Eagle94-A1

10 hours ago, Tron said:

If it is not an NCAP governed event it falls on whomever "the lead" is or the council program chair/camping chair/director of field operations/<insert one of the various titles given out council-to-council>.

Everything fall under NCAP now if it is a district/council event. And officially that is anytime you have units from 2 or more COs.

10 hours ago, Tron said:

It turned out that the DE was not trained because it's in that level 2 training (which btw these days is not automatic, a DE has to be recommended for it after serving no less than 2 years). 

Even in my day, Professional Development Level 2 was not automatic, because it was not required to be a DE like PDL-1 was. In fact i know of only 2 DEs of the 12 I worked with having completed PDL-2. One completed years earlier, and one somehow got a two week, all expenses paid trip for PDL-2 and an Exploring Conference at  FL Sea Base in January.

My thoughts,

1. BSA's standards for Scouts BSA have dropped. Once upon a time the standards were "Master the skills," and "The badge represents what a Scout CAN DO (sic), not what he has done."  Today its is "A badge recognizes what a Scout has done toward achieving the primary goal of personal growth...  It is thus more about the learning experience than it is about the specific skills learned. "

Best example of this is the "First Class Camp" After doing all the basic Scoutcraft requirements, they needed to lead a campout for a minimum of 24 hours with at least 1 other Scout without and adult.  Nowadays 2 adults over 21 are needed.

A lot of folks I know complain about the new standard. And we see what "One and Done" is doing to the program. When you have a Life Scout, with their Eagle Board of Review scheduled, can not do basic T-2-1 first aid, let alone First Aid Merit Badge requirements,  there is a problem.

2 Adult training is a joke. I had scheduled and was prepping a CS Basic Leader Training course when the CS Leader Specific Training courses came out. I cannot tell you how much information was left out, especially at the Webelos level. We did CS Specific, but added a lot from the old CSBLT that was missing. Ditto with ITOLS.. I supplemented a bunch of material from older BSHBs and Field Books, to make sure they got the info they needed. And they have watered down the syllabus since I taught it.

3. There use to have experienced folks called commissioners to help units out. Problem is that they had no authority to  enforce stuff, and insure a quality program. Worse is when you have new folks telling commissioners they don't know anything about the program and they need to butt out, or Scouting needs to change with the times and their ideas are better. Very discouraging and makes folks not want to help.

4.National and councils seems to be focused on advancement, not program. How many Scouts you see with all the MBs? How many councils have summer camps that give away MBs or have MBUs that are essentially MB giveaways?

Sadly that is what the majority of parents want today: quick and easy advancement. They do not care if their Scouts actually know anything. They do not care if their Scouts have adventures and fun, they care about 1 thing: getting Eagle.

Some who know Eagle should mean something see this and ask themselves "why bother?" Others are fighting tooth an nail to stop the degradation. However we are getting fewer and fewer.

10 hours ago, Tron said:

National waits until a DE is level 2 trained to train them on how to recruit a volunteer district staff. This is a volunteer run organization; the #1 thing every DE should do is know how to identify and recruit volunteers to run their district. 

WHAT?!?! Please tell me you are joking. That was a significant part of PDL-1 back in the day. Everything from creating a list of prospects, figuring who to go with you to the prospect, how to dress when approaching the prospect, etc. While we use a nominating committee to get names, DEs were also supposed to come up with names for the nominating committee as well. And if you didn't have a nominating committee....

10 hours ago, Tron said:

I think the training for cub scout volunteers needs to emphasis multiple troop visits to a much larger degree.

Training, as well as the current program, needs to look at the 1990s changes to the program, and readjust. When Cub Scouts was a 3 year program, and Webelos was 9-12 months, Cross Over couldn't happen until May. Problems included  1. not enough time learning AND accepting differences in the programs, not enough time to visit troops,  and not enough time to prepare new Scouts for Summer Camp. I know all about summer camp, because I missed out my first summer. My parents didn't know the troop's leaders well enough, nor could they pay the $75 fee (today's value is $230) in one month.

