Eagle94-A1

Ebay, or Scouting memorabilia shop. Good luck finding one. It may take you 30 years to find one you can afford.

Trust me I know. My council is about to launch a capital campaign for repairs and upgrades at camp. What happened to the money from a camp they sold that they told volunteers would pay for these renovations? Yes, I know, it went to pay the council's share of the lawsuit.

Supposedly, if every CO in a county petitions to leave and join a council, it can happen. BUT every single CO has to agree to it. I do not know if they have everyone on board or not. But I told them to have patience as mergers are coming.

Registrars are extremely overworked this time of year, and usually until February/March One of the ways we found more Scouts were registration audits. We asked each unit to give us a list of their active Scouts, and compared it to the charter. I can tell you Scouts who should be on charters were found not to be on it, and other Scouts who should have been removed from the charter, were still on it. I know I still find that I have found folks still on charters that I took off the last year, and missing others, even with My.Scouting.Org. You cannot take off the ones still listed, but you can add the missing ones. The December 31st number doesn't actually come out until March. They do have a grace period. I have heard some pros joke about "December 42nd"

I do not know about today, but I know about back in the day. The #1 membership stat was the December 31st number. That was the one used in reports, media, etc. It is also the reason why a lot of councils had recharter December; delinquent units are still on the rolls until February or March. Rational was that paperwork was a pain, and it can take that long to get things fixed. The #2 stat was the June 30th number. That was used to set goals, see how much work will need to be done in Round Up, etc. Finally you had a monthly stat, and that compared to the previous years monthly stat. That is why you can see different numbers supposedly covering the same thing. While some will say it is "apples to apples," It is more like Granny Smith Apples to Gala Apples to Red Delicious Apples.

Trust me there is a lot of indignation. One unit now refuses to have anything to do with the council except paperwork: no camporees, no using camp, no purchasing supplies, no FOS, nothing at at. Most of the units do not use the local summer camp because the program sucks: it is a MB giveaway. Last time I went, inadequate supplies, equipment breaking, large Scout to Instructor ratios (30 people in Lifesaving MB; 15 minutes max on the water each day because you don't have enough canoes?!?!?!), and no improvements from complaints. Families are seeing all this and no longer want to support the council. There is actually discussion about the county leaving the current council, and joining a neighboring one.

@Tron, Since FOS has dried up, and only 1 unit in the district goes to the local summer camp, The "troop" is being charged $37.50 per Scout in addition to $100 recharter fee. Next year it goes up to $75/Scout. That is in addition to the individual 's national registration fee, council service fee, and insurance fee. That is $120/Scout. So a family with 4 Scouts in the program costs $480 individual fees plus $150 for "Fair Share", plus unit dues. And that doesn't include camp outs and summer camps. I know folks say scouting is cheap compared to sports, but there are a lot of folks who cannot afford to do sports, but could afford Scouting. Not any more.

Friends of mine have been hit with "Unit Fair Share" fees from their council. Unit is being assessed a per scout fee. This is being added to the charter fee, so not directly on the Scouts, but who pays unit dues. They are complaining of no services being provided by the council to warrant that fee, or FOS for that matter.

When I was a DE, my district had 45% of the current membership numbers. And that was just 2 counties.

WOW

It is dying. And the majority of folks do not want to put quality control measures. They want 'High Speed, Low Drag" advancement and increasing the number of Eagle Scouts. They would rather celebrate the 13 or 14 year old with all 130+MBs than the troop that is doing trail work on the AT, or the troop running Red Cross evac stations.

Can you give us stats for North Carolina? You aren't in North Carolina by any chance? Your council sounds exactly like mine. Although I did ask a pro for help this year. However he turned the request around on me, and wanted me to do the work for him.

What if they do not want to be in another unit? They just want registration current so that they can restart later?

So what happens to those folks whose registration expires in 3-6 months after the troop folds, and they do not want to transfer? One of my adults doesn't want to transfer to any unit or district/council POR, because he wants to restart the unit in a few months when he has more free time.

During COVID, we did our own summer camp for 5 days. Forgot how much it was, but it was under $100/person. Only out of pocket expense for the Scouts was the stop at the Hardees for shakes during the bike ride. We came up with different activities for the Scouts to do: cycling, canoeing, wilderness survival, emergency first aid drill, and the schedule was flexible, except for Thursday Night Dinner. We had troop committee visit to do BORs. The Scouts had a blast, and many said it was the best summer camp ever. But they didn't want to do it again because, "we didn't earn any merit badges." My kids were included in that. And yes, BSA shot itself in the foot on this matter. They are the ones that pushed advancement and getting Eagle.

