Reasons for Declining Membership

[packsaddle]

Hunt, again I can only speak from my own experience. However, although I agree that training is absolutely essential to deliver the best program, I have a qualifying observation. I think the volunteers are as good as they have ever been - better even, prior to training. In this area, however, training is deficient. That is, the trainers are often less-informed than some of those being trained and almost always not prepared to assist with the tough questions that are sometimes raised in these forums. Training has become a 'checkoff' activity to satisfy some bureaucratic demand and the content, delivered by videotape in many cases, is almost never examined in any depth. I can't explain why this situation exists. It almost seems that BSA isn't really interested in the program at times.

 

Most of the troops in this area are doing fairly well (this unit is doing great). And this is under the leadership of volunteers who have received deficient training, or none at all. So if 'poor delivery of the program due to lack of training' affects membership, I can't detect it...I simply can detect when the program is not delivered accurately and when rules and policies are not followed. It doesn't seem to make much difference to the families.

[scoutldr]

I think you're getting warm, packsaddle. While some on this forum think that BSA training is the "magic bullet" for all our woes, I think it's pretty lame. As I stated before, I was a Trainer, and tried my best to deliver a quality training program...imparting my 30 years of experience at all levels of the program, which often meant that I went an hour over the alotted time, because I felt that answering their questions and concerns was more important. What was expected by the Council staff, was "just read the material and play the videos...how hard can it be"? In fact, when they declared "100% mandatory training", even the Council secretaries were pressed into service to be "Trainers". After all, "how hard can it be?" What the students needed and expected was not what they got...the new DL doesn't give a flip about the structure of the council ...they need to know how to keep a room full of second graders busy for 90 minutes (which they learn best at Roundtables and PowWow)...the rest they can learn later. Now, we're not even doing PowWow any more.

[packsaddle]

Sounds like your courses were well worth the time, Scoutldr. Most of my volunteer colleagues have adopted an approach in which we just focus on the boys and don't sweat the BS. But it would be good to get some meaningful training for future volunteers and those of us who are still receptive. Since you have had a lot of experience in these matters, do you have any ideas on how to change things?

[evmori]

Training is important. I still think mandatory training for all adults is a good idea. But training isn't the be all answer. My unit is different than Bob's and Bob's is different than OGE's & OGE's is different than packsaddle's! And what works for my unit might not work for packsaddle's, etc. We need to be aware of what is going on in our communities. We need to be aware of what the kids in or communities like. If all we do is get trained & learn the company lines & expect the kids to come to us then, well, we ain't gonna get many kids.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Fuzzy Bear]

Membership is rising in our District. We have Internet, District/Council training available most times of the year for all. Many of our units have reported that they have interesting and relevant meetings and even the boring meetings attract youth. We advertise/recruit through schools and churches. We have many competing activities but most of our families do more than one thing anyway. Our youth report like being outside and some think that the dorky donkey is still funny. Societal problems do lop over and affects attitudes but it hasn't changed growth. Some Scouters get upset and angry if anyone gets a head-start on popcorn sales which gets their goat occasionally. The religion requirement seems to have helped expand the program. Our Summer camp is well known and attracts many Troops even from out of state to eat in our dining hall. We basically only have a difficulty in keeping up with all of the new telephone numbers of the volunteers that are pouring-in. Other than that, I can't report any other problems.

FB

[scoutldr]

Thanks, packsaddle. I tried. But rather than present inadequate training just to pump up the Council's numbers, I decided to focus my contributions in other areas.

 

What would I suggest? Listen to the leaders who have to suffer through 3 hours of training only to find out that's not what they needed or wanted. At the end of every training session, a student evaluation form was filled out. Overwhelmingly, the comments were directed not toward the instructor, but toward the prepared syllabus and it's inadequacy. As an instructor, I had little control over that. To add the things that the students perceived they needed, and still "cover the material" would have doubled the time required. I also had to spend an inordinate amount of time "correcting" things in the training materials that were no longer correct...often things pointed out by the students that the instructor was not aware had changed.

 

It's time to overhaul the training programs...again...and keep them current. Put as much on-line or on DVD as possible...perhaps contract it out to a training provider (college or community college) and take advantage of interactive distance learning technology. Allow students to progress at their own rate, on their own schedule. Training records in Scoutnet would be automatically updated (another pet peeve...Council training records).

 

I would be happy to serve on a National task force or committee to study this...just PM me.

[jr56]

The biggest problem that I have seen is the competition from other activities. There is only so much time to devote to extra-curricular activities, and parents usually encourage sports because the program is pre-set for them. I agree with acco40, the kids just want to be entertained and don't want to take any ownership in their program. It is really frustrating.