That is why after adding Tiger Cubs, they also dropped the ages to join, and expanded Webelos to 18-24 months instead of 9-12. It gave more time the transition process. 

More Later

10 hours ago, Tron said:

 

 

 

 

Not just multiple visits to 1 troop, but multiple troops. As Eagle94 says the program loses a lot of crossovers; in my experience it's in two stages. Stage 1 we plain have scouts just not want to go to a troop because they didn't find a troop they liked (My pack is still sorting this out but it looks like we just lost 5 of 7 AOLs on Dec 31st, they didn't bother to renew because the pack did 2 troop visits this year (versus 7 last year) and the AOLs and families were not interested in either troop.). Stage 2 we lose crossovers at troops who never rank up past AOL before end of year/renewal (my troop just lost somewhere between 6 to 8 crossovers, we're still sorting out if some families didn't renew on time; however, those 6 to 8 have the same thing in common, they were all AOL on Dec 31st).  To be clear lack of advancement or recognition is a big deal for these crossovers and I think we lost one of them because the CC was his MBC for a MB and ghosted the kid on a MB he completed. I tried to step in because I also MBC that MB and I got ghosted by the CC. (See the other thread where I complain about fiefdoms and not delivering.)

33 minutes ago, jcousino said:

I must agree that adult training is a joke. The few DEs I knew well enough to talk honestly, their training was just as bad. Ask one about a YPT question, and his answer is that it is coming in level 2 training.

Regarding training, I was appalled at what was left out of CS Leader Specific, especially the Webelos Den Leader Specific, compared to the old CS Basic Leader Training. There is no mention of the differences between being a CSDL, and being a WDL, and how the transision is suppose to go. I beleive that the retention rates for Crossed Over Scouts is for this very reason, and national has doubled down on it, making the transition a few months in 5th grade, instead of the 18-24 months. BSA did the research once, and it stated transition takes 18-24 months.

Regarding DE training, WOW. Prior to going to PDL-1, we had to have YPT, CSBLT, SM Fundamentals, and Explorer Basic Leader Training. Additional YP stuff was covered, but it was mostly a reemphasis of get the Scout to safety, call the SE, call the police.

11 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

The 01 Jan 2026 number is real time... today's number.

The Jan 2025 number looks to be the close out number for 31 Jan 2025.

Thank for the correction. You are right, it is end of month, June 30th, and Dec. 31st.

3 hours ago, mrjohns2 said:

Is your Jan 25 number from 1/1/25?

Going from memory.  The membership reports could compare by date, or month, as well as tracking for the June 30th, or December 31st goals.

Let's be honest, we won't get actual numbers until March when all the December 31st expirations go into effect. And I bet the March numbers will. be down.

While I do think more Unit Serving Executives may help, they will need to get the right type.  For whatever reason, BSA seems to think educators make good execs and program folks. Yet BP realized when he started that educators make lousy SMs.

As for IT systems, this is what happens when you put a former SE into being the CIO without any experience in the field. 

Ebay, or Scouting memorabilia shop. Good luck finding one. It may take you 30 years to find one you can afford.

7 hours ago, Tron said:

But the mergers are going to come slow, they're all fighting them, they only do it (looking at you Long Island & Northern MN.) when they simply have no other options and national forces them to do it with no cards on the table.

Trust me I know. My council is about to launch a capital campaign for repairs and upgrades at camp. What happened to the money from a camp they sold that they told volunteers would pay for these renovations? Yes, I know, it went to pay the council's share of the lawsuit.

1 hour ago, Tron said:

How does leaving the council work? Is there some sort of petition process? 

Supposedly, if every CO in a county petitions to leave and join a council, it can happen. BUT every single CO has to agree to it. I do not know if they have everyone on board or not. But I told them to have patience as mergers are coming.

2 hours ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

The number this will be on 31 Dec, as @Eagle94-A1 points out, will be the one to watch for to give the most accurate "real time" number for comparison. Although, I suppose if a Registrar has a backlog of applications or renewals, they can tweak the Dec 2025 numbers into Jan 2026.

