence as if it means anything google links is automatically wrong. The fact is a couple scouts drown every year, sometimes on scout outtings. Almost inevitably it turns out that at least one point of SSD or SA was not being followed. These incidences happened. The fact that google links the major news stories about them does not make them untrue. heck there are even MB requirements that instruct scouts to find stories in newspapers and use news stories as sources. btw I have searched the sheriff's web

True when David Hanson drowned he was not on a scouting event nonetheless he was a scout and he did drown. Press articles often leave out details but the boston globe articles make it pretty clear there was a breakdown in discipline (SA point #9), and that they did not have the necessary skill porficeincy (SA point #6) to be boating at night Hanson and the boat's owner, 20-year-old Wayne Carlson, both were wearing life jackets, but lacked experience boating on the ocean at night, according to Hanson's father, Keith Hanson. They shouldnt have been out there in the boat, the fath

That's interesting Beav Could you post a link to the sheriff's report? Oh as for lifeguards: SSD 1. Qualified Supervision All swimming activity must be supervised by a mature and conscientious adult age 21 or older who understands and knowingly accepts responsibility for the well-being and safety of youth members in his or her care, who is experienced in the water and confident of his or her ability to respond in the event of an emergency, and who is trained in and committed to compliance with the eight points of BSA Safe Swim Defense. (It is strongly recommended that all un

I have read several stories and accounts of the drowning of 12-year old scout Kenny "cookie" Frazier and have not found any reference made to lifeguards, the buddy system or areas roped off by swimming ability. http://www.iosconews.com/articles/2008/07/30/news/news02.txt Youth drowns in Lake Huron by John Morris EAST TAWAS - A camping trip up north turned to tragedy Friday for a group of Boy Scouts and their young urban guests when a 12-year-old boy from Lansing drowned in Lake Huron. The incident occurred on the southeast side of Tawas Point State Park in the parks design

On another thread we were discussing Safe Swim Defense(SSD), Safety Afloat (SA) and how they apply to a 20 ft wide swimming hole. Obviously SSD etc. were written with entirely different areas in mind. It occured to me that maybe SSD and SA need to be fine tuned a bit. Perhaps SSD should be amended to inlcude a different set of prcedures when swimming in a 20-foot wide swimming hole. One way SSD/SA could should be made stricter would be to require, as a part of the SSD/SA training process, that trainees look at real life cases where scouts have drowned and identify which parts of S

Actually in each an every one of those scout drowning SSD was not followed. and the point of posting them was to show that even a simple google search reveals each year 1-2 scouts die because they or their leaders do not follow SSD or safety afloat. The only one that even came close was the Lake Huron drowning Lake Huron Drowning The were swimming in a designated swim area and thus did not need to set up roped areas. But it's a pretty safe bet they did not do buddy checks. The article implies there were no lifeguards. As for the rest, CLEARLY the drowning occurred becaus

Anyway SSscout, maybe I am missing something, but I really don't "get" what you did. SMT set up a basically safe swimming area and, because the entire swimming hole was quite small, he ran a safe swim (albeit one that was technically non-compliant with BSA standards.) I don't want to rush to judgement but it seems to me like yo are saying "BSA rules are stupid and we should make up our own as we go along. .. basically you can set up a couple lifeguards and swim however you want." I can certainly imagine SM's holding such view, but I wonder - is that REALLY the view that