May National Membership

[BadenP]

jkhny

 

Your fatalistic view of scouting is so ridiculously absurd that it is humorous. There is some bad management in the BSA granted , but not on the level you suggest. Again you present no facts to back up your claims. You want to know the real reason for the decline in scouting, look in your own home, how many pcs, ipods, x boxes, etc do you own or do your kids own? Kids and teens live in almost a completely virtual world with text messaging.

 

If the BSA wanted to attract a huge number of youth they could design a Virtual Scouting program. The sad truth of modern technology is that our youth, and many adults have lost interest in nature. The BSA was at a high when kids went out and played with each other, going on hikes, etc. Now parents are so afraid of something happening to their kids they keep them under constant watch and the PC has become the latest babysitter. Violence and lack of discipline at schools are at an all time high, our kids have become "Technotards"= socially inept, technology adept without any sense of the world outside of their sphere of exsistance. This is a serious problem with todays society as a whole not just the BSA.

[evmori]

BadenP,

 

You are right on the money! There is mis-management in every organization! And most of todays kids have no idea what is going on outside of their computer world.

 

Ed Mori

Troop 1

1 Peter 4:10

[purcelce]

I see the main problem as program and recruiting. You must have both for a unit to survive.

 

I did "numbers" work with my crew and here is what I got.

 

Total youth: 35

Total females: 7

Total males: 28

 

 

So far this year we've recruited 9 new members. A majority of these kids came to me asking to join. Most crew members live within 15 miles of our CO's establishment. We have kids that live as far as 40 miles away. We have one buisness meeting and one activity a month. Some events will have 15 kids while others (like this coming weekend) will get 20 plus.

If your unit puts on a great program then they will come and stay.

 

 

Cary P

Crew 805 Advisor

 

[Lisabob]

You are right on the money! There is mis-management in every organization! And most of todays kids have no idea what is going on outside of their computer world.

 

 

 

Sometimes I wonder if maybe this gets a little overblown because it makes for a good "news" story? You know, along the lines of "kids these days!"

 

I know that there are kids out there who are tethered to their computer screens, game boys, x boxes, ipods, and so on. I've noticed, though, that these kids are in a distinct minority among my son's circle of friends, at least. It isn't the "good old days" when kids roamed free in the neighborhood all evening and all summer long either, but most of his classmates live fairly active lives, connected to the wider world. (at least the boys - I can make no claim about the girls - they are still an alien species to my son)

 

So I'm not sure I can buy the (implicit) argument that our program wouldn't appeal to them because they're too hooked on their electronic entertainment.

 

Lisa'bob

[Hunt]

It's my opinion that very little of the membership decline can be ascribed to anything that the national or council organizations have done. I just don't think the mismanagement issues, or other national issues, have that much to do with whether a particular boy decides to give scouting a try. I think the main causes are more local, and I think the competition from other activities is the main reason for the decline. Increased competition means you need a better product than before if you want to maintain market share--and we are generally providing the same product we have been for many years. Don't get me wrong--it's still a great product, but people have more choices. When I was a boy, many of the guys I knew were in scouts. I suspect that if the kinds of organized sports leagues that exist now had existed back then, some of those boys would have done that instead.

 

I do fault the national and council organizations for not doing more to promote the product, however. I think there should be much more investment in advertising, for example. Why don't I see ads for Cub Scouting during SpongeBob, for example? Or on Nickelodeon? Or in comic books? That's something BSA could do that the sports leagues can't do, because there IS a national organization with resources.

[OldGreyEagle]

I woke with a start last night, I had gone to sleep ruminating over in my mind what BSA could do. And I have it, work with me here as I think the idea may need some fleshing out. First off, lets ditch the old program, wait we cant do that, too much value, lets keep the Boy Scout program and then venture out into something competely new. Lets have BSA start a new program, Co-ed this time, a program that appeals to older youth (I love writing that, older youth) lets say 14 to 21. We will lay off the uniform requirement and not require one or allow the individual units themselves to come up with their own uniforms. Because so many youth arent as excited as the outdoors as there once once, the outdoors wont be a focal point for the program. Instead we could have a differnt groupings of interest. We would keep the Outdoors, but also have Sports, Arts, Hobbies and maybe even a religious interest grouping. Members of the program could work in any of these areas.

