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

[jcousino]

Ok, what other side losses would there be? Sold camps and properties 

Loss of other jobs. Staff and camp personal

Even more loss to FOS due to the loss of local connections. 

Most likely a house of cards that is falling apart. I'm not sure if it can be reversed under the current system. 

 

 

[Eagle94-A1]

5 hours ago, jcousino said:

Ok, what other side losses would there be? Sold camps and properties 

Loss of other jobs. Staff and camp personal

Even more loss to FOS due to the loss of local connections. 

Most likely a house of cards that is falling apart. I'm not sure if it can be reversed under the current system. 

 

 

Friends of mine have been hit with "Unit Fair Share" fees from their council. Unit is being assessed a per scout fee.  This is being added to the charter fee, so not directly on the Scouts, but who pays unit dues. They are complaining of no services being provided by the council to warrant that  fee, or FOS for that matter.

[InquisitiveScouter]

18 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Friends of mine have been hit with "Unit Fair Share" fees from their council. Unit is being assessed a per scout fee.  This is being added to the charter fee, so not directly on the Scouts, but who pays unit dues. They are complaining of no services being provided by the council to warrant that  fee, or FOS for that matter.

Here are our costs for 2026:

2026 Unit Charter Fee - $100.00

-------------------------------------

2026 National Membership Fee - Youth  $85.00

2026 Council Service Fee - Youth  $75.00

2026 Troop Dues - $35.00

2026 Sibling Discount - $17.50

2026 One-time Equipment/Joining Fee - $35.00

---------------------------------------------

2026 National Fee - Adult  $65.00

2026 Council Insurance Fee - Adult  $6.00

So, cost to remain in the Troop for 2026 if you are already registered?  $85 + $75 + $35 = $195  (Don't forget to add on National's credit card fee, if you pay through my.scouting)

Cost to transfer/crossover to the Troop in say, March 2026 (because they already registered with their Pack)= ($35/12 * 9) + $35 = $61.25  {That's Troop dues pro-rated, and the Troop equipment fee.)

We used to pay these fees for the entire Troop from our bank account around 01 Dec thru the re-charter process.  We would then assess the costs to each Scout through Scoutbook to collect.  For several of our families, we would "carry" that debt for a few months until all the Christmas / New Years bills were paid.  If a Scout's balance goes over $200, we ask for some partial payment to bring it back below $200.

Troop has 44 Scouts currently.  Eight will not renew (Seven are turning 18 years old, and one is dropping out.)  Now, here we are on 15 Dec, and 25 out of 36 eligible Scouts do not have a renewed registration.  That's 69.4% whose parents have ignored the emails from National to renew.  (...and our one Troop reminder at the beginning of the month.) National sent emails on 01 Nov and 01 Dec.

Committee has not discussed what to do in the New Year with Scouts who have not renewed registrations.

[Eagledad]

Are the fees the same for Cubs? Young parents have many program choices during the Tiger and Wolf years, and costs drive many of their choices.

Barry

[Tron]

7 hours ago, jcousino said:

Ok, what other side losses would there be? Sold camps and properties 

Loss of other jobs. Staff and camp personal

Even more loss to FOS due to the loss of local connections. 

Most likely a house of cards that is falling apart. I'm not sure if it can be reversed under the current system. 

 

 

We have the infrastructure and paid staffing of 1970 when the program had 4 to 5 times the participation rate. I think we could increase participation but I don't think we're ever hitting the 1970 membership number. We could perhaps reduce some camps to primitive camping only and mothball them for brighter days; however, we just don't need the number of camps that we have. In my state we literally have double the number of resident camp slots each summer than there are scouts in the state; the councils are fighting each other for scouts, all of the camps are suffering. FOS is already dead in many councils, the constant money hustle has everyone burned out. We have to address the central office problem of scouting; too many chiefs, not enough indians, we need to consolidate councils to save the program. 

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Friends of mine have been hit with "Unit Fair Share" fees from their council. Unit is being assessed a per scout fee.  This is being added to the charter fee, so not directly on the Scouts, but who pays unit dues. They are complaining of no services being provided by the council to warrant that  fee, or FOS for that matter.

What exactly is a unit fair share fee? Is it different than a council fee somehow? 

55 minutes ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

Here are our costs for 2026:

2026 Unit Charter Fee - $100.00

-------------------------------------

2026 National Membership Fee - Youth  $85.00

2026 Council Service Fee - Youth  $75.00

2026 Troop Dues - $35.00

2026 Sibling Discount - $17.50

2026 One-time Equipment/Joining Fee - $35.00

---------------------------------------------

2026 National Fee - Adult  $65.00

2026 Council Insurance Fee - Adult  $6.00

So, cost to remain in the Troop for 2026 if you are already registered?  $85 + $75 + $35 = $195  (Don't forget to add on National's credit card fee, if you pay through my.scouting)

Cost to transfer/crossover to the Troop in say, March 2026 (because they already registered with their Pack)= ($35/12 * 9) + $35 = $61.25  {That's Troop dues pro-rated, and the Troop equipment fee.)

We used to pay these fees for the entire Troop from our bank account around 01 Dec thru the re-charter process.  We would then assess the costs to each Scout through Scoutbook to collect.  For several of our families, we would "carry" that debt for a few months until all the Christmas / New Years bills were paid.  If a Scout's balance goes over $200, we ask for some partial payment to bring it back below $200.

