New Structure for BSA?

[Stosh]

Am I to assume this is the new structure for the BSA program?

 

Lions - Kindergarten

Tigers - 1st Grade

Wolves - 2nd Grade

Bears - 3rd Grade

Webelos/AOL - 4th Grade (one year)

Boy Scouts - 5th-8th Grades

Venturing* - 9th-College

 

*Option to Eagle prior to 18th birthday, open to boys only that were Boy Scouts previously.

 

They flat out said in the preso on this, the "older boys don't really want to associate with the younger boys anyway...." AT LEAST THEY GOT THAT PART RIGHT! I've been preaching that and taking heat on it for years.

 

I heard rumors that Venturing top age may drop to 18 because BSA will have difficulty registering homosexual "boys" who are of adult age.

 

So, what rumors have you heard?

 

Stosh

[King Ding Dong]

Where have you heard this? The new Cub program they are rolling out is clearly a two year Webelos program. Although I have no doubt under your leadership it could be accomplished in 1 year or less. The rest of us dolts, lucky to just get through. My Webelos 1 den is in no way ready to put up with Boy Scouts, and I am having serious doubts about 16 months from now. All they want to do is run around in the creek. Not a bad thing, but they have no interest in doing boy scout things. They are just banshees. (Including my son). He has already told me he is NOT going to do any Merit Badges like his older brother. To much work.

[King Ding Dong]

The subject of older boys not wanting to associate with younger boys is a subject I would really like to see explored in detail on this forum. There are many reason Scouts appeals to me and the mix of ages is one of the top ones that appeals to me. HS is so horizontally structured and the vertical structure of BS is what appeals to me. My BS needs that mentoring form older scouts and he also enjoys mentoring younger scouts. I fully expect him to age out and be a camp counselor when his time comes. Is he a dying breed? What is happening to the concept of Servent Leadership? Am I just wasting my time in Scouting?

[LeCastor]

This is an interesting idea for restructuring Scouting in the US. Interestingly, I believe it fits closer to what our Canadian brothers and sisters are doing now. The only glaring exception I see is that we aren't opening it up to both boys AND girls--other than Venturing, of course.

 

http://www.scouts.ca/ca/programs

 

As for older boys not wanting to to have anything to do with younger boys, I don't personally see that playing out in my Troop. The 14-17 year old Scouts are very interested in mentoring the new boys who cross over. If the BSA were to restructure as indicated in the OP, I would expect to see Venturers coming to Scout meetings to act as mentors/instructors--young men and women. KDD, this actually might make the case for servant leadership...

[Cambridgeskip]

Ah the joy of rumours!

 

It sounds like, if this is true, that it would reflect the UK and Canadian models. Our ages work

 

Beavers 6-8

Cubs 8-10.5

Scouts 10.5 – 14

Explorers 14-18

Network 18 – 25

 

Its been that way since 2003. The big driver behind that was as King Ding Dong said, we were struggling to keep older teenagers.

 

The change to that age range (previously scouts 10.5-16 and venture Scouts 16-21) has had its pros and its cons.

 

Pros

 

We have kept older teenagers in increasing numbers. My district has gone from 15 scout troops feeding into 2 Venture Scout units to 19 scout troops feeding into 8 Explorer Units.

 

What you refer to as mentoring we call the Young Leader scheme. Explorers can act as almost apprentice leaders with Beavers, Cubs or Scouts. I have 40 scouts with a pool of 4 YLs who come along in 2s or 3s each week depending on what we need. It works well and has helped us breed our own adults. 5 of the adult leaders at the group started off as YLs.

 

Cons

 

The patrol method is much harder to operate. There is a limit to what you can ask a 13 or 14 year old PL to do. It’s not impossible. I have scout lead camps regularly, including with no adults present. But it does need more adult over sight. I would be happy for explorers to camp on an unstaffed camp site. Scouts I insist use a campsite with onsite staff if they want to go without adults.

 

Peer discipline is harder to enforce as well. A 17 year old is far more intimidating than a 13 or 14 year old when it comes to bringing someone to heel. Again it’s not impossible, but the PLs need that much more coaching.

 

Realistically though where did this rumour come from? Is this actually going to happen?

 

[King Ding Dong]

"They flat out said in the preso on this". What preso? Presentation? By who? When? Is this a pilot program in your Council?

[King Ding Dong]

Regarding Venturing I thought they already "fixed" that by registering all 18-20 year olds as Adults thereby scrubbing the program of adult homosexuals.

[perdidochas]

KDD,

 

Actually, they register the 18-20 yr olds as adults, so they can run the background check on them. That way that 14 yr old girl's parents know that the 20 yr old Crew President is not a criminal.

