MikeS72

I would agree that there are many 18 - 20-year-olds who would not make a good Commissioner simply because some adults cannot accept that someone younger than them is more knowledgeable than they are. I currently cannot think of anyone in my district that I would recruit to be a Commissioner, however there are several in that age range on my council summer camp staff that would do an outstanding job. They are such a presence in their districts that everyone knows and respects them. Not for everyone, but an option for those exceptional young men. I was part of a national webinar for Crews and Posts a few months ago and this was brought up. The gist of the reply from the person responsible for SYT was that this is being looked at, as it causes us to lose a lot of experienced 18-year-olds, and it is generally ignored anyway.

Yes, remaining with the troop as an ASM is very definitely an option. They would fill out an adult application and take Safeguarding Youth Training. There is also the option of finding (or starting) as Ship or Crew; just look at beascout.org for units in your area. There is also a new option available if they are not interested in either of those choices. Depending on the individual and their maturity level an 18-year-old may now be a Commissioner.

I was skeptical of his 'facts' right of the bat with the comment the Boy Scouts have disappeared, (we have not); and the claim that in the latter half of the 1900's 20% of boys were Scouts. We discuss membership numbers every month at our Council Commissioner meeting. While it has looked bleak for a while, at least in my council, numbers are starting to stabilize. We have more units this month than we had at this time last year, and while only by a handful, we have more Scouts than the same time last year. I am hopeful that some of the changes coming out of NAM will result in meaningful improvements and will put us on the path to sustainable growth.

Actually, yes. By coincidence there is a copy sitting in front of me right now that I filled out last week.

You can only take the refresher course if you have already completed the full SYT. Take SYT this month, May of 2027 take the refresher.

People who legitimately expire after 5/31/26 have already done the new SYT. Those who show an expiration date after 5/31 have already done the new course and will be able to do a 20-minute refresher that went live last month. I did the refresher about 6 weeks prior to my expiration date. I completed the new SYT as soon as it was released on the last day of the 2025 NAM. My certificate initially showed an expiration date of 5/17/2027, however, about a week later National changed all expiration dates to 5/31/26. Individuals who completed the new SYT after May 31 last year will expire one year from the date of completion. My district has 16 people expiring between 6/126 - 6/25/26.

Yes, unless they completed the new S.A.F.E.guarding Youth training after its release in mid-May of 2025, in which case they will complete an approximately 20-minute refresher on their due date. I have stressed this many times to leadership in my district, as many did not realize that if they did the old course on let's say May 1, 2025, and got an email with a certificate set to expire on May 1, 2027, that as TRON stated that expiration date was changed to May 31, 2025. (This is what I experienced, as I redid YPT at the end of April last year and then did the new course as soon as it was released) As soon as I saw that the refresher was up and available I sat down and completed it. It is pretty well done and has a test at the end. As long as you pass the test (80% to pass) you are good for another year. If you do not pass the test, it will not allow you to rewatch the refresher, you must redo the entire 90-minute course.

I really wonder why anyone would still go to the Scout Shop and buy the printed versions when they are available to download at no cost.

Saw a clip on local (to the unit) news yesterday. In that report it stated several times that the person who caused the injury was 12 years old. If that is actually the case then the part of the original article stating that the older kids should have been separated from the younger kids makes a little more sense, particularly if this was a case of a pack and troop meeting together for some reason, or of an older sibling being present and joining the banned activity.

It was here, as I recall it also. If I remember correctly, it showed a move toward mergers eventually bringing us to around 80 councils.

Not universally enforced. No such requirements in my council. I facilitated this MB with Scouts from multiple districts multiple times and all I had to do was add it to my current list of MB's.

Heard second hand that a member of the national executive committee was at a council leadership summit and told people that the membership for scouts from military families was something they had already been working on and that there were large donors lined up to cover the costs. If accurate this should actually help with overall membership numbers, as I am sure there are a lot of kids out there who would like to join but the program is out of reach on a military salary.

I guess that all depends on where you are located. The goal here is for each of our districts to add at least one new unit each quarter, with an emphasis on every current charter having both a pack and troop. We are also putting an emphasis on contacting every family who had someone not renew their membership, find out what caused them to leave, and see what we might be able to do to bring them back into the program. If units, districts, and councils continue to just look at declining numbers and not look at why they are declining and work to mitigate those reasons, the decline will continue.

While we have not seen specifics on how this may be implemented, we have been told that the 'rolling registrations' will be going away and we will be going back to everyone expiring/renewing at the same time.

This appears to be another that goes out at random rather than to every registered leader.