MattR

If the only patrol activity is eating then that raises a question. What is going on the rest of the time? Is it fun, challenging or in some way memorable? If so, then do them by patrol. If not, then it certainly explains why few scouts are going. Another challenge is whether or not there are scout leaders. I'm not talking about someone with a position of responsibility patch. I'm talking about the scout everyone wants to hang out with because they create fun. Those people need the patrol leader patch and support from the adults to put on a good program. Here's an idea for you to try out being such a leader. Suggest a competition between patrols to create the best patrol flag. Bling is good. Flashing lights are great. Spend part of a meeting for patrols to think about ideas and another meeting to make them. The hard part will be finding material so ask the adults if they could help with that. This is the type of activity that can be fun, create good memories and help patrols develop.

I think better relief is a wet, cotton t-shirt. Or a wet bandana wrapped around your head or neck. We got some fantastic neck wrap things at a volunteer thing. They weren't cotton but they were wonderful. I guess this only works if the humidity is low but that's where I live.

I don't know the answer but if you looked in the guide to safe scouting and can't find anything then they likely don't care. Your other option is call the camp and ask. They're usually quite helpful. Good luck and have fun. It's a good summer to be in the water.

If you're using an off brand web browser, say Firefox for example, try something more mainstream, such as Chrome. I've had all sorts of problems with user interfaces on Firefox by companies that probably only tested their sw on one or two browsers. This is nothing but a hunch.

@qwazse, I beg to differ. I would not make a good cse. I'm not sure how much emphasis UK scouts puts on school work type advancement or King's scout vs fun and adventure, but Grylls certainly belonged to the later. I had never heard of him before your post so I googled him. While some people focus on his being super competitive, sucking up the pain, etc, what he writes seems a lot more balanced. Eg: competition is good but too much will ruin your life. Face it, Grylls used to hollow out a yak and sleep in it to stay warm.

Think of how many scouts knew nobody else. Add to that that the scouts knew who the chief scout was and that's an impressive tenure. I wish him the best, and that the BSA could find such a person

The page is blank. I once camped in a US graveyard in France as a scout. I went to Normandy with my parents but that would have been a great scout trip.

Fewer people read a local paper anymore, where news about scouting used to be. Bad experience/ didn't like the unit is why what percentage left scouts? If they had said no time, not interested, etc then it's an issue of other activities crowding out scouts but a negative experience is a big red flag to me. What's worse is the "people don't know they can be in any unit." I read that as whoever asked the questions is blaming the unit leaders. "Don't like the unit? Find another, problem solved." Yes. My experience was being a den leader is the toughest job because neither the scouts nor adults help out. Add to that the program being repetitive and I had to put on a weekly program on my own for 8 kids. It was only 2 years for me but do that for 5 and of course the parents are exhausted. I never saw newly entering parents that were cub leaders want to jump in at the troop level. There was always a 3 to 6 mo leader gap. That was great in that it gave them time to also learn because we had plenty of adults helping out. Now, however, the new parents are pressed into service as soon as possible. It's really bad when the key 3 are new to a troop. They mean well and they have hearts of gold, but it's usually not good. I've seen units collapse because nobody will step up. The leaders were great, they tried to find successors, they finally told the parents it's time, they left and the units folded. Rather than blame the adults that won't help out maybe some consideration should be given to why it's so much work to put on a successful scout unit. The idea of an hour a week is the easiest scouter joke to get a laugh. At one point I was telling new parents that close to one hour of scouter time was required for each scout in the troop per week. 50 scouts meant close to 50 hours. Troop meetings, committee meetings, conferences, campouts, records, keeping gear and buying patches. OA, roundtable, training, PLC coaching, eagle coaching, .... and it doesn't include MB counselors. Parents see this effort and back off for a reason. Hence, my request to simplify the program.

