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My suggestions would be: Just like other businesses (restaurant chains, retail operations? close down (merge) underperforming councils. No discussion just do it. As much as it pains close/sell camps who have so much outstanding maintenance that cannot be supported by the council they are affiliated with. or their capacity is less than x% (each camp is probably different) Downsize and Reorganize councils by function vs districts. Districts are historically under staffed with holes in areas that should be under one person Customer service is poor...fix it...waiting weeks for answers is unsatisfactory and make the volunteers thing they don't care so they ignore the councils/districts I count 3 councils who have more scouts in April than they did in December. I would propose - but no one cares what I think - to reorg by function: Finance, Budget, fundraising Operations, Membership, registrar, advancement, eagle process, clearances, data analysis Unit Support, Commissioners, training Facilities, camps Camping, outdoor programs, summer camps, camporees,etc Anyway as I said no one would even try but the "traditional org" is not working.

Your council has the secret sauce, you should share with everyone and save the camps.

s; service to the units. If this metric is not met, the funds raised are not being used, or used improperly. I would be happy to go toe-to-toe with any council executive. Correct. This is correct. The fundraising is supposed to go towards funding program and training; however, so much is being spent to just subsidize professional salaries. We absolutely have the technology to eliminate councils. We have to do a 360 analysis and realize that we could easily get rid of 100 or more councils.

We have the technology to eliminate most of what paid professionals at councils do now. And, I have been thinking about this a lot lately... what SHOULD council do for units, other than provide program opportunities that units cannot get (easily) on their own? Shooting sports (SORRY!! Range and Target Activities), higher level aquatics (sailing , kayaking, canoeing, rowing, lifesaving), and climbing.... You do not need swimming pools. (Although they are helpful.) But you do need a safe swimming hole You do not need dining halls. (I would submit these are actually detrimental to the skills needed for outdoorsmanship and campcraft .) Scouts should be cooking for themselves. You do not need hot showers. (Although they are nice.) Scouts should learn field hygiene and sanitation. You do not need flush toilets. (Although they are nice, too.) See above. I would admit that, due to the number of people you'd like to access your camp, that pit toilets would be a most helpful concession. And local laws may be prohibitive in many places... Heck, you do not even need running water. (But you do need a potable water source, which could include bringing your own.) You need a patch of decent ground or woods. Imagine how easy and cost effective this would be if we did not have all that infrastructure. A local council should have a good sized camp to provide access to the outdoors. It really isn't that difficult to live under canvas for a week. When BP said "A week of camp life is worth six months of theoretical teaching in the meeting room" he was not talking about the monster of summer camp merit badge mills we have created across the country.

That is a critical issue that affects retention. There is too much spiraling and repetition in program elements, and the revamp to make it easier for adult volunteers to run multi rank meetings only made it worse. The program also repeats some of the K-5 school curriculum.

Some good suggestions @PACAN. I would add a change to the mission of the Councils and Districts to solely be "support the units". Nothing else matters. All metrics used to assess performance of Councils, Districts and their staff should be based only on their support of the units.

One of the reasons why they dropped Webelos from 5th grade to 4th & 5th grade circa 1989. Webelos was meant to be a transition, doing things more ont he order of Boy Scouts, and prepping them. When Webelos DLs no longer got separate training with an emphasis on transitioning from Cubs to Scouts, a lot was lost. Folks were not doing the 18-24 month Webelos properly, and it became a continuation of Cubs. And now that is the norm

Corporations with Strategic plan big ideas but no execution other than (tell units membership is down - go recruit! 🙃) will continue to slide into obvilion. 56 councils with conditional charters is 25% of the total numbers - some of these probably won't meet the metrics 22% of the latest total membership is in 10 councils -membership more than 10000 18% of councils have less than 1000 youth and 9 of those less than 500. camps at 30% capacity even having only 3 weeks of scout camp - kids want a entire summer job so they don't apply or come back. Councils are individual competing feifdoms and there is no incentive to merge. Yet the basic management model hasn't changed. I hope for the best and not just more of circling the wagons and shooting inwards. JMHO.