Trust me I know. I am lamenting the fact that units can care less about growing the Scout instead of growing the number of Eagles. Sadly the SM was part of the problem. When he took over the troop, many Scouts transferred out to ours. So it was known what was going on, but nothing to be done about it outside the COR. Both family and SM gamed the system. Family left our troop because we insured Scouts actually did what they were supposed to. They specifically went to that troop because they were "high speed low drag." SM picked summer and winter camps known for giving away MBs. When discussing summer camp last year, the family referred to to summer camp as a place to "purchase MBs." It is extremely sad for the Scout. He has not really grown much over the years. He acts like a Tenderfoot still. And family is not helping as they are pushing and pushing to get Eagle. But I am mad that there is nothing anyone can do about the situation, i.e. just signing stuff off, except the COR replacing Scouters. And trust me the SM knew better; I trained him. And it is frustrating because if anyone needed Scouting, the Life Scout did.

If I can find it, I will post a pic of my Beavis and Butthead OA flap from 1994 NOAC.

Challenge with that is each council is supposedly their own, independent, legal entity. All national can do is withhold charters if memory serves.

Correct, not a retest. But the GTA does still say " (The BOR's) purpose is to determine the quality of the Scout’s experience and decide whether the requirements for the rank have been fulfilled. (emphasis added). That can be done by asking questions. With the Second Class Scout, I have no issues, they actually know their stuff, and the delay has been swimming. Long story short, he was focused on having fun, and wasn't too worried about meetings all of the First Class requirements because he could not pass the swim test. Not that he has passed it, and done the water rescue, he got on it. But my Life Scout is 100% clueless. He is so dependent on adults and others doing stuff for him, that he does nothing. No participation in discussions, camp set up and take down, gametime activities, etc. His old troop went to MBUs that have a reputation for giving MBs away. And I should know; I got asked 1 time to teach a MB, listed what needed to be done prior to the class, and gave everyone partials because no one did the work prior to class. I was never asked to teach there again. Only MBs I can say he honestly earned were the shooting sports ones. he is an avid hunter and can shoot.

So if current Advancement guidelines say the BOR "In most cases it should, instead, be a celebration of accomplishment. Remember, it is more about the journey." p55 GTA 8.0.1.1 Not a Retest or “Examination”, Then why have them? Apparently that is the opinion of one troop that is still around, and another troop that has folded. Found that out tonite when I was talking to my Scouts. One of them has never had a BOR, and he is Second Class. The other remembers a Tenderfoot BOR when he was in the troop originally, but did not have one for Second Class through Life. Which explains how the Life Scout skipped through the cracks. Very frustrated.

My troop folds at the end of the month. But we survived over 15 years without a Cub Scout pack because we focused on fun and adventure. Almost all of out scouts since the pack folded were either already members, or transferred from other troops. Those troops are now dead. The remaining ones got smart and started being more youth led and adventure driven, while focusing less on advancement. Basically they became more like us. Fun and adventure retains Scouts. And prior to national denigrating 18-20 yos, we retained young ASMs. This is coming from folks with education backgrounds without any experience in Scouting. This is folks focusing on one thing that is easily trackable, advancement. Instead of asking Scouts what they want, they use their theories to create program. The entire reason why Scouting took off was because BP created a program on the desires of the youth.

Don't know about today, but back in the day DEs were told, at least in my council, to select folks who agreed with everything council wanted. I was told point blank to get rid of a bunch of people, basically the ones keeping the district together, because they were constantly questioning the council. One reason I was not popular at the office, I knew their value, and would not do it. I did tell one volunteer they needed to pick 1 role, besides CM, as they had 4 district roles, and it was overwhelming her, and she refused to recognize it. Not necessarily. I know volunteers hate change, but I bet you its the pros running councils that do not want to lose their power. Fewer councils= fewer SEs etc. And My understanding is that everyone who was eligible for retirement has taken it. So they are fighting for their jobs. Most definitely. Council consolidation in their bankruptcy plan was supposed to take 5 years if memory serves.

Why cant they do the SMC prior to the BOR? In many units I have been in, that has been the case.

Regarding my.scouting, 1. BSA's IT system sucks. I have had so many issues with it over the years, I and many others do not trust it. 2. Some areas of the country have poor to no internet connectivity (believe it or not there are indeed areas with no internet providers), that email is not viewed as a primary communication source. Heck we have folks begging for classroom YPT/SY training becuase of poor internet.

Stupid question, wouldn't the current CORs have to vote to allow this? And if they vote to not allow this, will they be forced to by National with the threat of withholding the charter? And is this in preparation of all the forced mergers headed our way as some council have contested the mergers already?