Stosh

I'm under the belief that a lot of that is just media/political smoke and mirrors and not the real reasons. We had our Little Leagues and such when i was a kid and we did both. The homosexual issue is smoke and mirrors as well and a current hot topic that sells in the media today. Obviously the homosexual issue is not the reason for the decline of membership since the 1970's. So what changed in the 1970's and what changes can be made today to stem the bleeding?

And what happens when one changes the program thinking it is the problem when it isn't? From the 1970's and onward, there was a major shift in the public's attitude that continues even until now. Recruitment was occurring within the schools, schools were CO's. Interest surveys were being taken and huge mailings were going out to interested youth. All these things have now gone away and except for a pitch in the fall for Cub Scouting, Boy Scouting and Venturing is no longer a council recruiting process. To draw the conclusion that it was the program and not the social perception might have been a wrong call. So what is it that people see? The numbers are down, the councils are consolidating and the camps are closing. We look at the GSUSA and see the same thing. My daughter was Silver and won't have anything to do with the program for her daughter. Scouting is not the prestigious organization it used to be. It used to be a priority in people's lives because of the value it provided. The major reason I strongly discourage the local council camp is because it is too close and the last year I attended there (a number of years back) boys were coming and going all week long to karate lessons, baseball games, etc. I even had one boy just coming out for the day to do MB's. I guess some of the parents really never got over the Cub Day Camp philosophy when their boys moved on to Boy Scouts. I used to push really hard to get the boys to summer camp, now if they drag their feet for any reason I encourage them to stay at home so as to preserve the continuity of those who do go.

Free goat, no prep, short piece of leash and a Sharpie pen to write the names on any piece of paper we could find. The $3500 was pure profit.

And no chairs allowed. Everyone has to stay standing. Meeting's over when the first person leaves the room.

Auctioned a goat? What's the fun in that. What was the winning bid? We raffled a goat and it brought in about $3500, and the kids that won it didn't eat it, it died of old age.

I guess my boys are a bit more "brutal". If one aspires to a particular POR, one had better do some observant training along the way. If you want to be a PL, watch what the successful PL's are doing, talk to them, learn from them so you can take over with knowledge of what's going on, then maybe you have a chance to win an election when a PL steps down. Otherwise, if you're green, don't know what you're doing, got elected by popularity, or whatever, within two weeks or so, there's going to be another election. It's kind of a you better know what you're doing before you seek out a POR. During the Second Class SMC I start talking to the boy about what POR he would like to get ready for. After getting his FC, if he's not ready, he's going to have to wait a while before getting Star. If he's hanging out as patrol QM and the QM isn't going to step down any time soon, he might want to check something else out. If nothing else, he's got a few months to learn to play the bugle. I also have some boys that have done the mail-room to penthouse office route where they went into their PL election wearing their National Den Chief Award on their uniform. That's a good recommendation for anyone looking for the PL position right off the bat. It also bodes well for the NSP election when they pick their first PL, too if the boy has been their Webelos DC. it's kinda fascinating to sit back and watch these kinds of things working themselves out in the troop.

How do you think I don't know how addictive it is?

And it's a whole lot less hassle for the SM, too! Let the boys handle their own politics, the adults have enough of that dealing with each other without having to worry about that too. I wish I had a nickel for every SMC I have had with a boy where I asked him, "How's it working out for you taking care of your boys?" Yes, I might toss in a suggestion for him to consider, but I have never had a SMC where I needed to remind the boy he isn't coming up to par with his performance in a POR. I have had to console a boy or two who was removed from a POR by the SPL or his patrol membership, but that turned into a teaching moment that always seem to turn it into a positive quite quickly.

As @ correctly supposes, the thread is open to all kinds of possibilities for discussion on how to improve scouting and or stem it's decline. The reason I put it out there is because I don't think there is a simple one fix issue out there. 1) Kids don't outdoors like they did 50 years ago. 2) Kids today have more on their plate of things to do. 3) Electronic addiction is out there and it's real. 4) Financial priorities are now in the hands of the parents giving out money rather than in past years where the boys raised money with odd jobs to pay for their scouting. 5) Major focuses of program tend to confuse rather than open up opportunities 6) any one of a number of issues out there that can be the straw that broke the camel's back and people just figured it wasn't worth the hassle anymore. So where's the draw to overcome all that? What is that will take the dork out of Scouting? What would it take to have to deal with boys beating down the doors to get into scouting? I don't think it's just one magic pill that's going to do it, but some kind of extended term rehabilitation process that is going to be needed. What say ye?

