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MattR

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Posts posted by MattR

  1. 20 hours ago, ShootingSports said:

    So, in our area we have a 0.9% market share of total available youth.  That leaves 99.1% not in scouting. 

    Does anyone have survey data on what this 99% are doing with their time and their kids? 

    Not looking for personal stories, I am looking for true survey data that has demographics, economic, social, and interests data. 

    Anyone???? (Yes I asked at National)

    I've seen lots of reports from the BSA, the US govt. and others of youth activities. That's not to say I can find them again or even want to, but Google is your friend.

    Just be careful of what friends you choose. Google is a form of purgatory for people looking for "the answer". While it might be nice to see some of this information, will it really help increase interest in your council? We used to have 10% of available youth. I have no idea what it is now but it's dropped a lot.

    My suggestion is to focus on quality rather than quantity. Kids having fun will lead to more kids. How to measure the quality of a unit or council, much less help improve it, is the real question.

    • Upvote 2
  2. 22 hours ago, wearrepair said:

    Yes, we have district awards, etc. This was to recognize sustaining service over time. 

    We have a memorial garden at our camp. A tree is planted for those who pretty much dedicated their life to scouts.

    Unfortunately, few people really know about it other than those that have spent a lot of time volunteering. But that makes sense in a way.

     

    • Upvote 1
  3. @skeptic had posted  an article from the sfchronicle that is behind a paywall. Rather than violate copyright laws I'm leaving the link below. If you can read it, great. If you'd like to selectively quote it that would be nice for those that don't have a subscription to that paper.

    https://www.sfchronicle.com/bayarea/article/Boy-Scouts-Chinatown-survival-troop-17378339.php?fbclid=IwAR2iiW3b0mQY2Sc4057JzQZuf0OP3N1SP3-AjRoLp8wtre5JZDNoF1hd1Oc

  4. 5 hours ago, fred8033 said:

    Back to the heart of scouting.  Outings and social interactions. 

    • Canoeing MB?  Go canoeing.  Hold the paddle.  During the trip, show a j-stroke and how to properly enter and exit the canoe.   Discuss the names and parts of the canoe.
    • Bicycling MB?  Go biking and fix a tire and etc, etc.  
    • Camping MB?  Go camping.  Work thru the requirement details in a one-on-one basis.  
    • Citizen of the nation MB?  Have the conversations.  Go visit historical sites.  Have the discussions. 

    MB pamphlets should be the fall back, but not the main path.  Scouting is not school with assigned text books and worksheets. 

    MB pamphlets are better for the MBC than for the scout.  More like the teacher's answer guide.  

    So what you're saying is get rid of the pamphlets, as there's little need for a pamphlet where the activities are the driving motivation.

    We've had that discussion and I'm all for it. But it requires changing the requirements for all the MBs and I doubt it will happen.

  5. I hate to say this but few scouts are motivated to read the material. While I think the books are informative the scouts are focused on the few pages with the requirements. I can't blame them because that's how MBs work. Anyway, it seems to be easier for scouts to google or just guess how to explain, describe or discuss something than read the book.

    If someone has an idea on how to motivate scouts to read the books I'm interested in hearing it. I think it would require really skilled counselors, which is along the lines of "just find more volunteers" - a simple idea that's very hard in practice.

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 1
  6. To me it read as a survey to understand how to write a fundraising plea. For example, if you have no intent on donating or recommending someone donate then they might ignore your other answers. Given the billions of dollars spent on bankruptcy it doesn't sound nefarious. Yes, there are other problems I'd rather see worked on but if your job is fundraising then it makes sense.

  7. 28 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

    Sad to say the least, but I find that in most cases, there is an adult somewhere that planted a seed and the scout gets the blame. If this is not the case, then it comes down to the SM having a discussion about making a bad decision. 

    Barry

    No to the first, yes to the second (at least how I would have handled it). Stupid comments are a good opportunity to bring the scout law alive.

  8. There's a thread about uniforms that ended in the gutter over sex (girls in string bikinis tempting boys) and now coed dens is turning into girls being raped. I guess it must be the fault of all the girls. Or at least we should just blame them.

    Honestly, can we stop latching on to the least likely scenario that might happen and talk about what has happened? Have coed dens been a problem? If you want to talk about coed troops then what problems have you seen?

