Leaderboard

In my opinion this is a sign of burnout in the leadership. In my opinion you want to meet every week unless a holiday falls exactly on the meeting day. What I have seen personally is that units who are looking for these excuses are suffering burnout in the leadership. The two week gap screams to me that the leadership is burned out and that their scouts are probably in a situation where they don't need the meetings to advance so it's just a burden meeting to those families.

I cringed when I read the term "Family Troop". My initial reaction was, "there's the final nail in the coffin of the Patrol Method".

Found this on Sam Houston Area Council website: Family Troops The National Executive Board for Scouting America approved the implementation of the combined troop option. The family troop option will become available to all chartering organizations as a third option on December 15, 2025. The chartered organization must be a part of the discussion to decide to change to a family troop, and they must approve the decision to change the model. Troops will continue to be able to organize as boy troops and girl troops. Resources: Converting from a Family Troop (3 page pdf) Family Troop Best Practices (5 page pdf) Family Troop Decision Guide (5 page pdf)

IMHO, Scouting America should ask well-spoken Robert Gates, former president of the Boy Scouts of America and Secretary of Defense for Presidents Bush and Obama to respond.

In my neck of the woods, we've been doing this since I was a youth. General rule is if school is closed, we do not meet (which includes days the schools close because of snow). Over the summer we meet once for summer camp prep, then summer camp, then the rest of the summer is PLC planning meeting, and a few day events (fishing derby, troop outing to an amusement park, swim night at one of our family's house or at the YMCA, movie night, a day hike, etc. - whatever the PLC agrees on, more social gathering/engagement than skill/advancement focused. Still had the PLC/Senior Scouts in charge of planning details and lead supervision at these events. While I could understand momentum loss could result, it has always been for us more of a short time of fun getting ready for the work to return for another year= understood that way by both youth and adults. Additionally, when your own kid(s) hit the age that they are working at camp all summer, and OA starts up before school does, there's enough Scouting to never really have so much of the break that others were having.

Woke is not a real thing; just a hot button prod. Simple adherence to the Scout Law, Oath, and so on is not Woke, just civility and basic kindness for others, no matter their beliefs or how they may look, o what their name are. Ignorance held up by stupidity and sheeple.

We just had this discussion at a leaders meeting... Our Committee Chair is going to communicate with parents about this and try to tell them something to this effect... "If your son does not want to go to Scouts, please do not force him. This is detrimental to all of us, and your Scout will only wind up resenting you. Let them choose, please."

Some units just follow local school district calendars because it affects meeting locations or, for certain families, school holiday closures affect child care, transportation, etc. It's not new or linked to burnout. It's just local convention in some places.

I did not think of that. Good point. Perhaps a push for more Patrol outings instead of troop focus is in order. Depending on patrol makeup, this might mitigate the problem.?

Here's where I see trouble with this model - from the files posted: We should ensure no Scouts are excluded from events due to lack of appropriate adult volunteer leadership. If, despite best efforts, an event or outing lacks appropriate adult volunteer leadership, it should be canceled rather than excluding any youth. This has the potential to be severely damaging. No females volunteer to go on an outing, it gets cancelled. The boys blame girls for being in the program and causing them to miss out.

Concur. Now I have " The end of the Civil War was near when quite accidently..." in my brain. Thank you so very much @RememberSchiff. 😀

So as Scoutbook uses a B troop for boys and G troop for girls, will F troop designate a family troop?

Quite a few years ago, I was Cubmaster of Pack 85 in my local council. It failed to recharter a year after my son aged out, and I had moved on. I kept renewing the web address (domain name) pack85.org for many more years in case there was a chance of it restarting. By now, there is no chance of it restarting, and I would like the web address to go to another unit, rather than risk it being picked up by a non-scouting entity. Is there another Pack 85 out there, and would you like this web address? If you are interested please message me, and we can arrange transfer of the domain name. BTW, I had been a member of this forum long ago under a different user name, but it had been disabled for lack of activity.

I too hate the term.