@ It's quite true in a large organization either one has to retain a bit of adult "guidance" or take the risk of trusting 100% in he boys which even for me is a daunting challenge. However if one were to define leadership more along the lines of servant leadership rather than management/organizational leadership, one would find that even the Historian, by doing a good job, is taking care of his boys. Making sure the trips and activities are documented, making sure WebMaster has pictures for the troop's website, making sure the press releases are going out to the newspapers, etc. But I'm sure that in most troops, that type of leadership is not developed except in the more obvious positions of SPL, ASPL, PL, and maybe QM. I find that the challenge lies not in developing leadership, but in developing a functional POR for the boys. Chaplain's Aide? Does he have an invocation at every opening flag ceremony? Closing benediction/blessing? Devotionals at evening campfire? How is he taking care of his boys? Most troops I would venture to say, "Not much". Yes, a CA needs lots of leadership and courage in this day and age to pull it off. I have seen it done by one boy exceptionally well. Instead of making election process the focus of POR rank advancement with just the elected positions, one must also develop the SPL appointed positions as well, something that is seldom discussed on the forum because everyone is worried about the few and far between POR's that are elected. OMG, what if Johnny doesn't get elected, he won't get his Eagle! But if the SPL appoints him ASPL and he functions as a "PL" to the troop officer corps, wouldn't that count? Or he accumulates all the training literature, organizes the troop program materials, has resources lined up for on-line knot descriptions, lashing project plans, Compass and map resources to be used for training. As the Librarian, has he shown the "take care of your boys" kind of leadership? As far as challenging boys in a POR, would it not be best to have the boys doing POR work within their patrols so that when they get tapped out for a rank advancing POR need, they are ready? Nope, the process calls for someone needs a POR so he gets thrown under the bus, challenged to take it on with no experience and then we can yell at him when he doesn't do his job. I have never had a QM that wasn't appointed from the QM's of the patrols. Other than temporary SPL's (we're a small troop and don't need one, but at certain activities we need one), all my SPL's have been elected as former APL's. None of my boys want to give up the PL positions so we have worked hard to develop the other PORs into POR's that actually function and serve a purpose. I guess in the long run I have pretty much stayed out of the way of the POR/election process and let the boys handle it on their own. I have offered "guidance" suggestions to the boys in getting the other POR's up and running when someone needs a POR for rank advancement. I also have a reservoir of special projects for the boys as a last resort need for advancement. In my first troop it was adult led, the PL's were elected figure heads and the SPL was appointed by the SM and the whole process was a total failure. When I became SM of my own troop, I turned it all over to the boys and surprisingly through two troops, things seem to work very well especially in the area of functionality. There is way too much myopic haggling around the elections that the appointed POR elephant in the room is totally missed. There are very few elections going on in my troops. Why? Because PL's hang on to their position for as long as the boys want them to lead and the SPL tends to stay quite some time, too But he becomes the #1 choice for PL of new patrols down the road. My boys know that the highest ranking "officer" in the troop are the PL's and they will do all they can to get and retain that position. SPL is the second highest office and that is a stepping stone to the PL positions when they open up. Boys looking for advancement can either challenge in these elected positions or ask for an appointment from the SPL from a POR list of openings. Any and all of these positions have been totally vetted by the boys prior to the elections because they have watched these boys coming up through the ranks proving themselves as they go. Not every boy in the troop aspires to be out front leading, but they might have an interest and/or natural skill in the areas of CA, DC, Librarian, Historian, WebMaster, etc. Those responsibilities must be met with a heart of a leader as well.

I hope the committee knew this was an approved project and not just something the boy did because he was bored....

