Krampus

@@SeattlePioneer. we tried this approach one year which ended up costing our membership person countless hours registering those folks who lagged. So we revised the approach to require folks to get their paperwork in two months in advance. That way the word was out and the membership person was able to get all packets early. Also, we did not accept incomplete packets. Lastly, everyone was told that if you miss the deadline you had to get to council on your own to register. That revision to the process reduced the amount of time spent and increased the number of complete, on-time packets.

I have two leaders in that status and they are still on the charter and online. I don't think it's automatic.

Ever met a politician? Same type of person. Overly eager to talk to you about what is on THEIR mind, not yours. I live among them. They are very snobby.

Again, I'd have to agree. We had a small incident this weekend with a boy on the scale. Nothing major, but he became aggressive, felt persecuted and appeared to want to hit me. My training and experience told me this was not the case. I got him to use a coping technique and he was able to calm down. Five minutes of work. No problem, no issues. No risk to other kids or adults. Spoke to parent at home and the boy is going to take a break for a month to work on his control. The adult who was with me was at a loss for words. Didn't quite know what happened and was admittedly lost on how to

Yeah, and some times big money too. Catholic or Baptist churches down here usually have their own gear, fields, etc., but they still need to compete in the league. Most churches will pay coaching fees. Those folks aligned with community-based teams have to pay themselves. But you point is still well taken, Scouting costs greatly out weigh what most pay for soccer. At least in my case.

@@Eagledad you're right. We usually sit down with special needs scouts and their parents and discuss several things: parental involvement, activities which can/can't be done, approach to requirements, MBs and rank, etc. It is important to get their buy in and participation early on. We are awarding Eagle to two Scouts on the spectrum next year. Both Scouts and parents have been actively involved since Day 1. My happiest day will be awarding these guys Eagle!

Au contraire. In youth soccer some leagues require you to hold a USSF license. Depending on where you are and what license level you need, you may pay between $20-$500 dollars. They don't give you any gear so you may need to buy cones, nets, extra balls, other training aids, etc. Some leagues require you to pay for your own background check. I spend more of my own money and time in BSA, but I spent a fair amount coaching my kids' soccer teams.

@@blw2 we do something similar; we have a troop event where we do various things for the visiting boys. They get a chance to ask their questions of our scouts and our scouts answer straight up. We give the parents all of our troop info up front. Everything they want to know (based on years of frequently asked questions) is in that document. We have a parent meeting during the event, but we try to keep it very short. We want the parents to be able to ask our scouts (or adults) questions too; also to see their kids having fun. We don't do the "ringer events" simply because they never work. S

I think the animosity toward professional scouters and national is directly proportional to their disdain for volunteer leaders. A generalization, but I think it works.

It's okay. They get to hear me making breakfast and drinking coffee at 6am with the other adults in our troop. They get the message pretty quickly.

Shouldn't stuff like this be covered as part of a unit's monthly program in the outdoors? Building fires, foil cooking, animal awareness, Dutch oven cooking, astronomy, weather, survival, etc., are all part of our unit's annual plan. It is part of every meeting and every camp out. Why develop yet another training program to do what units should be doing anyway? That's what these handy guides are for. They help the youth develop a program around these core scouting skills.

But when you water down your core product, and have little uptake on your new product, everything suffers. BSA is trying to be too many things to too many people in a desperate attempt to stave off massive membership declines. This is not a prudent strategy in business or any other venture. You sell a popular cereal. Sales drop. You make different cereal in an attempt to meet alternate demand. Sales for all are below your costs to produce, and compared with overall sales of your core product, you are still way down in sales. The answer is NOT to produce even more different types of cereal

When I combine what I read (both sides) and my experience with the WB'ers in my area, my feelings and conclusions are more than validated. I keep an open mind and try to revisit the issue every few years, but continue to see my conclusion re-validated.

