Peregrinator

I don't think your formula accounts for year-on-year decline based on a new reduced total.

 

http://www.miniwebtool.com/percent-growth-rate-calculator/

It actually does.

Year 1 of decline = 97% of previous year (Year 0)

Year 2 of decline = 97% of Year 1 or 97% of 97% of Year 0

etc.

The calculator to which you linked does a straight-line calculation which doesn't account for yearly declines. It simply divides the total decline (or growth) by the number of years.

A better gauge would be the cost of a first house and the cost of a first car. Older folks tend to have more money to spend on such things than younger.

You're right. 20 years would be a 3% loss rate. 10 years would be a 6% loss rate.

 

BSA has already alienated their core base. And they will never be satisfied with stopping the decline, they will want to increase membership. BSA equates the two together. They think increasing membership is the way to stop the decline, yet nothing they've done has been successful. Frankly, I don't see them doing either (stopping decline or increasing).

Just want to point out that mathematically, the BSA could lose 3% of its current membership for 20 years and emerge at the end of that 20 years with over 50% of its current membership.

(0.97)^20 ~= 0.543 or 54.3%

A loss of 6% for 20 years would mean 29% of current membership.

At what point does the size of the BSA render the organization irrelevant? 20% of today's size, maybe (which would be about 10% of its size in 1970)? Current size is about 3.17 million. At 3% loss per year it will take 53 years for the BSA to fall under 20% of its current membership. That is, in 2070 BSA membership would stand at about 631K. At 6% loss per year it would take only about 26 years to reach this level.

Carry on.

But if your not supposed to be a member of that private club, how can you sue for discrimination when at the time the club's rules disallowed your membership.

Right, my guess is that the law protects club/association members against changes to the membership rules so, for example, a club couldn't suddenly decide to exclude homosexuals if that would affect anyone who is currently a member.

The article says that the local council settled the lawsuit, not BSA.  I think we need to remember that local councils are chartered, not owned, by BSA.

 

I am generally in agreement that councils should obey the local state laws.  In this particular case, I think the laws of New Jersey are abhorrent.  This is also true of most of the coastal (blue) states.  Yet, the state laws must be obeyed. Fortunately, I can choose to live elsewhere.

What law of NJ do you think the BSA council in question did not obey? Generally speaking, NJ's anti-discrimination laws deal with public accommodations (which I believe the BSA claims not to be).

I'm sure it was just a cease-and-desist letter and no actual court order was involved. But you're right that it's weird that there doesn't seem to be any follow-up. There are more recent examples of the BSA vigorously defending their "trademarks" (Hacker Scouts, Scouts of St. George).

The SpiralScouts apparently did respond to the Boy Scouts of America and the BSA never responded. 

Right you are, at least according to this article:

http://www.metrotimes.com/detroit/scouting-for-alternatives/Content?oid=2183622

"When asked if Spiral Scouts has ever been formally contacted by the Boy Scouts of America, Callahan reports that the organization received a letter, accompanied by a cease-and-desist order that stated that the word “scouts†was trademarked at a federal level. She says a response from the Spiral Scouts’ attorney followed, and no further interaction between the two groups has occurred. At press time, the Boys Scouts had not returned Metro Times’ phone calls."

The word Scout does apparently have trademark protection despite it's generic-ness, based on Wrenn vs. Boys Scouts of America

It has something like trademark protection but it is not actually trademarked.

Nothing could po$$ibly change that policy? Not even an attempt to reverse the declining purchases of World Crests?

 

As I said, we are talking about a very unlikely scenario. I don't foresee a boots-on-the-ground insurrection.

Oh I'm sure the policy could change for the right rea$on$! But yes, unlikely because groups that are not WOSM member associations are not WOSM member associations for a reason. It could be because of the membership changes to WOSM associations over the years, or it could be because of other concerns - wanting to have a traditional scouting program rather than a modern one, for example.

As far as SpiralScouts is concerned, I read somewhere that the BSA had sent them a C&D letter that they ignored. I can't remember now where I read it, but it was around the time of the Hacker Scouts dustup.

I do not know whether the BSA has ever taken (or threatened) legal action against them.  I find that odd because the BSA seems to be pretty good at getting other groups not to use its trademarks, and not just "Scout" or "Scouting".  I have a vague recollection of one of the newer groups using at least one of the BSA's rank names (maybe Tenderfoot) and the BSA apparently sent a letter and the group changed it pretty quickly.  I do not remember which of the groups it was. I am pretty sure it was discussed in this forum and I did a search but cannot find it.  I did find a discussion from 2008 about whether the BSA can prevent another group from using a words like tenderfoot, troop, wolf, bear etc. in the context of a youth organization, but nothing about a specific group doing so.

The BSA actually doesn't have a trademark on "scout" ("boy scout" maybe, but not "scout") ... the reason they are able to stop other youth organizations from using the word is because of the congressional charter. I think "scout" is too generic a word to be trademarked, though I'm sure it could be trademarked if it were made into a distinctive logo (IANAL, of course).

I believe it was AHG that was using the "Tenderfoot" rank and the BSA stopped them from doing it.

I think it is fair to say that B-P would have expected any able-bodied man to come to the defense of his country. And surely, one of the aims of scouting is to produce able-bodied men! Yet I believe that is as far as the connection goes.

