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The Long-Term Impact on BSA of Girls in Scouts BSA – Part 5 (Final Posting)


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23 minutes ago, qwazse said:

Quite right. Scouting movements were banned in many Eastern Block  European countries, so they had no where to go but up as the few available adults waited for their youth to mature into competent leaders. Those programs were notably anti-fascist and over time their use of neckerchiefs began to be understood in opposition to (in contrast to allied with) red brigades. So, in contrast to Scouts CA, they had a trajectory of increasing growth that harmonized with prevailing political sentiment.

Scouts UK had to do a lot of hard work. In the 90’s, a large part of its new enrollment were girls, meaning that until about 2000, it kept loosing boys. But, those girls became leaders quickly and encouraged their male mates to contribute as well. The administration of Scouts UK began skewing younger and they did not let up on recruiting new, young leaders. However it was only a few years ago that it restored its male membership to 1991 levels.

Thus, my basis for a 25 year cycle to adapt. And this is where BSA faces a huge risk. It has some seasoned female scouters capable of training new leaders, but if we hew to our current cultural practice of waiting for leaders to become parents to start leading local youth movements … Well, folks are having kids later in life. Most girls in your troop won’t be Cub moms for at least another 17 year's. Most scout moms now may see themselves as GS moms, but they don’t see themselves as capable scoutmasters. Something in American society will have to change so our young women can look at their boyfriends and say, “Hey! Let’s start a Scouts BSA troop.” No change, and we can expect continued decades of decline. Someone/something intervenes, and we may see gains in girls begin to offset losses in boys in this decade, and then recoup market share of boys in the next decade.

I just don't see girls as being all that pivotal either way. They are a great and no brainer addition to a youth organization but in the scheme of things, at least here in the US, I'm not sure it has had much bearing other than providing a helpful blip through a couple of very dark years. Where the UK is concerned, I think some of its success has more to do with the fact that it has had consistent, identifiable, high profile advocates from the late Queen to Bear Grylls to more lately Catherine Middleton. They are so high profile, we are aware of their involvement even in the US. I also think the UK organizational structure seems to be a lot more effective than ours. Our structure keeps us tied in knots. The BSA also seems to have put a lot of eggs in its Eagle Scout basket but there just aren't a lot of high profile Eagle Scouts you can point to in the US. Other than a filmmaker, an astronaut, an ex CEO -- who are all older guys -- I can't think of a one who is high profile and fun or inspiring or relevant to parents with scouts my general age. I don't think girls are really the issue here in the way that you think they are. 

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5 hours ago, yknot said:

I wouldn't draw too tight a relationship between some of those trends because over the past 25 years there have been a lot of other things at play including a more universal disenchantment with scouting. A portion of my family is in Scouts Canada, in some cases in both Scouts Canada and BSA, and when talking to them, the view is more nuanced. Scouts Canada has been impacted by the Francophone and anti Commonwealth movement in some provinces that eschews all things British. There is an indigenous movement, much higher profile than here, that eschews all things Colonial. And Canadians in general have been distancing themselves in public life from anything connected to religious institutions. It's been kind of a triple whammy for scouting, which in Canada is seen to be connected to all three. 

Another observation you can take from Scouts Canada- outdoor opportunities abound, and families don't necessarily need an outdoor focused organization to enjoy the outdoors. If we look at Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, where there are numerous open spaces and outdoor opportunities abound, BSA numbers have been exceptional low. BSA policies that can hinder the outdoor experience do not help either. A childhood friend lives in Maine and was taking his daughter deer hunting when she was 9 years old. She wouldn't have been allowed to handle anything other than a BB gun in a BSA setting. Safety is obviously important, but the org has been bit dull at recognizing that an activity can get hollowed out the more you add restrictions, and the fun factor like Jameson mentions is gone..

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Extrapolating membership results of other Scouting organizations after they admitted girls is interesting, but it is not predictive in our circumstances. 

We have gone through circumstances that would long-ago have destroyed any other not-for-profit organization I am aware of.  This includes two decades of extreme dispute over membership standards, ten years of high-profile civil litigation against BSA councils over youth abuse, formation of a competitor organization that presents an ongoing public relations and membership campaign targeted to discourage boys and men from joining the BSA, departure of our largest national chartered organization (and disgruntlement of some other national chartered organizations) and a multi-year existential youth abuse bankruptcy and public relations crises focused on sexual abuse claims from 85,000 former boy members.  Pile on top of that bankruptcy-related sales of many of our camps, generalized distrust by today’s parents of organized youth activities, more-effective competition from youth sports and two years of a worldwide pandemic that shut-down much of our operations for an extended period.  These reasons are why we lost membership and are in a struggle to regain organizational health.

