yknot

Social issues and bullying can sometimes be the reason for this. In some troops that have a really hands off attitude this kind of thing can fester along unnoticed and uncorrected. In those cases, it's easier for a kid to drop out than try to stick around because kids, especially younger kids, don't like to complain or talk about other kids.

I don't know about your council but the councils around here, aside from a random bump, have been in a membership decline reflective of national trends for maybe 10 years or so. It's been possible to hide the gradual declines, or make them less obvious, by playing with percentages, numbers and dates and they've done so as did National last year. We'll see what happens in 2023 because by then everything should shake out.

If the 4% holds in January and then March depending what happens with the paused UMC recharters, I would say any positive growth is good. What I'm more concerned about, though, is that the 33,000 includes a lot of dead or soon to be dead registrations from the prior cycle. That's always been the problem with membership numbers released between now and Dec. 31 and really until March of the coming year. Some councils might be tidier than others though. I have no idea what Circle 10's history of accuracy is. In my home councils, it's pretty much fiction until March.

Councils can interpret that form differently and may have different viewpoints on what is safe. I was CC for a large pack and on the committee for a large troop. One of my interests over the years was to identify and develop potential local camping sites and obtain COIs and fire permits for their usage as we wanted more options. Our municipality had already worked with us to develop a site that had a fire ring, non potable water source, and access to porta johns. I was able to secure two other municipal campsites and installing a campfire ring in one became an Eagle project. I was able to develop relationships with several nearby private camps, some commercial, some church connected, for free off season camping often in exchange for an hour or two of service work. Similar arrangements with some nearby, private nature centers/preserves/land trusts and some large landowners. Some research found more sites in other local municipal, county, and state parks as well as historical sites that allowed overnight camping in old barracks and soldier huts and on a farm that raised produce for food pantries. As far as trash, most everyone around here prefers pack in/out because of bears for safety. A non potable water source like a pond was required for the camp fire, but an available water source for people was often jugs brought in by the unit. Permanent bathrooms and structures are nice but not essential especially if you are local. Bad weather you just get in the car and go home. Port a johns work. Councils differ but for the couple I worked with here if there was a sensible plan and/or procedures to deal with something, a wide variety of sites were and still are acceptable. Good luck.

I think the rocky transition is the norm from what I've seen. It's a tough transition and when it doesn't go well you will hear that the adult leaders aren't trained properly or the scouts weren't prepared well as cubs or some other reason. I personally think it's a defect in the program because it only seems to work well when there is a perfect alchemy. A program shouldn't be that hard to deliver when so many mean so well and work so hard. I don't think the attitude that chaos is the norm, which said different ways is alternatively trial by fire, or school of hard knocks, or sink or swim, or some other grueling experience meant to be endured and survived, keeps many kids in scouting. Crossing over shouldn't equate to a virtual hazing, but to many kids, that's what it feels like. I've watched a lot of kids who had the makings of great scouts quit after crossover. Most of the reasons, when you could get them to articulate anything, because they don't offend you as someone they associate with scouting, is that scouting stopped being fun and instead became boring at best and extremely stressful at worst. If there isn't a defect in the program, then there must be a defect in our philosophy that scouting is good for every kid because obviously, for anywhere from 30-60% after crossover, it is not. It's been a puzzle to me all these years why BSA ignores that.

I agree about Webelos burnout. I also think it is linked to the fact that life starts to get more 'real' for many kids at the 4th and 5th grade level nowadays and they start to focus their interests more because of time pressures. Years ago, kids would start worrying about what college they would get into in high school. Now, they are tracked starting in middle school. Elementary kids today are very aware of not wanting to be in say the basic math class when they get to 5th or 6th grade and so robotics club might suddenly be more interesting than cubs. At the same time, they are also at an age where many of them no longer want to hang around with 3rd graders and below and pack meetings start to become something to dread. From a kid perspective, these things contribute to drop out.

Scouting ought to be a sampling menu at kindergarten and maybe even first grade levels. It ought to be a spring or summer program where you attend a couple of den or pack activities and culminates in being able to attend a pack or district event like a special overnight camp out or fishing derby or something fun. Most other youth activities at that age are very basic, very low key, and cost practically nothing. They run for a short session and generally culminate in some big hoorah. BSA says it relied on research when formulating the Lions program but that is always suspect. It doesn't seem to be well thought out but more a knee jerk way of trying to bring in more membership money.

The AP report earlier this year is in sync with numbers reported in one of the bankruptcy submissions that showed actual March '22 membership numbers to be around 650,000. I think what this Webinar chart may show is some effective recruitment up from that low number; however the 900,000 number looks likely to fall again once the UMC paused recharters are reconciled by Feb/March. I know there has been very aggressive cub recruitment nationwide and certain councils are reporting significant registrations. However, there's a lot of ground to make up from a low of 762,000 or more likely 650,000.

Agreed. The only membership numbers that are near accurate are the ones posted in Feb/March. A month or so ago, BSA extended the paused UMC recharters to the end of this year, so the numbers in the Webinar chart include a percentage of memberships that may no longer exist or are questionable.

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2022/01/26/fall-recruiting-was-a-smashing-success-now-its-on-to-spring/ In January as per the above Bryan on Scouting, BSA reported over one millions scouts so at 900,000 that chart from the webinar is actually showing a membership loss. Like the January figure, this would include a percentage of holdover scouts. There is a chart showing a progression that was included with the April (?) bankruptcy plan. I saw it once but have not been able to find it again. Perhaps someone on here would know how to find it on Omni. I seem to recall that the first year recovery plan projected something like a million scouts.

