ParkMan

Investments are for the long term. The BSA will be here in 5 years, so we ought to get on with it now. There's a trend in many circles (not just Scouting) to look towards that central organization to fix things. Sometimes it works - but I just don't see it here. In fact, I think that's part of the reason for the decline in membership of institutions like this. Look at the DE position for example. We've got 1 DE for something like 50 units. Say all he did was focus on unit quality. He's at best going to be able to spend 4 hours per unit per month. What on earth could a fellow do to greatly improve a unit with 4 hours a month. But, if we really focused on building up district staffs, then you've got 20-30 people who could start making a real impact. In my district I've started using the phrase "It's not about being a district volunteer, but about building Scouting in our community." To me that's a pretty noble goal. Similarly - think about the experience level of your volunteers. Our DE is a wonderful guy with a lot of Scouting background. Yet, even with that, if you look around at our leaders in the district and some of our larger units, you've got: lawyers, doctors, teachers, university professors, engineers, scientists - a remarkable range of fantastically skilled professionals. That's a tremendous amount of potential available to build Scouting. So, I think if you want to "fix" Scouting - you start here. Membership is a direct reflection of unit program quality. Strong units attract more Scouts & do better with retention. You want better program, you need to focus on it. The best way to focus on it is more front line support for units. There isn't enough money in Scouting to pay a huge staff to do that. So, you do it with strong district teams. That's where you put your focus,

That's what happens today- but it's the wrong model. The district volunteers should be taking ownership for growing and nurturing their district. If a given district isn't doing that it's the fault of the district committee and it's chair. If all the districts in a council are not doing it, it's the fault of the council committee and president. If districts around the country are not, it's the fault of the national board and chair. We as volunteers rely too much on the professionals and it's wrong. We need to assume more ownership for this.

I agree 100% on the first part. The single biggest threat to Scouting's membership numbers are the multitude of really anemic programs. But, I see it differently on the second. It's not the role of the BSA to shut down those programs. They can and should provide more than support, training, and reaources than they do to today. I've said before that one of the biggest failures of the BSA has been the way they have wasted the district concept. The districts are the front line of the BSA in improving unit quality. You want better quality units, you invest in stronger district teams.

They are weighing their options. What would you have them say differently?

As Mark Twain said "reports of my death are greatly exaggerated." There are something like 2,000,000 youth enrolled in BSA programs today. Over 99,000 units as well . The BSA is far from being on it's last legs and it's demise is not imminent. Out district and others around us have seen growth in the last two years. It's convenient to say "the leadership of the BSA is incompetent." I would argue that if anything, the leadership of the BSA in the past few years has been bold and is showing leadership to build the organization and make it stronger." Yes the BSA is losing the LDS church. It was a misapplication of the Scouting program to align it as the youth program for one faith. The leadership made the bold move to invite girls to join. They are being proactive and trying to set the organization up for the future. My opinion is that the pessimism we see here on the forum has more to do with people who dislike recent choices by the BSA looking for opportunities to be critical of the program. When the founders of Scouting started the program, there were not 2,000,000 members and almost 100,000 units. They believed in the program and built it up. They didn't bemoan the policies of the BSA, they make Scouting in their communities fun.

I think you're conflating issues here. Yes there are YPT rules. The point is that we shouldn't fall into the same trap we all describe the GSUSA of doing - assuming the women need to the leaders of troops with scouts who are girls. Aside from YPT rules, I envision a lot of fathers who are looking for ways to participate in the Scouting activities of their daughters. If my daughter wants to join a troop I'll volunteer.

The promise of Scouts BSA isn't that there are outdoorsy mom that serve as Scoutmasters. It that it no longer matters that it's a male or female Scouter who serves as Scoutmaster. Scouts no longer cares what your gender is.

Sounds great - very nice approach. I only made the suggestion because I've learned in my own scouting travels that Scouters come from so many different backgrounds that I've gotten a lot out of being flexible and always listening. Sure, often the conversations go nowhere. But sometimes I find there's a volunteer with some idea or energy that made the call worth it.

