TAHAWK

"Biggest problem in our council today with membership is that we have effectively don't have a proactive strategy."  

Too true.

We had a unit with 25 Scouts and failed Scouters and no functioning committee.  At the initiative of district leadership, the unit was not rechartered by agreement with the CO, which had suffered lots of property damage in their church from out-of-control Scouts.  85% of the Scouts were channeled to successful units.   Two made Eagle.  A third was elected permanent PL of his NYLT class.  A fourth was elected SPL of the Klondike Derby by his fellow SPLs.   So there was youth material there - just inadequate Scouters.  Not a one of the four had taken any Scouter training whatsoever.

The DE was furious.  Asked to "check the prospective SM out,  had told him that the designated SM's employer saw him as woefully unqualified to even test for management - "Nice guy and a decent bus driver but child-like in many respects.  Does not deal well with conflict or disagreement.  Has trouble with changes in practices."  The DE turned up the unit to help with his metrics; he told me so. at the time.  It lasted the one tempestuous year.  We gave the former CO $2000 to help with repairs.

Check out the butt of the axe carried by "The Ideal Scout."  The story is that the sculptor was told to be sure it had a "fawn's foot."  

10 hours ago, ParkMan said:

I don't know the mindset at the time as it predates me, but I can only guess it had something to do with making the course seem desirable by making it exclusive.  By creating something with status that can be seen as an award, it then makes it something to strive for.  The OA isn't all that different for youth.  By creating an honor, we make it more desirable.  There's probably some logic about human nature in that, but it seems to have created a bunch of issues amongst the volunteers by doing it.

Today that fill the class mentality is an unfortunate by product of the process.  It makes sense that if you're going to have a course that you have a full course.  Unfortunately, instead of leveraging that as an opportunity to encourage those who could benefit to take it, you end up with the "gotta fill the class" byproduct.  I'm not sure how to resolve that one - maybe fewer classes?

Unless you get say 30, there is no course, and no extra beads for Staff.  Resolution - follow the rules.  No "participant" who has not completed basic training for his/her position.

1 hour ago, ParkMan said:

 rarely check Facebook anymore.  Sorry that a bunch of folks were critical over there.

What I always dislike about Wood Badge threads is that they always result in a whole bunch of comments about whether WB is good or bad.  WB is just a course, a tool so to speak.  People take it, some learn some things, some don't.  It doesn't make you a better person or worse person.  30 years ago it was an invite course, and so it meant something to be invited to the course.  It was like receiving an award or recognition.  But that's not how it works today and that's a good thing - Scouting doesn't need royalty.

Scouting needs people who want to deliver a great experience to kids.  You strike me as someone who wants to do that.  So, ignore the folks over there on Facebook.  Focus on having fun as a volunteer, helping kids to have a great experience, and you'll be an overwhelming success.

 

Given the goal of the first Course, knowing and being able to teach outdoor skills through First Class, I never "got" the invitation part.  BSA wanted some Scouters less competent in teaching outdoor skills?  On the other paw, having brand new, totally untrained learners, as I personally experienced, take a course that assumes and "builds on"  certain base knowledge that they lack, also seems odd.   But, gotta' "Fill the Course."  

One of the troops that I help has, for several years, had troop meetings and patrol meetings on alternative Mondays.  

On 10/11/2020 at 4:04 AM, fred8033 said:

LOL ... colorful intrepresentation of history.     ... based on settlement of a massive anti-trust lawsuit.  

One of my final undergraduate courses was an independent research project for credit based on the AT&T breakup.  80 typed pages of research ... before Google, before search engines and largely before the modern internet.  Libraries.  Copy machines.  Phone calls.  A retired AT&T employee sent me a book they had called Heritage & Destiny by Alvin von Auw.  I still have the book.  I was about to donate it to Goodwill.  https://www.amazon.com/Heritage-destiny-Reflections-System-transition/dp/0030696070

AT&T is a fascinating case  The problem understanding the breakup is it's so absolutely huge, painfully detailed, drawn out over years and the implications go every direction.

