PACAN

IMHO this change is unnecessary. What is the purpose of 20 nights and requirement 9b? Teach youth how to take care of themselves in different types of outdoor experiences? If a scout goes to 4 summer camps, that’s 60 percent of the nights. Some scouts today are finishing their Eagle nights and have 75-100 total. we should go back to the pre 1960 camping mb requirement which was 50 nights with no longer term camps allowed.

This was "missing" from the 2025 MB updates. 9. Show experience in camping by doing the following: (a) Camp for at least 20 nights at designated Scouting activities or events. One long-term camping experience of up to six consecutive nights may be applied toward this requirement. Two nights may be counted toward the total for each additional long-term camping trip. Each night must be spent either under the sky, in a tent you have pitched yourself (if a tent is provided and already set up, you do not need to pitch your own), in a hammock that is safely strung outdoors, in a lean-to, or other three-sided shelter with an open front. Nights spent in indoor lock-in events, cabin camping, hotel stays, or other covered accommodations do not count toward the 20 nights.

Only other instruments allowed are for Reville…..Air Horn and Cymbals. merry Christmas

The most interesting item is the chapter 7 paragraph on online mbs. Pretty sure this will be ignored by councils that have huge online events with some classes up to 100 scouts and charging as high as $35 per badge.

The last post that I quickly saw related to the Girl scouts dropping was by Ducttape on 10/30. After that I didn't see one directly related. Went into Character, joining and commissioner posts.

This topic has strayed from the original post which was to identify and discuss Catholic diocese and units eliminating their scout programs.

GSA turn…I just saw the Archbishop of Cincinnati has dropped them from the diocese.

I'm not an expert in the CM policies but it would seem that having ANY youth group (School, sports, teen social groups) within the individual parishes are subject to YP and would cause the liability rates to go up.

Sure let's give boys and parents another reason to leave scouting. The assumption is that the G2SS and tenting are nirvana and the only barriers.

These issues have been around for a number of years. Wonder if there was something that pushed the Diocese to dropping scouts including not meeting. It was nice that they said the scouts could still work on religious emblems but I’m guessing the church would not allow the scouts to receive their awards at Scout Sunday Mass. yeesh

“Changes in Scouting itself”. Wonder which changes they are talking about?

@yknot......Numbers from 12/23 were inflated, as they are end of year in every report that the BSA issues in early January. Didn't we fire professionals in the past for padding numbers with phantom registrations?

@qwazse Yep I have done the PA course. It is also used by any adult doing anything with youth including Priests and School Teachers as a condition of employment. I agree listening to "experts" drone on and then being "tested " with obvious questions and answers so you pass doesn't make anyone "competent"

@RememberSchiffi know we have background checks. I was referring to people thinking they are YP competent because they took the Bsa’s YP course.

@RememberSchiffIMHO we should NOT be self-certifying ourselves as competent in skills where we are at risk for liability. Like YPT? 😉😁

I'm not sure if year to year is a better metric than the end of the previous calendar year to July is better. Being down 175K from the end of 2023 doesn't give me a feeling that we are making much recovery.

12/23 to 7/24 losses 175k Girls 25K or 14% Boys 150K or 86%

Goal is to emphasize inclusion. Of who? Girls, minorities? Is there a membership percentage goal? 50/50? A friend sent me the July membership and % girls. 838K 17.8% Compared to Dec 2023 1015K 17.4% So the % girls is up and total membership down which tells me the % of boys has dropped a bunch. He didn't send any minority numbers but they have historically been weak.

https://local21news.com/news/local/local-girl-scouts-heart-of-pennsylvania-staff-let-go-for-violating-policies-regarding-transgender-campers-pronouns-pa

Sooooo. Did they ask any of the 91 or 83% of respondents if they "agree" why they were not joining or if they left the program why?

Just curious..did the BSA do any risk analysis on any of these decisions? Or did they ask 3 people at the food truck and 2 said yes so they plowed ahead?

So..if there are folks who were at the Annual meeting, what else was put out as solutions to the decreasing membership numbers. Did any in attendance stand up and scream "how can we fix this before we go out of business" or just death by powerpoint? Name Change....personally don't see hundreds of thousands of youth flocking the council offices to sign up Coed Troops...is the official position that this too will increase membership? Seems like existing co-located units MIGHT merge into one but that isn't assured. CO still have the say. Slides on how many girls are in the program but was there any discussion on how to help the other 85% of the membership? another biggie...change the name of Rifle ranges...huge! Reducing costs? Registration, reduce the number of Councils through forced mergers, Loss of property, right-size the organization to match the membership? Just curious...most of this blog's chatter is on name and coed.

So will there only be one handbook for coed troops?

Why do we need to be consistent with other WOSM organizations? Educate me. What has WOSM ever done for the BSA?

So...how is this going to be different? I never thought the name was the reason kids joined. Don't we accept all youth (except those who don't prescribe to the Religious declaration) now? Will that change? Do we anticipate there will be hundreds of thousands of youth who vanished to return? Will this bring the lost chartering organizations back? Do we continue with the marketing "we are cheaper than sports" ? Do prospective parents believe the program has actually fixed their YP and their kids will be safe? Just random thoughts.