Scouterlockport

19 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

I think the were referring to Learning for Life and ScoutReach programs, if they are still going??

Those would still be under the bsa umbrella, so I dont think that is the program he is talking about

5 hours ago, 1980Scouter said:

My LC SE salary and benefits are $290,000 for a council with 6,000 scouts. This equals almost $50 per scout to fund the SE. 

 

This seems very excessive to me in that the council has lost 2/3 of youth members over the last 5 years. What are other councils paying per scout? 

The crazier part of this is would still be over 22 dollars per scout before hand. What are we paying them for. At least other CEO/VP positions in other nonprofits have connections in there given field or community. In the scouting model SE are just flown in from some other part of the country without an connection to the local area.

I just looked up tax information pre covid it would have been 23 dollars per scout and now it is up to 27 per scout. And that was up in the north east.

Former pro here, I am theoretically for going to a user fee model instead of Fos. If councils were doing these four things with the funding plan.

1. All council and district events would be free or at a heavily reduced rate for units. The idea here is if you want a well funded event tell them it was already paid for with the council fee.

2. Fos goes away forever, and hopefully the field people can start developing relationships with units on a human basis instead of a fiscal one. Field Pros do have a limited amount of hours and it should be spent on unit support, and volunteer support, not Fos presentations and 40 dollar donor calls.

3. A better explanation of council finances, explains why we need to increase fees and show much of the budget goes to camps, memberships, SE Comp, staff comp etc. My former council was under 30% of the total budget for all council employees as an example. Which would be low in any field. Also I think you should be breaking down how much of the scout fees goes to each budget line. Ie 7 dollars per scout goes to camping etc.

4. Give units a way to reduce the fees by responsible fundraising, also councils have the demographics research on every zip codes. No matter how much the lower middle class and working class units try it is too hard to sell anything when you have no buyer or engaged parents. There should be reduced fees for units in the bottom third of income in councils this is something that as a low level de I was able to look up in no more then 10 mins. And a reasonable system for poor individuals in better off areas to also get some help.

5. If the fees are going to be over 80s buck per head, then we should find a way for uniforms and books to be covered in that cost. Maybe council covers the first year of books for new cubs. And the highest growth packs get free uniforms as a reward. The days of fun popcorn prizes are done, now it is all gift card anyways. Give the parents a break on something that helps the scouting experience.

Currently none of these things would be taken seriously, so there should be no council fees, but I dont think council fees would have to be bad if councils did something to show they cared about scouting families or had not spent the last 40 years torpedoing all trust between units and them.

1 hour ago, DuctTape said:

Regarding cost, the problem most have is that little/none of the $ to national or to council is viewed as benefitting the individual scouts and patrols. They do not see the value of that sunk cost, or the value is not commensurate with said cost.

This is the problem with the funding of councils, the funds that go to keeping camps running and maybe the salary of a DE (in theory) none of the fees help troops with their running of their units. 

20 hours ago, Mrjeff said:

The down vote is simply because it isn't politically.  I agree with explanation %100

Thanks for adding a lot to the discussion a month or so after everyone else. My reason for the down voice is that this wonderful organization is not going to survive if we keep requiring people to have a religous creed to join in a growing non religious nation. Just like modernizing by adding female scouts, we need to look at requiring a relationship to god. Less and less people are openly religious and the advantage of those charter organizations is going away forever.

38 minutes ago, Tron said:

A lot of them are faltering because they built out a huge annual process that requires dozens of volunteers is premised on a community need that no longer exists and then expect future generations to continue those processes even when they have no modern relevance. I am in many fraternal organizations and the hardest question any organization can answer to a millennial is "What value does your program provide to the community?" Scouting is different as the value to the community is easy to answer. 

Scouting needs to understand that ability to have a ton of willing volunteers, helping with committee, camproees, Fos, and volunteering in general is not possible anymore. A lot of this is tried to councils pissing off and damaging relationships with many scouters.

But the bigger part is that it was one of the baby boomer bubbles, ie there was a lot more people who could help out with everything because there was more people in the age bracket. But now that a lot of baby boomers are getting into their late 60s and early 70s they can't help with as much as they once did even 10 years ago. Many correctly are choosing to help out at the unit level were they can have the most impact instead of getting involved in bs at a higher level or what every pet project a career scout executive wants to waste funds and time on.

