Sydney Ireland on the Name Change of Scouting America

[Jameson76]

Interesting perspective - A 115-year-old leadership development organization

I have never considered the BSA a leadership development organization.  Sure, there are chances to learn experience leadership, as there are opportunities to experience camping, nature study, swimming, cooking, archery, etc etc

Scouting should be about helping youth realize THEY can actually do things, they can be in charge of who they are, they don't need permission to succeed.  In more current lingo we teach youth to adult. 

No 11 year old wants to join a leadership organization.  Now might they be interested in a group that does activities and adventures that is run by the youth, more likely

[BinTharDunThat]

Its important to recognize what we are selling and to whom.

Your parents may be more willing to allocate resources to Scouting than ours.  For us, when selling BSA to parents -who can put their kids in year-round sports or academic camps and who want their kid to get into college and be successful thereafter - we differentiate BSA from those activities because only BSA is experiential leadership where the program provides each Scout exposure to potential future vocations (Engineering MB, Law MB, Art MB) and potential hobbies (Chess MB, as an example, not intending to denigrate Chess), i.e. "fun with a purpose."  Parents often push back on concepts of character-building ("We do that at home") or simply experiencing activities ("We can do that when we send our kid to summer camp").  We sell ISLT, NYLT and NAYLE to the parents.  We sell to parents the concept of their kids taking on more responsibility as leadership training, recognizing this means even more obligation for the parents, because we get buy-in.  We push the parents to engage with the Scouts on the program activities because that shows kids the value the kids put on the program.   
(I think BSA has recognized this for a while.  The Jim Lovell-BSA commercial - mid 1980s? - keys to "survival skills and leadership instinct")  

When we skill BSA to kids, its about youth-led fun activities.  

If we can't sell the program to adults with sufficient import as a reason to drive your kid to a weekly meeting, to potentially help with the Troop Committee or ASM Corps, or to otherwise allocate parent time to BSA, we seem to lose both the kids and the parents.