This is so poorly worded and tone deaf. Family Scouting was a smart concept for Cub Scouts. It makes no sense as a marketing tool for Troops. And like Jameson76 mentioned, it's not what 11-17 year olds want. Also pitching this as a solution to inadequate numbers needed to start a single-gender troop is just pure nonsense. This didn't come about to solve that problem and we all know it. I'm 100% in favor of this all happening, it's long overdue, but I don't get this particular marketing pitch to roll it out as "family scouting". It makes no sense.

Having worked in various joint commands in plans (J5), exercise (J7), and operations shops (J3), I have to tell you these things are FAR from free. Military exercises, deployments, employments, redeployment, and reconstitution (after the fact) are quite expensive, in fact. Literally hundreds of millions of your tax dollars are spent on these each year to maintain unit readiness. Difficult to stage? yes... Scarcity of opportunity? no. Quite the opposite. Military commands at all levels routinely have to cut exercises and practices from their schedules to support various "hobby horses" or "pet projects" the military is tasked to support based on political pressure. The National Jamboree is a good example of such a "pet project." Do the units supporting these get good training? Absolutely. Could the resources spent on the Jamboree be better used supporting other valid military training objectives? Absolutely. Do I support the use of military resources to enable the Jamboree? Absolutely 😜 (Sometimes the troops would rather support something at home like this, rather than flying to a third world country to practice their "wartime" skills there.)

Our troop isn't meeting tonight due to Thanksgiving. Seems odd, since it's Tuesday and Thanksgiving is two days away. We also didn't meet on Veterans Day, for some reason. I also found out that we aren't meeting for two weeks in December. This seems rather Cub Scoutish. Is this normal now? My troops growing up met unless it was Christmas or Independence Day. If kids went out of town, fine, they missed the meeting. No big deal. Everyone else had the opportunity to get together and have fun.

Section 6: Rules around the number of local council members, the composition of members, the size of the local council board, and the composition of the board were eliminated. The new proposed Local Council Bylaws Template gives local councils flexibility to structure their own governance according to their needs. Of note, in order to allow local councils more flexibility in determining the appropriate number of members and in selecting their members, chartered organizations will no longer be automatic voting members of the local councils. Local councils can continue to elect chartered organization representatives as voting members if desired. Source: Facebook post by J. D. Urbach in "Talk About Scouting!"

I doubt this is going to affect any council. The reality of the situation is that absolutely no CORs are showing up to council meetings or even district meetings. I know this to be fact for my council and the councils surrounding my council. I have nagged the living ^&*( out of my CORs to go to district and council meetings and they all say the exact same thing "I don't have time for that.". My #1 go to line for unit leaders being pissy about our latest property liquidation has been "Did your COR bother to show up to the council meeting about that to vote on the matter?"; I have yet to meet a COR that was at that vote, or any of the previous votes, or a single district or council meeting period. It might affect some councils chartering for 2026; however, my understanding is that most if not all councils left the national meeting with a 2 year charter going forward. Maybe that kicks in with next years charter, but I was told that this years charter extends into 2026 now (so supposedly all if not most councils have a charter that covers 2025 & 2026 and recharters will be 2 year charters now).

First, a leaked draft memo does not equal policy. This memo could have been generated by some mid-level staffer with an axe to grind against Scouting America, and may never see the light of day as an official communique. The real ignorance lies in all of the articles already attributing this as coming from the Secretary. I promise you, no Secretary of any department drafts their own memos like this, and these draft memoranda go through numerous revisions and legal review before being issued. Having worked at these levels with the Department of Defense (or so it was called when I was on active duty), I can easily posit this memo was the result of some staff task issued at the request of the National Guard Bureau to 'justify withdrawing support to Joint Task Force - National Scout Jamboree as a drain on resources.' But that is an educated guess on my part. https://www.wv.ng.mil/News/Article/3463243/a-decade-of-diligence-joint-task-force-national-scout-jamboree-kicks-off-10-yea/ In other posts, I have commented that Scouting America, over the past years, has, indeed, lost some credibility as a "meritocracy", (while maintaining the guise of one) as the quality of instruction and program at summer camps has declined, and Scouts are being given badges rather than earning them. Let's have some tactical patience and see what develops with this story. Hopefully, the press will show due diligence and ask the right questions to flesh out what is really going on here. It would not surprise me at all if the burden of logistical support is withdrawn, considering the dwindling attendance at jamboree: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Scout_jamboree_(Scouting_America) Nor would it surprise me if the initial enlistment rank advancement given to Eagle Scouts is withdrawn, given the observed lower quality potential recruits we (collectively) are producing. Giving a rank advancement upon enlistment to Eagle Scout and Gold Award recipients is an endorsement of those programs...

