MattR

Beauty and expensive are in the eye of the beholder, so I'll leave that be.

On 5/22/2024 at 1:32 PM, Cburkhardt said:

What attributes of the BSA have allowed it to withstand thirty years of existential challenges?

Momentum? The membership in 1995 was about 1M scouts (so not cubs or anything else). Right before covid that number had dropped about 25% to 750k. Covid has cut that number another 40%. Time will tell if the BSA withstood or fell to a thousand cuts.

2 hours ago, Cburkhardt said:

Outdoors and Camps.  Our movement teaches our young people how to master the outdoors.  The thought of heading outdoors for the weekend is very positive and that helped us get through the difficulties.   Some of our camps approach matching the beauty of our national parks.  This is what comes to mind for many when they think of Scouting.  

I wish the BSA would focus on those first two sentences. I would add that it also helps learn about working with others.

Yesterday a scout called me up asking about some volunteering info. Well, he was my first scout that joined when I became SM some 20 years ago. He had a rough time as a kid and I won't get into why but he has fond memories of scouts. We talked, mainly because I'm an old man and also have fond memories. He said scouting really helped him learn some important lessons. He talked about leadership, the outdoors, working with younger scouts, just having fun with his friends. He made good memories. I think that's another aspect of the BSA's staying power. A lot of parents want for their kids what they had as kids.

This is going sideways fast. I don't want to lock this thread, so please, don't let this website ruin your day.

In the meantime ...

Doesn't it make anyone else wonder that if we're arguing over advancement that isn't being done and the scouts don't mind and don't care, that this is really just a huge waste of effort? It seems the adults care about the advancement a lot more than the scouts do. Just maybe that means advancement isn't doing what it was intended to do. Aren't all the methods supposed to be ways to motivate the scouts to participate and interact with each other so they learn more about the scout law? Instead, we're arguing or getting worked up and the scouts don't want to have anything to do with it. 

Soon, someone will reply that the adults are just screwing up, find better adults or more adults or just go fix it yourself. Remember, this thread is about dropping membership. I'm thinking the problem is deeper than "just do it right." From my view, giving recognition to a scout that discusses how to make a fire and/or the food plate, is just feature bloat in the program. Just a thought, but if a scout gets recognized for doing something that his friends in school think is stupid, then the program is recognizing the wrong thing if the goal is to increase membership. Swim a mile? Absolutely. Climb a 1000 ft? Of course. Discuss how programmers can hurt themselves? Say what?

Quote

After completing Tenderfoot requirement 6c, be physically active
at least 30 minutes each day for five days a week for four weeks.
Keep track of your activities.

They're joking, right? What kid is going to brag to his friends that he kept a journal of being active for a month? If you want a scout to be physically active then reward them for hiking 10 miles or going on a long bike ride. This requirement is a farce and everyone knows it. This type of thing is so watered down, such that everyone can get it, that the rank requirements are more participation award than recognition. That's why membership is going down. Asking the adults to work around this mess just causes arguments and frustration. That's why adults don't want to volunteer.

I hope they make it work. They will be forced to figure out how to do it without merit badges. That could be a good learning experience for other camps.

I wonder what kind of program they'd put on for scout units. My old troop has gone to Bear Lake, which also has little to do with the BSA anymore, and the scouts really liked it.

6 hours ago, Tron said:

National has been sort of pushing what you're talking about Matt, they've been pushing this since about 2011. 

But after 13 years of pushing this the membership numbers are still going down. What bad assumptions are they making? Maybe it's a bad assumption that just having scads of documents around will make it easy for parents to pick this up and do well. Have you ever wondered why so few parents are willing to volunteer for scouts? Is it really all their fault because they're lazy or is it too complicated on top of the fact that their work life is already insane. If summer camps can't get parents to show up unless they have wifi for checking into work then that's a hint there's a problem.

I coached my daughter's 6 year old soccer team. It was pretty obvious what to do. Tell everyone to bring a ball. Get some cones. Make up some games. They learned the rules, they ran around and kicked the ball a bunch and they had fun. No literature needed. No databases or patches or SM conferences. I know the guy that taught the U18 team that almost won nationals. This guy was incredible working with the youth. His approach for these older kids was pretty much the same as mine except he understood soccer a lot better than me. Maybe kids like these types of competitive activities because the rules are simple and the challenges are both easy to understand and difficult to master.

