Tokala

Horizon, I think you misunderstood. I don't have a position. I am observing a declining interest and membership. I do believe that there will come a tipping point where the organization needs to take a solid look at what it is doing and what it hopes to accomplish. Holding to values is a solid principle; however, if membership keeps dropping there won't be anyone around to learn these values.

I have never heard 1 kid say they joined Scouting because it taught them values.

How long until there are no youth enrolled in Scouting to teach these precious values too? Are we making the values more important than the young men and women that we would like to teach them to?

Winter camping in our area means we can leave the battery-powered fans at home and actually sleep without sweating. Ahhh....Florida.

SeattlePioneer, I couldn't agree more!

A much as the organization is values-based, it's driven by membership and money. Those are always the two criteria that National holds the Councils responsible to maintain. Fail in these 2 areas and you lose your charter. So even the National office isn't as concerned about how well we teach the values of Scouting. You're local program can struggle or be horrible and you'll keep your charter. Membership and money goals aren't met then you come under scrutiny.

The United Way reduced funds drastically and in some places totally after the Dale case. Now we're seeing another round of reduced funding. I suspect the organization will manage to keep functioning. At some point we might hit a critical point where the organization both locally and nationally can't raise the funding to offer to teach these values.

I'd like to hear from National how they've received additional funding from others that offset the losses from UPS, Intel and the United Way. That would make me feel more confident in their management of the situation. Right now Irving seems to be a ghost town.

I'm not advocating for a change in the leader requirement, just noticing that corporate funding is starting to be withheld. National will have to replace the funds somehow and I suspect they'll come knocking on the volunteer Scouter's door.

Both UPS and Intel have ended financial support of the BSA over the leadership requirement. The wheels are getting wobbly in Irving.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/11/12/ups-boy-scouts-america-donations-anti-gay-policy_n_2118878.html

If changing the Venturing Oath and Code can be considered "killing" the program, then Venturing is missing something. What sign you make or oath you repeat has absolutely nothing to do with the program and opportunities presented to the youth.

It was in the November 1 edition of the Tampa Bay Times. Not on the front page though since it's not as "interesting" to the public.

There was much more communciation preparing for 2010 than 2013. Maybe it's because the planners aren't even sure what they are doing yet. I know that the guys I am working for have been making site visits recently. My job doesn't require me to plan ahead. I'm showing up and start hauling gear around for the OA. That required 2 pickup trucks and a box truck at AP Hill. I hear that I get to share a gator with another group this time. Oh boy!

Amangi, as a Council VP of Program I can understand your situation. A couple of observations:

As much as it causes distress that the commissioner staff seems disfunctional, I would not step in and put program people into those positions. I'd work it from the Council and District Commissioners and get them to get their people involved, trained, engaged, or whatever we want to call it. Things can get messy when people cross responsibilities, even if someone is failing and others are trying to cover for them.

I found that when I became VP of Program that I had people in place and running things that had the jobs for years. They may not have been trained or didn't care to be trained because for them it was a status job only. I have worked to find people that aren't "mainstream" volunteers and recruited them for key positions. For example, our training chair told me that they were stepping down. I recruited someone that was involved with training, but wasn't considered an "insider". What people didn't know about this volunteer is that she coordinated and managed most of the training for Neilson Media. She was more qualified than any "career" volunteer Scouter and has a better grasp on the overall training situation.

Amangi, as a Council VP of Program I can understand your situation. A couple of observations:

As much as it causes distress that the commissioner staff seems disfunctional, I would not step in and put program people into those positions. I'd work it from the Council and District Commissioners and get them to get their people involved, trained, engaged, or whatever we want to call it. Things can get messy when people cross responsibilities, even if someone is failing and others are trying to cover for them.