Councils with failed camps often have such a history. Poor stewardship, poor management, and no strategic, mission related oversight by anyone who should care (but doesn't), like National. Land assets in scouting are generally viewed through a lens that favors larceny over legacy.

Even moneymaker camps will get sold. We had a local Scout camp on the border of 2 additional councils. So folks from 3 councils used it. Heck one of those councils even held district events there because of proximity. Additionally it was about 15 minutes off the interstate, so units travelling would use it too. The small primitive camp made enough money to support itself, and subsidize some of the costs of the main camp. Someone decided to move as much infrastructure as possible to the main camp, sell it, and use the money to improve the main camp. Yeah, the main camp is still poorly run and only has 4 weeks of camp.

If your state is like my state the resident camps only run for 8 weeks and are about 3x the capacity of what is needed. If we actually got every scout in the state into resident camp for just 1 week a year we'd still have camps running at less than 50%. There are too many camps. I see your concern and would say that the answer is rewilding the worst camps into adventure bases to get cost to down down while also funneling scouts to fewer resident camps.

The largest issue that continues is the apparent inability to note that selling camps that leave a council without local options does not make sense. And continuing to treat volunteers as ignorant or lacking in ability is not the way to go. For me, also, not putting the important elements of local historical data and material into local perspective is NOT wise. It is that very history and longevity that is most important to bring the program out of its darkness. I keep coming back to the elderly woman that spoke to me at a local Memorial Day event where my unit was serving. She said she was o glad to see the scouts there; she thought they were gone. That is a very telling comment. I can only hope that somehow we might get the shift in focus to service and positive public images, and away from obvious dollar promotions. Sadly, I fear I may not live to see that again, though I say I will be my family's first centenarian, I am not foolish enough to discount that as a long shot. And I already cannot do things I once did, and I miss meetings due to old man syndromes and night driving concerns. One day at a time, and pass what I can on.

Sooo, maybe good points, lack of specifics. If he had laid out they were reducing councils would have felt better. Glad he didn't start with "your kids are safer with us", that does not need to be the lead in and Go To Market slogan we must make volunteering easier and more rewarding. That means giving volunteers the support, tools and resources they need to succeed. I wonder what the plan actually is, sounds correct, but lacks specifics We need to improve both our internal infrastructure and the technology families interact with directly. Parents and volunteers should be able to use their phones and online tools easily to manage registrations, communication and unit activities. I wonder what the plan actually is, sounds correct, but lacks specifics Another critical area is branding and marketing. During the pandemic and bankruptcy, we did very little marketing. Now we’re reinvesting in campaigns that better communicate the value of Scouting to parents and families. I wonder what the plan actually is, sounds correct, but lacks specifics One challenge we face is that we have significantly fewer district executives and unit-serving professionals than we did several years ago. Those positions are critical because they support units, recruit members and help volunteers succeed. That means some councils may need to rethink how resources are allocated. In some cases, councils may have more property than they currently need, while needing more investment in frontline staff and membership growth. So sell assets to hire even more professionals (DE's) who do little to nothing to serve the units, feed the professional commissioned scouter animal Last fall, Scouting America recruited approximately 260,000 new youth members. The problem is that we are still losing more members than we recruit. Agree, finally that's been said out loud They need opportunities to spend time with other young people, to be part of a patrol and a community, and to experience the outdoors. Scouting teaches youth how to succeed — but also how to fail and recover from failure. That’s one of the most important lessons young people can learn. Agree on that point

I fear the mistakes were in the 1970s, 1980s, 1990s, etc. All those leaders are long gone. For example, most companies in the mid-1990s started having email retention policies because a huge store of emails and electronic documents virtually guarantees having something that can be twisted to be incriminating during litigation discovery. Even if you are the best and most altruistic corporation, a huge store of outdated, obsolete documents is just not a good practice. There should have been a retention period ... not to hide bad practices ... but to protect against dangerous litigation.

You do realize you don't need to be a Lone Scout to work on requirements outside of Den Meetings? Do the requirements, have your son talk to his Den Leader about them and get them signed off.