Instead, we have to argue about whether a scout needs to actually start a fire to pass the fire building requirement. And then we argue about one and done and retesting at SM conferences. And the scout still can't start a fire because the PLC decided that they didn't want to do skills competitions. Just a hint, but this is one reason why some parents don't want to volunteer.

I'm not claiming I have the answer or that I even know what the problem is, but there is a problem. Scouting can be a good program. I've seen some amazing things. I see them much less now and it's a shame. My granddaughter is 16 months old and my grandson is 10 weeks old. I hope they have a scout program worth joining when they're 11 years old.

7 hours ago, Jameson76 said:

As I watched the parents and listened to the few questions, my comment as we huddled after...they are not buying what we're selling.  They expect Cubs part 2 and we scare them.  Programming for 11 year olds means the youth likely leave in a year or 2.  Need to challenge and inspire.

Another aspect of this is that today's 11 year old is less mature than those of 20 years ago. Whether it's cell phones, social media, games, helicopter parents or whatever, kids have less ability at dealing with hard, challenging stuff.

On 5/10/2024 at 6:39 PM, InquisitiveScouter said:

Fascinating graph. It explains a lot. The rise in scouts was tied to the baby boom a lot more than I realized. I joined in 1971, which was both about the peak and near the end of the baby boom. I don't know what happened in 86 but there was a big bump in cub scouts but no change boy scouts. The other thing I noticed is the connection to the family savings rate and this graph. Nobody even measured it before 1950 because it was so low, but then there was a huge surge in the 60's and a drop off mid to late 70's that has been going down since.

Maybe I'm seeing what I want but the lesson to me is make scouting cheaper and simpler. It has nothing to do with membership rules nearly as much as it does with the economic health of the middle class.

On 5/8/2024 at 2:00 PM, Eagle1993 said:

18 Eagle required MBs can be done fully/nearly fully indoor while 4 (cooking, camping, hiking and cycling) have substantial outdoor requirements.  BSA lost me on "scouting is outdoors" when they added Citizenship in Society merit badge. Most of my Eagle Scouts have said Wilderness Survival should be Eagle Required but yet BSA went with another discuss/research/report type badge.

In addition, my Troop was the only one to camp outdoors during our recent district's Klondike.  In the past the Patrols camping outdoors would be awarded more points...not this year.  In fact, the Patrols who did cabin camping were able to work on sled decorations (earning trail points) and eat in the dining hall while my patrols cooked their own their own meals outside.  They were happy to campout but clearly the pressure and awards are emphasizing indoor cabin camping.

Heck, look at summer camps and the near complete loss of patrol cooking options.  We struggle to find camps that support outdoor patrol cooking.

BSA may say outdoors but their program, district and councils are all pushing more activities indoors (and in some cases away from the patrol method).  Their advertising looks great but not aligned with 90% of what BSA has become.

The key point here is that fewer scouts (and likely their parents) want to camp ...

On 5/8/2024 at 3:00 PM, Eagle94-A1 said:

 

The last 2 batches of Webelos that visited, the activities scared the parents.

... as illustrated here

On 5/8/2024 at 2:37 PM, Eagledad said:

 

A lot of adults are living their scouting dream through their youths’ program and don’t even realize it.

Barry, I used to see that but not anymore. The parents I'm seeing aren't interested. One example is an eagle scout who worked at a high adventure base as a youth. When I said great, we can't wait to have you come on our next campout, he hemmed and hawed and said he doesn't do cold weather. We can take his kid but he won't come on that trip.

I used to not worry about what the BSA did because I figured the parents would take up the slack and do scouting, one way or the other.  Now, it appears the BSA is saying something we don't want to admit. Too many adults are afraid of the outdoors. Which makes no sense because I see so many RVs around here. But maybe it's that they like the outdoors, but only for a few hours at a time. Certainly not 40 hours on a weekend.  I think this change has been going on for a long time, at least a few decades, but it seems to have accelerated lately. It's not like it's everyone. My old troop still has a few scouts that want to do high adventure trips but it's not like 20 years ago when every single new scout wanted to go on klondike because that was the biggest challenge they'd ever seen. Now, there are scouts that have been in the troop for 2 years and still haven't gone on a campout.  It's like having a soccer team where half the kids don't want to go out on the field. That's why I told my old troop I was done. I can't figure out how to work with kids and parents that think the meetings are all there is to scouts. I suspect the BSA (or SSA or S,SA or whatever) is also struggling with this. Ten years ago my troop was really strong but probably half the troops in our district were struggling with things like having enough adults to go camping. My old troop is still one of the stronger troops but that's only because the others are on life support. Now, it's like those troops were ten years ago. My guess is the BSA has no idea how to change that. I admit, I don't have any ideas either.

