membership numbers

[baden]

I attended our District Roundtable last night. I had a conversation with our Council's Director of Field Service there. He told me he had been talking to someone at Central Region yesterday and was told that membersip would show an increase for year end 2006. First gain in four years I believe. I know many are skeptical about any membersip numbers stated, but I view this as a positive.

[local1400]

Any increase in numbers is good, but the retention of numbers is the trick! We have one scout who is reeling in friends like salmon up the river. But heres my little theory on the much recently discussed "decline in membership". My father is one of 12 children. He has five children, who have begotten TWO children. My wifes mother is one of 16 children (not Irish or Catholic--go figure?)who begot three children which trickles down to four children. So? There is less scout aged kids around who have much more choices than some of us did 20 or more years ago. I played baseball and did scouts for ten years, but baseball practice was about a half hour before game time and an hour on weekends. Now practice is a daily thing for months on end. But that's just my 1/50th of a buck.

[de4bsa]

There was an increase in membership, but it was due to a big increase in Learning For Life membership. I don't know exactly how to put this, but that wasn't really considered much of a positive by professionals (I'm a DE). There was still a loss in traditional membership (cubs, boys, venturers).

 

This probably isn't going to come out right, but I couldn't care less about LFL. Why? Because my critical achievements (what a professional scouter is judged on) are all written to increase TRADITIONAL membership. At the end of the day, unless you are a LFL Executive, professionals are judged on that. I could increase my membership each year w/ LFL numbers but if my traditional membership continues to decrese then I'll be job hunting pretty soon.

 

Your Field Director certainly didn't lie to you about the increase, but it certainly wasn't the positive he made it out to be and he knew it when he told you.

[packsaddle]

Thank you DE4BSA, for your candid assessment. I was about to reply with something more positive but your perspective brought me back to reality. It is good, though, to know there is someone in your ranks that is willing to tell it like it is. I appreciate that.

[de4bsa]

I'm an unhappy BSA employee right now. I came across this site by accident the other day and thought it might be a good place to vent my frustrations. So, if I continue to post and seem overtly negative then just ignore me. I'll try not to be too negative b/c I understand that a lot of very enthusiastic volunteers who do a lot for the program come to this site to share good, positive information. I don't want to be the rain that puts out their fire.

 

However, what I said was true. My SE told me a couple of days ago that CSE Roy Williams is stepping down in September (kind of a "forced" resignation by his board) b/c of the steadily declining membership numbers. So, again, that pretty much tells you the increase b/c of LFL numbers wasn't really seen as a victory by scouting professionals.

[Lisabob]

local1400, I get what you're saying in terms of absolute numbers. However I suspect it is better if you put this in relative terms (% of total available youth being served). I've seen my district's TAY percentages, in comparison to national averages. For cubs we do pretty well - about 25%. For boy scouts we're doing less well but not atypical in comparison to national averages, about 10-12% (I don't remember off hand but in that range). For venturing we're at considerably less than 1%, which is (in my view) abysmal.

 

Seems to me that's where the proof is. If the numbers are persistently low, or worse, if they're declining, then there's a problem and for all that some people pretend it doesn't exist, the facts are right there staring back at them.

 

I'd really like to see TAY %s from previous eras, if they even exist (I guess just for cubs and boy scouts, since Venturing is newer and maybe not a good comparison to the Exploring posts). It would offer a better basis for comparison and evaluation of our current programmatic successes.

 

[Eamonn]

Back when I used to track membership. (Till the end of 2005) I was proud that the Disrict was serving:

26.4% of TAY in Cub Scouts

21.2% in Boy Scouts

0.83% in Venturing.

I was feeling good until I met with our Area President who pointed out that even in Cub Scouting there were 73% of the youth that we weren't reaching.

Ea.

[packsaddle]

BSA is the natural way to address the 'nature-deficit disorder' mentioned in the articles below:

 

http://dir.salon.com/story/mwt/feature/2005/06/02/Louv/index.html

 

http://www.edutopia.org/1629

 

This is a real problem and if BSA addressed it, many more boys would gain the benefit. Just a thought.

 

[Jeffrey H]

quoted by de4bsa:  "This probably isn't going to come out right, but I couldn't care less about LFL.  Why? Because my critical achievements (what a professional scouter is judged on) are all written to increase TRADITIONAL membership."

No offense here.  As a volunteer adult leader, when I hear membership numbers, I'm only interested in Cubs, Scouts, and Venturing.  LFL is an entirely different youth program and most BSA volunteers share your sentiment. 

Quite frankly, I know very little to nothing about LFL.  It's interesting how some folks are quick to add LFL to total BSA membership, but they never talk about LFL