Unfortunately that doesn't encourage them to join scouting. I mean, if so many people know the benefits then why aren't they involved? Thats an important paradox to understand. It's just my hunch but maybe people are just parroting what they've heard and really have no idea what Scouting is about. Most scouts, when asked if they are trustworthy, cheerful, friendly, etc, will say yes because the scout law says "a scout is ..." so they must be. I've come to the conclusion that I'm none of those things. I certainly try but I'll never live up to that standard. It's easy when everything is going right but wind and cold and hunger and whiny kids and traffic and some other guy being an idiot and, when I'm doing really well, I can hopefully stay ahead of that welling up of anger and just let it go. It's the difference between selfish and selfless and everyone fights that battle. I don't know, maybe a long time ago everyone realized how hard that battle is but these days selfish has won. Teenagers tend towards selfish because they don't have much experience but it seems so much harder now. Or maybe it's always been a struggle. Either way, we all want absolutes and no pain for our children and yet, the hardest part of being a parent is coming to terms with the need for struggle. Just like noone wants their child to get sick we've found out that colds are needed to develop a good immune system. So it goes that struggling with selfish is the only way to develop humility. How many parents of 11 year olds understand that? An 11 year old has barely learned to walk when it comes to humility and their parents only know that the struggle they went through as a child is something they don't want for their kids. They look at the kool-aid that character comes from doing requirements and they rightfully have their doubts. Sure, maybe scouts does develop character but not for my kid. It would be really useful to ask those 90% why they don't put their kids in scouts.

Beauty and expensive are in the eye of the beholder, so I'll leave that be. Momentum? The membership in 1995 was about 1M scouts (so not cubs or anything else). Right before covid that number had dropped about 25% to 750k. Covid has cut that number another 40%. Time will tell if the BSA withstood or fell to a thousand cuts. I wish the BSA would focus on those first two sentences. I would add that it also helps learn about working with others. Yesterday a scout called me up asking about some volunteering info. Well, he was my first scout that joined when I became SM some 20 years ago. He had a rough time as a kid and I won't get into why but he has fond memories of scouts. We talked, mainly because I'm an old man and also have fond memories. He said scouting really helped him learn some important lessons. He talked about leadership, the outdoors, working with younger scouts, just having fun with his friends. He made good memories. I think that's another aspect of the BSA's staying power. A lot of parents want for their kids what they had as kids.

This is going sideways fast. I don't want to lock this thread, so please, don't let this website ruin your day. In the meantime ... Doesn't it make anyone else wonder that if we're arguing over advancement that isn't being done and the scouts don't mind and don't care, that this is really just a huge waste of effort? It seems the adults care about the advancement a lot more than the scouts do. Just maybe that means advancement isn't doing what it was intended to do. Aren't all the methods supposed to be ways to motivate the scouts to participate and interact with each other so they learn more about the scout law? Instead, we're arguing or getting worked up and the scouts don't want to have anything to do with it. Soon, someone will reply that the adults are just screwing up, find better adults or more adults or just go fix it yourself. Remember, this thread is about dropping membership. I'm thinking the problem is deeper than "just do it right." From my view, giving recognition to a scout that discusses how to make a fire and/or the food plate, is just feature bloat in the program. Just a thought, but if a scout gets recognized for doing something that his friends in school think is stupid, then the program is recognizing the wrong thing if the goal is to increase membership. Swim a mile? Absolutely. Climb a 1000 ft? Of course. Discuss how programmers can hurt themselves? Say what? They're joking, right? What kid is going to brag to his friends that he kept a journal of being active for a month? If you want a scout to be physically active then reward them for hiking 10 miles or going on a long bike ride. This requirement is a farce and everyone knows it. This type of thing is so watered down, such that everyone can get it, that the rank requirements are more participation award than recognition. That's why membership is going down. Asking the adults to work around this mess just causes arguments and frustration. That's why adults don't want to volunteer.

I hope they make it work. They will be forced to figure out how to do it without merit badges. That could be a good learning experience for other camps. I wonder what kind of program they'd put on for scout units. My old troop has gone to Bear Lake, which also has little to do with the BSA anymore, and the scouts really liked it.

