New Chief Executive Announced

[Rick_in_CA 401]

It'll never happen.  It is my opinion that that ship has sailed and BSA will now simply wait out the old guard and do whatever it wants.

 

It's kinda like football.  Used to be leather helmets, no face guards, few pads.  Now even the pressure in the football is regulated and monitored.  Or baseball... When Casey hit the ball it cracked, now it dings.  Or hockey, you used to be able to pick the goalie out of the crowd.

 

50 years from now, you won't be able to even recognize the program as a outdoor program.

But is that really the BSA's fault? Yes, the program is switching away from the outdoors, and adding ridiculous rules about not using little red wagons, increasing the amount of adult supervision at all levels, and removing a lot of the adventure from scouting. But the BSA doesn't exist in a vacuum. It exists in a society that is increasingly driven by fear and hysteria. NJ is considering whether it is automatically considered child neglect to leave a kid alone in a car for a few minutes. Kids are not allowed to play outside by themselves. Carrying a pocket knife (or even having one in your car) can get you expelled from school or worse. And the fear and hysteria is getting worse, not better.

 

As someone else pointed out, we now have the term "free range parenting (warning, that website can lead to depression)" to distinguish what used to be normal parenting from today's fear based parenting. The kids are inside playing video games because that is where the parents want them. And we want the BSA to allow groups of kids to go camping without adult supervision??? I wish it could, but in today's society everyone involved would be risking arrest and a legal nightmare.

 

I think one of the spurs to STEM Scouts is that the BSA sees the writing on the wall. Twenty years from now, it will probably be effectively impossible (perhaps even illegal) to take a group of youth out camping.

[moosetracker 132]

I guess I'm a bit more methodical on this. As a numbers person, I know the BSA has internal problems that far far out weigh uniforms and local option (uniforms?). For the past 15 years posters have been proclaiming that allowing gays would change the trend of lowering numbers. Yet, there was no evidence to suggest it. However, we can track declines by policy changes, specifically in Cubs. I haven't seen the numbers the last two years, but I'm quite confident that allowing gay scouts didn't fix the declining trend. Now we think, the local option will do the trick?

You can't track decline from the half-a$$ed change.. It moved some conservatives out, but did not do enough to attract anyone who are not going to have their sons join until the policy is corrected.. It gave us baby steps in the right direction, but as for membership numbers and donation money was the worst of all 3 options.

 

We also are not for the local option exclusively nor primarily because it will stop the declining numbers (although it will defiantly help in the northern states).. We are for the local option because you cannot bill your program as non-denominational and then only cater to a few denominations (Those who not just choose not to be open to homosexual leaders, but need to control not just their units decision on this, but everyone else's) and not allow other religions to exercise their own religious freedoms..

 

I think one of the spurs to STEM Scouts is that the BSA sees the writing on the wall. Twenty years from now, it will probably be effectively impossible (perhaps even illegal) to take a group of youth out camping.

 

Well I wouldn't go so far to say illegal, but perhaps to take a group of youth camping you may need to always have on hand your own licensed EMT and lawyer. (Make sure to list them on your Tour Permit).

[blw2 433]

@@desertrat77, so in addition to a new CSE perhaps we should also have a National Director of Scoutcraft.  Who would be our next Green Bar Bill?  What role would he/she play in today's BSA?

i was thinking a similar thing when I first read this post...

 

It would be nice to have a real outdoorsman type at the helm..... maybe this guy is, i don't know....

 

despite the questionable regard that some hold..... I was thinking of Bear Grylls.  He's high positive energy, sort of likeable, and has been shown on TV fast roping out of helicopters (not scouting stuff really, but "cool"), rappelling off mountains, building shelters, etc... 

I think that image would be preferable to someone that looks more comfortable in a board room or behind a desk.

[Eagledad 2777]

You can't track decline from the half-a$$ed change...

Oh sure you can, even the small changes can be tracked. I'm sure this one is a no brainier.

 

However, as you are showing, as long as the outside problems keep the focus, the real problems on the inside will not get enough attention. So it won't (cannot) get better.

 

Barry

[Gone 435]

BSA Membership Stats 1997-2014

 

Source: http://www.scouting.org/About/AnnualReports/PreviousYears.aspx 

 

Note: BSA themselves noted that the policy change of 2013 was an operational risk. The membership drop from 2013 to 2014 was 6%...the largest in a long, long time. Personally I'd like to see BSA make the full change and allow gay scouters, if for nothing more that when the alleged influx of liberal families doesn't happen the proponents can find something else to blame the lack of membership growth on.