Troop has 44 Scouts currently.  Eight will not renew (Seven are turning 18 years old, and one is dropping out.)  Now, here we are on 15 Dec, and 25 out of 36 eligible Scouts do not have a renewed registration.  That's 69.4% whose parents have ignored the emails from National to renew.  (...and our one Troop reminder at the beginning of the month.) National sent emails on 01 Nov and 01 Dec.

Committee has not discussed what to do in the New Year with Scouts who have not renewed registrations.

Costs are nothing in scouting. Literally nothing compared to everything else. We lose scouts every year to club sports (especially baseball). Parents in my area are ponying up literally thousands of dollars a year, sometimes every few weeks for cycle after 8 week cycle of club sports; mandatory attendance policies for parents in the bleachers and driving. Some sports are worse than others, the sports leagues are in league with the varsity coaches; my daughter is being told that "it is heavily recommended to play at least 3 seasons of club soccer at $800 a pop if she wants to retain her varsity slot"; my buddy is ponying up $3200 every 8 weeks for club volleyball to retain his daughters slot on the varsity team. I'm lucky that my daughters league(s) are all local, my buddy is being forced to go to regional events which takes him sometimes 3 states away as a mandatory driver, and then he has to fork over extra for hotel rooms. Club sports are growing exponentially; what are we doing wrong that club sports at their insane cost are growing and growing while we are retracting and retracting? 

1 minute ago, Eagledad said:

Are the fees the same for Cubs? Young parents have many program choices during the Tiger and Wolf years, and costs drive many of their choices.

Barry

As I started stating above, I don't think costs are driving their choices. I will channel my inner Stan Lee and ask the question "What If?"; what if the issue is results based and not cost based? I would make the argument that if we (as a program) had a guarantee that if a scout was truly active and attended X number of meetings and Y number of weekend campouts, and at least 1 resident camp a year that the scout would X ranks and Y merit badges in every 12 month period our recruitment would double and our retention would move into the 80% range. 

I was just looking at my troops roster due to renewals coming due for most of the troop in a few days. We have 6 scouts dropping for sure, no chance in hell of retaining them. 4 of them have no chance of making it to Eagle, 2 have been lost to club sports at age 12 and did not make Scout rank since crossing in March. We have another 10 potentially dropping; 1 made eagle and is moving on, the other 9 are all inactive due to club sports and are way off any reasonable pace of making eagle. This is going to be a tough hit and a big ego bruise for the SM if we really lose 14 scouts in 15 days; it's going to cast a shadow across the whole troop. 

[Eagledad]

5 minutes ago, Tron said:

 

As I started stating above, I don't think costs are driving their choices. I will channel my inner Stan Lee and ask the question "What If?"; what if the issue is results based and not cost based? I would make the argument that if we (as a program) had a guarantee that if a scout was truly active and attended X number of meetings and Y number of weekend campouts, and at least 1 resident camp a year that the scout would X ranks and Y merit badges in every 12 month period our recruitment would double and our retention would move into the 80% range. 

Putting on my Membership Chairman hat.

Almost 95% of scouts in troops come from the Cubs. If the youth aren't recruited in Cubs, the troops will have to recruit from other sources.

When National added additional requirements to the Tiger program in 2000 (increasing meetings to every week, an adult required for each scout), many units were unable to meet the new demands, and the Tiger numbers dropped significantly. That drop became obvious in 2005 when the troop membership suddenly dropped. 

If you don't get the Cubs, you don't get the crossovers.

Barry

[Eagledad]

23 minutes ago, Tron said:

As I started stating above, I don't think costs are driving their choices. I will channel my inner Stan Lee and ask the question "What If?"; what if the issue is results based and not cost based? I would make the argument that if we (as a program) had a guarantee that if a scout was truly active and attended X number of meetings and Y number of weekend campouts, and at least 1 resident camp a year that the scout would X ranks and Y merit badges in every 12 month period our recruitment would double and our retention would move into the 80% range.

Your idea isn't new; the BSA has made these kinds of promises since the creation of the program. I do agree that at this age, cost isn't as much of an issue as the cub program, but a results-based program is very subjective. And most of the time the adults go the easy route of Eagle for their results-based program. 

However, youth at this age aren't advancement-driven. I found that most Eagle-driven programs lose 70% of their scouts by age 15 because advancement gets boring. Adventure-driven programs thrive because they are fun in the outdoors, and because independence in the patrol method drives more maturity in their growth. Go look at units where scouts age out, and you will find they are more scout-run with adventure. Also, adventure-driven programs typically have a high number of Eagles because the scouts are in the program a long time and earn the Eagle requirements by simply participating.

Barry

[InquisitiveScouter]

1 hour ago, Tron said:

what are we doing wrong that club sports at their insane cost are growing and growing while we are retracting and retracting? 

We are not making participation mandatory for Scouts or parents.  In Scouting, there really isn't "skin in the game" unless you want to put it there.

 

40 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Go look at units where scouts age out, and you will find they are more scout-run with adventure. Also, adventure-driven programs typically have a high number of Eagles because the scouts are in the program a long time and earn the Eagle requirements by simply participating.

Yes, this is it.  When I had the reins of the Troop, we went camping every month, with two or three big events every summer... 50-miler backpacking trips, week-long beach adventures, 50-miler canoeing, 100+ mile cycling trips, etc.  Now that I have pulled back a lot from the Troop, there is no one who is willing to put that much effort into the program.  So, the numbers are dwindling.

Agree with you wholeheartedly... young men want adventure, not academics.