Gone

Well, all good questions. Let me kick this along by asking the following: If IOLS is a one-time training, why can't WRFA be? Could training be good for 3 years? 5 years? The costs for first aid training could be greatly reduced by council if a partner is found. Usually the costs for putting on the session are rent of a facility and the presenter? I want to open this discussion to the "art of the possible". Let's throw out the current program and reconstruct it.

Agreed. But clearly your training and planning allowed things to work out. Much of what you see in many of these reports is based on poor planning and lack of education on the leaders' part.

IOLS/Leader-specific are required any way. The online courses don't take that long. Frankly, you shouldn't be going on outdoor events without those as a minimum. CPR/AED takes an hour if that, do that during a troop meeting. Basic first aid is 8 hours. WRFA is 16 hours. If you are in charge of someone's life, these should be the price you pay. I'd hate to stare in to a parents' eyes knowing I was ill-prepared.

Perfect examples and ones which I think everyone can relate with. We usually give pack parents the year off, but we also recognize some "type A" parents cannot sit still for long, so we engage them. I have found that successful troops begin the dialog early with ALL adults and let them pick what they LIKE to do and not focus on what is NEEDED to be done. You will eventually fill all the roles this way. Those who feel a sense of duty will take the roles needing to be done, whereas those who may be put off by taking a "needed" role will gladly fill a role they want to do.

Are We Training Our Adult Leaders Enough? You seem to read more and more in the news of cases where adults and scouts -- in some cases Eagle scouts -- make some really poor choices and get in to trouble. The latest cases are here, here, here, here and here. These are prime examples of ill-prepared individual and groups heading out on activities for which they are not fully prepared. BSA has plenty of resources (Sweet 16, online training, advanced training, 10 Essentials, and much more) which they make available to leaders and adults, but none of it is required as a condition of holding your leadership position. Weather safety and many of the online courses only require one adult on the trek to have taken and passed the training; same with first aid, CPR/AED, etc. It would seem it is time to make these online training modules mandatory. Question: What are the minimum required training courses YOU would suggested Boy Scout (Venturing) leaders have as a condition of keeping their leadership position? For my money the basic required training would be: IOLS Leader Specific Basic (Red Cross) First Aid/CPR/AED Weather Safety, Trek Safely, Safety Afloat, Safe Swim, Climb Safely Wilderness First Aid I would add that the following courses be developed and made required: Water Trek Planning/Safety (develop this course) Back-country Trek Planning/Safety (develop this course) What say you? Do YOU have any courses that leaders should take OR that should be developed?

@@qwazse you missed the quote that stated that even if your child was below the minimum threshold he may still have to file. Whether your kid claims the money as income or a parent does, SOMEONE has to claim the money AND file it with their annual taxes. Your advice seems to imply that they money not be accounted for by someone. As I said, best a topic we leave to the professionals. Since no one here has fessed up to being a tax attorney (and willing to give free advice) we better leave it alone, lest someone get the wrong idea.

Send to BL and let them know. They might print it. They are pretty active on FB. The boy's SM, MBC or Eagle Advisor should have let him know of the modified requirements available to Scouts with special needs. This would have helped him a great deal. Glad to see his determination.

Ah, "voluntary tax system"? I'm pretty sure you are required to pay taxes on that income as defined by the US Tax Code. This is why people should stop giving tax advice if they are not tax attorneys. Some well-meaning person is going to give the wrong advice that gets followed by some other well-meaning person; but that advice will run contrary to tax code and get them in trouble. Either the child has to declare or the adult has to declare. It ain't just "free money" that goes untaxed.

As long as it's not a copy of a BSA design.

Again, any tax attorneys here? If not we shouldn't dispense opinions on the tax implications of fund raising. Any fund raising may raise either personal or unit tax liability. Best to leave advice on this topic to professionals.

Depends on the info you want and what you consider good.

Awesome. [insert IRS agent hoping he and all the other boys reported those funds as income]

A few things Stosh The spectrum of special needs kids and how to care for them is FAR different than taking care of non-special needs kids. Sorry, but the varieties found in each group require FAR different methods for handling them. It just does. Agree that an SM's role is to take care of "his" kids. The stress of managing special needs kids -- especially for the untrained -- can REALLY test one's dedication.

It was not ridicule. Look, I have a special needs kid. My unit works with such kids and we have seven or more kids on the spectrum. Our leadership has been professionally trained to handle these kids. The expectation to mainstream kids further down the spectrum is unrealistic if mainstream means minimum to no adult intervention. That's going to happen in 1 out of 100 cases. That's from doctors and professionals we've worked with, not me. At the other end of the spectrum (mild conditions) it is far more successful. Most parents of special needs kids know darn well if their kid can/can't cope without their intervention. You find out pretty fast if you don't know. Getting such kids mainstreamed takes YEARS, and I mean 4-5+ years if not more. Your mileage may vary. We are awarding one of our kids with Autism his Eagle tomorrow; dad was always there, but in the background. In seven years of very hard work we just couldn't get to the point where dad could stay home. He knew that going in. No delusions. If you're a parent of such challenged kids you know, you just do.

The problem is, the sample council numbers out there show that they revise their numbers further downward after they do their mid-year adjustment. Not one year since 1998 were the Boy Scout numbers revised up. We discussed this in another thread, many councils can't get our rosters correct. Mine for this year was barely 50% correct...and we made sure we gave them 100% clean paperwork.

There's a huge spectrum of special needs kids in scouts. It requires patience and training to manage them. I train adults on how to manage such kids. Youth usually don't have the maturity to deal with it. Some do, most don't. Those who do are in scouts for their own journey, not to manage kids with greater needs. The farther one is down the spectrum the more adult involvement is necessary.