    The biggest problem I've seen is obnoxious boy says stupid things to girl and, rather than an older scout slapping him up side his head and ending it, it exploded into phone calls and meetings and drama, oh my! But, nobody got raped.

  9. 10 hours ago, 5thGenTexan said:

    Personally. I didn't buy my half gallon of chocolate milk this week because I am trying to cut costs.  I didn't get the haircut I needed last week because I am trying to cut costs.  And I don't drink overpriced fru fru coffee.  So no, I do not have the $5 a month to support a website for something outside my household.

    The Troop is just a year old and we have ZERO dollars to do anything.  The equipment we have is parent provided or stuff we had donated.

    Just a suggestion, but what might help more is finding someone that understands websites. Maybe someone at roundtable. Maybe your CO. Maybe your council will let you put a couple of pages under their website. Someone in your town knows how to setup a website and host it. Bring them a box of pictures of your scouts doing fun things, pull on their heart, and ask for a donation of their time to help you out.

    The website itself might be free. A domain name costs money but, for the size of a website you need, it costs nothing to run. You just need someone to help set it up.

    • Thanks 1
  10. It's a great opportunity that will consume a lot of time setting up. It might not be as much cheaper as you think but will provide more opportunity for scouts to lead and have fun.

    If done right, and the troop wants to do it again, it will be a bit easier the next time.

    We used to roll our own high adventure trips, and those are less expensive than national's. We did one that was for the entire troop and was a mix of high adventure and summer camp activities and all the scouts could go. It worked really well. But for one guy it was lot of work organizing everything.

  11. "Is there or is there not a uniform standard in Scouts BSA?"

    Yes, there is. But that question isn't very helpful. A better question might be "what should the response be when a scout doesn't meet the uniform standard." As usual in scouts the answer often depends on why the scout isn't doing what is hoped for.

    I once had a scout wear intensely bright green pants to a meeting because someone complained that the green pants he previously wore were not "green enough." I suspect the tutu scout was also trying to make a point. While some broken rules require a ton of bricks, the uniform, whether tutu or neon green, is better served with a quizzical look and a conversation.

    I think the hardest part is being prepared for scouts that want to push boundaries or buttons. But that's on the adults, not the scouts.

    By the way, the scout wearing the neon pants turned out to be an outstanding SPL.

     

    • Upvote 1
  12. 3 hours ago, Jameson76 said:

    One observation is that our local soccer / baseball / basketball youth sports leagues do not do any marketing, but seem to have a bunch of participants.

    They get plenty of marketing from professional sports. Fame and money. Granted youth sports is more than that but marketing is what it is.

    3 hours ago, Jameson76 said:

    Overall it would be good to have some central marketing and (dare I say) brand awareness.  Focus on what we do well.  In our council we seem to have waaaay more council staff working on raising money than raising awareness.  That may be the root of the issue.  Volunteers and "pros" have a different idea of what Scouting is about.  Is it a program (volunteer mindset) or a cash cow (pro mindset).

    Yes, council focus is misplaced.

    I compare my council office to the local soccer office and ... ouch. You have a brutal point. For soccer they had one or two people at the office, which was a rented, small store at a strip mall. The head guy was very busy. They have a soccer complex (which is the most time consuming thing they deal with). They managed schedules, coaches that they found, collected money. They had training materials available for coaches. They did not need scoutbook, registrars, scout stores, FOS, JTE, DEs, district staffs, roundtables, BORs, district eagle chairs, pages of requirements, .... They probably had fundraising and service days for the soccer complex. Their focus is playing soccer.

    I think that an important aspect not being addressed is the youth/volunteer ratio needed to run a successful unit. I haven't measured it but I suspect it would be eye opening. All those council staff are around assuming there are huge numbers of volunteers to deal with a lot of stuff. There aren't and there hasn't been that many for a long time. So they've been forced into focusing on their salaries.

    • Like 1
  13. 2 minutes ago, FireStone said:

    We need Mike Rowe in some nationwide BSA ads. 😁

    We've had that discussion as well. 

    A constructive discussion needs both good ideas and also the hard realities. The latter is brutal. My council doesn’t have the faintest idea how to market what they have and they at least had a full time marketing person. National is worse off. That leaves everything local. First, the target audience. It's true they don't know much about scouts. They also don't know much about their neighbors or community. So much advertising is being pushed to them the default is to turn it all off. At the same time units are desperate for volunteers, adding more jobs won't be an easy sell.