But after 13 years of pushing this the membership numbers are still going down. What bad assumptions are they making? Maybe it's a bad assumption that just having scads of documents around will make it easy for parents to pick this up and do well. Have you ever wondered why so few parents are willing to volunteer for scouts? Is it really all their fault because they're lazy or is it too complicated on top of the fact that their work life is already insane. If summer camps can't get parents to show up unless they have wifi for checking into work then that's a hint there's a problem. I coached my daughter's 6 year old soccer team. It was pretty obvious what to do. Tell everyone to bring a ball. Get some cones. Make up some games. They learned the rules, they ran around and kicked the ball a bunch and they had fun. No literature needed. No databases or patches or SM conferences. I know the guy that taught the U18 team that almost won nationals. This guy was incredible working with the youth. His approach for these older kids was pretty much the same as mine except he understood soccer a lot better than me. Maybe kids like these types of competitive activities because the rules are simple and the challenges are both easy to understand and difficult to master. Instead, we have to argue about whether a scout needs to actually start a fire to pass the fire building requirement. And then we argue about one and done and retesting at SM conferences. And the scout still can't start a fire because the PLC decided that they didn't want to do skills competitions. Just a hint, but this is one reason why some parents don't want to volunteer. I'm not claiming I have the answer or that I even know what the problem is, but there is a problem. Scouting can be a good program. I've seen some amazing things. I see them much less now and it's a shame. My granddaughter is 16 months old and my grandson is 10 weeks old. I hope they have a scout program worth joining when they're 11 years old.

To be honest, I think the program is too easy to get wrong and consequently scouts are not joining or are leaving because they're not having fun when they're younger or not being challenged when they're older. It's just that simple. Add to that the economy and work environment (always on) and the parents aren't having fun either. The program is confusing, contradictory and looks like it's been evolving over a hundred years in high level committee meetings. @Jameson76's comment that the BSA needs to focus on what the program is really rings true to me. If it's teamwork/ patrol method and skills then why are there ranks? No other youth activity has ranks so why have them for scouts? If the answer is that it's been done forever or it's the only way they know how to motivate kids (my suspician) then maybe that should change. Why are there so many Cit in X merit badges? Citizenship really isn't a skill and so these just look like an extension of school. It certainly has nothing to do with the outdoors. Only needing 20 nights of camping to get the biggest patch certainly looks like the outdoors isn't really important. And what about physical fitness? Wishful thinking? If scouting is supposed to be in the outdoors then why is 90 percent of the time spent indoors at meetings. That's just confusing. This is why adults don't volunteer, the youth are not getting much out of the program and the numbers continue to drop. Here's an idea. The aim is living the scout law. The method is learning skills in the outdoors. Go back to First Class is the last rank and all rank skills are about the outdoors. Merit badges are about other skills that can be learned in the outdoors, to be done in the outdoors, by patrols. Patrols decide what outdoor adventure they want to conquer. Since MBs are patrol based, MB fairs are where patrols go to learn new skills for new adventures. Summer camp is patrol based outdoor skill learning and adventures. Roundtable is a place where adults learn new outdoor skills to teach their youth. This won't take years to understand. It will take a half hour to describe and maybe 3 months to get comfortable with. But none of that will happen because too many people feel that what was working 60 years ago should still work now. That's ridiculous. Times have changed.

Another aspect of this is that today's 11 year old is less mature than those of 20 years ago. Whether it's cell phones, social media, games, helicopter parents or whatever, kids have less ability at dealing with hard, challenging stuff.

Fascinating graph. It explains a lot. The rise in scouts was tied to the baby boom a lot more than I realized. I joined in 1971, which was both about the peak and near the end of the baby boom. I don't know what happened in 86 but there was a big bump in cub scouts but no change boy scouts. The other thing I noticed is the connection to the family savings rate and this graph. Nobody even measured it before 1950 because it was so low, but then there was a huge surge in the 60's and a drop off mid to late 70's that has been going down since. Maybe I'm seeing what I want but the lesson to me is make scouting cheaper and simpler. It has nothing to do with membership rules nearly as much as it does with the economic health of the middle class.