[Hunt]

I'd be curious to know if there are geographic or other demographic differences in membership number changes. For example, it wouldn't surprise me if Scouting membership is growing more in rural and small-city areas, and shrinking in suburban areas. I live in a suburban area, and I have to say that competition, especially from youth sports, is intense.

[Bob White]

To answer Hunt's earlier question "I've yet to hear anybody who thinks poor program delivery at the unit level is the problem explain why that has resulted in an overall loss of memberhip over a period of years. If you think program delivery, on average, is declining, why? Why should today's program delivery by, on average, worse than program delivery 30 years ago?"

 

Because, kids have changed, the program has changed, but adults have not. Many of todays leaders are delivering scouting as they remember it as scouts, or as they think it should be, or as others who are reliving their scouting "chilhood" are teaching them. Fewer leaders are getting trained, fewer are using that training.

 

For the program to work you first have to use the program, and you can see by the posts on this forum that many do not.

 

[Eamonn]

20. What decline?

You don't know how much I wish I could say that!!

Sad to say membership is not looking good.

At this time I'm unable to find where I hid the August national membership report.

But looking at the Northeast Region.

Traditional Membership --June 2004 June 2005

Tiger Cubs 5,468 5,076

Cub Scouts 125,826 120,045

Webelos Scouts 137,985 131,688

Total Cub Age 269,279 256,809

 

Boy Scouts 178,443 174,069

Varsity Scouts 1,192 1,901

Total Scout Age 180,355 175,970

 

Venturers 35,454 31,825

 

Total Traditional 485,088 464,604

 

We have a wonderful fellow on our Area Committee who must crunch numbers for a living, he puts out reports that show trends and three year trends and all sorts of interesting reports. I'm not that clever.

When I look at this report I see some things that really do concern me.

5,076 Tiger Cubs in the entire Northeast Region? What happened to Spring round-up? If a tiny District like the one I serve can recruit almost 50 Tiger Cubs, where the heck was the rest of the Region?

Venturers down from 35,454 to 31,825 a drop of 10.2%. That has to a red flag.

However on the bright side Boy Scout numbers are only down by 2.5%, which if you take into account that Cub Scout numbers have been on the decline for a while, must mean that something is working.

I have no idea why the Venturering numbers are going down?

I think the problem lies with the Cub Scouting program.

We in my book seem to do a good job of recruiting Cub Scout age boys, we just don't seem to be able to keep them in the program.

While there are lots of great and very dedicated Den Leaders out there working away with these little fellows, I think we need to take a long hard look at who is delivering the program.

My mother-in-law was a Den Mother, in fact she is very proud of having been one. She was a stay at home Mom and having six or eight little fellows invade her house every week wasn't that big a deal. In fact she along with the other Den Mothers met once a week over coffee to plan and talk about what they would be doing with the Dens.

When I look at what is happening today, I see that the Dens are no longer meeting in the homes of the Den Leaders, yet the homes are far bigger? The Den Leader is rushing home from work to run the Den meeting.Dens seem to be a lot bigger than they ought to be, mainly because there seems to be a lack of Den Leaders. Many of the Den Leaders I talk with just can't wait till the end of the year when they can bow out. I've lost count of the times that I've heard "I can't wait till I'm done!"

It seems to me that we are lost in the 50's. Sure the program is a lot of fun for the Cub Scouts and the Lads that are fortunate enough to have the die hard Cub Scouters will have a grand time, but how many Lads are having the program delivered by a parent who is so stressed out that the last thing they need at the end of the day is 12 or 15 boisterous little Lads of Cub Scout age?

Could it be that we need to look at more pack meetings and less Den meetings?

That Venturering number, has really got me puzzled!!

Eamonn.

(This was in neat little rows when I posted it!! I don't know if the Northeast Region is a good representative of the National membership numbers.)(This message has been edited by Eamonn)

[evmori]

Based on the Northeast numbers Eamonn posted, it seems we are no getting the boys at the Tiger age and it just mushrooms from there. Fewer Cubs Scouts = fewer Boy Scouts. And that's what the numbers reflect.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[Hunt]

"Fewer leaders are getting trained, fewer are using that training."

 

I recognize that this could be a reason for the decline, but is there any evidence that it is, other than anecdotal? And if it is true, what should BSA as an organization do about it? It could be that people are refusing and ignoring training because they are lazy and pigheaded, but I still don't think they are any more lazy and pigheaded than they were 30 years ago--not when it comes to activities for their kids. Rather, I see parents much more involved with their kids activities than the parents when I was a kid. Other possibilities would be that the content and/or delivery of the training is ineffective, or that its length or location make it harder for people to get the training, or that the training is out of date.