    This is what I did and it worked. We had a website. It was nothing exotic. It had enough search terms built in that the search engines found it if someone was looking for a troop in my town. That is a static, one time job, that someone else did before me. It had some dynamic info about events and calendars that the scouts used. More importantly it showed that the troop was active. Calendar modules make that easy. However, the most important part, when it came to attracting scouts, was a bunch of pictures showing scouts having fun. Not classroom settings, not meetings, not even flag ceremonies - but fun in the outdoors. Scouts on rocks, in kayaks, around a fire, stupid grins, dutch oven cakes, hiking up a mountain, repelling down a mountain. Everything that people imagine when they hear the term scouting.

    For parents that were looking they would find us. After that we pushed being friendly to visitors and having a fun program with the right challenges. The program has to be there. The additional part is the photos.

    • Upvote 3
  14. I understand your frustration. I also really appreciate your honesty and trying to see both the good and bad.

    A suggestion: let your son decide whether to move. For one, boy led? Second, it seems that in 4 months you've already made a good impression. "Hey! Fun games are a good idea! Maybe that guy has more good ideas." To be honest, meetings at a summer camp is, well, brilliant. 

    Maybe there's a different approach. The CC seems to like your ideas. How about just having a friendly, honest conversation with him or her. The business with fixed blade knives and lengths is just a myth that lots of adults succumb too. I did. That could be an honest mistake. Not allowing parents to see progress could be the similar (it wasn't too long ago that only a few people had access to the troop database). Doing scout rank together? Okay, I'll give you that one. But maybe a bit of time is needed and you'll have their trust.

    At the same time, keep a similar, critical view of the other troop. They all have warts.

    Good luck.

    • Upvote 2
  15. Welcome to the forum, @Cavan.

    I read the entire thread, from the first post, apparently before you were born, to the last, and one possibility is that in 2004 there were rules about what could go on a red jacket. Somewhere in the first handful of posts people seemed fairly sure there was a document describing where patches could go. Those posts also included descriptions of other ways for people to display their patches. That lasted until about 2007. Then there's a long gap until a post in 2019 where the idea that any patches can be placed anywhere on a red jacket (plus more posts on how silly this subject is). About two years later you posted.

    So, is it possible that circa 2004 there were rules and sometime before 2019 those rules were changed? If there's one thing I've learned in being nearly 4 times older than you is that things change. When I was your age we could send scouts to look for left handed smoke shifters, we were told to dig trenches around our tents, we only cooked on fires and we never filtered water. Whether or not there were rules about patches on red jackets, I don't know. I'm sure I never thought about it. But, I had a great history teacher and did learn to appreciate how amazing history can be.

    So, tell us a bit about what you like about scouting and where you put all your patches. For me, I liked the outdoors, the adventures and the friends I had. As for my patches, they went in a box, which I still have.

  16. @Scoutcrafter, I second @scoutldr's comment. The scouts should have some say in what they're doing. Also, they should be having some fun.

    So, I'm not sure you're asking the right questions. Does it really matter what adult has the final say if the scouts have no say?

    That said, you're right that the SM shutting you down is not helping. I'm also not sure what you can do to change that culture. Is it worth looking for a different troop? Are they having fun?

    What's important to you?

  17. I'm confused. Is it hours or nights of camping? 100 hours of camping at 40 hours/campout isn't very much. But 100 nights is rather respectable. Then again, I'm not too sure what the NOAA program is. To me NOAA refers to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (or something like that).

  18. 14 minutes ago, FireStone said:

    I like to say I'm open-minded about uniforms but I do have one thing I'm 100% against: Adults wearing Eagle rank patches. I've seen 2 people do it.

    That's also against the rules. Once you're 18 you have to swap the eagle patch for a knot.

    I gave out a lot of eagle patches that weren't allowed to be worn. I asked that the parents get their son a knot.

    • Upvote 2
  19. I've decided that adult uniforms are really just a test of other adult's patience. Some people like opulence and others minimalism. If it encourages them to keep volunteering then why not? Unfortunately, uniforms are a great trap for people to judge others that are different. "You have to wear your POR patch. How else will anyone know you're the SM?" Honestly, if that's a problem then there are bigger issues, but I digress. People vary, so there will be lots of opinions, all valid to each.

    A scout uniform is like a book cover, best not to judge it. Think about it, how uniform is our uniform if there are arguments about what to put on it?

    • Like 1
    • Upvote 2
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