8 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Actually, if you search moral definition, most link it to religion.

But, to your point, if there is no source, then every SM has claim to moral definitions. Chaos. Units can teach whatever behavior they like and call it morality, and nobody could argue. The Oath and Law would have no foundation to stand on because behavior would depend on the emotional mood of the SM in that moment. 

The BSA points to one source, god.

So, where did the 10% come from?

Barry

Most not all lol, so nothing of value or law wise was added during the enlightenment? If you feel that way then we shouldn't listen any of our nations founding documents.

Is it chaos with religion too, like people already pick their morals they like and ignore the ones they do not like from their own religions. And the line is god AND COUNTRY so would we not still have the American way find for morals?

And Barry the 10% number is probably uncutting the total number. Talk to anyone one of your scouts or listen to them they are not as religous as they seem.

2 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

10%, wow, how do you know that?

The mission of the BSA is Developing ethical and moral decision makers. If the Declaration of Religious Principles is dropped, what is the common foundation of values for developing moral and ethical character?

Barry

So to have morals you need to believe in god? It isn't very moral to have your only motivation to not commit a crime be for god to caught you. Not all moral codes have been founded on a foundation of god.

15 hours ago, sierracharliescouter said:

Funny Philmont story. I was the adult advisor. Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Sikh, Muslim, and one that was non-theist.

Dont tell people on here you knew a non theist scout there are some people who wouldn't want him in our organization because he doesn't believe in a god. As backwards as that opinion is.

1 hour ago, KublaiKen said:

We use the same Scout Oath and Law that allowed BSA to permit racial segregation until 1974, meaning for over half of its existence, so I would be careful how you use the word "guarantee." It is also worth noting that inclusion involves more than just allowing membership.

Dont let some of the people on here see this message, they are gonna call you a woke marxist if you keep bring up correct facts like this.  We should be talking about our mistakes of the past rather then run from them and call it a wokeness taking over scouting. 

1 hour ago, SiouxRanger said:

At the rate things are trending, we'll have:

Citizenship in the Solar System

Citizenship in the Galaxy

Citizenship in the Universe

Well, probably not in the Universe until ZIP codes are assigned.

I just have to agree with sentiments that Merit Badges are more and more academic.  Less and less experience.

Me, just a nobody, I can build a fire in a pouring rain. Period. And yeah, in a torrential rain.  I am a master at it.  OK, not a master, GENIUS.  I am really good at building fires.  Get lost in the Wilderness, get lost with me, if you are so lucky.  (And my 2 degrees from a land grant university will not save my life.) What will save my life (and yours) is what I learned in Scouting.

And that is how it is.

Experience. 

I dont disagree that experiences are important to the goals of the scouting movement,  but we are complaining about only 5/6 of the required merit badges 21 being book learning based. This  thread continues to feel like people are complaining about times for changing when that continues to happen for any organization.

Any one with kids understand we need to have scouts ready to learn/ survive in a more diverse environment with people from different backgrounds and opinions then there own. This isn't just race, it is even just economic or religious background. That is all the evil citizenship in society badges is trying to teach.

43 minutes ago, AltadenaCraig said:

I worry we're running afoul fo B-P's admonition not to "trench the role of schools" with four(4) out of 21 merit badges emphasizing ... to use your words "concepts of understanding diversity, equity, etc".

IMHO we've not only muddled those civics concepts with our overkill we've foregone other, more important lessons for which Scouting is uniquely suited.  "Nature" MB, for example, used to be an Eagle Required MB - but no more - and I'm sure other Scouters could list even better examples.

I agree that the nature section of scouting should have more eagle required badges. But to say there is none is not true. There is environmental science, which would cover that hole. I wish they would add a triple headed requirement for nature like (hiking/swimming/cycle)

4 hours ago, DuctTape said:

Even if the mB is more knowledge based, the reqs IMO should have the scouts do something with that knowledge whether it be during the acquisition of the knowledge, and/or after the fact. 