Two weeks? I'm really struggling to see that, especially over holiday weeks when there is so much else going on.

It's a massive loss of momentum. In two weeks, I can completely switch my focus to something else because the signal I'm receiving is that Scouting isn't important enough to meet every week. It's like skipping a workout for two weeks. Very hard to get going again. I don't see how national is getting any extra money from regular troop meetings.

I saw the original email, I read the original NPR story (not helping with their DEI knot and rainbow slide photo btw), and I've now seen nothing much come out throughout the day except the leak/rumor; I mean, we got nothing? Rex Tillerson just did a video for Scouting America on Veterans Day; dudes got the connections at all levels in the Republican Party. None of these muldunes (https://www.scouting.org/about/governance/national-executive-board/) have anything for Scouting America? My council has 3 flag officers on the BOD and no one knows the whole story or has seen the full policy? This all smells like some sort of manipulation scheme; at this point all of the rage baiting is going to backfire. Everyone fired up about anti-DEI Hegseth and what happens if national decides to kill the Citizenship in Society MB over this?

I think you are correct, the patrol is the fundamental, or I would say foundational group in a unit. I've seen that literature, and I've seen a lot about what was really going on with the LDS (such as the inflated membership numbers due to the LDS just cutting a bulk check to BSA). I would agree that you need the activities to keep the scouts coming. I would state that advancement is much more important than just project first class. I would make the argument of why do people hate scope creep and why do people hate jobs/careers where they just "run the business" and every day bleeds into the next? The answer is no feeling of accomplishment. There's no way to unwind the changes to the program. First the mixed age patrol method is basically dead in my opinion, my personal experience is that it can't work because it becomes a pseudo gerontocracy, especially if the troop institutes by-laws that restrict who can be elected based on rank, NYLT, etc ... so what ends up happening is that older scouts regardless of ability or charisma, or disposition end up the patrol leaders and assistant senior patrol leader, and patrol leader while everyone else is forced to wait their turn. Secondly the legal system forces us to create tenting buddy plans and buddy/truddy teams based on age. It is such a pain in the butt if the oldest and the youngest of a patrol show up for something and no one in between. So many bad troops without any connection somehow independently have created the same bad troop systems that have made national want to move to age based patrols. The path forward is unfortunately going to be age based patrols. The question becomes how do we make them work? That might be going back to DuctTape's patrol based operations. I also see some of the forced to attend scouts. In my primary unit I see them and they fall into two groups. Group 1 is the group that is a big distraction, they don't want to be in scouts at all but their parents are forcing them. They don't do outings, service never hits their radar, etc ... parents don't care just as long as they are attending meetings for some reason. The other group 2 is the group that parents tell us that they have to force their kids to show up, but once they are there they are happy, and we mostly see that in their behavior. We see these scouts A LOT on outings, these are the "camping club" scouts that hate meetings but will show up to basically anything outdoors. This is the group that I think would benefit the most from patrol based scouting; 8 scouts that want to camp 4 times a month year round with 2 or adults that can't say no would be ideal. You might lose a lot of scouts on this. The better answer might be "Hey parents talk with your scout, we need feedback, what do they say would make them want to come to more meetings?"

The values of the DoD and woke Scouting no longer align. Predictable.

