NJCubScouter

Kind of interesting because with one exception, I doubt that any of the dozen or so DE's I have met would even know what the requirements were for any Cub Scout rank or award. (Of course, since I have been out of Cub Scouts for 14 years and they have changed everything so much, I don't know any of them either, but that's not the point.)

Our troop regards the handbook as "the last word." Whether the council or anyone else does, I don't know. But our troop does. It does make it cumbersome when they make a significant change in the requirements and most kids still have the old handbook and now you have all these photocopied sheets stuck in there.

So, wait, if the ONLY female participant in an outing is an adult leader, that makes it co-ed? Well, I guess that makes sense once I look at it in black and white, but it's not what most people think of as co-ed. I guess I never thought about it because my troop has never even gotten close to a situation where all the leaders on an outing were women. Most of the time the leadership is all-male. I think you should put in a definition of co-ed so people realize that either one leader or one participant of the "other" gender makes an outing co-ed.

I guess I never got around to responding to this. First, congrats to your son on the successful completion of the process. It sounds like the ceremony went well. Our troop also has 1-year terms for SPL, ASPL and PL. (And by "default" for the other positions but there is a tendency to rotate those before the year is up.) But this is not a requirement for advancement. If the Scout is active in the position for 4 months while First Class, or 6 months while Star or Life, their POR requirement is signed off for the next rank.) We have had Scouts resign their position after the 4 or 6 months but before the year is up, so someone else is appointed or elected. It has never come up at a BOR. (I do recall one whose resignation probably left him short of the POR requirement for Life, but he also didn't have enough Eagle-required MB's for Life at the time of his 17.5 birthday, so he wasn't making Eagle anyway.) So this sounds to me like an appropriate use of the "under disputed circumstances" procedure. The troop was trying to add to the requirements.

To me it usually seems like the opposite. Where I am, anyway, both leaders and parents focus on Eagle more than the average poster in this forum. Actually I mean the average long-time poster. People who show up here to ask questions or tell stories about Eagle in their first post are, not surprisingly, often focused on Eagle. But there are a number of long-timers here who talk about how First Class is the most important rank, or Eagle is over-emphasized, or similar ideas. Again, maybe it's because of where I am, though there are some very conservative and very religious people in New Jersey. (A lower proportion than where you live, I'm guessing.) But on the first two items I see the opposite. As for "more closely aligned with their Chartered Organization", I think it depends on the CO, both in this forum and in the real world. And as an adult, I have only had direct experience with two CO's, one was a PTO that for all intents and purposes was invisible as far as the pack was concerned, and the other is a church that has some involvement with the troop but is mostly hands-off. So I can't really draw any conclusions from that. In this forum I have read about an entire range of CO's, from invisible to very involved.

In my experience, when a kid quits generally there really isn't an opportunity for a one-liner. One week they are absent, then the next week they are absent, and so on, and eventually one of his friends reports back that he decided to quit, or one of the leaders runs into the kid's parent in the supermarket and gets told the same thing. (I suppose you could try a one-liner on the parent, but generally they have already urged their son to stay in, and it didn't work.) The SM may call the ex-Scout, but by that time Scouting is so far out of the kid's head that it doesn't make a difference. There is rarely a chance for an "exit interview" at a time when it might change the kid's mind.

Gwaihir, who told you that Cubelos did not count for the award? What surprises me is that "resident camp" is defined as 2-5 days. I would have thought "resident camp" would be at least 5 days (4 nights), although a "week" of Boy Scout "resident camp" is generally 6 days (noon-ish Sunday to noon-ish Saturday, so you can count that as 7 days if you want) and 6 nights. But if the Cub Scout definition of "resident camp" is 2-5 days, then a 3-day 2-night Cubelos should count. By the way, I think that in my 15 years in this forum, you are the only person outside of my council I have seen use the word "Cubelos." Or maybe you are not outside of my council...

I'll buy that. I think any further debate on what the YP policy should be, or whether it's hypocritical, or that sort of thing, should be in some other thread in some other part of the forum. This thread is about what the policy IS in a particular case.

I don't think there's anything to give, other than the name "Varsity Scouting" and the rank structure, and I don't think the BSA would let them use that without paying the registration fees, nor do I think they would want to use it, since it apparently isn't really working out for them. The idea of using sports as part of a youth program that also involves camping (if that's what Varsity Scouting is, I'm not even sure), without the trademarked words and names, is not something the BSA has exclusive rights to. I have never seen a Varsity Scout in person. As I have said before, some troops in NJ have "re-purposed" the Varsity shoulder loops to signify other things. Once the LDS Church stops using it, the BSA could eliminate that program and ask the few remaining Teams whether they want to become Boy Scout troops, Venture crews, or merge into existing units.

I don't think that is good advice. This is not Cub Scouts, it is Venturing, and it is not family camping, it is Venturing camping. If female Venturers are participating, an adult female leader must participate as well. We could debate whether that SHOULD be the rule when the young womens' fathers are present, but it is the rule. As for saying that a change in membership procedures "has basically made all the BSA's YPT rules obsolete", I think that is a really irresponsible statement. The YP rules are in full effect and anyone who decides to disregard them acts at their own peril.

None of that is "program".

Thanks Saltface and welcome to the forum! Way too soon.

It is my understanding that even the 11-year-olds in the LDS program cannot camp. Or am I misunderstanding their program?

I think its a little more complicated than that. In my area I would say you are correct, the individuals youths (and their parents) are the customer. But in the case of the LDS Church, they really are the customer. The church has been the "decider" of which youth program their members are going to join. It is the church that pays the registration fees, and as I learned yesterday, they have apparently negotiated lower fees. There are other large CO's such as the Roman Catholic Church and the United Methodist Church, and maybe to some extent those could be considered "customers" along with the individual members, but those situations are different from the LDS in a number of ways. Maybe now the individual boys (and their parents) in the LDS church will become "customers" of the BSA on their own. Maybe. As I said before, some perspectives from LDS Scouters would be helpful.