 

ANybody think such a program would fly?

[purcelce]

OGE wrote" woke with a start last night, I had gone to sleep ruminating over in my mind what BSA could do. And I have it, work with me here as I think the idea may need some fleshing out. First off, lets ditch the old program, wait we cant do that, too much value, lets keep the Boy Scout program and then venture out into something competely new. Lets have BSA start a new program, Co-ed this time, a program that appeals to older youth (I love writing that, older youth) lets say 14 to 21. We will lay off the uniform requirement and not require one or allow the individual units themselves to come up with their own uniforms. Because so many youth arent as excited as the outdoors as there once once, the outdoors wont be a focal point for the program. Instead we could have a differnt groupings of interest. We would keep the Outdoors, but also have Sports, Arts, Hobbies and maybe even a religious interest grouping. Members of the program could work in any of these areas.

 

ANybody think such a program would fly? "

 

Hey OGE I think you have something there

 

[Hunt]

OGE, I like your idea too--it just might work, if National would put a major ad campaign behind it.

[pargolf44067]

I understand the idea behind the Venturing program, to keep older youth in the program longer and to open it up to girls, and I think it is a good program. The issue that I am having with it is that we seem to be losing some of our older kids to the Crew that is associated with our Troop. I am a relatively new SM in the Troop and we had some of the same problems as mentioned before (same camps, same activities). We are getting the program back to being boy led and that is helping to come up with different camps now. I guess the issue that I have is that it is frustrating to have some of our 15-16 year old boys, get Life or Eagle and then "cross over" into the Crew. Any ideas on how to keep the boys in the Troop to continue to provide leadership to the younger boys?

[CNYScouter]

The Ship we just chartered is in a different District than the one my sons Troop is in.

Even though he has made so inaccurate statements in the past Im being to think hes starting to get it.

 

One thing he said to me about Venturing Crews that many have been started by SMs as a favor to a DE to get a new unit listed, thus they are started with the minimum numbers and many only exist on paper. He no longer looks for Troops to start crews as he as realized that they just dont last.

 

Last week while at the council office and finishing the paperwork to charter the ship the DE and I went into a conference room with a large whiteboard on one of the walls.

On the top of this was written NEW UNITS and below was a section for each District.

 

Every district had 10 to 12 new units listed by type and CO (ex. Pack XYZ Church) except this DE district. In his section it only had the Ship and a Pack listed.

 

I asked him why. He said there were two reasons:

1-In the last 5 years he had started as many new units in his district as the rest of the others DEs combined. he said one DE hadn't started a new unit in 5 years.

 

2-The main reason was his numbers were up. He no longer thought more units = more kids. He was spending his time making sure the units he had were running quality programs that were recruiting and keeping kids in the program instead of spending his time creating more mediocre units and his numbers proved it worked.

 

He went on to say the other DEs just hadnt figured this out yet.

 

And this shows you can have it both ways.

[Eamonn]

"He was spending his time making sure the units he had were running quality programs that were recruiting and keeping kids in the program instead of spending his time creating more mediocre units and his numbers proved it worked. "

This sounds good.

But it just doesn't work.

We are a small council with small districts. Still in our district we have 42 units.

It isn't possible for one person to ensure that 42 units are delivering a quality program.

Add to this that there are hard nosed people like me.

I don't want or need some young whippersnapper getting in the way of what the Ship is doing.

Sure there are times when we will need help but that's what the District Committee and Commissioners are there for.

I'm happy for a DE to do his job while I do mine.

Program isn't his job.

He doesn't know the Scouts I serve, he knows nothing about the families they hail from. Has no idea what activities the Scouts want to do.

He doesn't select the leadership, has no say in what the committee wants or does.

So how can he hope to ensure anything?

Eamonn.