If you look at older BSA literature, @DuctTape is 100% correct. Troop meetings were designed to plan and prepare for trips, and well as competition amongst patrols. Patrol Meetings were where the learning was supposed to take place, with older Scouts working with younger Scouts. Prior to 1989, advancement was not the focus of Scouting, having fun and experiential learning was. In 1989, the introduction of aged based programs, and especially OPERATION FIRST CLASS (sic), changed the focus to advancement. With aged based patrols, new Scouts were lumped into one patrol with a single older Scout as a Guide to teach and supervise everyone. Challenge with that was burnout because one Scout had to supervise everyone in the patrol, instead of having multiple Scouts mentoring the new guys. That led to adults taking over and turning it into Webelos 3. And the LDS model of segregating their 11 year olds into a separate patrol and having an assigned ASM to work with them, as in Cub Scouts, was the model for this. LDS 11 year old patrols had a very adult led and regimented program which led to constant repetition of the program. But because the 11 yo Scouts moved to a traditional patrol at 12, they never saw the repetition. And the adults, not the Scouts, created a program designed to get them to First Class in a year. Scouts had no input. But OPERATION FIRST CLASS was the main cause for the change of focus from fun and adventure, to advancement. BSA's research showed that Scouts who got First Class in 12-18 months stayed longer in Scouts. As a result National pushed advancement. But the research data had some major flaws IMHO. As an older Scout I commented that the data did not take into account how active a troop is. A "hiking and camping troop" with fun monthly outdoor activities will retain Scouts, and provide more opportunities for advancement. And I learned later as an adult is that LDS troops heavily influenced the data. First and foremost, every LDS male was registered, whether active or not. And LDS units had a fixed 11 year old program designed to get them to First Class before joining the rest of the troop. Even doing only 4 camp outs and no summer camp at 11, they got First Class stayed registered, even if they didn't show up again. But maybe I am an old fogey stuck in the past. My troop has not focused on advancement, but fun and adventure. Our Scouts stuck around until they aged out, or went off to college. And two Eagles did activities with us in college and before aging out. We are now in single digits, and folding at the end of the year. We have not had a feeder pack in over 15 years, relying on word of mouth and Scouts dissatisfied with their original troops to keep our numbers up. But several troops we would get Scouts from have folded, and the remaining ones took notes from us, and are doing more activities and being more youth led to prevent folks from leaving. The last time we had Webelos visit, some parents didn't like the amount of camping we did, or our emphasis on fun and adventure; advancement is the Scout's responsibility. There is a quote attributed to Baden-Powell, " Advancement is like a suntan, it just happens in the outdoors."

I am not 100% sure I agree. Advancement is a method and the responsibility of the individual scout, it is not the responsibility of the PLC or adults. That said, if a real scouting program was ocurring with real outdoor patrol based events then the opportunity for advancement is inherent. Meetings are mostly for planning the patrol events, games (which practice scoutcraft). In patrol meetings, the PL (or better yet the APL) should be checking in with each member's advancement status and desires and use them to help plan the patrol events. Also bring the needs/desires to PLC to help plan troop games and/or coordinate with another patrol on an outdoor event. Sure some advancement particulars may take place like a scout asking to be tested on a specific requirement and/or having his PL sign off on one completed at the campout. In general if a meeting has "advancement" as the agenda item, then IMO this is problematic; this says to me the patrols are non-functioning. To summarize, a well planned patrol based scouting program will have opportunities for advancement baked in; the individual scout is responsible for his own advancement (encouraged by PL and SM/ASM). Focus on well functioning patrols, then the PLC and troop meetings will improve. Too many troops fail at this improvement by attempting to start with the PLC and troop instead of the patrol.

But that's not what this program is. This is a 12 month program designed for a certain amount of activities and meetings each month (based on program). I hear this argument in my district and all of the units that say this are single digit membership and dying. The units that meet every week and do an outing every month have above average retention and are producing AOLS and Eagles. I've seen it go both ways. I've seen units adopt a 12 month a year, every week schedule an they grow and retention goes above average. I've seen units go the other direction and reduce meetings and they shrink (or outright die, seen that happen and it happens quick).

Changing the rule to force 2 male leaders on any/all unit functions that include male youth only complicates the issue. If the argument is "fairness" the only answer is MORE restriction and regulation. There are NO circumstances where getting rid of the female leader requirement ever happens. There are exceptions to the rule; however, basic sociology has explained and it's been proven across all societies that there is a higher potential for abuse between a male leader and a female youth than a female leader and a male youth to the observed and proven physical attraction that occurs between older males to younger females. We have to protect female youth, it's plain and simple.