Edited May 14, 2015 by Bad Wolf

[blw2 433]

wonder why the data on leaders and units is so spotty

[Gone 435]

wonder why the data on leaders and units is so spotty

 

I complied the list from the annual reports. Seems some years they reported data, other years they didn't. Some years they would quote a given number and then the following year the previous year's number would be revised downward. The format for the annual reports was a bit like Easter Egg hunting (I wonder if I can use that analogy without offending anyone ), you had to really, really look for data when some years there were great comparison charts all over the place.

 

No surprise that BSA did not do things in a standard and uniform fashion, huh?

[desertrat77 1144]

@@desertrat77, so in addition to a new CSE perhaps we should also have a National Director of Scoutcraft.  Who would be our next Green Bar Bill?  What role would he/she play in today's BSA?

LeCastor, good questions....

 

The next GBB?  I thought about it this afternoon, and I'll admit I'm stumped about a specific name.   However, they should be someone with extensive outdoor experience, ranging from high adventure to the basic skills needed to earn First Class.   They need to be outgoing and inspiring.   They need to be as comfortable helping a troop build a monkey bridge as they are in a board room.

 

This person can serve as the roving ambassador of the National staff.   A kind of Johnny Appleseed, roaming about, spreading the message of scouting and encouraging traditional, outdoor scouting.   The kind of person that scouts can look up to, and that unit level scouters feel has their best interests at heart.

[packsaddle 753]

Just like so many other things, this is all speculation and the only way to know what the outcome will be is to live long enough to see it. Nodding off again....zzzzzzzz

[Gone 435]

It's not speculation that membership is dropping. It's not speculation that BSA strategic plans over the last 15 years have failed miserably at stemming the decline in membership, let alone increasing it. BSA is mismanaging their organization.

 

It is tens times more costly to recruit a new customer/member than it is to keep an existing one. Rather than focus on why people are in scouting in the first place, BSA has focused the membership equivalent of "get rich quick" schemes to try to boost membership. The latest is directed at recruiting people of color. I attended my council's RT to roll out this program. Rather than give concrete ideas on HOW to do it, the gist of the two hour session was, "Identify people of color and ask them to join". Really? Would have never thought of that on my own.

 

A businessman would know how to create growth in a market. Non-profit focused executives tend to focus on old school membership strategies that don't work. Regardless of the issues facing scouting the key is membership retention, especially at the Boy Scout level. Building strong units at the CS level -- and not expansion for the sake of growth -- is the key to CS membership. I suspect training and, as @@desertrat77 said, making it easier on leaders to execute a successful program are the other factors that would make CS membership growth more likely.

 

We can wait for the other shoe to drop or we can tell BSA how we feel and NOT make this about a single issue hoping that will solve the problems. It won't.

Edited May 14, 2015 by Bad Wolf

[Stosh 3452]

There's too much Chicken Little Syndrome going on at national fueled by the political climate we find ourselves in.

 

So, let's change everything which may or may not entice new members but could disenfranchise the existing members.  Then let's buckle under to social pressures that if everyone sit's back and does nothing will automatically set the new policies and goals of Scouting.  All national has to do is have a cadre of lawyers, paid up insurance policies and fund-raise, fund-raise, fund-raise to pay everyone salary and staff the semi-lucrative Scouting catalog of uniforms and equipment.

 

Is it any wonder the units that ignore National seem to be the most successful?

[RememberSchiff 3663]

Is it any wonder the units that ignore National seem to be the most successful?

 

De facto local option. Seems more are doing this without threat of charter or individual memberships being revoked.

[moosetracker 132]

De facto local option. Seems more are doing this without threat of charter or individual memberships being revoked.

 

If they removed the charters of those that do that would definitely lower membership, let alone the entire councils who are now bucking the policy, they did play hardball with a few, but I doubt they will the NY council that hired the homosexual eagle scout who is now over 18, for a camp councilor especially with NY looking at them for if they are not complying with the states discrimination laws.. I would imagine once NY is allowed to slide the other councils will also reinstate the policies they were forced to retract..

[packsaddle 753]

Bad Wolf, it IS speculation to predict the outcome or effect of any new person who hasn't yet even articulated a strategy. Your unit seems to be doing great. If the national organization gains or loses a couple hundred thousand members over the next 5 years, is that really going to affect the boys in your unit?

It won't make one bit of difference in this one. But that too, is speculation. back to the nap.....zzzzzzzzzzzz

[Gone 435]

Bad Wolf, it IS speculation to predict the outcome or effect of any new person who hasn't yet even articulated a strategy. Your unit seems to be doing great. If the national organization gains or loses a couple hundred thousand members over the next 5 years, is that really going to affect the boys in your unit?

It won't make one bit of difference in this one. But that too, is speculation. back to the nap.....zzzzzzzzzzzz

Next time you wake up to reply try reading my points and responding to the facts. Anything else is you speculating.