I always stuck to God. I gathered it was the most transferrable between faiths. A way I've also seen this done is to pick prayers from different faiths from time. It seems like a nice way to share some different things with the scouts. You've just got to be careful to avoid @qwazse's "God Jesus" example. Another variant here is to ask around you pack and see if there are people from different faiths and enlist their help with a prayer from time to time. On the question of Lord. I was reminded that Lord is used in the Philmont Grace. That's about as close to a Scouting prayer as I think we get, so perhaps if they use it there it's pretty safe.

Our council has all 3 digit troop numbers and uses a system where a district or two share the same first numeral. I.e. all packs and troops in district Something are in the range of 100-199. I suppose a mix up could happen - but it doesn't seem terribly likely. If you had a conflict, someone would catch it quickly. I haven't heard of a rule about not sharing numbers in our council - but I doubt we'd see that rule. Our council doesn't seem to make a lot of rules like that.

My short answer would be yes - they are separate entities and probably should have separate bank accounts. Longer answer is that it depends on how you're structuring the troops. Are these linked troops? Will they often go on joint trips? Will they have the same troop meetings? Do they share equipment? Do they share common committee members? Do they share a treasurer? Lots of yes's here may suggest that it makes more sense to have a combined back account and have your treasurer track money as appropriate. You very well could quickly end up where your doing lots of transferring money back & forth just for the sake of having separate bank accounts. But - if it's the more normal case of two completely separate troops at the same CO - then yes, separate bank accounts sounds like the right choice.

What not just give him a call and listen to his input? I'm always happy to talk on the phone to someone for 15 minutes about something. Who knows, maybe he's got some good insight. Maybe he's interested in helping, but felt unwelcome because of his WB status. You never know, a phone call might be the start of a really productive volunteer to your team. Or again, maybe it's 15 minutes of your life wasted that you'll never get back. Guess it's a roll of the dice.

That's my read too. The name of the program you join is more important than the name of the organization.

Perhaps not - but I do think we have to separate what "makes the GSUSA happy" from what the BSA can legally do. I suspect for a long time - there will be people who will have to internally translate from "Boy Scouts" to "Scouts". That's normal. You could probably also just refer to is as "TPFKABS" (The Program Formerly Known As Boy Scouts) But it has nothing to do with upsetting girls. The very fact that people say this is about not upsetting girls is exactly why we need to change the name. On Feb 1, 2019 the program is equally one for boys & girls. It's not about upsetting the girls, it's about making it their program too. By changing the name, it's a very clear statement that it's now a program for girls just as much as for boys. It's not about upsetting girls, it's about welcoming girls with open arms.

Sure - my son had a den of 16 boys. It was awful. It was big enough that you really couldn't do much as a group of 16. So, they'd split in half for everything. It would be different halves each time. At 16, it was also big enough that you had cliques within the den. So boys hung around with each other. My son, more of an introvert, never really bonded with those boys and so never really had more than a friend or two in the den. In the spirit of full disclosure. My wife is a GS leader of a troop of 12 girls. She's resisted the pressure for years to add more girls. As a result, it's been the same 12 girls for the past 6 years. Once they lost a girl, but she came back a year later. In her case, it's not about bringing the Girl Scout program to as many girls as possible. it's about having the best program for the girls in their troop. Watching BSA dynamics, my suspicion that if they'd added girls, it would become too big and they'd have to add structure. It would be less about a group of 12 girls going through Scouting together and more a group of 16 or 20 girls split into groups. So, I think at some point a den is just too large. That's why we've got packs. The GSUSA doesn't really have packs, so what do you do? A GS troop of 24 girls together? The GSUSA model really necessitates having more troops.

Great list! I think of it as "community scouting". These are all hands on jobs that let you work with Scouts & other Scouters. Most of them result in direct, hands on impact for Scouts. Sure, you're not impacting 30-60 scouts in your troop, but you are impacting hundreds of Scouts in your community. Very cool.