Seriously? Most adults find handling special need kids exceptionally difficult. Kids between 11-17 would find it equally so, if not more so. Are there a few kids that could handle the task? Sure. Probably equal to the number of kids who don't play video games or who obey everything their parents say.

It would be, wouldn't it? BSA can barely posted complete stats year on year. I doubt they have such detail. If I were a council or district executive I would be conducting "exit interviews" with unit leaders who leave, as well as with CO's that drop units or units that fold. That would be some interesting data.

Not true! The drop from 2011 to 2012 was 2.49% across Venture, Boy Scouts and Cubs. It was 6.10% from 2012 to 2013 and 6.80% from 2013 to 2014. That's based on reported membership statistics from BSA which was sourced in the other thread. They've dropped every year since 1998. The point was that the average drop from 1998 to 2014 has accelerated in 2013. As others have pointed out, there are other historical changes to policy which may have impacted membership numbers prior to 1998. Economics was on of SEVERAL factors which the Girl Scouts used to explain their membership drop. See the article posted and some of the other explanations posted already. I don't know why you are sure they are doing this. There is ZERO discussion about it in their annual report, nor is there any mention of such a detailed analysis being done when you look at their membership objectives and strategic plan. Hoping for them (BSA) to do such an in-depth analysis does not mean it will happen. Overall unit numbers are dropping. This was posted in the other thread. From 2012 to 2014 we lost over 4,000 units across Boy Scouts, Cubs and Venturing. The 2013 to 2014 numbers show that trend continued. The 2014 to 2015 numbers were supposed to be in last month's annual report but were delayed. Well if Mr. Gates does what he said he would do, we will soon be able to test your theory that there's some suppressed ground swell of parents and kids that will make up for the near 8% drop in Tiger enrollment. I doubt is seriously. I think more likely explanation is that many of the parents in that age category cannot be bothered to volunteer and put in the effort. Disallowing the use of water guns is not likely to keep large numbers of people out of Scouting. It is more likely more political issues like women and gays. National is at fault because they own the "brand". Damage the brand, everyone gets hurt. Look at Burger King as an example. You get food poisoning at one in New Orleans the ones in Houston also take a hit. So national has some skin in this game. So do councils/districts. Their very mission is to train leaders and keep units healthy. When membership drops overall, they've failed in their mission. That's not scapegoating, that's holding the right people accountable for their failures. Do units have skin in this game? Absolutely!! But they can ONLY control their unit. If they are successful in keeping members, they do so IN SPITE OF national/council/district, not because of them.

How many tax attorneys do we have here that have in-depth experience with non-profit tax and fund-raising? If none, rather than cloud the issue we need to direct people to their CO and CORs. I have seen unit get well-meaning advice that, well, was just wrong. Our unit is lucky enough to have a tax attorney who also worked for the IRS and was an employee of BSA for ten years. When we have questions we go to him. We're lucky that way. If you don't have someone like that I'd recommend running ANYTHING tax or fund-raising related past your CO's attorney. You can muck up your unit and your CO pretty fast not doing so.

Indian Guides lost me (legacy member) when they went politically correct. When my son was eligible I spent the summer talking up how he gets to pick his Indian name, wear a head dress and feathers, become a member of a tribe, carve totems and other such fun things...all done to honor native Americans, not belittle them. We go to our first meeting. The dad in charge steps up and says, "Indian Guides is changing. We are now called Y-Guides. We cannot use any native American names, references, gear, clothing, traditions, etc. We will now be based on adventurers and explorers. So let's have fun." My son gets up out of the circle, walks over to where I am sitting with the other dads outside the ring of kids, takes my hand and says, "No Indian stuff? We're outta here!" We left, never went back and joined Tigers the next year.

Well, many of those entities saw declines for other reasons that don't necessarily apply to BSA: Bowling leagues: More a 50s phenomenon and has been slipping since then. Garden clubs: Not exactly something Mad Men werre joining. Maybe their wives. 4H: Continued movement since 1946 from the farm to suburbia. YMCA: When from a christian men's organization to family organization. Campfire: They let in boys, lost members as a result. Fraternal Orgs: They stopped recruiting legacy members. My grandfather and father are Masons. They did not go after me or my brother. Little did they know we are holding the Holy Grail for them. You missed school sports, band, choir, etc. In many districts youth now have to pay for their gear. Youth sports, especially soccer, has seen an explosion of members. That's one area that has bucked the trend.

Scouting is mismanaged from national all the way down to the councils. Does one council really need FOUR camps; all of them sub-par and never filled to capacity? Do these executives really need mid six figure salaries with golden parachutes without being held to achieving tough, measurable organizational objectives? And then there's this.

@ Stosh, I don't think anyone is advocating the gay issues has plagued BSA since the 1970s. Only since their recent policy change in 2013 does their appear to be a link between that issue and the decline in membership. I don't profess to know what the reason was for the decline since 1970. Here are the stats reported out to the press from 1960-1999. I have posted in another thread the numbers reported out since 1998. @@Eagledad, your memory is close but a few years off. The gains for Boy Scouts as a subgroup was mid- to late- 1990s. There were gains in the various programs which you can probably map back to Boomers getting involved or their kids having kids. Sadly, the stats posted above don't track the decline in the 1970s year by year.

GS have a different model and have seen a drop since 2003. Their reasons for their drop are below. I think BSA shares some of those problems but not as many. http://nypost.com/2014/10/10/girl-scouts-memberships-are-plummeting/