Tron

I apologize on behalf of the MBC corps as it sounds like a lot of your issue is that your unit does not understand the MBC role and governance. Just push through, it's worth it. Your council is absolutely correct, being an MBC is a council membership requirement. You have the right to choose to be council wide, district wide, or just specific unit(s); however, it's a council at large membership. Because of that council at large membership you do have to fill out a new (no cost if already registered) membership denoting 2nd/dual membership enrollment and someone from your council will have to review and approve (my council has a made up position literally called the MB Czar that handles this). Restricted MBs may sometimes vary by council but normally they are shooting sports related, diving, climbing, etc... and of course everyone's favorite restricted MB Citizenship in Society. If you are qualified you will not have a problem getting signed off. If you are qualified you might have to endure a stupid meeting or phone call (I basically brow beat the MB Czar over my qualifications to counsel Wilderness Survival). When you go through it just tell yourself "Hey this is a good thing, council doesn't want unqualified know-it-alls teaching some poor scout the wrong thing."

I think a lot of this comes down to the fact that we all need to swim against the current and when we see or hear about dumb people doing dumb things with firearms we need to make sure the council executive is made immediately aware of things. I totally get that criminally speaking the situation was a misdemeanor; the real question is what has Aloha Council done to fix the total lack of firearm safety within their council? Were all of those low functioning judgement volunteers kicked out of the program? Was the camp ranger and staff fired for letting that happen on their watch?

Not required; but part of the rank still, yes. You have whittling for knife safety and you have knots added to the fishing adventure. I am not sure what the complaint is here? If you're running a 12 month program as prescribed you can easily add these adventures and provide the learning experience for the scouts.

I think the presentation is good. I'm focusing on the improved YPT training, I think it was a real BIG statement when Glen Pounder pointed out that a council has had zero YPT reports (including near misses); moving to annual training is a big improvement, partnering with homeland security is a thing, right, there's resources there that Scouting America can use to keep kids safe.

I'm salivating waiting for this. It's going to exactly like climb on safely! A legal chokehold that elevates national from liability and voiding the indemnification clause for leaders who do not have the training and experience an incident. This is directly from climb on safely. "The adult supervisor works cooperatively with the climbing instructor and is responsible for all matters outside of the climbing/rappelling activity. " Climb on safely is not a training course in climbing. Contrary to popular belief it's a sideways acknowledgment from the leader who takes it that if BSA policies are not followed, they get hung out to dry. For the leaders that don't take it, things are just as bad. Ignorance is not a legal defense to liability in court.

The sporting thing; there's an aspect of this compare and contrast that is not being discussed. https://childusa.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/03/Five-Key-Findings-from-the-EAS-7.9.2021-Updated.pdf#:~:text=18.3% (nearly 1 in 5) of elite athletes,minor by a sport official or peer athlete. Because of the decentralized nature of sports, schools, clubs, etc ... there's no great big target with a big pocket of money (when comparing to BSA). So for 30 years there are local discussion when a pedo coach or physically abusive coach or exclusionary club gets caught doing the wrong thing; however, there has never been a national discussion about this. Contrast that with national media constantly on BSA about the lawsuits, accusations, and most recently the settlement and bankruptcy. Perception is reality; some parents falsely think their kids are safer in sports.

Lot of wrong information about that second discussion with the SM about the MB. Page 41 of the GTA states that the 2nd discussion with the SM is supposed to be about the scouts experience, not a retest. As a SM you're signing the blue card not as an approval or denial, but acknowledging that the adult association of the discussion has taken place.

Tradition. There are a lot of people who were in scouting as a youth and want their kids in it to share the tradition. Americana. There are people drawn to it from the aspect that is iconic and part of the overall American experience. Oath & Law. People are drawn to the oath and law. There is a certain thing about wanting your kids practicing certain principals/ideals and being around other kids who are also practicing those principals and ideals. Outdoors. There are youth and adults who want their kids to learn outdoors skills.

Because unit leaders are not supposed to be trained to supervise; BSA leaders are either trained and certified for shooting sports or they are completely unqualified, there is no middle ground. The liability around shooting sports is so risky that there is no room for the arm chair supervisors of the other BSA programs.

This is why there needs to be a doctrinal pathway to complain to district/council advancement about bad leaders adding to the requirements; that SM is going rogue. I see what you're saying, I think it's more of someone without guidance trying to get trained and figuring this out is facing a huge uphill struggle. On the other hand there's something like this: There's a parent in my unit that said he won't do the adult training unless he's paid to do it. We're trying to spoon feed the adult training and everything that goes with it to him and we can't get him to buy in. For sports it's definitely more that just showing up with a couple soccer balls. My daughter is in soccer right now(school team). We had a $200 registration fee, uniform/jersey deposit of $20 (will have to pay full if uniform is damaged in any way). $40 shorts, $10 a pair special socks, $100 outdoor cleats, $100 indoor cleats, $40 for recommended/pseudo required specific shin guards, they practice at the school field but play home matches at private field 30 miles from my house; the nearest away game has been 35 miles away, they play 3 matches a week(a mix of conference and non conference matches). We're currently in month 3 of the 4 month season. She's on the varsity team and we're expected to participate in club play (current estimate is cheapest league is $290 registration with regional travel each weekend) in the offseason and do soccer camps on top of that if she wants to maintain her varsity position and have a chance of starting in the future (she's a freshman).