I found that when I became VP of Program that I had people in place and running things that had the jobs for years. They may not have been trained or didn't care to be trained because for them it was a status job only. I have worked to find people that aren't "mainstream" volunteers and recruited them for key positions. For example, our training chair told me that they were stepping down. I recruited someone that was involved with training, but wasn't considered an "insider". What people didn't know about this volunteer is that she coordinated and managed most of the training for Neilson Media. She was more qualified than any "career" volunteer Scouter and has a better grasp on the overall training situation.

BadenP, that is exactly why I posted this information. If this continues we could be seeing the BSA cease to exist. Do they begin to consider selling assets to fund the costs of the lawsuits? Could we see one of the High Adventure bases sold partially or completely? If they keep passing costs onto units and volunteers, they will accelerate the membership problem.

National's neck is ina noose and they better manage this situation much better than they have anything previous.

I appreciate some of the feedback. It may not be happening in your Council, but it is happening in mine.

Locally the "Friends of..." charters haven't been allowed in years. This could blow up into a very serious issue if our charter partners start backing out of sponsoring units. If no one wants to sponsor a Boy Scout unit, what will National do? All the units can't be LDS or Catholic or whatever.

I see more trouble for Scouting on the horizon....

We had our Council Executive Committee meeting today. Found out from our Membership VP that the United Methodist Churches will be holding up all recharters starting January 1, 2013. With the numerous lawsuits concerning abuse, they have concerns about liability. There is some agreement that they expect the Council to sign in order to have charters at any UMC in our Council. Apparently, this will go state-wide today throughout Florida. Obviously, we'll just being forwarding this to National since it's not something the Council can agree to and must be dealt with at a National level between the BSA and UMC.

Shouldn't take long for this to spread throughout the country and cross over into the other chartering organizations.

I'm in a very geographically small Council (about 10 miles x 40 miles) with 3 Districts. Council-wide we hold very few events. We have a Program Preview every May when we release the calendars for the year. We have 4 Cub Family camps annually and a Tiger Growl. We only hold a Boy Scout Camporee/Encampment once every 3 years.

Districts hold an annual Camporee and Webelos Crossover.

I have yet to meet a Venturer in my Council who could recite the Venturer Oath.

Happy to see that Cooking mb is back as a required merit badge. Cooking skills are sorely lacking in the youth. Sustainability mb could be interesting.

Sustainability becomes an alternate to Environmental Science mb after the National Jamboree in 2013 and Cooking mb becomes required on January 1, 2014.

If your Council operates a summer camp, they probably have the supplies and tools at camp. You may be able to coordinate something with the camp director/program director and take your Den to camp and use their equipment.

Previous course directors to me would spend 20-30 minutes presenting beads. Didn't matter if it was a Roundtable, Troop CoH or a Pack B&G. When I was course director, I cut it down to about 10 minutes. That gave plenty of time to recognize the person and do some promotion for the training without boring the youth present. I would stay around a while after the bead ceremony to answer any questons that people might have concerning the next course or the training.

Locally, we're not implementing the mandatory training until National says it is a 'go' and they have the software to track it. National has false-started on this too many times for colunteers to take it seriously any more. We do hold charters if all the adults on the charter aren't current on YPT. Now we have units leaving adults off the charter and just letting them particpate without YPT. Someone is going to have serious issues going forward if this becomes common practice amongst our units.

Our latest monthly Council reports includes a listing of units and which ones have trained leaders and which ones don't. It helps so we can target the units without for promoting/recruiting for training.

namu, you can't do them together. That's policy. We just had a similar episode here with a District inviting Webelos to camp at the District Boy Scout Camporee. It just doesn't happen. I don't see it being a big deal. Why not have different events and tailor the activities for each age group?

I bet I meet Twomorrow's son as well since I'll be managing all the supplies for the OA (which includes the trek guides, service project guides, service corps and whatever else they have planned). It took pickup trucks and vans to manage this at AP Hill. I hear at the Summit I get to share a gator with other committees.

hicountry, is it really fair for you to decide that none of the families in your unit would want or could afford to go? Isn't that a decision the family or Scout should make?