Eagle1993

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We received the following message from National this week:

“Beginning this week, Scouting America Outfitters will start shipping Eagle credentials to local councils. The initial shipment will include 1,000 sets, and starting next week, they will increase to 3,000 sets per week. Based on this schedule, it will take just over four weeks to clear the current backlog.

Please note that these credentials will not include the president’s signature at this time. While we remain optimistic that approval from the White House will be granted, we recognize that we can no longer delay distribution.”

On 6/6/2025 at 11:41 AM, E V Augustine said:

Further, I do not believe this results from a change in presidential administration

I disagree fully.  I've submitted over 20 Eagle scout applications over the last 6+ years.  The only time I saw a delay close to this was mid 2020 due to Covid, but that wasn't this long.  It's been 14 weeks since I submitted two scouts and no certs.  We already received the letters. 

Rumor is that they may just skip the President's signature if it takes too long to get approval... They are approaching that timeline.  Hopefully certificates can be mailed soon.

Stop the Lion and Tiger program. My feeder pack has 95 scouts now, only 1 AOL crossover.  Kids and parents burn out after 5 years of Cub Scouting.  

Our Troop went from 83 to 17 and after next year likely less than 10.  Covid and Lion parent burnout hit Cub Scout transfers over the last 5 years.

Most kids join Scouts BSA as Cub Scout transfers, so see if you can get a Wolf to AOL pack started. 

Sent on behalf of Alison Schuler, Chair of the Bankruptcy Task Force and National Executive Board Member, and Joseph Zirkman, Executive Vice President and General Counsel of Scouting America.

Today, the United States Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit dismissed the widest ranging appeals of the Bankruptcy Court’s plan confirmation order, which were filed by a small group of dissenting claimants and holdout insurance companies. The Court’s decision is a resounding victory for survivors of historical abuse in Scouting, and it is the culmination of more than five years of tireless efforts by survivors, Scouting America, Local Councils, Chartered Organizations, settling insurance companies, and other stakeholders to equitably compensate survivors and preserve the mission of Scouting.

By dismissing these appeals, the Court has assured survivors that the Settlement Trust established under BSA’s plan can continue its essential work of providing financial compensation to survivors. The overall settlement fund for abuse claims is valued at $2.4 billion with the opportunity for additional contributions by numerous other parties, including the BSA’s insurers that have not yet settled. Since it was established in April 2023, the Trust has distributed more than $138 million to approximately 20,000 survivors. Today’s decision ensures that the Trust’s work can continue without interruption.

The decision also ensures that the organization can continue its mission of preparing young men and women to become responsible, participating citizens and leaders guided by the Scout Oath and Law. On February 8, 2025, on its 115th anniversary, the organization officially became Scouting America, reflecting its ongoing commitment to welcome every youth and family in America to experience the benefits of Scouting. More than a million young men and women currently participate in Scouting America’s programs, affirming the importance of Scouting and its values-based programs to American life.

Yours in Scouting,

Alison Schuler

Chair of the Bankruptcy Task Force and National Executive Board Member

Joseph Zirkman

Executive Vice President / General Counsel

7 weeks since my son's Eagle BOR and no word from National.  This is breaking the records we saw during Covid....

14 hours ago, clbkbx said:

Just passed the five-months-from-oral-arguments that the Trustee’s indicated was the average time for a ruling from the Sixth Circuit. 
 

https://scoutingsettlementtrust.my.salesforce.com/sfc/p/#Dp0000016pkB/a/Uu000002c92j/T9hQYKF8KkVWWap2jPhb24vEUq0JduWSxLZZcZOAydk

I wonder if the length of time indicates which way they are leaning.  

Perhaps he should become a scout and take Signs, Signals and Codes Merit Badge.  

My understanding is that there is always a delay between administrations.  If there is an issue with Trump's approval, perhaps this is a good opportunity to move away from the President of the US as the honorary President of Scouting America and have someone else serve in that role.  David Montgomery?  Mike Rowe? 

I'm not sure if there is an issue, but it would be interesting to see someone who is actually a former scout and exemplifies scouting ideals as the honorary president vs politicians.

This is from a FB post...

One interesting comparison.  GSUSA has slightly more members but only 111 councils.