Registrars are extremely overworked this time of year, and usually until February/March

One of the ways we found more Scouts were registration audits. We asked each unit to  give us a list of their active Scouts, and compared it to the charter. I can tell you Scouts who should be on charters were found not to be on it, and other Scouts who should have been removed from the charter, were still on it. I know I still find that I have found folks still on charters that I took off the last year, and missing others, even with My.Scouting.Org. You cannot take off the ones still listed, but you can add the missing ones.

The December 31st number doesn't actually come out until March. They do have a grace period. I have heard some pros joke about "December 42nd" 

15 minutes ago, Tron said:

Last night I saw a dashboard and it had way different numbers. My understanding after asking some questions is that the numbers reported by councils and national in their annual reports Year-over-Year are not "current registered youth" and have not been "current registered youth". So we might have 877k right now but that number is not directly correlated to the membership numbers reported by national at the NAM. The number to compare against nationals year end number that they reported at the NAM is a "count of uniquely served youth in the previous calendar year" which currently stands at 1.2 million according to the dashboard I was shown last night. I am not sure if every council is doing the same thing or not; I suspect based on numbers I have seen that confused me in the past that my council is doing this as well. 

I do not know about today, but I know about back in the day. The #1 membership stat was the December 31st number. That was the one used in reports, media, etc. It is also the reason why a lot of councils had recharter December; delinquent units are still on the rolls until February or March. Rational was that paperwork was a pain, and it can take that long to get things fixed.

The #2 stat was the June 30th number. That was used to set goals, see how much work will need to be done in Round Up, etc.

Finally you had a monthly stat, and that compared to  the previous years monthly stat.

That is why you can see different numbers supposedly covering the same thing. While some will say it is "apples to apples," It is more like Granny Smith Apples to Gala Apples to Red Delicious Apples.

1 minute ago, Tron said:

OMG, that's a recipe to kill scouting, not from cost, but from indignation. Let us just be real for a moment; a lot of us come out of the business world, we don't raise the price point of products unless there are no other choices. So many of us parents have been through restructuring and downsizing in the private sector, refusal to get operational costs down and instead passing the cost directly on to the consumer kills companies. 

Trust me there is a lot of indignation. One unit now refuses to have anything to do with the council except paperwork: no camporees, no using camp, no purchasing supplies, no FOS, nothing at at. Most of the units do not use the local summer camp because the program sucks: it is a MB giveaway. Last time I went, inadequate supplies, equipment breaking, large Scout to Instructor ratios (30 people in Lifesaving MB; 15 minutes max on the water each day because you don't have enough canoes?!?!?!), and no improvements from complaints.

Families are seeing all this and no longer want to support the council. There is actually discussion about the county leaving the current council, and joining a neighboring one.

@Tron, Since FOS has dried up, and only 1 unit in the district goes to the local summer camp, The "troop" is being charged $37.50 per Scout in addition to  $100 recharter fee. Next year it goes up to $75/Scout. That is in addition to the individual 's national registration fee, council service fee, and insurance fee. That is $120/Scout. So a family with 4 Scouts in the program costs $480 individual fees plus $150 for "Fair Share", plus unit dues. And that doesn't include camp outs and summer camps.

I know folks say scouting is cheap compared to sports, but there are a lot of folks who cannot afford to do sports, but could afford Scouting. Not any more. 

5 hours ago, jcousino said:

Ok, what other side losses would there be? Sold camps and properties 

Loss of other jobs. Staff and camp personal

Even more loss to FOS due to the loss of local connections. 

Most likely a house of cards that is falling apart. I'm not sure if it can be reversed under the current system. 

 

 

Friends of mine have been hit with "Unit Fair Share" fees from their council. Unit is being assessed a per scout fee.  This is being added to the charter fee, so not directly on the Scouts, but who pays unit dues. They are complaining of no services being provided by the council to warrant that  fee, or FOS for that matter.