I joked about the name change before because, honestly, worrying about what one can't control is unhealthy. The same goes for the rearranging of deck chairs the BSA does with its name. I've finally decided it is what it is and I can't and shouldn't think about changing it.

Does this mean the BSA has joined with Scouts Mexico and Scouts Canada to form Scouts America? That would be fun. Oh wait, what about South America?

I don't see the BSA ever having to deal with this problem because there doesn't seem to be a benefactor that could sign off on such a project. Nobody in the school district.

It's great that this scout wants to unban books, but it's not a service project that helps specific people. Something about working with others to solve a problem rather than just working on it alone sounds better to me.

And yet it does make me want to read Slaughterhouse Five. I don't know how I missed that one. I went and found a synopsis and think it would be a great read.

@ramanous , the most important one for me is whether the older scouts are looking out for the younger scouts. If the younger scouts don't look up to the older scouts then the troop will develop all sorts of problems from lack of participation, young SPLs that struggle while older scouts stay home, a lack of team work and just a real self centered attitude.

The term scout led really is too vague. What most adults think of scout led is scouts making plans. But leadership, good leadership, is all the little things like including the shy scouts and encouraging those that are struggling.  It's the essence of the Scout Law.

Once in place, this will feed itself as the younger scouts look up to the older scouts and eventually become those older scouts that give back to the new younger scouts.. However, getting it in place is hard because teenagers can get very self centered when given a chance. Tending this process was the most important and challenging problem for me as an SM.

Good luck.

@Maboot38 , you seem to recognize a problem and aren't willing, or more likely, know how to deal with it. You have an adult that is driving off scouts. This has nothing to do with titles. This is a people problem. Something needs to change, which you recognize. The options are he backs off on his own or you back him off. You're the SM. He's messing up your program. You have a vision of how this should work (and it sounds good from what you've implied) and he's hindering that. You need to decide whether the time it will take to change him is worth it. If so, great. If not, he needs to go.

Your question shouldn't be about titles and what the rules allow. Instead, it should be about how to confront this guy in as scout-like a manner as possible. There are no rules on how to do that, just experience having worked with people problems before.

Good luck.

On 12/12/2023 at 4:15 PM, Jameson76 said:

As usual, main focus will be raising money.  No mention in the article about growing the program and expanding the membership.

I'm hoping you're wrong. Last night I found out our council has only 2400 youth registered. Our district, ten years ago, was larger than this. We used to have a pack in every elementary school (15 or 20?). We're down to 3 or 4. I think the packs are done folding but the troops are in serious decline at the moment. Our troop, which has always been considered strong compared to neighboring troops, is in serious trouble while 2 other troops have folded. If it weren't for a half dozen adults in our troop that no longer have kids in the troop, ours would fold.

The common thread in all of this is a lack of parents that want to put time into helping out. I used to think that no matter how messed up national was, scouting would do fine because people want it. I'm not so sure anymore. It looks to me like parents don't believe in scouting.

I still think scouting is important but I don't know how to convince people of that. The Forbes article mentioned contacting a million scouting alumni. While the cynical view is they're only asking for money, it could also be they're asking for help getting the message out.

55 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Soros' group and the US Justice System

Soros is to blame for the downfall of the BSA? That's a new one.

I think I'm done here. This is a waste of my time.

4 hours ago, SSScout said:

Make the decision, go ahead....

Sure, but something about being prepared keeps poking the back of my gray matter. I have noticed that nay sayers jump out of the woodwork whenever a new idea is proposed. Understanding how, for example, the UK does this could help.

@Eagle94-A1, while a lot of us have bad stories, your council is the worst. Just to balance things out a bit, don't forget all the threads we see here about bad scout leaders. I once asked why we didn't have a commisioner and the answer was that we had one of the best troops and they trusted us and they had much bigger issues with out of control drama, drinking, etc in other units. @5thGenTexan 's troop is probably not too far from typical.

Anyway, these are the things that we have to work around. None of the issues with a bad council are nearly as bad to a unit's program as not having parents help out or kids show up. I can ignore the council, I can't ignore that parents are stretched thin and have a lot of reasons that they can't camp with us. If I had enough adult help then I wouldn't need council for anything other than what the registrar does, and that's not much.