Almost 25% of  mBs in one topic is too much IMO. I would also not like it if they had 4 mBs for Cooking. Cooking for family, Cooking on open fire, Cooking International Recipes, Cooking for a Patrol all as different badges.

We are not talking about a individual skill like cooking though. Citizenship is one of the most important parts it shows up in the scout oath. Cooking does not.

The actual equivalent would to the topic of citizenship is the topic of outdoor skills which has a total of 4 badges also in first aid, camping, cooking and hiking/swimming need for eagle.

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

Scouts are supposed to be active.  21 merit badges and too many are redundant with school or just boring paperwork.  Now, we have yet another.  Four citizenship MBs is just too many.  ... Five actually ... family, society, nation, world, society?  What next?  Universe?  ... Citizen of the 

41 minutes ago, MattR said:

How about replacing all of those with the only one that a scout can actually do - Citizenship in the Patrol? Elect a new PL. Solve a problem. Decide on something fun to do. Do it. Talk about how it went. Really easy if the patrol is run well and a tool to use when it's not.

Why are nearly a quarter of all the MBs needed not supporting the fundamentals of learning by doing? You can't do Citizenship in the World. No matter how noble it is to understand this subject it's a square peg in a round hole. Scouting is supposed to be a microcosm of the real world where a scout can learn and take skills to the bigger world outside of scouting.

 

Not all merit badges are based on being active alone. There always has been a few book learning (American heritage, Law) ones and to act like that hasn't always been true is a lie.

To only have 4 or 5 of them be eagle required is not a crazy amount, no matter how much our older forum members complain about.

We are talking about less then a quarter of the badge required for eagle?

2 hours ago, KublaiKen said:

If the Oath can require duty to country and physical strength, and then we can require Citizenship in the Nation and Personal Fitness, the template has been cast for the overarching things to tell us what to do, and the merit badges to serve as demonstrations of how. Given that BSA allowed segregation until 1974, meaning over half of its existence, I'd argue that perhaps the Oath and Law are insufficient tools to govern good behavior in our shared space. Sometimes we might need some prompting on what good citizenship looks like.

This is all the new badge is trying to do, reinforce some of our failing from the past. It sucks that councils are not communicating with units to get councilor information to them

2 hours ago, qwazse said:

@Scouterlockport, the negative effect is that an Eagle-required badge takes up the time that an Eagle-bound scout might use to earn an elective badge. This reduces the diversity of experience that we expect of our youth who earn Eagle.

FYI, at one time, First Aid MB was required for 1st class rank. Pushing it back to Eagle necessitated more components of it to be explicit requirements on the trail to 1st class.

I dont think adding another merit badge effects any scout under 16 ability to do badges they want to. Earning Less then 15% of badges is required for eagle. 

The adjustment of taking first aid from first class was an adjustment made with the changing of times. So how is this any different?

37 minutes ago, 5thGenTexan said:

This sort of thing might already be covered in the Law and Oath, but in my observations those points are not sticking with the Scouts... (and many adults).  Reciting it and the start of meetings and living it are not the same, and I don't see many living it.  I have a great deal of what adults think is included in the requirements for Cit in Society and its obvious they really havent looked at what is really there.  

So, no... its not redundant and honestly I can think of a lot of adults in my own Unit who could benefit from the exercises.

This is a great point, why would it be bad to have another badge about a topic we cover in rank advancement. We have first aid merit badges while also having many first aid advancements from tenderfoot to first class.

9 minutes ago, malraux said:

I don’t feel like going down the rabbit hole of when numbers are most accurate, just that this is a year on year, Dec to Dec numbers. 

yes you can break up the data by a huge host of criteria. 

Yeah I can see that point, I just am saying as a former pro, to be wary of any numbers being reported. There is a lot games played with them.

3 hours ago, malraux said:

FWIW, membership numbers are now accessible to district committee and commissioners.

Sadly none of this matters until recharting is done in march. I hope they show the numbers then too... can this be broken up by councils too?