When I was a DE, my district had 45% of the current membership numbers. And that was just 2 counties.

WOW

36 minutes ago, Tron said:

This is bad. I don't think the program is dying; however, when is national going to institute some quality control to end the membership exodus? 
 

It is dying. And the majority of folks do not want to put quality control measures. They want 'High Speed, Low Drag" advancement and increasing the number of Eagle Scouts. They would rather celebrate the 13 or 14 year old with all 130+MBs than the troop that is doing trail work on the AT, or the troop running Red Cross evac stations.

On 12/12/2025 at 1:39 PM, InquisitiveScouter said:

Post here if you want your specific council numbers, or I can see by state, also. 

Can you  give us stats for North Carolina?

On 12/12/2025 at 12:52 PM, Jameson76 said:

In our district we have and continue to lose troops and packs, but not sure there is any effort to save any of them or figure a way to stem the tide.  We have not witnessed an actual DE or other council staff in the wild in forever.  It's not that we have a bad relationship, that would infer our units actually knew who they were, we literally have no relationship.  There are maybe 20 units in the district (though I think less) and one would assume they may come by annually to see what's up.  

You aren't in North Carolina by any chance? Your council sounds exactly like mine. Although I did ask a pro for help this year. However he turned the request around on me, and wanted me to do the work for him. 

5 minutes ago, MikeS72 said:

There is a report that I can access in my.scouting called "members without a unit" that shows me all Scouts and Scouters who may be in that situation.  Either the unit is folding or may be late in turning in their recharter paperwork. 

What if they do not want to be in another unit? They just want registration current so that they can restart later?

So what happens to those folks whose registration expires in 3-6 months after the troop folds, and they do not want to transfer? One of my adults doesn't want to transfer to any unit or district/council POR, because he wants to restart the unit in a few months when he has more free time.

During COVID, we did our own summer camp for 5 days. Forgot how much it was, but it was under $100/person.  Only out of pocket expense for the Scouts was the stop at the Hardees for shakes during the bike ride. We came up with different activities for the Scouts to do: cycling, canoeing, wilderness survival, emergency first aid drill, and the schedule was flexible, except for Thursday Night Dinner. We had troop committee visit to do BORs. The Scouts had a blast, and many said it was the best summer camp ever. But they didn't want to do it again because, "we didn't earn any merit badges." My kids were included in that.

And yes, BSA shot itself in the foot on this matter. They are the ones that pushed advancement and getting Eagle.

38 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

The BOR is NOT the place to correct for years of advancement failures.  ... If a lower advancement standard has been used for years, then it's too generally too late. 

Trust me I know. I am lamenting the fact that units can care less about growing the Scout instead of growing the number of Eagles.

38 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

The SM (and his team) should have been watching.  

Sadly the SM was part of the problem. When he took over the troop, many Scouts transferred out to ours.  So it was known what was going on,  but nothing to be done about it outside the COR. 

38 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

AND, sometimes a scout (and his parents) game the system beyond the controls of the troop leadership.  It's ok to be sad for the scout, but not necessarily mad about. 

Both family and SM gamed the system. Family left our troop because we insured Scouts actually did what they were supposed to. They specifically went to that troop because they were "high speed low drag." SM picked summer  and winter camps known for giving away MBs. When discussing summer camp last year, the family referred to to summer camp as a place to "purchase MBs." 

It is extremely sad for the Scout. He has not really grown much over the years. He acts like a Tenderfoot still. And family is not helping as they are pushing and pushing to get Eagle. 

But I am mad that there is nothing anyone can do about the situation, i.e. just signing stuff off, except the COR replacing Scouters. And trust me the SM knew better; I trained him. 

And it is frustrating because if anyone needed Scouting, the Life Scout did.

24 minutes ago, Tron said:

Is it wrong that I am now picturing Beavis in a scout uniform after reading this? 

If I can find it, I will post a pic of my Beavis and Butthead OA flap from 1994 NOAC.

Challenge with that is each council is supposedly their own, independent, legal entity. All national can do is withhold charters if memory serves.