While I agree with your sentiment, I understand why they do this. It is men, by far, who are statistically more likely to appear in the reports, or be convicted, of sexual abuse (notice how I phrased that...) https://www.ussc.gov/research/quick-facts/sexual-abuse From that page, note that ~92% of offenders were men, and ~72% of offenders had little or no prior criminal history. It is not about you or me, it's about "us." We men appear to be the overwhelming majority of the problem. I do believe there is a lot more adult female to youth male abuse that goes on that is not reported, and that the societal tide is turning on reporting and convicting those women who abuse. (See recent reports, particularly from school settings.) But the numbers will never near parity with men as perpetrators. This is a policy made through the input of actuarials, lawyers, and public relations folks, among others.

National could remove the double standard, i.e. 2 females can take males youth out, but 2 males cannot take female youth out.

We are chartered to a civilian organization. This will be interesting for our Cub Scout pack though. I will say that there is a grain of truth in the lack of standards being upheld. As far as our troop, we have very few Scouts who are above First Class, so doing advancement at meetings is vital. However, our PLC is failing them by not actually doing advancement.

This is absolutely avoidable by recruiting as many leaders as possible. If we take an honest look at most packs and troops there are very few leaders. Everyone complains but no one is asking. I forced the issue this year to recruit at least 4 more NEW leaders and it was tough to get everyone onboard, it was about 3 months of going around and talking about what adults were close to aging out, how succession plans really work, how doing a right-seat-ride (you'll like that Armymutt) enables successors to really learn a position. The reality of most units is that we're all running lean because there is a certain point where the number of leaders becomes harder to manage the dynamics between leaders. There are a lot of units running on 4-6 leaders because it's just enough to get stuff done but not too many to make administrative work; when you go to those units and say "hey you need to recruit some female leadership into your SM corps and your committee" those units balk. My gut tells me more patrol outings fixes a lot of problems.

We're going to get there. Now that this hurdle is cleared it's time to fix other things so we have more resources in place for program.

Hard to pick a good term these days. "Family scouting" implies helicopter parents subverting the program even more. "Co-ed" scouting implies more societal change like the last twenty years. Terms ... I hope we can get beyond terms. Scouting is really not about gender. It's about getting outside, being active, being responsible and having adventures. All of which lead to personal growth. I pray we can focus on the basics of scouting someday.

https://youtu.be/7YBLGOnX3hE A show that could not be made today...

In the past, I have seen Giving Tree ornaments with various Scout items requested for a child. Now I see some units are seeking sponsors for individual scouts ahead of donations for the unit ....or maybe at the end of the day the money all goes in one pot. Saw this today about dual troops in Brookings, Oregon units .... Fundraising events are critical for sustaining the program. Funds raised, such as those from their current wreath selling effort, are directed toward maintaining their meeting hall, covering essential costs like building maintenance, new gutters, a new drain and the ever-increasing insurance fees as well as helping children join who cannot afford the fees. A core philosophy of the leadership is ensuring that financial hardship never bars a prospective Scout from joining. “We try and cover the cost, if we have any low-income scouts. We try to help them out,” Wilson emphasized. “We don't want any scout to be turned away just because they can't afford a uniform or anything.” To help potential sponsors understand the financial need, (Rachel) Wilson (Committee Chair) broke down the costs for a new Scout: • Uniform Shirt: Approximately $60.00 • Neckerchief: About $15.00 • Patches (starting numbers/badges): Between $15 and $20 • Annual Registration Fee: About $90 • Monthly Dues: $10 for the first Scout per family and $5 for each additional sibling. While the group is currently discussing implementing a formal program for sponsoring individual children, general donations are vital for their maintenance, operational costs and to help fund Scouts who may not otherwise have an opportunity to join. " Source: https://www.currypilot.com/news/dual-troops-single-mission-local-scouts-serve-community/article_df0fc6e0-ecf0-422b-8e90-6ec383732881.html

Gives the impression that mom, dad, and all the kids are welcome, regardless of age, to attend a picnic. One of the consumers of BSA program graduates (Eagles) is the US military. We will see if its preference for Eagle Scouts continues or fades away. I have not been impressed with the scout craft skill set of Eagles, or any lesser rank for that matter, for the last 30 years. Few scouts know their knots, can build a fire, sharpen a knife, navigate with a compass and map, etc.