Part of my job as a Senior Attorney, General Attorney, and Council at Bell and its successor entities involved ensuring compliance with the consent decree by which the System ceased to exist.   I was, for a time, the  Corporate Secretary for the Bell entity in Ohio, The Ohio Bell Telephone Company, and officially reviewed hundreds of pages  of the documents involved in the breakup and signed and sealed the company's acknowledgements of receipt.  I then helped draft "how to" memos to management to help them comply.  The anti-trust case had gone on since 1974  and  had been before three successive federal judges, and the decree judge, Judge Greene, retained jurisdiction for years more.   I am not guessing or "interpresenting" even slightly.  It's all in the court record should you wish to look.   The myths had not been invented then.

I also drafted hundreds of pages of legal memoranda and court briefs on post-breakup legal issues from 1984 to 1999., such as some of those those considering the issue of the circumstance under which an operating company, restricted to "supplying telephone service" by the consent decree, could build a cable television system for an independent entity. (as it turned our, by retaining "bare legal title" to the facilities,.  Thus, Cleveland got cable TV at long last.)

AT&T had been barred from "general trades computing" for almost three decades under a 1956 consent decree in a 1949 case and literally expected to replace IBM if freed from that decree.  After all, AT&T was BIG!  Bell Labs largely invented AT&T Unix programming language and Bell was the largest manufacturer of super computers in the World.   We all had to view a film whose message was that IBM was trembling over the prospect of AT&T as a competitor. Strange that, given that the vast majority of the viewers already knew that we were not part of the minority who would stay on the mother ship post-break-up.  Instead, we would be working for the "regional bell operating companies, groups of the twenty-two Bell operating Companies who, post break-up, would be AT&T's competition for several markets, such as long distance service (for those old enough to recall "long distances charges [revenue"]).  The assumption of automatic triumph seemed arrogant. and it was in hindsight.

Meanwhile, Asia increasingly priced Western Electric products, even when not black, out of the market for customer-premises equipment, and retaining Western was no small part of what AT&T had traded for giving up its twenty-two operating companies back when $80,000,000,000 was real money.

Von Auw left AT&T at 65 in 1981 - before "TPC"  decided (in 1982) to offer the settlement that it did.  He wrote in 1983, before the break-up took place  on "the end of history, 01/01/1984.  He therefore missed an event of great relevance to his thesis that service was the great driver that would continue to push AT&T, now long dead, to greatness - the decision  by AT&T shortly after the break-up to slash the budget of the half of Bell Labs that remained with AT&T (The other half became the transient  BellCore - supposedly to equally serve seven competing Regional Bell Operating companies (the "Baby Bells') AND the simultaneous decision to require that all research show a likelihood to generate added revenue in a few years.  These steps would have been unthinkable to the System prior to the new regime.  "Labs" was the premiere "pure research" institution in the World.  The brief of its scientists was to think deep thoughts and let management know if the found anything useful. - such as lasers and semi-conductors. 

I read many books by insiders least I be surprised in court by their supposed disclosures.  I did not read Van Auw's book all those years ago because it was not informed by the decisions during the critical years after he retired, or the changes to AT&T's proposal by Judge Greene, and no one thought he might "spill" anything critical.  Now that I have read it, I see that he pointed out that there was no drive to break-up the System, from Justice or the public.  The drive was to allow competition on supplying "stuff' to the telephone business - largely meaning the System - breaking the culture that almost everything purchased by the operating companies and Long Lines came from Western Electric, "the supply arm of the Bell System."  I note that he died at 95 in 2011.  it would have been interesting to learn what he made of the death of AT&T values of service uber alles and the course of events that led to the death of the original AT&T, but he just wrote the one book

Interpretation: AT&T did not "get" that being a monopoly is one thing and being in a  competitive marketplace is another.  Almost all those with customer contact experience were left behind. and it showed.  Then there was the infamous failure of the AT&T desktop computer.  It was a fraction of the product line but its awfulness was all over  the front page of InfoWorld every week.  AT&T was like the ocean liner - unable to maneuver quickly, partly due to government interference that saw AT&T as a bottomless well to subsidize its emerging competitors, one of whom,  SBC, bought it in the end after buying Bell South, Pacific Bell, Ameritech, and other bits and pieces..

