Col. Flagg

Texas? If so, they pulled out near me too. One of the largest Baptist churches in my area (think live Nativity scene every Xmas) kicked out it's Cubs and Boy Scouts. Church of Christ did the same thing.

I would never classify anything as too big to fail. Even the Romans fell. My point was that you don't alienate the majority of the customers, nor your biggest customer, if you hope to succeed. There are other options, such as working with your market segments to find something that can appease them/meet their needs AND then reach out to new markets. That was my assumption too from talking to my LDS colleagues. Yes, that was another point. In the age of shrinking contributions, razor thin margins, higher costs, etc., losing any revenue stream is not something a successful business does until they have a valid, proven replacement revenue stream.

I found this in the archives. Following the thread it appears to post the annual report numbers. A quick search confirms these are correct depending on whether you accept the spring numbers or the numbers adjusted later that summer each year. I, too, remember the historical year-on-year membership loss being around 2-3%. In looking I found this from the WP showing the decline based on the annual reports, but no year-on-year figures per se. This from the CT notes a 7% drop. I looked quick to find annual reports prior to 1998 but did not find any with a cursory search. At least that far back 7% looks like the biggest drop.

Fair enough. But adding girls has a positive and a negative. And since BSA will no doubt have an anti-dating policy in place, having girls you can't "get to know" in your unit really is like dangling food in front of a starving man. Well we may be the members, but the COs own the units. The point being you don't tick off the owners of the unit. When they go it upsets the balance. Will you find a new CO? If the CO is as big as LDS the link between CO and members is stronger than in other CO-member relationships. Again, you don't tick off COs OR members. I think this is true, however, even if a CO is hands off, if they get po'd and decide to drop a unit it is not 100% that these units find a new CO. And in the case of LDS (and a few other religions) the relation between CO and units is very, very close.

The GTSS makes exceptions for patrol outings as stated above. An Eagle project is a totally different animal. If you want to play the word game between "should" and "must" (which, by the way, only the attorneys here would do...no Scouter in the field would be so nitpicky) that's you prerogative. In my district, no SM would let an Eagle project take place without a trained adult being their just to make sure the GTSS and Sweet 16 are being applied. I could see an argument against having an adult leader present *if* an Eagle project was done by the Eagle and friends from school. But if you are billing it as an event where the troop helps, that's a "BSA Event" as BackPack notes in his quote. That means an adult should be there. Since the liability is ours, in my mind should = must...unless you like playing roulette.

Sorry, but you can get in to most colleges with decent grades and good test scores. You don't need a resume of 45 activities and NHS. This is all part of the college machine designed to brain wash parents and kids that if they don't get in to a $45k/year school (or higher) their kid won't make it in the business world. It's complete horse hockey! My company (Fortune 100) hires all the time; over 400,000 people worldwide. The kids from University of SW Bumbleland (tuition 18k/year) has just a much of a chance of getting hired as the brat from Cal State or Berkley. It's about the PERSON not the school. Of course the exception would be MIT or other specialty schools like that. Scout son had mediocre grades in HS. Top 2% on SAT and ACT. Got in to local state school (20k/year) in to great tech program on scores alone. Did "just scouts" in HS and it wasn't an issue!

I'll jump in here. Sorry in advance... As I recall since 2013 the membership losses have been ~6-7% year on year. I recall a post by @@Krampus (he's been silent on this) a while back that had those numbers. Losing 14-18 year old LDS scouts would be an over 8% loss. That would have to be the largest loss in certainly the last 20 years. I would imagine the financial loss of supply, FOS and dues would also be fairly significant. This philosophy hasn't swelled the ranks of Venturing. I love the Boston Box reference. But you are assuming the Cash Cow (Boy Scouts) is dead. Use the basic BCG Matrix as your guide. Girls in Scouting is a "Question Mark". Religious organizations in Scouting are the "Cash Cows". You NEVER sacrifice the latter for the former. Never! You can take risks elsewhere, but you need your Cash Cow to fund your "Question Marks". @@backpack has it right; it take FAR more money to get a new client than to maintain an existing one. And SMART businesses NEVER drop or disregard the latter for the sake of the former. That's nor risky, it's stupid. Successful businesses that survive tough times DON'T do such things. By all means take risks (STEM, Venturing, etc.) but don't alienate your best customers. Key members = religious organizations that charter over 70% of BSA units is what I think is meant here, of which LDS is the largest of that 70%, hence largest customer. @@backpack, is that what you meant?

Kids stay in Scout because they have fun and are with friends. If you are noting doing either, it makes it very tough. If the troop is not training him as a first year Scout, then that's no good either. Does he have any friends in other troops?

I haven't seen any of that. What I have seen: A concern that the potential for 200,000+ kids and adults leaving an organization will have a real (and felt) financial impact on the rest of us. Concern that this is Step 1 of a multi-step process of the LDS leaving BSA entirely. This would mean over 500,000+ kids and adults leaving the program. Discussion around how BSA will (over) react to this news and make further poor choices with regard to 1) program tinkering, and 2) membership policy changes (read: allowing girls in Boy Scouts). No one sitting at their dinner table of New Year's Eve 2012 would have guessed in just five years that there would be two major policy changes and the loss of 200,000+ members. We keep hearing about how positive these changes have been, but the bottom line has been a loss of members, volunteers, charter orgs, units and money. Imagine what BSA will look like in 5 years at THIS rate? Sure BSA will be around...but will it even be a shadow of what it was in 2012?

