Eagledad

I’m am a mixed age patrol guy. I’ve tried them all and the fastest scout growth occurs in patrols with older aged and experienced mentor role models. But, building patrols is not easy. It takes experience. I agree to a point that the scouts have to be involved. But, if the adults (role model, mentors) struggle, the scouts certainly will. Don’t throw them in dark without some kind of guidance and plan. Work as a team with everyone understanding the goal as well as the challenges. Make the successes and failures a team responsibility so that both scouts and adults work the problem together. I promise the scouts take these things to heart and will work to fix challenges the next time. They don’t like it any more than adults. And you will be amazed how seriously they do these things as the troop learns and grows when they know that the adults have their back. This subject is an example that scouting is hard and the more the adults and scouts work as a team, the more confident everyone feels trying new ideas to improve the experience. Scouting is a safe place because failure is an opportunity to grow. That goes as much for the adults as it does for the scouts. Another deep discussion is news scouts and how to get them merged in the troop. But, that is a different subject for another day. Merry Christmas everyone. Barry

I understand what you are saying, but my experience with adults is that less is more. Adults tend to hinder the scouts' growth in character because, by their nature, adults don't like youth making bad decisions. I'm not sure what you consider average skills. Are knots, lashings, and orienteering average skills you're speaking about? Still, the troop program is designed so that scouts lead and manage their activities. That program doesn't require many adults. Of course, scouts have to continually grow to develop the skills for dealing with the responsibilities of running the program and their personal growth. A mature program requires a minimum number of adults because the scouts are responsible for the program's activities and business, including training. The challenge for units is having a resource pool of skilled experts to prevent stumping scout growth. Barry

Yes, my delegating comment was for the program 25 or 30 years ago when there were still many experienced Scouters. My point about the adults in today's scouts program is a different situation. I'm pretty creative when looking for solutions, but this one is a challenge. The program now, whatever it's called (part of the problem), needs big changes in identity and training. Barry

If the unit commissioner isn't working, it's the DE's fault. I have seen districts with great Commission Corp, and it's a beautiful thing to watch. However, the DC's job is complicated and requires above-average skills and training. Most districts don't recruit people capable of developing and using those skills. Yep. In the earlier days, before 1990, 80% of unit leaders were scouts as a youth. So, they walked knowing more about the game than the purpose. They basically stepped into the position running, and the implementation wasn't overly complex. Today's unit is lucky to have 25% leaders with a youth scouting experience. Training just doesn't meet the need for new adult leaders without a youth scouting experience. It's not so simple. Learning the skills on your list, much less knowing when to use them, takes a long time. One-year first-class scouts are typically terrible with skills. Mostly because a program that encourages earning First Class in one year isn't a good skills program anyway. I've trained and counseled a lot of scoutmasters without a youth scouting experience, and most quit in a couple of years, realizing they were not right for the job. However, I believe they would have been fine if they had been willing to delegate skills they lacked to others. I had the skills but rarely needed them because I was a delegator and liked to get other people involved. And, there are very few skills adults need to know that older scouts can't do themselves. But, in almost every case of the scoutmasters I counseled, the scoutmaster took on the responsibility because they wanted to be head honcho, and the responsibilities didn't look hard. Their ego was the problem. The program has a big challenge today because most of the leaders they get today don't have an understanding of the program from youth experience, so they see it from a different perspective. Typically, it is not a perspective that is fun for the youth. Also, the program has changed in the last few years, so its newer identity is not attractive to the last generation of scouts. My 37- and 40-year-old sons aren't interested in being leaders because what they see doesn't appear like the program they had in the late 90s. Barry

Well said. Humility is the fertile ground for the growth of integrity. Barry

A lot. But it’s not new. As we’ve discussed before, over 50% of Webelos 2s don’t crossover into troops. Add in the number of cubs that quit in the other 4 years. And just about all that is on bad adult leadership. I’m guessing nationally that at least 60% of cubs don’t don’t finish the cub program. The troop program has the problem that troops loose more first year scouts than any other year in the BSA program. BUT, to be fair, most bad leaders are parents with average skills. The Cub program is over burdened and overly complicated for parents with average skills. The training and professional support doesn’t supplement these parents enough to bring their skills up to lead a quality program. Parents with skills for a quality program typically were scouts as a youth. Especially in troops. The Cub program needs an overhaul. Barry

I was the Dist Membership Chair between 1995 and 2000. National polled our opinions of the early Tiger program and what changes would improve the program. I was shocked to learn that the changes in 1999 were the opposite of the suggestions we provided. I ran the district meeting that announced the changes to the packs, and they were not received well. Two packs quit their Tiger program, and several others didn't add the changes. We learned later that National based their program changes from polls of Tiger parents. Not pack leaders. That also explains why National went to the much more expensive blue shirts from the much cheaper Tiger T-shirts. That was another big deal for young, busy parents who were deciding whether to join. Barry

Yep, National made major changes to the Tiger program in 1999, switching from 2 meetings a month to 4 meetings and requiring an adult to attend all activities with each Tiger scout. The Cub program was already overburdened, but those changes added insult to injury and made it less desirable to busy parents. The drop was predictable, as was the sudden drop of Troops four years later that resulted from the decline of the Cub program. If I remember right, membership had been dropping in the early 1990s until the war in Iraq. The sudden boost of patriotism seemed to motivate temporary growth in the BSA. Barry

Transgenderism is a future liability issue that was discussed on this forum a few years ago. One example of Nationals membership changes that are ironically making scouting more exclusive. Barry

I admit I don’t understand this comment. Do all youth live in a cocoon except during scouting activities. Except for sports, youth are coed in just about all their activities since the age for Mother’s Day out. in fact, I think one would struggle to get through a day without doing at least one coed activity. Single gender scouting is not depriving anyone from developing awareness of the other gender on the broader front. Barry

Not everyone wants coed. Barry

Well said. We found that while many scouts get leadership experience, leadership skills are learned more by watching other leaders. And leadership training doesn't add much to the development. Which is why we stopped offering repetitive annual leadership development courses and started offering leadership tuning courses on demand. Why attend a skill you already know when instead get instruction for an area of leadership that you are struggling with? Outdoors truly is the foundation for scouting because it puts the scouts in a challenging environment where they must make survival decisions. If you watch closely, you see that the patrol members must make many decisions just to cook a meal. The farther the patrol gets from working as a team, the more they struggle to enjoy a tasty meal. The outdoors forces evaluations of bad decisions and rewards for good decisions. The outdoors forces wisdom and integrity simply through the efforts of surviving the campout. The biggest hindrance to that growth is the adults not allowing the scouts to have that experience. Adults can only get out of the way by separating their camp 200 feet away from the scout's camp. I love this scouting stuff. Barry

It makes sense, efficiency with limited resources of adults would encourage a coed program. Barry

Are you saying an option for full coed or single-gender patrols or just full coed? I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe National knows something you don't. Barry

The troop membership trend used to reflect the pack membership trend five years later. But the Cub growth in 2022 makes me wonder if adding girl membership will change that factor. I would be curious to know how much membership changes in the GSUSA from 10-year-olds to 12-year-olds. Do girls lose interest as the program becomes more outdoor? That is when my daughter quit. Barry