ParkMan

No problem @Eagledad. Yes - I fully recognize that my point is not consistent from the perspective you are looking at it. I'm not attempting to advocate a particular political agenda, but instead am trying to keep Scouting out of political agendas. Scouting has to get out of the politics business. EDIT: Sorry, just saw @RememberSchiff's last append. Not trying to inflame this at all. Sorry folks.

I recognize the inconsistency in my statement. In the case of female leaders for male scouts that question was settled years ago. Announcing a new policy that lets units now restrict leaders based on gender is going contrary to the general direction of the evolution of the country. Making that decision today doesn't help anyone. Making that decision 40 years ago would have been different. But, were I trying to come up with a co code rule, I would say that in times of transition of commonly held values, the BSA should employ local choice to avoid picking a side on a contentious decision

On being able to discuss gender issues like this... Yes, I think it is excruciatingly hard in 2020 to discuss gender issues like this. In fact, whether it's gender, race, or another characteristic where people feel there is discrimination, it is hard to do that. My hunch is that as we've progressed in removing discrimination in our country, we are now tackling a lot of subtle and implicit discrimination. It's taken a lot of pushing for a lot of years to get this far. People are just naturally on the lookout for what they perceive as discrimination and push back. On the tech

Hah! It would be a lot quieter around here with less battling Joking aside - I find that in these exchanges we're getting to some of the more ingrained issues that normally don't get discussed. We're a very small microcosm of Scouting, but I see lots of great ideas being shared here.

From what I saw, an errant comment kicked off a side conversation about gender. That comment was that about how adding women as leaders in the program 40 years ago resulted in fewer trained leaders. That led to a debate about why it was even mentioned and pointed out. One person thought it was sexist to mention it, the person thought it was fine to mention it as a historical fact. The minute the term sexist entered the discussion people got defensive because no-one really thinks that they are being sexist. The question I see on the table is whether we should even discuss gender anymor

Agree 100%. When it was people suing the Catholic Church it was one thing. When it was people suing the BSA another. When there are 6,000 lawsuits each for $10,000,000 against churches, schools, whatever, we'll have to see what happens. When those 6,000 run out, I suspect lawyers will then go after whomever was abused 40+ years ago and sue that institution. Clearly no entity was as attentive to the question of abuse as we are today. I would think it would be easy for lawyers to go after youth sports, school districts, Sunday schools, next... I suspect that you are correct. You c

The problem is that in either a GSUSA or BSA discussion it's too easy to draw a sexist conclusion from this. It's certainly very probable that this are some inherent biological differences between genders that will exhibit themselves in subtle ways. As such, it would be a mistake to not have boys learn from adult men and it would be an equal mistake to not have girls learn from adult women. However, what we're seeing society tells us is that it's beneficial for boys to learn from both men and women and for girls to learn from both women and men. In 2020, the country is functionally

However, it really is the CO's unit program. They own it, they staff it, they decide what to do. If they want to go camping, they go camping. If they want to focus on just leadership development, they do that. Here is the text from the Chartered Organization Agreement: Nowhere in the agreement is text that you have to follow the program exactly as defined by the BSA. Now, one could look at this and think it's a mess. The potential is surely there for huge swings in how programs are implemented. However, in reality most units are leveraging the program because they want

Ahh - I find it an interesting challenge in the context of a topic that started about Wood Badge. In fact, this is one of those things that the current version tries to prepare leaders for.

It's time for the BSA to stop referring to moms or dads or male Scouters or female Scouters. It's just Scouters. You want to have the BSA change the conversation, this is one way. Almost never does gender matter in these discussions. The only time you should ever need to refer to gender is to point to the facilities - other than that, gender should never be referenced. Why? The core issues we are discussing - inexperience among adults, youth experience in the program, hovering parents, really have nothing to do with gender - those problems are generic. When we start adding gende

Ahh - of course, you're thinking about it from the CO perspective - as you should I still am a fan of local option. Here's how I would approach it and argue the BSA should have as well: sexual orientation - The BSA should have no restrictions on who can join the program and shall make no requirements on who can join. If a local CO has specific requirements for membership in their program, then so be it. If, for example, a Catholic Church said that their youth and adult members in their programming had to be of one particular sexual orientation than so be it - it's their youth pro

Neither sexual orientation nor religious beliefs are a factor in the bowling club, the tennis class, soccer team, etc... For kids in the program, both have very little impact unless we make them so. People within the BSA felt they were important issues and so made them issues - but they really didn't have to be issues at all. In the case of religious beliefs, there will need to be some adjustment to the requirements, but those changes are pretty surgical. With local option, the unit can still say grace, have religious discussions, etc.

