dk516

Our Council has been collecting $60 for some years now. Their reasoning was that they would no longer push FOS since it did not bring in enough $$$s but would ask the programming fee from all active council members. I am sure we'll see more of this and increasing $$$s with the decreasing number of participants. It'll be interesting to see by how much National will increase their fees at the annual meeting and what other councils will do.

Our council and district have seen the same thing. It seems that initial gain did not translate into a sustained membership increase. We've seen a roughly 20% drop in membership year to year. Our current Council has now been merged 3 times and probably more than quadrupled in geographic size with some areas seeing large population growth and the result was an 80% decline over the past 5 years in Youth membership. Our district actually sees the opposite. The Packs are the units not being able to attract the girls but we have several very active and regarded Scouts BSA Girls Troops in the area that all have to recruit from outside Scouts to retain membership since the Packs have only a few girls cross over each year. We were told that the rule of thumb should be that for every one Scouts BSA troop, there should be two Packs having Cub Scouts crossing over in order to sustain membership and loss between Cubs and Scouts. Our District right now shows two Troops for every one Pack.

The BSA online training system in my.scouting is misleading as to the training required. You can complete the classroom portion ONLY in my.scouting and your training record will show you as "position trained" even though you have not met the complete "trained" requirements (IOLS). Also, the system will not differentiate between the online and the classroom training, i.e. it will not waive the S24 classroom portion when you completed all the online training or the other way around. Your training records will say that you need to complete S24 even though you've done all the online modules.

That is correct and was already last year. One of the stops in the Internet Recharter is YPT, the other is CBC. One of my units last year had adults having their YPT expiring while Council was processing the recharter and it got put on hold and that unit nearly lost their tenure over an expiring YPT cert the day before Council was going to accept the unit recharter.

In our Troop the SPL/ASPL will present the final annual plan to the committee for approval. They provide some insight on the motivation and goals of the various outings and some rough programming ideas on what they are planning to do. I look at my role as sort of an audit function on the overall outings. Are they realistic with the Troops resources or will they require high cost or other resources to make feasible? How can additional resources be achieved or not? Are they within the borders of what can be safely achieved (GTSS)? We try and estimate which outings require a lot of committee support or even a separate committee like summer camp planning. Early reservation commitments (cash??) needs before a full signup, etc. Also, your Troop outing plan should be reflected again in your Troop' budget to make sure that needs are covered and things like that.

I think that BSA is not the only one struggling with membership numbers but there are also some clear heavy hitters when it comes to membership growth and maybe we should seriously consider what they are doing different: Organization School Age Population Members Percent BSA 50.7M 900’000 1.8% Scouts UK 9M 420’000 4.7% (5.7% incl. waitlist) Scouts Canada 6.193M 22’237 0.36% Swiss Scouts 1.128M 50’500 4.5% I think we (BSA) are notoriously bad at marketing ourselves compared to some other organizations. When have we heard last about BSA in the national news (except for the bankruptcy)? The short bleep this year about the Scouts helping rescuing people at the train derailment this summer briefly made the national news. When did the last president or any other highly visible public figure portrait Scouts? Every fall and spring it is recruiting season. Every fall and spring our Council is MIA short of a newsletter or two (that only Scouters read because they signed up) or a couple unit requested Facebook geofencing popups. Crickets. Our District tries hard but it is pushing all recruiting down to the units that obviously, and by nature, recruit for their own unit in their own local area. When did our Council last highlight Scouts achievement on a State or County level (our Council stretches the better of 3 states). I have never seen Council or District even suggesting, let alone organizing, presence on a state or county fair or have a Council wide recruiting booth at larger scale events short of a parade here or there staffed by local units. Look at the two countries running high membership numbers above: both recently rebounded in almost 2-digit percentage numbers after years of losses. Scouts UK states "Our waiting list now sits at 90,000 young people". When have we heard about a waiting list for finding BSA units the last time? Switzerland just had its national Jamboree this summer after 14 years of absence. They managed to motivate 60% of their members to attend. Leading up to the event was a National Scouts campaign for 2 weeks spotlighting Swiss Scouts during national TV prime time every evening (not shiny marketing but real participants and volunteers over 3 generations). National media had their own onsite production outlet during the Jamboree with daily coverage. I think up to now I have heard about the 2023 Jamboree in national prime time TV once, and again in negative or political context rather than positive values. Rebuild/Rebound/Recover can happen but only with some serious marketing on all levels. And I think it has to be real marketing showing achievements, highlighting local community support, Eagle projects benefitting the community but also how Scouts benefit the community and how Scouts benefits the individual members being in the program. I don't think however this is achieved by shiny corporate slogans, studio marketing materials and shiny photos on popcorn bags. We need to go back to highlight the real achievements and benefits of the organization.

I assume from your description that you run the B and G Troop completely separate and not as a linked Troop? We require that each Scout has one adult family member sign up initially as a committee member and be active in the Troop for the 1st year. This gets the adults involved and interested and gives them the time to get familiar with the Troop before they sort of decide if they want to take on other functions on the committee or do the ASM required training and switch to that side of the program. Also, we run as a linked Troop which means that there are enough adults on the committee to be able to support both, B and G Troop.

@ShootingSportsI have never seen something like that. I guess you would have to go to individual other associations and see if you can find what there market share would be in terms of youth activities. Attached is the plan that our Council has shared on their website for market share and growth they are trying to achieve. Unfortunately, Council plan and reality are strongly drifting in our Council. AWC BSA Strategic-Operational Plan 2021-23 (1).pdf

@Cambridgeskipreach out to me. I am the CC / UC in Boulder area.