I just can't do the campaign hat. Makes me feel 70 years old (not that there's anything wrong with 70 year olds). I wear my ball caps (all BSA) or I wear my troop boonie. In my area the guys who wear the "funny hats" as my scouts call them are usually the guys you pointed out; and in my area those guys tend to be the know-it-all types that constantly look down their nose at you for one reason or another. At least that's what it's like in my area. I have met other guys that wear those hats in other areas of the country that are very nice, pleasant folks...but they are usually over 60. Give

Every time I consider taking WB I venture in to this part of the forum, read and come away with the realization (or should I say, validation) it would be a colossal waste of time. There's already too much nonsense in scouting. Thanks for helping to confirm my suspicions and saving me countless hours of torture.

A follow up question might be: How many scouters under 55 wear the campaign hat.

The problem with membership decline is not rocket science and comes down to running scouting like a business. When businesses see a drop in sales they try to figure out why. Was there a drop in product quality? Was there a shift in demographics? How was marketing targeted/focused? Was there more competition in the market? BSA does not run itself as a business. Better said, they run themselves like a poor business. What they need is to focus on their core product, increase quality, maintain a more standardized and predictable product, develop better product loyalty and better brand and man

I am stunned at how funny some of you guys are. I read your posts on other issues and you welcome all sorts of things very liberally. You interpret something like my icon totally incorrectly and you get your liberal dander up. Ironic. Welcoming to those things you agree with, unwelcoming to those things you don't understand. I will say again, it is a cultural icon from a Germanic region in Bavaria and Tirol. You want to misinterpret it and get your underwear in a bunch, fine. That's your right. But you're showing your colors by assuming it represents anything demonic. Try being more in

@@NJCubScouter here's your problem: What media outlet reaches these target audiences? You just don't have broadcast TV like we had when we were young. Now you have social media, cable, satellite, on-demand, etc. The good news is that these other outlets don't cost what broadcast or cable ads do. The bad news is that BSA is not very good at utilizing new contact channels.

Units ask their scouts. That's how we succeed. Our recruiting, events, camping and everything we do is planned and executed by the boys. The adults drop pearls of wisdom ("Tom, you can't get to Big Bend and back in three days and still have a good time so save that for a longer trip."), but the rest is all boy led. The problem is district and council. I'll give you an example. My council is putting on this HUGE event in Nov. It is going to be like a camporee on steroids. Problem is they announced the event before they had the activities lined up. The activities are okay, but with the size

ROFL...never heard of it. Never seen it at district RTs or any council events...and I live in a charter council. Shows you how well communicated it is. I like the idea but their concept is skewed. Scouting is family based. We have a helluva time getting our single parent kids to participate, let alone the parents. They just look at us like we have three arms when we ask them to volunteer. We have a few households where English is the second language....forget getting mom or dad to step up and help. So in a program that depends on parent volunteers, BSA has their work cut out for

But you will need to fundamentally adjust the program to meet that objective. With the high rate of single-parent and multi-child households in those demographics -- adding in language issues -- how are you going to drive growth in a program that relies on parents to step up and run a Den or Pack? Until BSA solves that issue these ideas are useless musings. We already have an issue with 20- and 30-somethings stepping up to help in Scouts as it is today. Do you think immigrant parents with poor language skills or single parents with multiple kids are going to do it? That's the problem to so

Read it this way: His mission statement was to grow legacy programs, evolve quality, reflect interests of youth, focus on key-scouting values and methods (assume that means outs, adult association, patrol method). Career experiences through Exploring Explosion. Not quite sure how this program dovetails with the "legacy programs" or what it even does, but it seems to be a career education and development program. I read the play book and it is yet another example of how BSA rolls stuff out telling you WHY something should be done but not HOW to do it or WHAT benefit you get from the pro

Still...as a national organization they should strive for it. Instead of focusing on some of the things they do, establishing a clear and concise message should be a top priority. It will help with all the other issues (i.e., membership, training, etc.) if that objective was met and extended down the food chain.