Sorry - I was a bit too vague. Yes, I agree. Gender was never really any issue. At most, it became a perceived issue because we already were already sensitive about the other issues.

Where the BSA screwed up was in how they fought it. The BSA made an issue out of something that never needed to be an issue. The three contentious membership issues are clearly sexual orientation, religious beliefs, and gender. Imagine if instead of three, there had been just one - gender. If sexual orientation and religious beliefs were local options, we never would have had the fight we had. We never would have ticked off the politically motivated people who fought the BSA. If we had not made it the issue we did and then changed our answer, we never would have lost alumni support

Wonderful post. If I could like this 100 times, I would. Thank you so much for articulating this so well. The specifics are perfect. I find myself reading most of these and thinking - yes, this works very well. My big, overarching though is - program, program, program. We need to be focused on building a great quality program with youth and not get too hung up on all the surrounding stuff. It's too easy to lose sight of that. I agreed with much of these: focus on being the premier outdoor program Absolutely - I agree 100% with this. Very well said. Scouting is m

Hah! We also had one of the higher output one burner versions too - for large pots of water, soups, etc... That thing sounded like a jet engine.

When I was in Cubs we had a two burner version of that stove. We LOVED it. Perfect for feeding a larger group and pretty well built. Worth every cent at retail. Nice that you got it at such a discount.

I would encourage you to ask them what they mean by that - just as I have been attempting to do with you about your ideas. When I have asked traditionalists that question, usually what I hear is a belief that in earlier times there was more integrity to the underlying program itself. That people took patrol method more seriously, that people took advancement more seriously. There is a compelling argument to this effect. Many organizations react to challenges in membership (or sales) by watering down their core offering in order to "appeal to more people." This is always a dangerous p

I have no doubt that your research was correct. I myself imagine that most Scouts that quit do so because of poor program. I am guessing that your research pointed to specific program areas that needed focus. I think you're barking up the wrong tree. The debate you need to be having is why don't people join Scouting in the first place, not why do people quit. @Eagledad's research I imagine was on the question of why do people drop out. I don't think I'd argue with any Scouter of his tenure and say that they doesn't understand why kids leave the program. More broadly -

I feel like much of this conversation has morphed into some sort of ridiculous theoretical debate. The argument I see being portrayed is: The BSA should abandon it's program and turn into something completely different that is more relevant to the needs of today's families. The BSA should have a program that is exactly the same as it was in 1927. If so, this is a nonsense debate because neither side makes any sense. The reality is that the way forward for the BSA is somewhere in the middle and everyone knows it. The real debate needs to be about specifics. What would you ch

This is a good concrete recommendation. Yes - let's do some market research to determine why people drop out of the program or never join.

RIght - as @Eagledad just correctly noted that doesn't point to a contradiction. Adding girls to open up a new market doesn't mean that not having girls was the reason that fewer boys were joining. Who knows why fewer boys are joining - but we cannot simply assume it's because there are no girls. To borrow the phrase "correlation does not imply causation." One reason you see a lot of experienced Scouters push back on suggestions of blanket change is because Scouting's history is full of people who show up and make changes. In most cases those changes have not improved things. Some qu

Thank you for the wonderful examples of Scouting working today. Our troop has similarly been quite successful. We're about 60 kids today. Covid dropped our numbers a bit, but not too much. We are a very active, youth led, outdoor troop. In any given month there are generally at least two outdoor activities of some form. Troop meeting attendance is generally good. Planning is driven by the youth and they determine what we do. I will share that a lesson that I learned from this troop is that activity level matters more than most anything else. Youth want to do things - they want

This points to an important issue in making decisions about program changes. Most organizations have a core offering or service that they provide - for many years in the BSA it was a youth program for boys. In admitting girls, the BSA expanded their offering to an adjacent space - a youth program for girls. In that move, the BSA expanded the total available audience for it's offering. This results in the potential for more members. Yet, it probably has mad a limited (if any) impact on the membership numbers from the original offering. This is a very real business choice - do we try t

Where I struggle with these kind of discussions is the lack of specifics. I've got no idea whether we are talking about uniform colors, removing religion, getting rid of advancement, or turning Scouting into a badminton club. I found this helpful to understanding perspectives here: Yet, in a comment like this one: I get the very high level concept that yes, change is desired. But I have no idea what change is desired. It's impossible for me to think about what is being advocated for here because I simply do not know what change is wanted. If it's a badminton club you