A future where BSA erodes its base and one or more of these organizations swells in numbers is possible, but unlikely. Were that to happen, they could vie for the attention of WOSM, and us boots on the ground would have to decide if we were going to tolerate the concept of a federation of US scouting organizations.

WOSM no longer accepts federations of scouting organizations as members. So the situation that prevails in some counties (e.g. France, Germany, Italy), where mainstream scouting is divided along religious lines, won't be duplicated in the future.

There can be only one.  A country can only have one Boy Scout organization affiliated with WOSM, so it was felt that Congress should make that decision on who gets to represent our country in WOSM.

 

If there hadn't been a Congressional Charter, we would have multiple scouting organizations in the United States.

 

What I find interesting is that so many of the scouters who will bludgeon other scouters with every nit picking rule in the book, will often ignore and disregard BSA's most important document, its Congressional Charter.  

The congressional charter predates WOSM's predecessor, the Boy Scouts International Bureau (BISB) which was founded in 1922. I think the BSA sought a charter so that they could be the officially official scouting association in the United States, and use the power of the law to prevent competitors from using the terms "scout" and "scouting".

And there are multiple scouting associations in the United States; they just can't have "scout" or "scouting" as part of their name. I believe a similar situation prevails in other Anglophone countries (e.g., Canada, New Zealand) but not, interestingly, in the UK, where there are several associations with "scout" in their name.

No, it was not their decision.

 

In addition to giving up their Boy Scout units, the KC's were also instructed to begin phasing out its own youth program, the Columbian Squires.

So the KofC was not telling the truth when they said,

"The Board of Direc­tors has thus decid­ed that as part of this new ini­tia­tive, local units of the Knights of Colum­bus will no longer spon­sor Boy Scout troops."

?

Even the initiative to which this refers, "Build­ing the Domes­tic Church While Strength­en­ing Our Parish," is not a Catholic Church initiative, but a KofC one.

IMHO, this is also the right move.  "I think" huge deep pockets (assets) attracts the attention of those wanting to connect mistakes (crimes) to those deep pockets.  IMHO, overly deep pockets perverts justice.  If a parish fails to oversee a program, that parish should be sued, but not the whole nation.

I have no position on whether this was the right move or the wrong one for the KofC. I'm simply pointing out that it was their decision; as far as I know no one forced them to make it.

It was the Pope's decision.

Where do you get that idea? Not even Pope Francis would be such a micromanager. If you mean that the KofC responded to something the Pope said by deciding no longer to charter BSA units, that might be accurate. But there's no indication that the Pope asked the KofC not to charter BSA units any more. He probably is not even aware that such a thing as chartering a scout unit actually exists.

Certainly post First World War it's what he wanted. He seems to have had quite a change of heart after that. But if you look at the material pre First World War the emphasis is still obviously there.

"I’ve seen enough of war to want to keep away from the military idea. Woodcraft, handicraft, and all those things are invaluable. First aid and all that goes with it is excellent; but the boys should be kept away from the idea that they are being trained so that some day they may fight for their country. It is not war-scouting that is needed now, but peace-scouting. The explorers, the pioneers, the persons who are always on the lookout to do something for the benefit of humanity, are the ones who count, and that should be the motto of every boy scout." (B-P, 1912 Chicago Address)

Link

First the origins of scouting. Much of the early days of scouting had a bigger emphasis on preparing boys for military service.

Really? That is the opposite of what Baden-Powell wanted.

Yes, the Catholic Church prefers that parishes charter scout units. 

What does that even mean? Most of the world doesn't have scout units that need to be "chartered."

SSScout included the Knights of Columbus in his list of groups who can charter scout units.

 

Not the Knights of Columbus.  The Catholic Church has instructed the KC's to not charter scout units anymore.

I think it was a KofC decision, not a Catholic Church decision.

OMG - Scout Membership is dropping!  It must be the gays!!  It must be the girls!!  It must be the trans kids!!  It must be the non-religious!!  It must be the liberals!!!  Everybody Panic!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I'm not drawing any conclusions from the decline of Scouts Canada (or that of the BSA). I'm merely pointing out that it is there and it isn't turning around.

Correction - the 2016 numbers from Scouts Canada are now on-line and they show continued decline. Total membership, 2015: 85,691. 2016: 82,410. That's a decline of almost 4%.

Actually Scouts Canada are at about 60%. If they can sustain the gains of the past 5 years they may be at their original numbers by decade's end. However, their annual report does not clearly show the counts by sex, so we can only assume they are still serving far fewer boys than they once did.

http://www.scoutscan.com/issues/membershipstats.html

"The membership decline is not stopping. Although recent numbers (2009-12) show a slight increase in membership, this is due to the inclusion of near-Scouting numbers included in with true Scouting membership."

Scouts Canada became completely co-ed (meaning that individual groups had no choice in the matter) in 1998, at which point their numbers were at 79.7% of which what they were in 1990 (by the way, 1990 was not their high point - 1965 was). In 2013 their numbers were at 37% of what they were in 1990, or 46.4% of what they were in 1998.

The latest numbers I have are from 2015 - 32.3% of what they were in 1990 or 40.5% of what they were in 1998. They suffered a huge decline in 2014 - almost 10% from 2013.

Being informed is a responsibility that ought to be a duty.  Voting is a right, often exercised in near-total ignorance.  Of course, no right is absolute (yelling "fire" in a crowded theater and all that).

What's the distinction between "responsibility" and "duty"?