As I taught history at Ohio State from 1965 to 1970, before Law School, I too recall the old days -  copying one page at a time on the new miracle Xerox machine with the big rubber mat and no mechanical feed.  Typing.  Correcting typing mistakes with Wite-Out or Liquid Paper..  Key-punch cards.  Questioning Master's candidates on their dissertations.  When I joined Bell from a few years of private practice,  I assumed it was for my working lifetime.  Instead I experienced constant downsizing ( "resizing" and "rightsizing!) from a department of  twenty-eight of all titles to a mere five souls before I retired.  "But look on the bright side.  There's more work than ever."   😉

Cardboard oven pizza, cookies, cheesy tortilla chips!

As some probably know, big difference between first course ( - 1971) and second course 1972-2000)

First course was knowing and teaching Scout skills through First Class.  Week-long only.    Learners tented in patrol sites.  All meals cooked as patrols.

Second course was built around eleven "leadership skills," sandwiched between sessions on scout Skills.  Weekend courses introduced.   Learners tented in patrol sites.  All meals cooked as patrols.  Some announced that the change was "the end of Scouting." 

A district-level one day course (J.L.O.W.) was an introduction for leaders (boys) to the eleven leadership skills in the context of the Patrol Method.

The  second, 1972 course postdated Tuckman's 1965 essay on team forming, which had morphed into the  Five  Stages of Team Development before the, old, 1965 version was adopted by as the basis of the original, Blanchard, version of the third course. 3a

That course was greatly changed when BSA employee rewrote the syllabus to avoid having to pay royalties to Blanchard and Associates.  3b  Tuckman was not even listed as a resource in the BSA  rewrite of the syllabus.

Now we have the fourth course, of which i know little, beyond rumors.  It is definitely reduced in length by one day, consistent with the BSA deemphasis on training.  It was to roll out in 2020.

 Which "old" WB course, Eagledad?  There have been four different courses.  Really five, if one takes into account the BSA rewrite of the fourth course syllabus (originally by Blanchard and Associates).

This is a question of state law.

"Who can survivors of child sexual abuse file a claim against?

Under the [new York] CVA, survivors can now file a claim against private and public institutions that may have also been involved in the abuse (this includes negligence of the institution). This is because the CVA removed “the notice of claim” requirement under the old law which usually applies before someone can bring a claim against a public institution. Survivors can file claims against these institutions during the new one (1)-year extension period for claims that had already expired under the old statute of limitations."

7 minutes ago, qwazse said:

Envisioning an omnibus tax on each child born to offset the cost to society of reparations to children who were abused by their family members.

Going back how many millenia? 😉

2 hours ago, yknot said:

We keep talking about the lack of clear adult training about patrol method but I wonder if it would help if we focused on the kids more before they get to Troop. I've mentioned before, youth seem to be coming to scouting today with fewer interpersonal and conflict resolution skills. All the adults see is the confusion. I know people are sick of messing with program but maybe there is more need for direct curriculum starting in Cubs about youth leadership and what youth led is. I don't think the kids understand it themselves, so it's hard for them to push back on other kids or adults. The youth leadership message is inherent in the program to some degree, but it's not spelled out in a way that I think is clear for young kids. Certainly not the way we do with Cyber Chip (although I have huge issues with the content of that but that's another topic). As I've also mentioned elsewhere, this is not unique to scouting. Schools are doing fewer group projects because of issues with kids having trouble working in groups. 