 

[madkins007]

I was talking with some co-workers about this issue and why their sons were not in Scouts. I got some interesting feedback.

 

"My son was in Cubs for a while, but dropped out because it got boring for him. He never showed much interest past that."

[Experienced Scouters can guess what year this happened- between late Bear and early Webelos. Cubs does a great job of recruiting, but their drop-outs rarely re-enter the program.]

 

"My son just never showed much interest. He prefers (fill in the blank with sports, video games/computer, or hanging with friends)."

(Q: Did you know Scouts do (fill in the blank)?

A: either 'No, but..." or "yes, but..." and the 'but' is usually things are OK now, why add an activity.)

 

"Our school doesn't sponsor a unit."

{Q: how about your church?

A: We don't really do church.

Q: Have you seen any of the ads asking you to call the Scout office to help find a unit?

A: (depending on the respondant) "Yeah, but I never think of it by the time I got home" OR "no, there's a Scout office?")

[it had not occured to me that in our city, few public schools sponsor units, either directly or via the PTA. For the most part, we advertise in schools and churches. With the decline in church memberships, where will they hear about us?]

 

"You know- it just never came up."

 

 

 

 

Of the people I talked to (15 or so over the last several days), only 1 had a boy in Boy Scouts, and he had dropped out last year after about a year. He was in a decent troop, but he was still uninterested anymore. 2 others had boys in Cubs at one time. 1-in-5 (3 out of 15) is a bit below the usual 1-in-4 we traditionally can accomplish- but not too bad for a small sample size.

 

None mentioned any scandals or philisophical issues- but there also has not been any coverage of Scouting around here lately so I don't know if that had an effect or not. With this group- probably not.

 

I asked about the 'overprogrammed' bit and most of them laughed- saying they WISH their sons had more to do to get them out of the house or the group they hang out with. Oddly- some of these were the same ones who were happy with the 'status quo' around the house from an earlier answer. When asked to clarify that, I got comments about not wanting to be running around all the time.

 

I asked about the costs and uniforms, and none seemed to think either was a big issue, although one thought the uniforms were 'cute'.

 

 

So- here is at least a sample of some parent's thoughts!

 

 

 

[Zahnada]

I, like many of you, have been informally researching this topic throughout my time with scouting. It's remarkable how much societal saturation BSA has. They have amazing brand name. "Boy Scout" is a household term. Everyone can conjur up a mental image to match. And despite this, dropout rates are still high and membership enrollment appears to be slipping.

 

We can't underestimate the "cool" factor affecting a boy's decision on whether or not to join or continue. Middle school is the time of popularity crisis and scouting has never been popular. Personally, I feel this stems from a mental connection between Boy Scouts and Cub Scouts. People assume they are very similar in activities. Why would a middle school boy want to do arts and crafts while wearing a uniform under the watchful eye of a "den mother"? Whenever scouts are parodied on TV, it is usually the Cub Scouting image that gets lampooned. It's just uncool for boys to be scouts.

 

But there's also the parent's perspective. And this is where the stream of bad press plays in. It certainly seems that every article or story about scouting these days is negative. "Scout Leader found with child porn," "Scout dies on campout," "ACLU takes Scouts to trial," "United Way cuts Scout funding."

 

Boy Scouts is much more controversial than it used to be. I've met people who have taken "Eagle Scout" off their resumes lately. Public opinion has slightly turned against scouts. Sure, the sky is not completely falling, but we can't ignore the writing on the wall. Fewer boys are joining. Parents used to sign their sons up for scouts because it would develop their character and leadership while getting them in the outdoors. But those ideals have taken a beating lately.

 

Of course, as Bob White would probably say, the solution starts at the unit. Deliver a good progam and you will win in the face of the controversy. The local deeds of a good unit will outweigh the effects of poor national PR.

 

Better PR on the national level wouldn't hurt either.

[cajuncody]

Just my 2 cents

In my sons Kindergarten class 3 years ago there were 10 boys and 10 girls. In Kindergarten the brownies recruited (or daisys) 8 girls. At that time all 10 boys wanted to join cubs but were told no "We don't recruit in Kindergarten you have to wait a year". In came football, soccer, T- Ball, and Basket ball, all of the sports groups DO recruit Kindergarten and have a Kindergarten league. Now fast forward to First Grade, 7-9 of those 10 boys are now involved and commited to a sport. I don't find it surprising that there are fewer to recruit.

Kristi