Tron

After the whole Hawaii thing how did we not see something happening? I don't think this is that big of a deal. Sure name change, but, we still have shooting sports. We're a very broad topic youth organization, not a shooting sports organization. The reduction in options is not that big of a deal, if a scout really likes shooting, and wants to get into different styles, different calibers, super serious with reloading etc ... why can't they go shoot clays on Tuesday night at their gun club, and roll into their troop meetings on Wednesday at the local church?

We're straying a little but I'll bite on this one. The internet thing is a big deal where I am at. There are parent/leader lounges at most of the camps in my state to allow remote work for parents. Last year it doubled the number of adults able to accompany my sons troop to camp; I agree that we need to keep the scouts off of that wifi, but we need amenities like this to keep some families in the scouting game so-to-speak. Sports are a big deal in my area as well. Most families are delusional with these 4 season sports and the traveling/club leagues. Most varsity teams for any sport have a cap of about 20 players total. If you don't play varsity in HS it's very unlikely that a kid will make it onto a team in college, and then there's little to no chance of professional (or Olympic if your sport veers that direction). My sons unit lost a kid to baseball this Spring and it's a joke; the mom and dad are both around 5'6" and not fat, but clearly they have never had an athletic build. The dad was all like, we might be back, but we're setting him up for varsity in a few years, and then on to college ball; the delusion of these parents that don't understand the genetics aspect of high level sport play. I feel bad for the kid, unless he has some magical growth spurt that puts him 6-10 inches taller than both his parents they're building him up for a very big fall. I think the new AOL program is going to fix some of these crossover problems. Several years ago the pack my family came out of started pushing Scouting Adventure super hard, first, and it has had much higher success in successfully crossing over AOLs to troops. The pack also started pushing multiple troop visits. The new AOL Bobcat adventure codifies those activities and establishes that troop visits start in September. Now that packs and troops are being told in doctrine that troop visits need to happen often and early I think we're going to see more AOLs crossover. This last minute go visit a troop in Feb-Mar crap has never been good.

This thread is bumping with all of the controversial topics. I don't buy the stages of decline. Most of the changes are in line with the international scouting community (the name is more inline with international naming conventions, 173 of the 216 WOSM members are full coed at last count, shooting sports is heavily regulated in most countries, this seems like standardization not grasping for straws.). I've heard the moms discussion points, it's what BSA teaches the professional scouters to focus on. For some reason there is an emphasis on hooking moms on the value of the program and little to no focus on dads; maybe it has something to do with the more than 50% of moms being single so perhaps BSA see's moms as the primary decision maker for kids activities? I agree with a lot of the side chatter on that chart, there seems to be a lot of outside influence on those membership numbers (post war baby booms, economics, etc ... ). I don't agree at all with the watering down of the program or gaming the system comments. Advancement is a method, having fun should run parallel to 12-18 month advancement plan. There is a huge link to staying in the program and going to summer camp; almost every scout gains some advancement at summer camp which is probably the reason. I hear a lot of beyond sub par SM/ASM in my area talk about "fun" and "not advancement mills" and they all seem to have the same problem, scouts stuck below first class and then dropping from the program. again advancement is a method, far too many SM ignore it. I don't think the LDS exodus was as bad as everyone claims. LDS refuses to share membership numbers for their internal program since 2021; meanwhile if you check the LDS contingents website and photos to the world jamboree somehow everyone LDS that went was wearing BSA uniforms, patches, regalia, etc ... oh and they appear to be coed now to. I would love to see some numbers on LDS and on the previous LDS units. Utah has like 200+ units these days; how is that possible in a permanent exodus? Too much doom and gloom.

Well UK scouting holds a limit on the number of units which causes the waiting lists and I think provides certain quality control. I would agree to a degree, I mean I think there is something to the limiting the number of units geographically.

Last year there was a rumor out of the national meeting about a new program for older scouts to replace venturing. I think national is still baking that one, I cornered a local who is on one of the national committees and he was like "I know of the rumor you're talking about, I can't discuss that." and he wouldn't say a word. So I would say there is legs to the rumor but no one has details/will provide. Venturing is really in the decline where I am at. What I see is that some troops sporadically have a handful of engaged older scouts and so they form a crew for a couple years and then when those scouts go off to college the crew folds. In my area I think venturing is more of certain troops having a high adventure patrol than actually forming a crew per the BSA doctrine.

Wow, lot of stuff to digest here. The cub program is fine. It has been fine. The updates that are kicking in June 1st (or abouts) will be an improvement. The key to the cub program is what many of you already touched on; disengaged parents will provide a poor program no matter what the program is. I do feel that there will be some more advanced WEBELOS that will get held back due to the new program; however, the overall 4th and 5th grade cubbing experience is going to be better for the majority of scouts. The key to retaining AOLs/capturing them into the troop level program is going to be troop to pack interaction. When I was at the pack I pushed the attitude of "Next years crossover starts this June!" and by the time I moved on the pack went from 25% or fewer AOLS crossing to about 80%. Your local troops have to be involved, they need to send den chiefs; those older scouts talking about all the cool troop level stuff that happens year round is a big part of hooking an AOL on crossing over. I don't get the order of the arrow. Somethings broken there. As others have stated it has moved from being an honor society to being a service society. As an outsider looking in I see elections as popularity contests, I know of a scout who camps 20+ nights a year, never turns down a service opportunity, but he just can't get elected year-over-year. Half the troop doesn't like this scout and he can't get in. I feel so bad for him; he is living the scout oath and law, he is camping, and he is doing service and he just can't get elected. So many of the other kids look at what has happened to him year-over-year and they are all "F that program, we don't want to be part of something like that." On top of that I personally don't see the service; our camp has a massive back log. I know that my council is part of the problem, I've spoken with people that I know in other councils and the OA experience is phenomenal; however, it seems like those lodges are far and few between. The lack of outdoors/camping is an issue. I think this goes back to something I read in another thread, the poster stated that back in the day it was a fight to see who was going to be SM, today it's a fight to see who isn't. What I see in my area is that most SMs fall into 1 of 2 buckets: Bucket 1 is the don't know squat bucket, and so the troops outdoor program falls apart and then the troop shrinks until folding. Bucket 2 is the SM only cares about his kid bucket and everyone else is along for the ride.