This of course applies to boys actually taking their responsibilities seriously. SPL is there to make sure the PL's are supported. He asks questions like, "Hey, PL #1, how many boys you have needing POR?" PL #1 says, "I don't know." SPL, "Find out, I will be needing to make some appointments and need to know." Then he say, "Hey, PL #2..." The PL and SPL need to be taking care of their boys and their advancements. It's part of why they are doing that job. If they aren't doing that job, then the patrol members need to get someone in there that will. So then PL #3 says, "Hey SPL, I have a boy that needs a POR right away." SPL, "Everything's full, let me see what I can do." SPL, "Hey, SM, I need a special project for a boy needing a POR, anything lined up, should be a starter project, the boy is working on Star. (or Should be a challenging project, the boy is working on Life)". SM, "Yes, I have one, here." This is how everyone stays in the game, is on top of their responsibilities, learns to communicate and associate effectively with adults on a peer level, and takes care of their boys all at the same time. If one has an outstanding grouping of leaders doing a fantastic job, why would they want to have requisite elections to disrupt all that instead of developing good DC's, resurrecting the Chaplain Aide, Historian, Librarian, Bugler, positions? I think a lot of units don't develop those positions very well because they spend their time sending the boys through an ineffective 6 month revolving door PL program instead.

@, and the demand for POR rank advancement may increase the quality of leadership through competition for those positions. After all, the really creative scout can learn to play the bugle and solve his problem for POR rank advancement. One also has to remember that there can be more than one ASPL, more than one Historian, and if one looks closely, POR's rank requirements can be filled in with special projects approved by the SM. One has to be able to start looking outside the limits of election terms and go with the best regardless of time. By the way, the scouts that do the special projects for POR's have a tendency to do some really great Eagle projects when the time comes along. They have already done a couple pre-projects before the big show.

It has always been my philosophy in life that when faced with a downward death spiral, doing anything different will alter the course. It make make it worse, but it may correct it as well. One never knows until they try. I've gone along with some really stupid, far-fetched ideas people have come up with over the years and surprisingly, some of them actually worked. Ever raffle off a goat?

Lies, damn lies, and statistics.... @, one cannot deny trends occur. Since the 1970's the numbers have been declining and as with global warming, financial trends, etc. they aren't always as true in the long run as they are when one takes a shorter sample set. There were a ton of people who thought things were terrible in 2008 when the market took a dip, but for now the DOW is setting records on the upward swing. I can look at statistics all day long and yet see the trends, but what concerns me more than anything else is the arguments one makes for WHY those statistics trend one way or another. I love the global warming issue. It kinda amuses me without the Chicken Little affect. When Eric the Red fled Norway, he found that Greenland was habitable, and now a thousand years later, things are a bit cold there. While it may not be as cold as Antarctica, one's not going to colonize it like Eric did, Now during WW II North Atlantic temperatures plunged and sailors were finding it rather difficult to make the journey and survive (other than the U-Boats). So, does that mean that because the temperatures tended to decrease for a thousand years, that for the next thousand they won't naturally trend warmer? Weather is cyclical, maybe climate is as well, but on a time table of thousands of years rather than daily or yearly as with the weather. The world has survived at least 4 Ice Ages and the reasons for those remain relatively unknown and debatable. All I know was the Neanderthals weren't running around blaming everyone for too big of campfires were causing global warming. So are the numbers in scouting declining because of what? That's the question. Is it interest on the part of the public? Is it not electronic and hip enough for today's Sesame Street, fast paced, short attention span youth? Is it because people in general don't camp unless it's a 5th wheeler RV in a KOA? Too much competition from other youth organizations? The fundamentals of scouting is no longer relevant? Kids get enough "adventure"/entertainment out of their electronic games? A case could be made for just about any of these issues. So, who's taking the pulse and blood pressure of this organization called BSA? Who's looking for some "medicine" to help it get back on track. Is it a business problem (BSA is trying to get rich), programmatic - STEM being taught by the EDGE method? Not co-ed? Skills aren't needed anymore? etc. The comment was made that my OP was too much DOOM and GLOOM.... and I was hoping when I posted it that I would be getting some pulse and blood pressure reading and some creative, out-of-the-box suggestions on what might be done to stall and even reverse the trends that seem to be yelling doom and gloom. Why does BSA have to be measured in millions of members. Why can't it be like the US Marines, a few elite rather than the general run of the mill youth program? I guess I'm not ready to toss in the towel on this yet because I'm all for being small and elite and having a program where they come because nobody else out there is offering it. A lot of schools used to have senior class trips to Washington DC, etc. How many high school kids get to go to Philmont, Sea Base and BWCA? How many get to white-water canoe and primitive camp? It's not for everyone, don't try and make it that way.