I am not just talking about since 2013, and I am not just talking about approximate numbers that someone posts in a forum based on what they heard. Somewhere in my life I have seen a chart showing membership numbers broken down by program going back probably to the 1960's, maybe even beyond that. Maybe it wasn't an actual chart, maybe it was more of a narrative, but it had the numbers. If people are going to make statements like "this is the biggest drop ever" or "this is the biggest drop in memory" (whatever that means; whose memory?), it would be nice to have the history of the actual numbers, going back decades and all the way up to 2017 so we can have a discussion based on the actual facts rather than what someone remembers or heard somewhere. Maybe the actual facts would put what has just happened into some sort of perspective.

Ok Ankylus, you have made several statements now about the "left", "leftists" etc. Please explain how you think the program has been affected by "pressure from the political left." And also please provide a source for the idea that the Baptists have "left" Scouting. I am sure some did leave, but I am not aware that they have "left" as an official policy.

I think that what this discussion could use is at least a few people who are Scouters in LDS units. As far as I know none of the participants so far fall into that category. I know we have had some posts over the years from people who identify themselves as LDS Scouters or at least parents of LDS Scouts. It may be that there are some dynamics within that church that would affect what people are suggesting as options for those Scouts/Venturers/Varsity members who actually want to be Scouts.

I would rather not rely on memory, and certainly not mine. Somewhere on the Internet there is a chart showing membership in all the different programs year by year, going back a number of years. I can't find it. It would be interesting to see actual numbers.

The real issue here is money. The LDS will be sending less money to BSA National than it has in the past. If they decide to drop Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting as well, the reduction in funds will obviously be far greater. In an earlier post I outlined how the BSA might deal with the reduction in revenue, and none of these things are pleasant, but none of them are new, either.

I do think the Varsity "program" will disappear as a result of this. It is my understanding that virtually all Varsity teams are LDS units, so if they are not using it anymore, there really is no need for it. They can "re-purpose" the "blaze" shoulder loops for Venture Patrols in troops, which is how some troops near me use them now anyway. I think Venturing will survive.

Guarantee? There is no guarantee that when I go to sleep tonight, I will ever wake up. Or of anything else, really. If your district has to find a new place to meet, they will find a new place to meet. My district was meeting in the facility of a company that decided to donate its space for evening use every two weeks by the district, until they decided not to. So now the district meets in two different places, a school and an American Legion hall. It happens. You will have to excuse me if I do not join the sky-is-falling crowd on this issue. The sky, and the BSA, will remain where they are.

Welcome to the forum, KentuckyScouter! I have never heard of this, but then again I wouldn't know who the staffers of our council NYLT troops are. (When my son did NYLT I don't think Venturers had been included in NYLT yet.) It sounds to me like a natural result of including Venturers in the NYLT program. It is kind of amusing that, due to the terminology used at NYLT, a young woman can hold a title that she wouldn't be able to hold in the program on which the NYLT staff structure is modeled. Congratulations to your daughter!

The LDS church has not cut its ties with the BSA. They have pulled out of the two smallest traditional Scouting programs. There is no logical reason why your districts would not be able to meet where they meet now.

How will the BSA deal with this reduced revenue? First of all, there may be some reduced expense associated with the reduced revenue, so the reduction is not necessarily the full amount the BSA currently receives from the LDS church. Second, whatever the net loss may be, the BSA has the same options for dealing with lost revenue as everybody else: 1. Reduce staff. There are some comments above that doubt BSA's ability to do that, but I recall at least one major staff cutback at National during the time I have been reading this forum. Maybe there has been more than one. I suspect that there will be some staff reduction as a result of this. (The following is not about national, but I suspect there will be a few councils, such as those in Utah, where a very large proportion of revenue is lost, and the councils merge or disappear. But that is nothing new either, when I was a Scout there were probably more than 20 councils in New Jersey, now there are 6 or 7. I don't know what that did to the total number of paid council staffers in NJ, but I can guess.) 2. Cut the top salaries at National. This probably won't happen, but it probably should regardless oef this latest news. 3. Sell properties. I know that isn't very popular around here, but it has to be an option when revenues are declining. 4. Increase fees, increase costs of products (uniforms), increase the hard-sell of useless knicknacks from the national supply catalog, etc. etc. Fee increases and price increases will not make people happy - just like all the other times this has happened. 5. Cut other expenses. Maybe stop printing some publications altogether and go all-digital. I would hate to see this happen, but this is the way things are going, and not just in Scouting. The BSA will survive this, even if the LDS Church goes its own way completely. They will do what they have to do.

Actually it is my understanding that boys of the correct age in the LDS church are automatically registered in the appropriate level of Scouting regardless of whether they ask to be or not. The LDS Church pays the fees. In other words, the LDS Church does not say "you should join", they say "you HAVE joined." The boys are then automatically moved along to the next level in the LDS Scouting program. In other words, when they turn 14, they are not asked whether they wish to move from the Boy Scout troop to the Varsity team. They are moved. Based on what I have read, some do not even participate, even though they are registered, but the large majority do participate, because the LDS version of the BSA program is the official youth organization of the LDS. But now it is only for those ages 8-13. I am not saying that everybody or even a majority would "vote with their feet" and join a non-LDS troop where they can remain in the troop until they are 18 or join a "regular" Venturing crew when they individually decide to, not automatically at age 16. But I think some would make that choice.