On 2/25/2025 at 10:25 AM, Tron said:

If the settlement documents are binding to any degree that means we're probably looking at a council reduction of at least 100, the low end is at the floor of expectations right?

There is nothing in the bankruptcy settlement that forces council reduction.  What was discussed during the bankruptcy was a BSA executive meeting at Philmont in August of 2021.  This meeting was focused on BSA post bankruptcy. Devang Desai was on the stand talking about this meeting as insurers went slide by slide.  Here were my notes (it was illegal to record the hearing so all I could do was quickly type away).  Note that we are now nearly 4 years after that meeting ... so I expect some of this has changed.

• CO model may need to be replaced
• Councils are in trouble ... $400M of debt.
• Goal was to become the National Leader in Youth Safety 
• Grow our Membership by making our program more relevant, easy fun.  
  • Fully digital program
  • Make a single scout program (that was confusing to me, but on a slide)
• Slide showed reduction of councils down to 80 (but that was then marked up and changed with "streamline")
• Need to change how girls are included 
• Outdoor method was mentioned in a lot of slides
• Goal of eveyone getting to 1st class
• Expand recruiting & fundraising

Now, this was many years ago, so I expect national may have moved on from that meeting.  

On 3/1/2025 at 12:04 PM, BetterWithCheddar said:

This is an odd one to me: As I understand it, the former Hiawathaland Council (Michigan's UP) asked to merge with the Bay Lakes Council because they felt they were more similar (culturally) to Northeast Wisconsin than Lower Michigan. So Bay Lakes accommodates, merges OA Lodges, and closes one of its camps. Then 10 years later, the UP says "Haha, just kidding. We're going to stick with Lower Michigan." Is that the gist? Am I missing something?

In the interview, based on info from former SE of Hiawathaland:

• - National forced them to merge as they believed small councils cannot succeed
• They joined Bay Lakes as it was in good shape
• Bay Lakes has been in decline since (membership & financials)
• They joined MCC

Camp Hiawatha no longer in jeopardy due to scouting council realignment

3 hours ago, PACAN said:

My guess that if National funded councils 100% there would be a lot of DOGEing happening to reduce the number of councils.  😉

I expect that will happen.  During the bankruptcy, there was a cross examination of a National leadership meeting that occurred, including a review of the slide deck.  The leadership meeting was a small group (sounds like less than 10 people) who admitted that BSA is in crisis and drastic actions would have to be taken.  One part of that was about a significant reduction in councils and their target was 80 total councils.  This was several years ago.

I expect the financial picture is clear now and the results of the recent fundraising push will be in soon.  We know National believes we have too many councils given the number of scouts we have, so I won't be surprised if they start "DOGEing" to reduce the number of councils.

On 1/20/2024 at 9:47 PM, Ojoman said:

Does your council/district foster a positive or toxic volunteer environment? What can be done to improve it and make it more positive or take it from toxic to positive or are you happy with where it is at?

My council has sold off 3 of its 4 camps over the last decade or so.  Each time, they promised to reinvest the funds in the remaining camp(s).  I saw nothing of the sort, only investment in new hires whose sole purpose seems to be gathering videos to help fundraising efforts. 

We had some tremendous volunteers in my district who planned an amazing celebration of our Cub Scout camp many years ago (when the camp was turning 100 years old ... before it was sold off).  The idea was a council wide camporee, climbing walls, various scouting events, food trucks, fireworks, etc.  Council leadership cancelled it as it had the chance to lose money (ignoring the publicity it would have generated).  This led to a few of our key district volunteers leaving, never to return.

Our council does almost nothing for Scouts BSA outside of merit badge clinics.  They invest heavily in Cub Scouts but seem to think the program ends at 5th grade.  

Our Troop has a few members of the executive board, but it seems like they have become disillusioned with what they have been able to impact.

Personally, I hope my council is absorbed my one of our neighboring ones, which seem to be better at putting on events for Scouts BSA and investing in their camps.  

On 2/12/2025 at 8:14 AM, Tron said:

I would say that my council culture is toxic. I can't put my finger on the pulse of where it comes from. My CE is a great guy, I like him, I don't want to say the problem is him; however, a lot of council committees do not meet which is cascading to the district level.  We're not recruiting enough people to fill the district level committees. These two things combined are collapsing our council, and it has turned into a shutup type situation when you bring up "when are we going to start meeting more regularly, and when are we going to recruit more?".

