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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

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

It is dying. And the majority of folks do not want to put quality control measures. They want 'High Speed, Low Drag" advancement and increasing the number of Eagle Scouts. They would rather celebrate the 13 or 14 year old with all 130+MBs than the troop that is doing trail work on the AT, or the troop running Red Cross evac stations.

I do wonder what the "Actual" BSA National Numbers are at this point. Nobody really knows. Nobody knows where to get the information. Most people have stopped asking. Main success is judged by funds raised. Most of our council staff is focused on getting cash, to support all the staff that is raising cash. In our district we have and continue to lose troops and packs, but not sure there is any effort to save any of them or figure a way to stem the tide. We have not witnessed an actual DE or other council staff in the wild in forever. It's not that we have a bad relationship, that would infer our units actually knew who they were, we literally have no relationship. There are maybe 20 units in the district (though I think less) and one would assume they may come by annually to see what's up. In the end BSA (sorry SA) will likely not end with a bang, it will just not be around the professionals that were supposed to be the managers and provide vision will go raise money elsewhere.

Just got this annual report in my inbox. This cannot be... Are you telling me, for the entire five boroughs of NYC, this council has only 8, 843 youth enrolled? https://p6fb9goab.cc.rs6.net/tn.jsp Yikes! I double checked on the Council Dashboard in my. Scouting, and it is true... So I ran some more numbers.... not quite perfect comparisons, but paints the picture. Pulled data from https://www.neilsberg.com/insights/brooklyn-ny-population-by-age/ Youth 5-19 in Queens: 375,462 Bronx: 289,810 Brooklyn: 469,947 Manhattan: 193,875 Staten Island: 91,517 Total youth 5-19 in the five: 1,420,611 (note that BSA uses 5 - 20 years old) Market percentage = 8843 / 1,420,611 = 0.6225% Our council has more than half that number, and we are a mostly rural geographic area. Total youth population in combined counties in our council: 108,030 Total youth registered in our council: approx 4700 (exact number changed to protect the innocent) Market percentage = 4700 / 108030 = 4.3506 % So, if the analysis is close to correct, our council is doing about 7 times better in market share than Greater New York Councils? Again... YIKES! Therefore, send not to know For whom the bell tolls, It tolls for thee.

@Tron, Since FOS has dried up, and only 1 unit in the district goes to the local summer camp, The "troop" is being charged $37.50 per Scout in addition to $100 recharter fee. Next year it goes up to $75/Scout. That is in addition to the individual 's national registration fee, council service fee, and insurance fee. That is $120/Scout. So a family with 4 Scouts in the program costs $480 individual fees plus $150 for "Fair Share", plus unit dues. And that doesn't include camp outs and summer camps. I know folks say scouting is cheap compared to sports, but there are a lot of folks who cannot afford to do sports, but could afford Scouting. Not any more.

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. 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.

A different thread made me think of this and I think it fits here better than there. I think my pet peeve is the scouter who claims "My program is great, my troop has X number of scouts!" and this literally comes from a discussion I had with an SM recently. The SM's troop went from single digits to over 40 in 2 years; he's running the same program he has always run. He refuses to consider that some of the success is not his program but the fact that his town went from 6 troops to 2 troops and the other troop is ready to fold. The dude snaps and screams at scouts but he's become the only option in his town because he has a solid charter and a dedicated donated space to hold scout meetings 7 days a week 24 hours a day.

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

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.

When I was a DE, my district had 45% of the current membership numbers. And that was just 2 counties.

About 2 councils worth of scouts. Look at all that administrative bloat. That's easily 1.6 million more for program if they merge down to 2 councils and fire 8 scout executives.

Here is what I can see... Post here if you want your specific council numbers, or I can see by state, also. Also, if you want to know by program, sing out... As of today, National level, all programs including Learning for Life, total youth registered is 877, 225. Same month last year number was 986,520. So, overall, drop is 109,295 Scouts, or 11.08% loss, from Dec 2024 to Dec 2025 I'll check these numbers again after 31 Dec, when many current registrations expire, and again after mid-March, when the 60 day grace period expires. We are losing about 10% in our Troop, due to those turning 18. Hope to gain those back during crossover season. Please remind me

Sad, but not surprising. Scouting is best when it involves "outings". It's expensive and very time consuming to the country from the ultra urban NY areas. I enjoy the stories of a parent scouter who told me incredible scouting stories from the 1980s where his patrol (on their own) took the subway to rail stations to get out the countryside for activities. ... I really can't see that happening now. Once they were stopped on the side of the road by the police as they walked to their target park.

Yeah this is pretty much the same for every metro area. I am in a major metro and we're roughly 1/3rd the membership size that we were 5 years ago. If NYC is anything like what is going on in my area it's the money hustle for FOS that is now an 8-10 month part of the annual calendar, it's detracting from recruiting and retention. This months roundtable was a discussion about how we're not having a roundtable next month, instead we're having a "fundraising mixer". Next month will be the first roundtable I've skipped in 4 years; we're not even done with the main fall recruitment push and the paid scouters have already moved right back into FOS money hustle.

Some folks had signed up with an organization that you agree with, and over time the organization changes their ideas in an attempt to attract new members..

North Carolina includes: Last Dec / This Dec / % change 070, Old North State, Greensboro: 3284 / 2794 / -14.82% 414, Daniel Boone, Asheville: 1381 / 1244 / -9.92% 415, Mecklenburg County, Charlotte: 4380 / 4286 / -3.29% 416, Central NC, Albemarle: 2541 / 2546 / +0.20% 420: Piedmont, Gastonia: 3903 / 3702 / -5.15% 421, Occoneechee, Raleigh: 8170 / 8189 / +0.23% 424, Tuscarora, Goldsboro: 1839 / 1351 / -26.54% 425, Cape Fear, Wilmington: 2125 / 1954 / -8.05% 426, East Carolina, Kinston: 2597 / 2355 / -9.32% 427, Old Hickory, Winston-Salem: 2586 / 2468 / -4.56% And I'll include 596, Tidewater, Virginia Beach, VA, which extends down into NC: 3934 / 3777 / -3.99% And in the aggregate, all those councils: 36740 / 34616 / -5.78%