A lot of people get spread thin; but if more leaders just asked people to step up it wouldnt be such a problem. I see a lot of troops in my area suffering from low scouter numbers; however, they are doing it to themselves. Heck I mentioned troop resource surveys at my sons troop and I would be dead right now if looks could kill.

This has been in the making for a couple years now; was probably the long term plan all along. Venturing has been coed for what, it's entire existence, and has not had problems? My pack has been crossing over female AOLs to troops in other cities for 2 years now. What I suspect will happen is that the troops that go coed will survive and the other will die; my town has 2 troops, and I suspect that the troop that pulls the trigger on coed first will be the troop that survives.

Considering that there is an impending announcement of full co-ed troops I think national is going to drop several bombs and al-Quida everyone who has been resistant to change/modernization.

What is happening per cubchat is that national polled parents and had a 12% response rate (which is apparently high) and parents told national they hate sewing stuff on uniforms. What national decided to do was change all patches to loops/pins. There is supposed to be more information available this month; based on what I've read everything that was an award still exists but many are becoming elective adventures after June 1st and the scout shops will only stock the new belt loops and pins. EG: Outdoor Activity Award will still exist, but in its new form it becomes a belt loop instead of a pocket flap patch.

My district was up roughly 3% y-o-y; however, that was all cub growth and I just heard that we finally had a dead troop turn in its charter.

To the people who repeatedly stated "Venturing" the question is does the scout want to stay in the program or does the scout want to be around his friends? If it's he wants to be in the program venturing might be a good fit; however, if he wants to be around his friends venturing is not a good fit due to the primary registration rules surrounding venturing crews. Has anyone heard anything about Catalyst BSA? The supposed new program being brainstormed by national for 20-30 year olds?

I think you're missing the point of his statements and now his additional proof of the matter. People are "out to get BSA" when the reality of it is that BSA is the target because BSA has money. If BSA was an open source product with no home office squating on cash this lawsuit would never have happened.

Just nag them. Every time they ask a simple question that is addressed in training point out how they would already know it if they did training.

Doesn't that area have A LOT of camps?

Sounds like a training issue. Has this leader completed their position specific training? You mentioned "nothing safety" but how is the den meeting without a second registered leader? Either the den is not meeting properly within YPT or you have a 2 deep lack of leadership training going on. To the point of dual citizenship; our government does not recognize dual citizenship, you are either American or you are not. To emphasis this I point to the fact that non state department entities keep stating a larger number of Americans in Gaza than the state department. The reason for this is that some of those individuals traveled out of the country using the visas of other countries and thus our government is basically saying it's the other governments problem. IMHO love it or leave it, you're either an American or you are not.

Constantly recruiting is the name of the game.

In my experience they are the worst; especially people who end up as a committee chair for too long. God complex is an understatement.

I see what both of you are saying here. What I would like to point out is that my council absorbed several other councils and as it turns out we had a substantial liability during the settlement; however, as the story goes, of all the councils merged to make this current council, one of them had almost no issues because they were following the rules and enforcing the standards. What I would like to see is this summary really broken down to the council that existed in that time. So for example if the "modern council" has 100 claims, I would like to see a sub section that shows "Old council 50, old council two, 25, old council three 10, etc ..." Even breaking things down to the old district levels would be great. I think there were districts and councils doing things way better than others. We don't have the visibility to see who they were so we're not able to examine what they did that was done correct compared to all of the other districts and councils that failed the youth so badly.

Scouting is a time and money drop in the bucket compared to league play sports. My 1 buddy was gritching about the commitment and money sink to be a CM, my other buddy laughed and was like "Dude! I just paid $3500 for my daughter to play volleyball for the next 3 months so she can stay in form and have a chance of making the varisity team next year; he then went on to say it was mandatory for him to attend away games which included driving as far as Minneapolis and St. Louis (from Chicago). The issue is not time, the issue is not money, the issue is responsibility. People are lazy and they collapse under the weight of being expected to show up on time with a box of crayons.

If the whole world took this climate change CO2 thing seriously there would be a per capita restriction and not random made up caps and balances. This is all about control.

The number are something like 70% of scouts came out of the cubbing program. There is very little (30%) organic recruitment for troops. The focus should be on the packs, and rising tides will lift the troops.

Your council has it. The question is does your registrar know where it is and does your registrar have the intestinal fortitude to work with you to find it.

In my experience I think the #1 thing that a professional scouter can do to help the council/district/units is to constantly recruit new volunteers and encourage every unit to participate at the district level either through the COR or a COR delegate volunteering on a district committee.

30% is probably due to the IRS rules. The fact that your current pack puts all into the scout account is probably violating the IRS rules on dollar-for-dollar non-profit fundraising and the personal benefit rules.