5 minutes ago, yknot said:

I've been in positions where I was technically in charge of the whole US region. My salary wasn't high six figures. It has nothing to do with size of territory and everything to do with performance and results. Competent people can certainly get stuck in bad situations particularly in a moribund organization like this one, but trying to blanket defend large salaries by claiming they are less than for profit means that every other nonprofit out there should also be mismanaged and failing -- and they are not. I would also argue that a lot of these people would be unemployable at even their current salaries in the private sector. Scout management, from what've experienced at the council and national levels, is ten years behind comparable outside corporate environments. They certainly don't speak the same language. So I am skeptical on multiple levels of the "we're getting a bargain so we should be grateful and 

But SE are seen as CEOs of the councils not as what they actually are which is regional manager. That is part of the pay difference. 

I think you are being kind to say scouting corporate structure is only ten year behind. Like you said earlier, evening picking who then next scout executive is from the 1940s. There is no outside thought being allowed into the organization. The best pro leave well before becoming close to scout executive.

On 11/9/2022 at 8:18 AM, gpurlee said:

I have worked in not-for-profit management my entire career and know the local market for human service CEO's very well (a metropolitan area of 1.5 million). A couple of comments related to Scouting executive salaries, at least in our region.

The Scouting CEO position probably ranks in the top 10% of local not-for-profit social service CEO positions. The Scout executive has been paid much higher especially in relation to the overall budget of the organization.  A few years ago, the local newspaper did an investigative report and found that the salary at the time was significantly higher than that for other human service organizations such as the YMCA, Volunteers of America, Goodwill, Easter Seals, Girl Scouts, etc. 

Another thing that stood out was the Boy Scouts was one of the very few human service organizations that required that the local CEO (Scout Executive) be selected from a national pool of pre-approved candidates (professional Scouters) rather than the best possible candidate. This effectively eliminated many very talented candidates who might know the community better, have great skills in team-building, fund-raising or other needed qualities. The Boy Scouts retain a model of top leadership selection that almost all other national human service organizations have turned away from years ago. 

 

I think something us in the working class or middle class lose is that even if the SE is making 200k-400k a year he is still the poorest man in the executive board meeting. While too much of the pay is still based on when we had 3x the scouts. The scouts executives are not overpay when you think about how big of regional territory they really are in charge of.

17 minutes ago, OaklandAndy said:

Tradition is one of the main reasons I stick around. Not to say that there isn't innovative ways to do things, but the foundation is strong and remains so. I don't have a scouting background, but it's the elders I sought out and learned from that enables me to pass on that tradition. 

I understand that, I personally liked that stuff, but not every kid like the tradition alone especially when the is seen as hokey and uncool. A lot of our target scouts are nerds which is great, but they tend to like stem based topics and we need to fine a way to get this to be part of our outdoor program. But many scoutmaster are dead set on not wanting that to happen.

5 hours ago, SiouxRanger said:

Scouterlockport (Illinois?) what is the basis of your downvote?

I can't learn from a mere downvote.

We complain when national has no high level employees with non scouting experience. That there is no new ideas or better business practice being brought in. But we complain about lost of tradition when the adults dont have a scouting background. Maybe there new perspective is what is going to save scouting. Because I know just keeping to tradition is no gonna work because it hasn't for the last 20 years

18 minutes ago, Owls_are_cool said:

Late to this post. In my district, cub scouts are done by over half. Virtualized cub scouting did not work. Packs that continued in person activities as much as possible during the COVID fear campaign are the ones that are healthy today. Packs that did not, lost a bunch of cub scouts. Another factor driving scouts out of the program is the push towards more classroom type activities instead of more outdoor activities. 

Recruitment has been significantly down. It has to be all the advertisements looking for victims of sexual abuse, because of the BSA. My chartering organization will no longer recharter a pack and my troop, because they are getting letters from victim lawyers. We are working on finding a troop to merge with by August to keep scouts in the program.

My scouts would much rather camp by a river and explore, than to do most of the required merit badges for Eagle rank. In terms of character development (an aim of scouting), campouts like that are 100 times more effective in developing character than any of these classroom activities. I think the BSA needs to go back to the basics if they want to save the program and its aims. 

 

I think you are missing the point on the important of the class room badges. Sadly most of the new jobs/careers are in office spaces we need to prepare our kids for this new economy. The camping is as important as ever but class room badges are not the enemy at the boy scout level. For cubs we need them to be using their hands and doing activities as much as possible