I think one issue is that too many try and recruit from unit volunteers, many if not most are parents of youth.  District/council would be best served finding younger adults (21 - 30) before they have kids or former unit volunteers (50+).  I used to be more active at the district level, but as my kids got older and their interests were varied, I ran out of volunteer hours to give ... and all of mine will be at the unit level.  That said, my kids are aging, one will be headed to college in 2026 and the other a few years later.  I could see volunteering at council/district level at that point.

Regardless of the month, all of the numbers show a program either in decline or barely hanging on.

We recently discovered and resolved an issue that had been preventing new users from signing up on Scouter.com. Thanks to @SCOUTER-Terry for their swift response in fixing this!

If you’ve recently invited others to join and they had trouble signing up, they can now create accounts without any issues.

Thanks for your patience, and we look forward to welcoming more scouters around the campfire!

@MattR @RememberSchiff

Eagle Scout David Montgomery

Knowledge not shared is lost.  Thanks for sharing..

Lujan rejected a substantial settlement in the Guam lawsuit right before bankruptcy.  Now her clients will receive less than that offer and I expect she is personally and professionally vested in doing everything possible to undo that mistake.  The BSA bankruptcy possibility was very well known, I'm not sure why she rejected that initial offer.  I give her credit, she is fighting hard to represent her clients; however, over the last four years she seems to struggle to make solid arguments in court and rarely wins substantial rulings.   

I highly doubt the appeal will work.

3 hours ago, Cburkhardt said:

Now days, with member fees being so steep, only a foolish unit leader would register phantom members. 

I agree.  One "benefit" of today's higher fees is that registered members are more likely active members.  I remember earlier on, if our Pack didn't hear from a scout, we would pay for their renewal to avoid paperwork if they decided to come back.  In addition, we had many scouts where parents would pay the renewal and we would end up rarely (if ever) seeing the scout.   Given today's costs, I no longer see this behavior.

I tend to believe the numbers today (perhaps except scout reach).

On 9/7/2024 at 6:54 AM, BetterWithCheddar said:

The numbers get worse when you consider how the US population has grown over time.

BSA is currently at ~20% of its 1980 membership, but adjusting for the change in population over the last 45 years, it's really about ~14% of its 1980 membership.

• 1980:
  • Membership = 4.3 million
  • US Population = 223 million
  • % of Population in BSA = 1.9%
• 1990
  • Membership = 4.0 million
  • US Population = 248 million
  • % of Population in BSA = 1.6%
• 2000:
  • Membership = 3.4 million
  • US Population = 282 million
  • % of Population in BSA = 1.2%
• 2010:
  • Membership = 2.7 million
  • US Population = 311 million
  • % of Population in BSA = 0.9%
• 2019:
  • Membership = 2.0 million
  • US Population = 334 million
  • % of Population in BSA = 0.6%
• 2023:
  • Membership = 0.9 million
  • US Population = 339 million
  • % of Population in BSA = 0.3%

 

One minor issue with this is that percentage of youth in the population varies over time.  It peaked in the 1960s when 36% of the population was under 18.  Today it is in decline (22%).  Numbers will still look bad...  % youth below:

1980 - 28%

1990 - 26%

2000 - 26%

2010 - 24%

2019 - 22%

2023 - 22%

Looks like a great choice.  Entertaining high adventure dude, active in social media.

UK continues to surge, recognizes the importance of new media and outreach to where you consume today.  Their Chief is 41 years old, has Insta and Twitter accounts in addition to being very active on YouTube.  First black Briton to reach North Pole.

 Our Chief is 68, no Insta or Twitter.  He is on YouTube but tell me which guy kids will follow...

13 hours ago, mrjohns2 said:

Does selling them transfer the trademark rights to the new owner?

Good question.  From what I can see, copyright ownership is separate from physical ownership.  That said, when I searched the copyright owner of various Norman Rockwell Boy Scout paintings, I don't see BSA listed as the copyright owner. Saxon Industries and B&B Communication Corp are listed as the owner of several.