When BSA redid the program a few years ago, I was thinking of this and was hopeful the revisions would find some way to address it. The only thing I saw was a new Bear requirement  to manage up and down and run a carnival for the Pack. It didn't think it would work well and when I saw it in action it did not work well. There was nothing that I recall in the requirement that talked about why they were doing it, how to do it, and what they might learn about working with other kids. It also seemed that such activities would be more natural for Webelos and AOLs to help prepare them for the patrol method. The other problem was that Webelos and AOLs are already antsy and looking to differentiate themselves from younger scouts and there is no way they wanted to be directed by Bears. There must have been problems elsewhere because it was taken out the next year, unfortunately along with some good stuff that had added more outdoors related requirements like camping.

We do ISLT with older kids, but they are often already in situations long before that where they need some training, like patrols. If not exactly leadership training, maybe they could at least use some basics on how to function in a group like a patrol. It is going to be messy but I think if the kids actually understood what they were supposed to be doing and could explain it to the adults, there might be more patience and understanding. Right now I just see parents frustrated because they are scheduled in three places at once with four different kids and when Johnny the scout in charge of the weekend camp out sends out an email that they need to be at the camp site two hours earlier than expected, they blow up and jump in.  And after a couple experiences like that what a kid might "learn" is that he doesn't want to volunteer to run anything anymore. 

 

 

if the adults are not trained properly, the "natural" thing they tend to do is be "helpful."  " Here, let me help.  You will burn that pancake [taking the flipper in hand]."

Hence the counsel of my first Sm: "No one ever died of a burned flapjack."  

The primary job of a Scoutmaster, beyond insuring safety, is training the leaders to lead their patrols and troop.  But if, the adults don't know where they are supposed to be going, the odds of getting lost are rather high.  So the BSA deemphasis on adult training , including of lack of knowledge about the Scouting program themselves, is having predictable results

... because some adults lose track of the "fun" part when running the program that they plan and lead.  Kids may not want to grind away at a merit badge every single meeting at some advancement mill.  You won't see many kids turning out for baseball who dislike baseball. unless dad is trying to live vicariously through his child. (which does happen - like the dad who never got Eagle, but his kid WILL!!)   Kids mainly  join Scouting to have fun with friends, not to "benefit from"  an educational program to make them good citizens.  The later sounds like school, which has become near year-round for many, even those not on a sports (year-'round) team.

BSA, although unable to explain the Patrol Method, while expecting a Scout rank candidate to do so, says it is "essential." So is it OK  for a Scouter registered with BSA to simply ignore what BSA says is essential, given a specific "purpose" of leadership development and a "purpose" of citizenship training, if you believe you have a better idea?  

"UNLESS THE PATROL METHOD IS IN OPERATION, YOU DON'T REALLY HAVE A ... SCOUT TROOP."

BSA blog - BRYAN ON SCOUTING - OCTOBER 21, 2020

“'The patrol method is not a way to operate a Boy Scout troop, it is the only way. Unless the patrol method is in operation you don’t really have a Boy Scout troop.'”

Scoutmaster and Assistant Scoutmaster Position Specific Training, at p. 21,  (current syllabus) misquoting Lord Baden-Powell (always "patrol system" to B-P)

"In Scouting, a troop is composed of several patrols. Boy Scouting happens in the context of a patrol. The patrol, a small team of eight or so Scouts, is more than an organizational convenience or a Boy Scout version of the Cub Scout den. It is the place where boys learn skills, take on leadership responsibilities, and develop friendships that will often last throughout their lifetimes."d.

Id.

If Scouting is not "fun" for youth, it is dead.   So who is actually asking the youth what is "fun" to them?    BSA didn't ask before the disastrous "Improved Scouting Program."  Any youth here? 

