ToKindle96

I don't think calling another scouting organization that doubled in size a joke is scout like, my friend. Nor is it something to draw laughter. I'm trying to recall the part of the Scout Law that teaches us to do either of those things.

BSA losing 1.2+ million in 5 years doesn't give those in the BSA a solid perch to smirk from. Those are 60,000 youth being served in the scouting movement.

I suspect Eagle1993 is correct about splitting the baby. To me it further erodes my confidence in the BSA now that they announced coed Troops. For the last 5-6 years the BSA continued to tout the benefits of single-sex environments, but oddly only for the Scouts BSA program. Now we need a 10-month pilot to find out that coed is just as good if not better. So their arguments over the last 5-6 years are suddenly incorrect? Or, they never had any evidence of it to begin with but made the arguments so as not to alienate certain groups? Tired of the nonsense.

Talking to regular people at that food truck might really be a good idea. What do people think the BSA is vs. what does BSA tell itself it is? BSA gets so wrapped up on "leadership development, "instilling the Oath and Law," etc. I'm not so sure most regular people who aren't in the BSA orbit see it that way. 

I remember the first year girls were admitted the annual report emphasized that some 77K girls joined cub scouts, but neglected to mention there were 91K fewer boys in cub scouts. That trend accelerated. Compare the number of girls in the programs today (175K or so) to the massive decrease in the numbers of boys served (somewhere in the range of -1.1 million compared to 5 years ago. Maybe it was never about "serving more youth." Maybe it was about serving different youth. Remember, Surbaugh said the legacy clientele was no longer good enough for the BSA.

Of course it is 5 years old. I used it to illustrate a strategic choice and the thinking process behind it. Let's not kid ourselves though. "Bringing scouting to more youth" is easy to rally around. Reality? BSA is serving 1 million fewer youth than 5 years ago. 1 million fewer (50% less) is not more youth. Perhaps it is a non starter for most of the youth as you say, but I'm not so sure. 50% of them are simply gone. In the last 5 years BSA has failed miserably at serving more youth.

And let's not forget that as late as 1990 about 18% of boys in the target population age were in a BSA program and that percentage was still about 15% in 2000. I believe it slid down from there to about 9% by 2017 when Surbaugh and the higher ups decided there were two paths forward. One was to juice the flywheel with laser focus. But, Surbaugh and others thought that meant becoming a "very small, boutique organization serving what's probably a legacy clientele" (quote from article referenced below). So they decided to transform into something else--a saving grace of bigger is better because after all the target market would more than double. Shortly after that choice and other choices and outside factors (COVID, BSA supports BLM, bankruptcy, LDS split, spotlight on sexual abuse, drastic price increases, etc.) the numbers collapsed. Twice the target market and half the membership. Hard to imagine. I wonder what % of boys today are in a BSA program? 5-6% if we're lucky? 

Boy Scouts Are Just Scouts Now, and That’s Making Girl Scouts Mad | by Bloomberg Businessweek | Bloomberg Businessweek | Medium

There will be a good case study applying the "how the mighty fall" stages to the BSA.

https://www.clevelandconsultinggroup.com/articles/how-the-mighty-fall-why-some-companies-never-give-in.php

Just 5 years ago there were more cub scouts than there are scouts in ALL BSA programs now. With those cub scout numbers there is no turnaround in sight. The program isn't selling--we're seeing decisions that reek of desperation. Abandoning the historic brand won't reverse those numbers. The BSA is progressing....... through the stages of organizational decline.

AwakeEnergy: I grant that your Pack clearly violated a Scout is Obedient. I remember learning something to the effect of "A Scout is obedient. A scout follows the rules of his family, school, troop, community, and country. If he deems a rule to be unfair or unjust, he tries to have them changed in orderly fashion rather than disobeying them." So, yes, your Pack violated Obedient--perhaps with sound rationale, but a violation nonetheless. Maybe we can add that to the list of the things the BSA should crack down on!

I chose to emphasize Scout is Trustworthy because the ease at which people (not just AwakeEnergy) are willingly dishonest about what their Pack is doing. Even after being called out for it by multiple posters, AwakeEnergy chose to write "was glad to find they weren't in practice. They were on paper, though, if it makes anyone feel even better." I don't think AwakeEnergy was trying to be funny; it certainly doesn't make me feel any better. It appears saying one thing and doing another are perfectly acceptable and even laudable in this mindset. If AwakeEnergy can't see that line of thinking and open acknowledgement of it shows lack of trustworthiness then I don't know what can. 

Good luck to you AwakeEnergy! You seem like a very nice and courteous person so I'll move on. I'll stick with the tried and true meanings of both obedient and trustworthy. I hope your scouts, scouting together, can also learn their meanings.

46 minutes ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

Of course.

Had they not done that, they couldn't have served girls at all. They wouldn't have had the leadership. Finding double the den leaders, or getting the existing den leaders to do the same den meeting twice isn't trivial, especially to serve just one or two scouts. And how fun is it to be in a den alone? And tell me, what is the danger we're saving classmates by day from, by making sure that they never do the same activity in a den meeting together? They were allowed to go camping together and do pack meeting activities together, and often are in the same class all day - what would be achieved by strict gender separation for den meetings only? The rule doesn't make sense, and I wouldn't be surprised if it was widely disregarded like the one night camping rule was.

As I pointed out explicitly, that wasn't my personal doing in the first place - decisions the pack committee made before we joined can't possibly be "my agenda", can it? That's why I pointed that out in the first place, to show that the pack already rolled like I liked when we joined. I didn't have to change anything when I joined. What's your agenda in objecting to a pack doing what they can to serve as many scouts as possible safely?