If you're the BSA, you don't go through all the effort of making the organization open to both genders if you really just want to attract more boys. Yes, I'll grant that the BSA wants to increase members. It if came from 100% growth in boys and 0% growth in girls, I'm sure they'd still claim victory. But I have to imagine that the BSA leadership would like to see their joining rate among the population the same for all parts of the program. So, since we're essentally 50% girls/boys in the country, it would seem too that getting their membership there would be appropriate. I think this is one of those things we could continue to round and round arguing. Making your program co-ed, but then calling it "Boy Scouts" just seems like it's not all the welcoming to girls. If we expect girls to get over the name of "Boy Scouts", then why can we not similarly expect boys to get over the name "Scout BSA" or whatever? I love the name "Boy Scouts" but just think it makes a lot more sense for them to simply be "Scouts." How one gets to Scouts, I don't know. I do kinda think that maybe something along the lines of what the GSUSA does with it's levels makse sense: Dasies, Brownies, Juniors, Cadettes, Seniors, & Ambassadors. No where in their program is the term "Girl Scout" used to refer to a level. Bail on Scouts BSA and go with something completely different.

I'm happy to stipulate that many think staying with "Boy Scouts" would have made sense. The BSA wants to expand and fully welcome girls - not just pick up a few girls as members here and there, but get to a point where 50% of the members are girls. Continuing to call your program "Boy Scouts" doesn't seem to convey that inclusiveness. Maybe you pick up the really adventurous girls who don't care. But, I think when you go to the larger population out there and some parent asks their daughter "do you want to be a girl scout or boy scout?" Girls are generally going to pick "girl scout." So, it was in the interest's of the BSA to find a way to refer to the program that: conveyed Scout, didn't tick off too many boys, encouraged as many girls as possible.

But where it's different is imagine you're having this conversation with a den leader - not a Cubmaster. In the GSUSA system, there's no Cubmaster, no Pack Committee, no treasurer. You've got a den leader and assistant who has agreed to lead his/her kid's den. The den has 12 scouts today. You come along and say "I'd like to add my child and have it be 13". You're probably the fifth or sixth person (if not more) who has asked. The den leaders knows - if they don't say no, they are going to be leading a den of 20 kids. I use the den leader analogy because that's really what it is. These folks are generally not Cubmasters or CC's who are signing up build a bigger troop with multiple groups doing things. They are the GSUSA equivalent of den leaders who want to lead their child's scout group.

Yes - agreed. Sure - but I've no idea what you'd call it. Boy Scouts really wasn't a viable long term solution as they wanted to market the program on it's strengths to girls. Continuing to call it "Boy Scouts" would have hamstrung making it a program for girls as well. You could get rid of Scouts - but that would be a huge loss. Once you get past that, what do you do? Add some new prefix?

The other big thing I see is the loss of mentors to encourage new leaders. Imagine if every Cub Scout pack & Boy Scout troop had to figure out it's program from scratch. In the chartered organization system, we have programs that build on each other year after year. Imagine if a den leader had to figure it all out on their own and do it by themselves. Imagine if new Troop parents had to figure out how to do things from scratch constantly. To me, this is one of the biggest consequences of that approach.

A large part of this stems from the charter partner concept. It gives the BSA packs and troops more permanace. In the BSA, units stay around a lot longer too. In the GSUSA, units tend to form around a group of girls. When they are done, so too are the troops. It may just be a local thing - but around here we see what they call multi-level GSUSA troops. These function much more like a BSA unit and have girls of all ages. Most tend to be large too as they pick up more membership from all the small troops that are at max capacity.

I like the GSUSA, but I've never understood this. In the BSA we bend over backwards to have female leaders. Yet, in my daughter's troop - all women. Never even once have they even suggested that fathers could help. It's really a shame that they overlook the fathers who would love to help out.

I was quite surprised to see that quote. I can definitely see the struggle here. I do know that in our local GSUSA has several very good outdoor camps. Some of our local Girl Scout troops are as outdoor focused as Boy Scout troops. My daughters both started attending an outdoor focused week long away summer camp before my son did. In fact, I think my daughters have continue along in Scouting longer than my son because the have both had very good summer camp experiences.

Our prior SM took a year off from the troop. He came back and helped with summer camp and the new scout program. But for the first year, he stayed away from the troop. I know of another Scoutmaster in a similar scenario who came back and coached scouts on organizing Eagle Courts of Honor. Me - I'd encourage becoming a Commissioner or joining the district camping committee. Our districts need more experienced Scouters to help coach units or to make our district programs stronger.