Adult planning is sure to result in program that adults sincerely THINK is "fun."  The Patrol Method has the youth decide what they will do in Scouting, subject to considerations of safety and law.  Back before BSA misplaced Scouting, it was thought that youth planning, with adults only serving as resources, was more likely to result in "fun" to youth than adult planning.

When I was in a position to do so, I had SPLs, representing their PLCs, plan and run our district outdoor events - Winter and Spring.  Attendance was up 300% in four years.   Complaints about "boring" events in the debrief by PLs Saturday night, plunged.  Silly old traditional Scouting.  😉

5 hours ago, David CO said:

That may be true, but the bowling club, the tennis club, and the soccer team don't usually charter boy scout units.  Chartered Organizations charter boy scout units, and many of them are churches.  Religious and moral beliefs are a big deal to the churches.  

All of our sports teams begin each game with a public prayer.  This is very common in Catholic schools.  Our religion is a big part of every activity we do.  That includes sports and scouting.

These issues may not be a big deal for all of our kids.  They might not even be a big deal for all of our parents.  But they are definitely a big deal for many of the Chartered Organizations.

 

The VAST majority of units in this area are chartered to religious entities - well over 80%.  The percentage took a big jump up when public schools: a) decided they were legally barred from chartering BSA units; and b) "educators" became overwhelming hostile to BSA as described by BSA.  I was last allowed to recruit (pamphlet) on public school property in Cleveland Heights, Ohio in 1987.  

Just who advocates a return to the program of ninety-three years ago?  A "straw-man argument," I think. 

A false dichotomy as well.  There are many other choices.,  including the programs of every year from 1928-1969, and something else entirely. 

What do you propose?  

You may be correct.  BSA may be beyond redemption.  

I have never suggested recreating the 1960s program.  Like Girl Scouts then, it was heavy on chopping things down, for one thing.  My troop as a Scout was regarded as "strange" for minimizing open fires and using WW II "squad stoves" for cooking.  Not all change is bad.  Not all change is good.

As to what I "want,"  I have been fairly clear.  I "want" program that stresses the Patrol Method, Outdoor activities, conservation, and service.  If that does not restore relative membership, such a program still seems preferable - to me - to the focus almost solely on revenue to make payroll.  I have no objection to changes otherwise.  I helped convinced BSA to allow female participants in our NYLT course in 2010 -  a year early.  (They were all Staff the next year - superior leaders.) 

I again ask what you "want"?   The end of BSA?  The end of Scouting?  A wholly indoor program?  More like school?

28 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

It also flourished at a time when American looked much different in terms of its respect for and interest in Boy Scouts (circa 1960s-1980s).

Programming changed. So did people's perceptions of BSA.

How much of the decline in scouting membership is due to a failure to adhere to the "pure" Scouting of the 1920s or 1960s?

How much of the decline in scouting membership is due to a failure of BSA to address (until recently) abuse?

How much of the decline in scouting membership is due to a failure of BSA to allow girls?

How much of the decline in scouting membership is due to BSA's decision to fight allowing homosexuals in (all the way to SCOTUS)?

 I have reached no opinions on your questions.  That is due to a lack of evidence that I  have actually reviewed  vs. "feelings."  People can reach different conclusions on the same data but opinions supported only by "feelings" or faith do not carry much weight with me, except as possible proof of sincerity.

Forty years does not seem "recent" to me.   Many  posting here were not alive in 1980.    I recall the reaction to the "No one-on-one" rule at roundtable.

As Scouting flourished under a Congressional charter that restricted it to "boys," as Girl Scouting flourished bereft of boys,  I await evidence that female Scouts added to BSA  is a key to BSA serving significantly more youth. I hope it is.   As I have served with coed Venturing and Scout units and taught coed history classes at university, it seems quite normal to me.  But that's me.   Coeducational scouting has not proved a panacea for membership in Canada.  A peak was hit in Canada in the 1960s, it became "Scouts Canada" in 1976, and membership has continued to decline.  