Not a fan of the name "Family Scouting" ... it gives the impression that Mom and Dad can earn badges too. 🙂

I’m having a similar challenge with a family member who would rather raise funds to sponsor a scout to attend World Jamboree while I know that, for the hassle, lowering the cost to every youth (and maybe young adult) in entire contingent would be preferred. I gave our head of contingent a call, and he had just talked to a parent of a former WSJ scout who also wanted to sponsor a single scout of the contingent’s choosing. I guess you have to work with donors as they come to you. But targeted contributions call for a lot of oversight. On a troop level, I tell donors that we have a scoutmaster discretionary fund to allow the SM, the CC, and the treasurer to confidentially assist scouts who need it.

@Pack85 welcome back. We re-use uniforms, why not domains as well.

So basically anyone interested in the Family Troop option is going to hold off on recharter until right before Christmas. Looks like registrars are going to have a horrible week leading up to the normal HQ shutdowns.

I can tell you all the following based on my knowledge of my district and council. Our linked troop plan was ok, but not optimal to bring females into the program due to the 5 girl minimum that has been enforced (my DE will not allow 3 female 3x3 units). My pack has crossed female scouts into the void for 7 years now. The females that did cross in my area were forced to cross to units that were not convenient to get to (long drives, bad meeting nights, etc ...) it seemed that all of the not so great units got linked troops first and then the district and council protected their first to the table status. Membership is going to tick up due to female retention, and to some degree brother of sister scout retention, simple rational logic; we're going from a system where female scouts had no path or a poor path to the troop level program to a literal buffet of troop choices. We're going to have better female retention and better female recruitment. My primary unit has become the strongest troop in the district and they were basically barred from having a female linked troop. We have run the numbers, we've talked with the families, and now that the unit charter won't get yanked the second someone ages out or moves we'll recharter in December as a Family Troop starting with 5 female scouts. In March we're picking up at least 2 crossovers. The 3 linked troops in my district have about half of their female membership commuting in from my town, we expect to get half of those scouts transferring in to our new Family Troop in 2026. The critical mass that this will create is already spreading through our local scouting community and we think before the end of 2027 we'll have somewhere between 12 and 20 female scouts in our troop. The downside is that we'll experience a considerable amount of cannibalization in 2026 as female associated scout families reset into their home communities. We are going to see some troops collapse and not recharter in 2027. Some troops that thought they had a good program because they were pulling in female scout families will have to face the fact that their program sucks but they were the only option for people. I spoke with a family this last week, they were ALL going to drop from the program due to their female scout struggling in the only option unit. They are going to stick it out for the Family Troop option. That's 4 registration that we were going to lose on Jan 1st that we're going to retain at least for 1 more year.

A little late in the month... feels a bit of a slog at this point with all of the unknowns. November 1 update: average $588,121 per TDP claim... again, about the same for the last few months but steadily rising (for reference, it was $557,053 six months ago). For the TDP, 72% claims determined and 52% paid (30,413 paid) For the IRO, 58% claims determined and 27% paid (54 paid) The "paid" percentages include me this month! Thanks to my counsel, Jeff Anderson & Associates. The Trust has valued the paid-only claims so far at just about $18B (noting that, presumably and in some cases, confirmedly, the IRO determinations push this higher... this only accounts for the first $1MM of any IRO determination). If the mix remains similar through the remaining unpaid claims, the Trust would need $34B. With the SSS issues, hard to say if it does remain the same. Initially, I was going to note that 30% of disallowed claims were in the last quarter! But there were also a lot more claims determined, so the disallowed claims percentage only ticked up a litte (1.7%, from 1.4%) inching up to 1.7% of claims determined). I think reasonable bounds are $25-35B. I hope everyone is hanging in there and has a lovely Thanksgiving.

YES! If you can find an old 3rd edition SMHB 2 volumes, there is a very good plan to starting a troop with new Scouts. Funny thing is, the best SPL i ever worked with was 12 years old. He was voted in, and beat older Scouts.

If a troop is starting with 11 and 12 year olds, does it even make sense to have an SPL to start?

My scouts are so slow about updating their rank patches that maybe they would be better served by just handing down their shirts to the kid who just made their last rank!

Just don't let the council know who the unit's sponsor is. They will go after them for FOS.