Choosing the word "agenda" suggests that it's a secret, possibly nefarious plan I have, as opposed to a normal scouter doing normal things in implementing the BSA scouting program and wanting to keep their scouts safe. Scouters wanting to implement the program isn't an agenda, that's normal people doing normal things. The rule they didn't have to bend was that girls and boys couldn't scout together, because they were in the family pack pilot - in other words, the program was already for what would become my scouts to scout together.

Even in the BSA, not just from my personal life experience, defending girls and boys scouting together is defending the status quo. "Agenda" is usually used about someone's attempts to change things, girls and boys scouting together isn't a change even in the BSA at this point. The reason I've gone out of my way to point out that I'm an old Swedish scout is so that people here can understand that my strong support of girls and boys scouting together comes from within the scouting movement and from my own life experience. I lived scouting together myself, and so did my dad, and the generation before him. I want the same experience for my scout. That's not radical activism. I want to keep things the same as when I was a kid.

You can want something else, but implying that me wanting to preserve the status quo and being ready to go to bat for it is some kind of activist secret plan is not reading the situation correctly.

A Scout is Trustworthy. Full stop. That's my agenda--I'm not being secretive about it. I love the tortured logic to arrive at your conclusion though. 

11 hours ago, AwakeEnergyScouter said:

And let's also not pretend that girls and boys scouting together is some radical, newfangled thing that's actually outside the US Overton window that some radical radicals are trying to force the BSA and every single individual inside the BSA to adopt as part of a daring cultural war caper to ruin the BSA and/or America. Like... Where is this narrative even coming from?

In case someone needs to hear this, the pack we joined was in the family pack pilot (so parents approve of scouting together and committee voted to enter the pilot), and every single committee member with a son in the pack has at some point or other expressed either gratitude for the girls being there or feminist pride in the girls' achievements. When we joined, they were already ignoring the separate dens by gender rule and the effective dens were just by age. The girls in our pack are actively wanted and the parents have self-selected into that because it's right on the "Family Pack" label. I had to do zero - absolutely none - pitching for gender equality or DEI to the committee, they were already acting out what I think should be done when we showed up, which of course is why we stayed and invested time and money into the pack. (I was asked to join the committee, and asked to take over as CM when the old CM wanted to transition to CC.) Everyone on the committee was a scout themselves in their youth, so this is not some outsider takeover to make it a family pack. The parent so happy about a female sweep of the Pinewood Derby podium in Women's History Month is an Eagle. There are absolutely male BSA members who want girls and LGBTQIA+ folks in too - in his case, the same reasons as mine. The committee is basically a friend group.

Speaking of unit membership policies - I haven't heard a single peep from anyone ever in the direction of banning single-gender units, and yet the question of whether single gender packs and troops are allowed keeps being asked even though the answer to that is also settled. I don't get why anyone would want that but apparently people do, and as long as them doing it doesn't interfere with my scouts' ability to scout together it doesn't hurt my scouts in any way if they do that. The only need to oppose single-gender units would come if they struggle with loyalty to their fellow scouts of the opposite gender. This shouldn't be a problem. I would like to think that if it occurs, it can be solved by working with the Scout Law some more rather than banning a unit type that there is demand for.

So, like FireStone was emphasizing, what's notable isn't so much that logistics and membership policy details could change but that there does seem to be a group of scouts and scouters who are trying to get certain scouts to quit, and that this seems to be nominally tolerated by the BSA and the BSA scouting community. I mean... Do I really spell out why that's contrary to the Scout Law? Surely not.

Since you mentioned "Do I really spell out why that's contrary to the Scout Law?"... can you help me understand how a Pack "ignoring the separate dens by gender rule" isn't contrary to the Scout Law? Does that teach our Scouts that a Scout is Trustworthy? Ignoring rules that don't fit our agenda ("my scouts' ability to scout together") and then making reference to the Scout Law is rich.

I'm pretty sure those parents wouldn't be able to attend anyway... at least as of 9/1... unless they are registered. The exception is for cubs but I don't believe there are exceptions for Scouts BSA.

Does that COR still have a say at all? He is representing the Charter Org that is no longer going to sponsor a scouting unit. Wouldn't a new COR come with a new charter org?

I don't see similar instruments as an option. I see bugle, trumpet, or cornet. Does the word "may" imply "must" given the options presented? 

Of course not!!! Evaluating decisions and their impact on overall org health and its survival is fair game though.

16 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

My ASM who was a SM of a Troop for many years had several of his former scouts mail him their Eagle Scout medals when BSA fought against including gay scouts.  He said it was hard on him but he understood and respected their stance.  

I'm here at summer camp with a Life rank gay/transgender scout and am happy I don't have to kick them out due to someone else's beliefs.  BSA has many faults, but allowing LGBTQ and girls as members are not one of them.  

Many faults but...

It is hard to believe that more than doubling the viable target market yet experiencing a decline in membership of more than half could be viewed as a net positive from a survival standpoint. Granted, there are multiple confounding factors, but If I'm evaluating a balanced scorecard of those decisions, the lead indicator (membership) doesn't a bright scorecard make.

"here's your chance to be official." I remain dismayed at the ease with which scouters ignore the rules and everyone knows about it and looks away. Until this pilot there were no mixed gender dens, yet many units had them anyway. I know... leadership challenges, efficiency, made sense for families, scouts wanted it that way, etc. but rules are rules. Pretty hard to instill the scout law in scouts when we flagrantly disregard the first point of it. What kind of example is that for the youth? 

I have trouble with the ease with which some in Scouting "wink wink" about operating a mixed gender troop already. What does that say about the first point of the Scout Law if we openly flaunt the rules and look the other way?