3 minutes ago, CynicalScouter said:

Refusal to allow girls into scouting is a "moral values" issue?

Refusal to allow homosexuals into scouting is a "moral values" issue?

If so, and if they are simply things you will never, ever accept, then don't be shocked when BSA membership numbers collapse.

 

BSA numbers collapsed in the early 1970's when the typical parent abhorred homosexuality, and have spiraled down for decades.  1970's trial lawyers with homosexual clients, were wise to take special courses on how to deal with overwhelming juror prejudice.  If it is foolish to reqard the past as immutable, and it doubtless is, it is equally foolish to regard the present as either inevitable, much less the best of all possible worlds.  For better or worse, it merely is what it is.  Opinions, of course, differ.  

3 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Note the contradiction here.

The girls membership policy no negative influence on membership...but was changed to increase membership.

Wha?

I think we need to just realize that some Scouters will never, ever listen a a female and/or anyone who isn't part of their old, antiquated, and dying system.

When Wood Badge became primarily about "leadership," I was told it was the end.

When female commissioned Scouters arrived, I was told it was the end.

When Wood Badge for the 21st Century arrived, I was told it was the end.

Those were merely changes, although not all change is for the better, as those familiar with the history of Poland can attest.

I see other changes as more critical.  Scouting flourished when it was about patrols, outdoors, service,  and conservation.  My old troop, operated on that basis, flourished until the Scoutmaster retired ten years ago.  That Scouting was generally gone  in the vast majority of  units by 1980 and increasingly gone thereafter, and if BSA did not cause it, it did little to nothing to stop it.   For one  example, magatrends  did not stop BSA from  emphasizing recognition of  individuals, units, and councils  that emphasized patrols, outdoors, service,  and conservation.   Many more examples could be cited.  

BSA did, by behavior, do a great deal to stop sexual abuse over time during the last forty years.  The suggestion that they did not defies reality.   That more should have been done in the previous seventy years is a valid criticism.

For those that see Scouting as "old, antiquated, and dying,"  likely  never actually experiencing it, what do you propose instead?   

4 hours ago, CynicalScouter said:

Because there is a large and vocal contingent who want things "the way they were." Except, of course, that that program they remember with such fond memories was developed for a time that no longer exists and for a nation and society that simply will not embrace it.

Organisms and organizations have three choices: move, adapt, or die. Since Boy Scouts of America isn't going to move, that leaves adapt or die.

And I honestly thing some of the people where would rather see a dead but "pure" Boy Scouts of America vs. one that adapts.

Dear Cynic, how do we know it would not be embraced.?  First, one would have to try it.

The Patrol Method - Scouting's Essential Method.

BSA started deemphasizing the Patrol Method in about 1960 when, after fifty years,  it stopped chartering patrols.  Planning forms for patrol meeting went away over forty years ago.  Patrol Leader stopped being capitalized (unlike Senior Patrol Leader) and the "Unit Leader" became the Scoutmaster.   The literature changed to prohibit patrol activities that conflicted with troop activities sometime more than forty years ago.   They made Bill, who invented our version of the Patrol Method, retire in 1969 and went all in on the indoor program.   BSA has not coherently explained the Patrol Method in nearly fifty years.  It says it expects a Scout candidate  to "explain it," but, repeatedly and politely asked, cannot say what it is.  What "does not work" has not been tried  by BSA in over forty years and BSA does not know what it is that "does not work."  Their focus is on revenue, not program .   

In 2017 , BSA posted on line, in "Orientation for New Scout Parents," that "the Patrol Method is one component of what we call  the youth-led troop."   That statement is still there as I type.  Go ahead, look up the "youth-led troop method."

As the then head of training at BSA  told me in 2014, "it's not so much a conscious policy change as they misplacing Scouting." 

The Outdoor Program - "Since its inception, Boy Scouting has relied heavily on an outdoor program to achieve its objectives. This program meets more of the purposes of Scouting than any other single feature." 