I read it very carefully. Fred's a sweet guy, but that discussion was tunneling. Glad it stopped.

If you look at the issues with liability, oversight, and organizational structure, it's kind of the only model that makes sense from those perspectives. A lot of units have reported getting dropped by church COs and shifting to community chartering orgs like American Legions and VFWs but those create new problems. For BSA to survive going forward, it has to more tightly manage the relationship with local units through its councils. A non council CO just adds a level of liability and extends the managerial length of arm. You can see why they might be heading in this direction if true.

We usually did Committee meetings at a separate time from troop meetings. Our SMs usually attended Committee to talk about program and some ASMs also had committee jobs. That meant on troop nights we generally had enough people to do BORs. Every parent in our troop had to have a volunteer role and BOR was the easiest for those with constraints. They could just stay a bit after drop off or come early.

As far as I'm concerned, the hole is getting deeper. There's a difference between sadly wondering what could have happened vs. conjecturing that charges are overblown due to bias. It happened. It was about as bad as it can get because a child is dead. Let's leave it at that for now. Anything more seems inappropriate for a site and an organization that is about protecting kids.

If a child is dead -- no matter where -- when supposedly responsible adults were present I sure hope there would be a lot of charges. I have to say I am not finding that the direction this conversation is taking to be worthy of scouting.

There's plenty of other research that says kids get burned out. There's also plenty of research that says kids at that age are sampling, not staying. Also, BSA has a long history of using, quote-unquote "Research", to justify marketing and financial goals. If someone on top of the food chain decided that recruiting another younger rank of cubs would increase membership and revenues, then I'm sure they were able to find the necessary research to support it. Based on the membership crashes of the past several years, that doesn't seem to be bearing up. During the pandemic, local nature centers, parks departments, etc., reported significant participation increases for elementary age nature programming. Many had waiting lists for programs. It's very easy for kids to move in and out of other activities as their interests change or their time limitations vary. There really is no reason why membership in scouting has to be so linked to a unit, council, or in some cases rank. It is truly an impediment to retention and recruitment. One of my nephews joined a troop late in high school simply because he wanted to go camping with some of his friends who he enjoyed other outdoor activities with. Unfortunately, the troop leadership just did not know what to do with him and he only lasted a few camp outs.

It's really impossible to try and claim that either scouts or sports are more or less expensive than the other because it all depends on how your local activity is run and how involved the youth and parents want to be. And if you are comparing them, you have to compare true costs and perceived value. I've noticed most scouting cost comparisons leave out the hidden costs of the adult volunteer and fundraising aspects or the fact that uniforms aren't included as they generally are in sports. It's also not true in a lot of places to claim that a sports fee is only good for 8 weeks. League fees often also include participation in things throughout the year like summer pickup games, winter clinics, family days, free tickets to local sporting events, etc.

It is amazing the degree of support the Queen and her husband Prince Phillip gave to the world's youth through their various roles and patronages. In addition to scouting, she was a one time patron and lifelong supporter of Pony Club, another youth organization I have given a great deal of time to. She's also supported youth involvement in golf, tennis, football, and the Olympics not to mention multitudes of youth charitable and social organizations. Many children, not just in the UK or the Commonwealth but throughout the world, have lost a great friend and lifelong champion this week. I'm sad to mark her passing.

I wonder if it would be better for victims if BSA did enter Ch. 7. There certainly would be a scramble among the first in line. Many of those cases, though, were among the most egregious and if they went to court would likely result in judgements creating new high thresh holds for child sexual abuse victims. The ensuing media coverage would also put a focus on the issue in general whereas right now with Ch. 11 it seems to be getting swept under the rug and many of these victims will never be heard from. If the reality in Ch. 11 is that most victims are going to get a check for $37 anyway, I wonder if the validation, in terms of some high profile cases, media coverage, and large judgements under Ch. 7, would be better?

In some cases, I know certain suspect claims had information but it was recorded in the wrong fields or in attached narratives. If there is no other information included other than "someone somewhere abused me" then yes, you're right, you couldn't use that to establish any kind of corroborative matrix. But if there is a name, or a place, that would be something to work with. I know we've been told certain things about the claims but frankly unless they've been reviewed by an objective entity I don't know how much credence to give to anything that has been said.

What I have hoped is that some kind of corroborative forensics will be done to establish a matrix and depict clusters of cases in time and/or place or other common details. That could lend credence to claims in cases where aging memories are failing.

It will be interesting to see what the quotes are. I can't think of any parallels in youth organizations. Pretty much everyone doing anything with kids is under the coverage of an umbrella organization in some way unless they are a free lance piano teacher or a tutor. But those activities are not comparable to scouting and are generally adequately covered by a personal liability umbrella.

To me it seems like liability insurance is going to be the issue. If BSA goes belly up, no single unit or supporting organization would be able to afford it. If scouting is gong to continue at any kind of level more organized than a random street side pick up game, some solution would have to be found. I don't know what that is or what it would look like.

Let me clarify. It had nothing to do with new future liability from existing cases. What (I thought) I understood was that BSA owes money to the settlement -- that some portion of what it has pledged or owes is going to come from future revenues based on its achieving its business plan and that that money will be funneled into the trust going forward. I was wondering if someone knew for certain.

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/07/01/us/boy-girl-scouts-membership-decrease-covid.html This is from about a year ago. Somewhere on this site is a chart from March of this year showing this year's number is about 650,000.