LOL, he says they have doubled in size while BSA has steeply lost members. Their self reporting that they have 60k members right now, total, nationwide. Trail Life is a joke.

BSA has evaluations. https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/Outdoor Program/Shooting Sports/430-065_WB.pdf

This is where we are disconnecting on this issue. In my council there are no BSA approved clubs. This is why I see it differently than you; my council already does not have this, none of the ranges and clubs in my area can pass the BSA inspection.

My take on this is based on what I see in my area; member-only clubs in my area have bars on premise and allow smoking. The commercial ranges do not allow either. Could that be a national trend that BSA is looking at?

That depends on the adult leadership. Far too many SM are not qualified outdoorsmen, so they don't know what they should be mentoring the PLC towards. Far too many SM are lazy. I'll pick on my troops SM; we never set up a dining fly to such a degree that the unit commissioner asked me about it; my response was something along "SM doesn't know how to do it, and his ego is so big he can't be helped". This is sort of what is supposed to be happening if you take the time to read all of the literature from national. When you read all of the adult guides, the program features guides, the field guide, the scout handbook, the guide to advancement, etc ... a lot of reading, this is the big picture that the national wants; I know of only a handful of units that actually follow nationals recommendation that you have 12 outings/campouts a year, and that the meetings between outings are for developing the skills the PLC believes the troop will need on those outings. National has been sort of pushing what you're talking about Matt, they've been pushing this since about 2011.

False, units are mandated to participate in YPT and adult training. Go read your adult registration form. If you can't figure out how to do it online you are mandated to go in person. Furthermore, though never enforced, councils can mandate that you do your adult leader training in person (which is why when you run a unit adult training report there is that weird little column that shows mandatory in person training but does not ding you as untrained if you completed the online version). Try again. Every time units decide to not participate in their local council they are weakening the council, they are breaking down the scouting community. Camporees have less energy from less units/scouts, klondikes have less competition, round-tables have less value when fewer people are bringing their knowledge and experience to the table. You are correct, and it's funny how this unit has higher costs because they are going out of council. By refusing to participate in the council of registry they have become a cash cow for the neighboring council. Man it sure is thrifty when that unit pays all those out-of-council fees in neighboring councils.

A lot of good points, though I think I want to die on this sporting hill. I think a lot of parents pull their kids from scouting to do sports thinking their kid is something special athletically. I had a meeting with a parent at the troop last night, she raised concern that we're losing a PL for the summer to some club baseball team and he might not come back. I told her it's not likely to work out for the kid; he's in 8th grade, he's like only 5ft tall, 90lbs soaking wet, both parents are sub 6fters and fat. Really what it might be is that scouting is too nice; I deal with some of these coaches with my own kids and it's a joke the yarns they spin to recruit kids. What if scouting pushed the hard sell on parents, think along the lines of these dingleberry baseball coaches "You're kids got it, with my mentoring he'll get in shape, learn how to problem solve, have a bunch of fun, learn how to survive in the outdoors, get his eagle scout, and then from there every top end business school and military academy in the nation will want him! rabble rabble rabble". Do you think we can get carve out on the scout is trustworthy for this?

Technically declining. 2020 to 2023 had a little bump but basically is level, and comparing modern counts to the BSA peak membership in 1970 ... well looks like 2, almost 3 times the single parent households.

Literally just went through this. My district had a unit meeting in a different district. No national policies that could be found. The unit belonged to the district of the mailing address of the charter organization. The only real issues were that the unit was not communicating with the district executive, so he couldn't help them figure out how to solve their problem (which appeared to be the charter org wanted the unit out but didn't want to just drop the charter so they were being nobs to the parents and leaders). As a volunteer trying to help the unit once the district knew what was going on it was a nightmare because the unit was imploding because they were meeting so far away from where most of the families in the unit lived. A little bit older situation that might still be ongoing. My district has a unit that refuses to participate with council except for what they are mandated. The unit sends all of their leaders to neighboring councils for their training (IOLS, Wood Badge, etc ... ), they only camp at the neighboring councils camps, the SM has been heard literally stating "If we could register with the neighboring council we would" so that makes me believe that you have to register with your council that your CO geographically falls in. My DE has told me that as long as the adults are getting trained and the unit is camping he would rather have that then have an untrained unit that doesn't camp and so he lets it be.

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.