You could make Eagle without starting a single fire under the 1971 "Improved Scouting Program."  The camping goal for a troop was lowered to a pathetic five weekend campouts from a modest ten.  There were no goals for patrol activities.  The awful Handbook , which our Museum cannot give away - literally - taught about answering the telephone and walking home from school.  "Better teach about rat-bite than snake-bite" was the rallying cry of the indoor program advocates.  Of course, they had never asked the customers what they wanted, only academic former sperts, who endorsed  "Urban-centered Scouting."   When they finally asked, wondering where all the Scouts and Scouters were going in their tens of thousands, they found they had it backwards.  Bill was brought  back and wrote a new, more "traditional" Handbook, and stemmed the bleeding, but he was regarded by the folks in the corporate tower  as old and obsolete even as he tried to save them from themselves - the "Scoutmaster to the World" as  something of a joke.

The Fieldbook, when last I looked, said nothing about fire, ropes, woods tools, cooking, or most outdoor skills.  The focus was on administration - in the FIELDBOOK!

The Journey to Mediocrity in its, Q & A, defines "weekend campout" to include an indoor "lock in" playing video games.  As it was explained to me by a representative at National:  Camping is desirable; indoor activities are also desirable; therefore, indoor activities count as "camping. "  ["You have no idea, said the rep (not born when I had twenty years in as a Scouter)] how hard it is to get kids to do anything."  We took 67 kids to our troop-operated summer camp that Summer - six seven entire days in camp plus two more for travel to Twin Lakes, PA.  Three Scouts were tied up in high school athletics. A former member got his dad to bring him from Pittsburgh so he could have another campout with his patrol.  He earned - EARNED - two merit badges.  They built SUPER expedient brush shelters for Wilderness Survival because the Ranger wanted an area "thinned out." 

Training in the Outdoor program for Scouts and Scouters has declined in breadth and depth.  One-third as much time is devoted for basic training of Scoutmasters and SA's in outdoor as was devoted in 1981, when I re-upped as a dad after the move across country/grad school/teaching/law school/start family break.  The lake spillway lulled us to sleep each night.

All this time of BSA membership decline,  public Interest in the outdoors skyrocketed, based on recorded visits to parks and state and federal forests, but not at BSA, based on behavior.  A positive effect of the crowds in the back country was the "buy in" by BSA on LNT, although they seem to think it's a set of rules to be memorized.

In 2019, the camping requirement for First Class was reduced to a pitiful three days and nights.  

Since 1981, the Council has sold off three of its four camps, plus 250 acres at the fourth camp, and it sold, solely for revenue,  one of the camps that it acquired through merger - a camp that it absolutely needed in Summer, even after adding seven sites at the main camp used for Summer Camp.   In 2019, all sites were filled for five of the weeks, but nine of that year's sites are now gone with Camp Stigwandish on the Grand River  (sold without open bidding) if anything is left of summer camp for 2021.

I live on hope, but the trend has been established for nearly fifty years.  The compensation at BSA's top levels has climbed and climbed as youth served declined and declined.  Talk about "adapt" or "die." 

The "good Volunteer," I was told by our very effective middle-manager in charge of capital development,  is not about being willing and able to do the work but, instead, almost solely about donating money to meet payroll (She did not say the words.  Instead, she rubbed her thumb in a circular motion against her first two fingers of that hand.  You know the gesture.)  Then she was laid off because capital money that she raised, literally in the $millions as Golden age Scouters died off, does not meet the monthly payroll - it is only useful for the relatively  unimportant future.

The most common communication that I receive from Council, our districts having been abolished in favor of "teams" led by employees looking for "good volunteers,"  are reminders to "do my duty" by estate planning to "support Scouting."  "Have you remembered Scouting in your estate plan."  Indeed, I do remember.  Few do.

THERE IS STILL HOPE