The key point here is that fewer scouts (and likely their parents) want to camp ... ... as illustrated here Barry, I used to see that but not anymore. The parents I'm seeing aren't interested. One example is an eagle scout who worked at a high adventure base as a youth. When I said great, we can't wait to have you come on our next campout, he hemmed and hawed and said he doesn't do cold weather. We can take his kid but he won't come on that trip. I used to not worry about what the BSA did because I figured the parents would take up the slack and do scouting, one way or the other. Now, it appears the BSA is saying something we don't want to admit. Too many adults are afraid of the outdoors. Which makes no sense because I see so many RVs around here. But maybe it's that they like the outdoors, but only for a few hours at a time. Certainly not 40 hours on a weekend. I think this change has been going on for a long time, at least a few decades, but it seems to have accelerated lately. It's not like it's everyone. My old troop still has a few scouts that want to do high adventure trips but it's not like 20 years ago when every single new scout wanted to go on klondike because that was the biggest challenge they'd ever seen. Now, there are scouts that have been in the troop for 2 years and still haven't gone on a campout. It's like having a soccer team where half the kids don't want to go out on the field. That's why I told my old troop I was done. I can't figure out how to work with kids and parents that think the meetings are all there is to scouts. I suspect the BSA (or SSA or S,SA or whatever) is also struggling with this. Ten years ago my troop was really strong but probably half the troops in our district were struggling with things like having enough adults to go camping. My old troop is still one of the stronger troops but that's only because the others are on life support. Now, it's like those troops were ten years ago. My guess is the BSA has no idea how to change that. I admit, I don't have any ideas either. I joked about the name change before because, honestly, worrying about what one can't control is unhealthy. The same goes for the rearranging of deck chairs the BSA does with its name. I've finally decided it is what it is and I can't and shouldn't think about changing it.

Does this mean the BSA has joined with Scouts Mexico and Scouts Canada to form Scouts America? That would be fun. Oh wait, what about South America?

Welcome to the forum, @Eloisefig. That's certainly no fun. It sounds like you've already made up your mind and I can't blame you. Good luck. But I'm not sure how much better luck you're going to have elsewhere. It seems to me that every troop I know of is struggling. Anyway, I few observations: In your meeting with the SPL and ASPL you dumped a whole lot of new ideas on them that they likely don't understand if they've never seen it before. Babies don't take smaller steps then older children, they stumble around and crash a lot. Sometimes they need to be caught before they crack their head. Keep that in mind. Hint: "baby steps" are smaller than you might think and you need to help them learn. Next, you can't get PLs to show up. What's their incentive? I hate to say this but you expecting them to show up won't work. A bigger issue, and the reason I just left my troop, might be that there are no expectations about scouts that everyone in the troop understands. If you have a POR, you're expected to try and that means show up. If you're an older scout then you're expected to help out. Every scout in the troop is expected to go on a certain percentage of the campouts. Whatever, just decide and let everyone know. If the parents aren't in on this then you're out of luck. Next, everything is planned by adults. Of course it is. That's because nobody can agree on what the scouts own and what the adults own. The easiest thing for the adults is to just plan it. Next, SM isn't showing up. My guess is he's afraid of losing his job. Just a hunch, I've seen it a lot lately. Anyway, there may be a reason. Next, MB's aren't up to par. Pick your battles. That one is not nearly as important as the others. Scouts enjoy a good program, they really don't care for the MBs unless they're well done. If you can work the MBs into the program then great, otherwise that's just a bridge too far. If you can find a better run troop, that's fine. But what does your son think? If he has friends in the troop and you yank him out then you might win the battle and lose the war. Scouts that don't have friends in the troop when they're 14 just quit. Finally, a caveat to all I've written. There are different ways to run a troop. Different people have different ideas on how best to do it. Different people get different results. Some people are sure they know the right way. I'm not. That said, here are some other observations. YMMV Scouting is a drop in program when it should be a team (patrol) based program. If you don't show up someone else will deal with it. Besides, the only thing important is advancement and that's about as self serving as it gets. So, how to make the patrols more of a team and less a mob? Projects? Like 4H or robotics? Going on a hike or a campout just isn't enough anymore. Scouting has so many little moving parts that it's really hard to keep track.. Advancement, OA, PLCs, camporees, high adventure, MBs, roundtables, recruitment, popcorn, uniforms, safety training, some excellence program, Courts of honor, patches, pins, the guide to advancement, and on and on and on. Can you deal with all of this, by yourself, in an hour or so a week? Of course not. But that's where this program needs to go. Two or three adults should be able to run a troop of 30 to 40 scouts. There is only one aim of scouting - get better at living the scout law. There's always room for improvement. There's one place to do that - the outdoors. Everything else is a distraction.