My elections are on an as needed basis. PL leaves, new PL is elected. PL isn't doing the job, a new PL is elected. SPL steps into a different role, a new SPL is elected. etc. PL can serve as long as they wish and are doing the job. Someone needs a POR for advancement? Challenge a PL to an election or pick a POR that no one is currently serving in. Boy led means I as SM can't tell a PL he can't be a PL. If the boys want him as a PL, he stays a PL as long as he wishes. One caveat, when I had an SPL (I only have one patrol of boys now), he was elected by the PL's. If he's going to be their support person, they better have the say so in who that is. An SPL elected by everyone in the troop elects them for a far different reason than support of the PL's and when things go awry, then they dump on the SPL.... Kind of a no win for SPL's. When we went to a 4th patrol in my former unit, the PL's didn't want to step into that position so they elected one of the APL's, the one that was working the hardest for his PL. After all, if he could do well with one PL, then working hard for 4 PL's wasn't going to be a stretch. The PL's were please in that process..

Non-profit religious organizations do this all the time. As long as the donor knows for what purpose the money/service is going towards it's no big deal. A scout troop that sponsors a blood drive is the same thing. This sort of thing goes on all the time.

Thus the non-BSA necker that has no embroidery on it. National can't touch that, it has no branded items on it.

I have worked in offices where Lean Transaction processes are promoted. A lot of what happens in the standard office is wasting time. Waiting for something, trying to figure things out, handling emergencies etc. There are no prescribed processes in place to know what to do for each issue. Take something as simple as the phone rings. They ask for the boss. Do you find out who's calling? Do you put it through? Do you take a message? And so the reinventing of the wheel happens all the time. Standard work for the individuals in the adult support crew need to know what to do when something in their area of responsibility arises. We need a check to pay reimbursements. Does that go to the Scribe? Treasurer?, the CC? It shouldn't be all that hard to have the process written down as standard work. This is what is done when confronted with this situation. If down the road someone comes along with a better way of doing it, standard work of modified and updated in the manual of operations. Newbie parent and you would like them to be responsible for _______. Get out the manual of operations and have them read the part for that job. Can they handle it or not? Of course if they are treasurer an there's nothing in there about going on campouts, and the treasurer would like to go. Great, but it's not part of their standard work. If everyone is on the same page when it comes to expectations, it cuts down on the misunderstandings, rogue activity and abuse of the positions. You want to be a DL? Here's the standard work all spelled out for you. Good support people are not recruited groomed and let loose for on the job training. They are recruited, given knowledge of the responsibilities, trained and supported in their efforts to do a good job. The SM does that for his boys, the CC needs to be doing the same thing for the adults.

It would seem you aren't familiar with Duluth Packs.

Did You Know? The First Texas Infantry lost 82% of their men killed, wounded and missing while fighting in the Cornfield at Antietam, the highest casualty rate for any Confederate regiment in one battle of the Civil War. and did you know it was the Iron Brigade, mostly Wisconsin boys (2nd WI, 6th WI, 7th WI, 19th IN and 24th MI), that inflicted those casualties! Youngest Congressional Medal of Honor recipient (2nd US Battery B) was also heavily engaged in that battle in the Cornfield, too.

This gal is up for a whole ton of potential charges from embezzlement to forgery. I hope it was worth it.

All of us are handicapped in some form or another. Some of us have handicaps that show, others you can't see, like stupidity, hatred, bigotry and prejudice. At least with an amputee you know what you're getting right from the get go. Sometimes it takes a while to figure out how stupid someone really is as with the two ASM's.

Does this take into account the number of athletes who run marathons, do track and field, and a number of other activities like "normal" people do.? I knew a SM who had only one arm. It didn't slow him up one bit. I'll take a one armed, one legged determined scout over a dozen couch potatoes working on their paper eagle.