What?? You've Got to Be Kidding Me with These Membership Numbers!

[Eagle1993]

On 6/7/2026 at 3:58 PM, IanR said:

We are constantly told that kids have to see people like themselves (color, sexual predilections) to feel included and to be interested in (insert your activity here).

If that really is true, what does that say about Scouting's interest in reaching their largest potential demographic?

 

 

I don't disagree but kids and parents are not staying away because of a flyer.  They are also not joining because of a flyer like this.  

Upper middle class suburban...

The largest classes of Cub Scouts typically occurred when the popular mom(s) signed their kids up.  It was based on parents connections.  We would see anywhere from 35 Lions to 10 depending on what moms sign up.

Unfortunately, regardless of who signs up, we continue to see decreases at the Troop level. Since the addition of Lions, retention of AOL cross overs has plummeted.  Parents tell us they are looking to focus their kids in middle school and most are choosing sports.  Our community is heavily focused on sports, parents make friends over the travel teams their kids join and it's tough to compete with that. 

I'm sure experience varies over the country, but unless there is some sort of change of the view of scouts, I think it will continue to decline in terms of enrollment.

 

[Tron]

We're basically wrapping up the very tail end of crossover season here in my district; we know right now that arrow of light scouts who have not crossed are basically never going to join a troop. This time period has led my district to look at who the "winners" and "losers" of crossover season are; the results are staggering. 

Over half of our districts troops received ZERO crossovers this year. When we (district committee) looked into this we noticed a trend. The units that received ZERO crossovers had all of the same attributes in common. Units with untrained leaders, small leadership groups, and little to no advancement of current scouts were the big losers that received no crossovers. We also identified "super losers" in the crossover situation; these were units (we had multiple) that have not received a crossover in 2 or more of the past 4 years. We are very concerned with those units as they are in a situation where they have a structural gap of little to no young scouts for the older scouts to lead, and in a few years (if they troops survive) they will have no older scouts to lead the potential younger scouts. 

I know other activities are pulling families away from scouts; however, I think bad units are also pushing families away.