The reason we are still here, after all of that, it that the underlying principals we ascribe to and the character examples and program we provide children are absolutely the finest possible assemblage of youth development experiences a family can benefit from – and at least a million families have voted to stay with us and we are actually growing.  For those of us of faith, we could not have survived this without the almighty providing us forgiveness and ongoing encouragement.  It is the fundamental goodness of what we accomplish that has allowed us to still exist and will allow us to grow far into the future.  I know this to be true, and that you are reading this posting and sharing your considered thoughts on something of great importance to you supports my point.

We must focus on emphasizing and upgrading how we bring life to these fundamentals and minimize focus on the previous imperfect technical activities of well-intended categories of Scouters/Scouts commenters sometimes point to (professionals, council volunteers, district volunteers, professionals who are no longer with us who made mistakes years ago, girls, people who give us big money and expect to have their voices heard, young volunteers who do not yet “get it”… you get the idea.     

I respect the views of everyone on this site – even the people who consistently down-arrowed me a few years back for my support of all girl troops.  I just don’t accept argument that the admission of girls into Scouts BSA, which has led to significant girl involvement in groups separate from boys, has led to the diminishment of our membership or will do so in the future.  Female youth membership has not provided the transforming boon to us yet, but my four years of Scoutmastering a successful girl troop inform me that this is definitely on the way.

Thank you to all who are forwarding this important conversation, no matter your views.

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5 hours ago, Cburkhardt said:

Extrapolating membership results of other Scouting organizations after they admitted girls is interesting, but it is not predictive in our circumstances. 

 I just don’t accept argument that the admission of girls into Scouts BSA, which has led to significant girl involvement in groups separate from boys, has led to the diminishment of our membership or will do so in the future.  …

Extrapolating membership results nationwide from one enthusiastic scoutmaster’s troop is even less predictive of the nation’s circumstances. I was once that enthusiastic crew advisor, but I realized that irrational exuberance does nothing to prepare one for the future.

Ignoring the experience of other scout associations around the world is the height of arrogance. That’s okay. We’re American and need to maintain that exceptionalist swagger.

But one needs to own the at-home facts in evidence. This forum holds posts from scouters who’ve lost interest in BSA once it proposed BSA4G.  I’ve been at a dinner table of an 11 year old who resented the loss of a program that he thought would be exclusively for his own sex. I’ve sat fireside with a very articulate scout (now Eagle) who resented the presence of girl troops at camp.  It is absurd to think that the accrual of girls and their leaders in Scouts BSA was unrelated to the attrition of boys and their leaders at the same time in the same program.

If I’m wrong, if BSA boys vs. girl trends were coincidental, and if the USA is exceptional, then we can be rest easy and be presently surprised by 4% annual membership increases in both sexes going forward. I’d like to be pleasantly surprised.

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15 hours ago, Cburkhardt said:

This includes two decades of extreme dispute over membership standards, ten years of high-profile civil litigation against BSA councils over youth abuse, formation of a competitor organization that presents an ongoing public relations and membership campaign targeted to discourage boys and men from joining the BSA, departure of our largest national chartered organization (and disgruntlement of some other national chartered organizations) and a multi-year existential youth abuse bankruptcy and public relations crises focused on sexual abuse claims from 85,000 former boy members.  Pile on top of that bankruptcy-related sales of many of our camps, generalized distrust by today’s parents of organized youth activities, more-effective competition from youth sports and two years of a worldwide pandemic that shut-down much of our operations for an extended period. 

Character matters 😜

 

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I think predicting the future is a great thing to do at the end of the year when everyone wants a break from doing the hard stuff. But this discussion has taken a nice turn. I appreciate the range of possibilities. When you're running towards protection and away from the saber toothed tiger, it keeps things in focus better than what I've always seen from BSA singing "the future's so bright I gotta wear shades" - because that song was about nuclear war.

I agree with @Cburkhardt that we need to believe in the program but I also think that there are changes that we're ignoring. There are aspects of having meetings on weekends that really appeals to me. I'm also curious about the group structure used by UK scouts to lesson transitional shock.

I just got back from a pre-klondike, one night campout that was just intended to give new scouts experience in cold weather. Of the four adults that went, none have kids in the troop. Three of us had kids in scouts and one has an AOL scout that joined us. The idea of a third of the parents have lots of experience in scouting or the outdoors is just not valid anymore. At the same time, lots of young adults do like the outdoors. There's a solution, or likely many, that will help.

These ideas are not about program, but more about the nuts and bolts of running units. While it would be nice for national to help with this, I don't see it right now.

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