So, the real question is how to find and teach more adults to help out and also make their help fun, right for them and not overwhelming. Overwhelming comes from not having enough help to spread the load so it's really about getting enough adults to be part of the program, in whatever way they can. Someone could take all the photos we have once a year and make a slide show for a COH. It doesn't have to be a big deal. Anyone that likes the outdoors can learn how to stay warm in cold weather, and I bet they'd have fun with us on campouts. Do this with enough parents and suddenly we'll be back to having most of the troop show up at campouts. Then we can get back to patrol method.

One thing I've wondered about is combining units the way UK scouts does into groups. Two packs and a troop could share a lot of resources and continuity from pack to troop. This could all be done without any help from the council.

Welcome to the forum,  @TimMiller.

It's a great camp. At least for the past 10 years the volunteers taking care of the cabin ask for donations of money or material be given directly to them so they actually get it.

Anyway, we ran our summer camp there this year. It's great. I think the council now takes care of the $99 payments. I forget the name of the guy that likely took over from Holm, but he was the best council exec I've seen.

@welcome to the forum,  @Prime00.

My suggestion is ask your scouts what they want to do and give them some options to get away from this troop. Find another troop, start a troop so they can get eagle, ... This situation is toxic.

Wow, the scouts run afoul of a bird sanctuary. So much irony to choose from.

Looking at it from the other side I'm not surprised. They don't have the numbers so, rather than adjust their budget they charge CITs. Summer camp itself is already North of $450.

This is why we put on our own summer camp. And the price was very close to $100 per scout and adults paid nothing. That has its own cost, in time, but it was fun.

We rarely have cell service in the mountains. If you have service you're either on a peak or, possibly, at a trailhead. I'm glad they figured it out. Also glad the other hikers came by.

A GPS that can mark a point seems like a useful idea. Does all trails allow you to mark a point?

Also there are GPSes with emergency satellite communications. We rent them when we go rafting because the canyons are not only far from signals but far from people.

Every. Single. House. Project.

2 hours ago, sierracharliescouter said:

Thousands needed medical attention, many or most of whom would not have needed medical care if the event had be properly planned.

Yes, it's miserable but they got to go home. Nobody got caught in the hurricane.

2 hours ago, sierracharliescouter said:

I heard a report of one fatality from the British contingent, though with an event this size a fatality is always a possibility.

All I found was that 23 people across all of S Korea died due to heat. The scouts did okay. Going to the hospital for dehydration or eating bad food is not fun and a lot of scouts are angry at someone, but that's not the same as trauma. Money can be replaced.

I'm not saying all was fun and good. Certainly there are 40000 upset people. I feel sorry for them but this won't get fixed until a lot more is understood. There are a lot of events that led to this mess. The S Korea scouting organization is only one part of it. Something tells me that a month ago a lot of other people knew there was a problem and nothing was done about it. Were there any sort of intermediate check points that had to be met? They said they'd put in trees. That idea could have been checked 6 months ago. The food and toilets could also have been checked. Was there ever a plan B? Was there ever any sort of check that this was a good site to have that many people in August? Apparently not. In other words, the proposal was nothing more than a sales brochure - promise whatever is needed to win the event. Who's fault is that? Certainly S Korea is partly to blame but they were just playing by the rules. What about WOSM? It might be that WOSM doesn't have the budget to oversee such a big project. That's fine. Just make it smaller, or smaller and more often, or just pick one or two sites on each continent and rotate through them, or whatever. But unless people dig into what went wrong this will happen again, and next time it might be something faster moving than a hurricane.

Does anyone know the actual cost of a scout going to the jamboree? I did see that there are 4 different levels - the US and Europe pay the most, poorer countries pay less. I know US scouts paid $6100 but that includes taxes to national, the council and travel.

I suspect that much like the Olympics, the WSJ is put on at a loss. I'm honestly not surprised with all the problems. This is a huge undertaking and when the BSA is looked up to as being able, of course the S Korea scout association is in over their heads. It takes time to grow trees! I suspect WOSM is just as guilty (who signed off on the we will grow trees idea?) They asked for inexpensive and they got it. And the prices went up in the meantime. Also, nobody wants to pay for a sewer system for 40000 people that will only be used for 2 weeks. Or a hospital system, or dining, or .... And S Korea couldn't say no.

Bottom line, nobody got hurt.