But there is no guarantee that they will either. This will be a slow pull back, but I expect it to be a complete pull pack at some point. It is only a matter of time before they replace the 11-13 LDS Boy Scout program with something else. At that point, what incentive does the local LDS Church have in hosting district meetings?

Our unit has taken in a few dozen LDS transfers over the years. From what I have experienced and been told, the LDS Boy Scout units generally do not have adult leaders familiar with how the higher ranks work, or utilizing the patrol method in a unit that has 11-17 year olds. In fact, most Life Scouts are amazed when they transfer at how organized and detailed Boy Scout units are compared to the Crews they were in. Forget the Eagle process. The LDS troops (11-14 units) don't have to deal with Eagle so they have little clue on how it works. Again, this is based on the transfers we've had over the last 5-10 years. Maybe others have had different experiences. Most districts around me are hosted by LDS Churches. Looks like we will need to look for someone else to host us monthly. Good luck with that.

I would suspect the spirit of the requirement is not to camp in your backyard with your patrol, unless your backyard is a 2000 acre ranch on the Red River where you are actually "camping". I would argue that the Camping MB pamphlet give several examples under the heading "What is Camping?". None that I saw mentioned camping in your back yard or camping in a public city park or in a baseball stadium. I would think that the definition is to camp in open country, as it notes in the Introduction in said pamphlet.

If they drop all programs in Scouting that would be 20% of the total number of Scouts. Given BSA hasn't been able to stem a 3% or 7% drop in membership, what makes you think they can back fill a 20% drop?

Then Scouting will match what is happening on college campuses perfectly.

Here's the actual announcement from the LDS Church. I am wondering what was so "difficult to implement" about the Venturing and Varsity programs within the LDS. Any LDS leaders out there who can chime in? Also, won't this certainly impact the number of Eagles? As I understand how the LDS used Scouting, younger Scouts stayed in Boy Scouts through First Class (or 14). After 14, they moved to Venturing and got Eagle there. If that's right then these numbers are going to go down big time. I wonder if LDS boys aged 14-18 will still enroll in Scouting elsewhere to get Eagle.

Also check out the Podcasts at scoutmastercg.com. Clarke Green was a "young Scoutmaster" and there's a lot of good content there. While you are doing other stuff, you can do the podcasts and learn a great deal.

I am glad you are interested in being an ASM. Being an adult is MUCH different than being a youth in Boy Scouts. The biggest issue? Letting the boys do the work and you sitting back and watching. That is the biggest problem my unit has, both with young adults who become ASMs, as well as "helicopter parents". Here's my advice: Get Trained: Take IOLS and Leader-specific training. Take the additional online training. Read the Guide to Advancement and the Guide to Safe Scouting. Take Time: By this I mean take time to talk to perspective units. Find out what they need. Find a role in the troop and make sure when you commit that you are able to do what you say. Nothing is more frustrating than when someone signs up to help and does a lousy job, or worse, is a no show. Where you might be best used in my troop would be as an adult instructor for training the Troop Instructors or as a PLC advisor. Troop Size: This varies regionally. Where I live troops are the size of your area. In other areas I've seen troops of 10-20. It really depends. I think taking the time to get to know the units in your new area will help. You may have done things far differently then they do. Learning how they do things is important. Change: You are young and full of ideas, that's great! Just remember, older adults are slow to change and may be resistant to it. Diplomatically offer your ideas and do so slowly, once you are "accepted". You may even want to discuss this topic with any new SM you meet; how open are they to new ideas and change. Those who are not may not be a fit for you. Remember, if you can't help at the unit level, maybe a local district could use you until your schedule is more certain.

This article has a bit more detail, I think. Discussed other issues such as total membership numbers, fees, FOS and ownership/use of council camps in Utah. This move will most certainly force BSA to get more aggressive with their need to increase membership; meaning, you can bet they will now open Boy Scouts to girls. The possibility of losing 480,000 Scouts will be a HUGE blow to BSA. One they won't be able to cover without a radical change to membership.

There's that other shoe. Conservatively that's 5.7 million in dues alone. No clue what FOS and "supply" revenue is, but for 180,000 boys it won't be small.

What percentage of any unit's Scouts have 50 nights over the course of their time in Scouting? That would be an interesting statistic to see. I ran a report for my own unit just for giggles. 26 of 75 Scouts have 50+ nights. Two have over 100. The boys with over 50 nights, as you would expect, are usually 14 or older and Star or Life or Eagle.

Nope. It should be under the auspices of Scouting. I'd be okay if you counted Scout-based cabin camping but limited that number to a % of the 50 nights (say 30%). If you let any camping count you know you'd have guys that never show for unit events and camp in their back yard to get the requirement done. Eagle is already too easy. If we are going to give a badge for camping, let's actually require some hard CAMPING!!! Otherwise we might as well just hand them the badge after three years in Scouts.

I think all but one of the new national VOA are girls. The website hasn't quite caught up to social media just yet. We had a new girl join our crew. She's just turned 14 and she's already Pres and running the crew as if she'd been in Venturing for 5 years!

A standard, centralized computer-based learning module would certainly eliminate such training folklore.

We had patrol boxes for a long time. We chucked them (pardon the pun) for lighter boxes. Eventually the PLC decided to plan 50% of our trips for "regular" camping, the other 50% was backpacking. Attendance rose for both types of trips.

Actually, changes did happen to both football and rugby. It lead to the codification of each sport. So to continue the analogy, it would be like having two types of troops: Those that were boy led (football) and those that were adult led (rugby).