I don't see the BSA ever having to deal with this problem because there doesn't seem to be a benefactor that could sign off on such a project. Nobody in the school district. It's great that this scout wants to unban books, but it's not a service project that helps specific people. Something about working with others to solve a problem rather than just working on it alone sounds better to me. And yet it does make me want to read Slaughterhouse Five. I don't know how I missed that one. I went and found a synopsis and think it would be a great read.

@ramanous , the most important one for me is whether the older scouts are looking out for the younger scouts. If the younger scouts don't look up to the older scouts then the troop will develop all sorts of problems from lack of participation, young SPLs that struggle while older scouts stay home, a lack of team work and just a real self centered attitude. The term scout led really is too vague. What most adults think of scout led is scouts making plans. But leadership, good leadership, is all the little things like including the shy scouts and encouraging those that are struggling. It's the essence of the Scout Law. Once in place, this will feed itself as the younger scouts look up to the older scouts and eventually become those older scouts that give back to the new younger scouts.. However, getting it in place is hard because teenagers can get very self centered when given a chance. Tending this process was the most important and challenging problem for me as an SM. Good luck.

@Maboot38 , you seem to recognize a problem and aren't willing, or more likely, know how to deal with it. You have an adult that is driving off scouts. This has nothing to do with titles. This is a people problem. Something needs to change, which you recognize. The options are he backs off on his own or you back him off. You're the SM. He's messing up your program. You have a vision of how this should work (and it sounds good from what you've implied) and he's hindering that. You need to decide whether the time it will take to change him is worth it. If so, great. If not, he needs to go. Your question shouldn't be about titles and what the rules allow. Instead, it should be about how to confront this guy in as scout-like a manner as possible. There are no rules on how to do that, just experience having worked with people problems before. Good luck.

I'm hoping you're wrong. Last night I found out our council has only 2400 youth registered. Our district, ten years ago, was larger than this. We used to have a pack in every elementary school (15 or 20?). We're down to 3 or 4. I think the packs are done folding but the troops are in serious decline at the moment. Our troop, which has always been considered strong compared to neighboring troops, is in serious trouble while 2 other troops have folded. If it weren't for a half dozen adults in our troop that no longer have kids in the troop, ours would fold. The common thread in all of this is a lack of parents that want to put time into helping out. I used to think that no matter how messed up national was, scouting would do fine because people want it. I'm not so sure anymore. It looks to me like parents don't believe in scouting. I still think scouting is important but I don't know how to convince people of that. The Forbes article mentioned contacting a million scouting alumni. While the cynical view is they're only asking for money, it could also be they're asking for help getting the message out.

Soros is to blame for the downfall of the BSA? That's a new one. I think I'm done here. This is a waste of my time.

Sure, but something about being prepared keeps poking the back of my gray matter. I have noticed that nay sayers jump out of the woodwork whenever a new idea is proposed. Understanding how, for example, the UK does this could help.