 

All this said, besides the death bed Eagles (the 17 yr olds that come back to finish their Eagle), how many active scouts does BSA have in the 15-17 yr old age range? Are there any stats out there?

[Stosh]

"They flat out said in the preso on this". What preso? Presentation? By who? When? Is this a pilot program in your Council?

 

Our District Chairman is on the national committee.

 

Preso was made by Training Chairman at our last Roundtable. Same preso that said YPT would now be an annual recertification.

 

No, we are not a pilot program.

 

The Venturing age was still 21 according to the preso.

 

Stosh

[qwazse]

The only thing in stosh's reply that is even close to official is

... "older boys don't really want to associate with the younger boys anyway...."

and that, boys and girls, is how Exploring got started. Nothing new here. Also, some older boys do want to associate with youngns and others don't mind once and a while. Nothing new here.

 

Everything else are ideas that folks have been kicking around for years.

 

Sometimes Boy Scouts gets classified as a program for Jr. High kids, allowing 2 years for Web's. Other times 5th graders get put in the older bin. Guys in green shirts and Brits like 'skip got no problem with it going coed. Guys like myself see successful GSUSA programs and think, "Just give them a few more tarps to camp under and they'll lock that market."

 

As more scouts actually talk to their counterparts from around the world (at Jamborees or via Cit. in the World MB), new ideas are added to the mix. (E.g., beer drinking Germans with mixed-sex tenting.) Anything's possible, only a few are probable.

[Sentinel947]

They flat out said in the preso on this' date=' the "older boys don't really want to associate with the younger boys anyway...." AT LEAST THEY GOT THAT PART RIGHT! I've been preaching that and taking heat on it for years. Stosh[/quote'] Depends on the Scouts. And isn't that what the patrol method is for? My troop doesn't use a venture crew. Forcing all the units to have venture crews, and either requiring more leaders or the current leaders to wear more hats, isn't the answer. Whether using older scout patrols or venture crews should be left up to the units.

[Stosh]

We have heard the Lions has been bantered around... That's no surprise.

 

It was unclear and I didn't get a definite answer, but boys may be able to stay in Boy Scouts until 18 and Eagle as a Boy Scout rather than as a Venturer. Venturing isn't really set up to promote the Eagle program per se. That would also mean the boy would need to be Life by the time he's 14 as well??? How does he track his requirements otherwise?

 

We got this preso and no real answers. This is why I kept it in the Rumor column even though it sounded like it was kinda legitimate considering the push from Council.

 

Stosh

[Sentinel947]

We have heard the Lions has been bantered around... That's no surprise. It was unclear and I didn't get a definite answer' date=' but boys may be able to stay in Boy Scouts until 18 and Eagle as a Boy Scout rather than as a Venturer. Venturing isn't really set up to promote the Eagle program per se. That would also mean the boy would need to be Life by the time he's 14 as well??? How does he track his requirements otherwise? We got this preso and no real answers. This is why I kept it in the Rumor column even though it sounded like it was kinda legitimate considering the push from Council. Stosh[/quote'] I didn't get my life rank till 15.

[King Ding Dong]

It just seems odd they would change the whole Webelos program immediately after the big Cub Program Update. Then again maybe it isn't really that odd. When BSA has ever thought things through? Interesting how this brings the traditional program a little closer in some respects to the LDS program.

[Stosh]

There's a simple solution to this whole thing without having to resort to a whole new organizational structure, double committees, and separate advancement hassles, etc. etc.

 

Patrol-method troop. Let the older boys have their own patrols, call them something like... let see.... Venture Patrols? They aren't co-ed, but they accomplish the same thing without having a forced mass exodus of older boys or even an open door for them to "move on" to bigger and better things out there. Why not just cut to the chase and have the bigger and better inside the troop?

 

And so Stosh takes another one for the outcasts.... Young boy patrols (grade schoolers), regular patrols (Jr/Middle school boys) and then the older boy Venture patrols (high school). But of course we can't do that, we need to have mixed patrols!!!! WHERE DOES IT SAY THAT?

 

If the troops won't design a program within the troop to keep all boys interested, National will step in and do it without them.

 

One can have a nice program all within one unit without having to jump through a ton of paperwork, volunteers, programs, multiple uniforms, dual registrations, and other general headaches along the way. The tools are there, they've been around for 100+ years, use them.

 

To me, this sounds a bit like it ain't broken, don't fix it.

 

For those who think the younger boys don't have the brains and maturity to run their own patrol, here's last Monday night's scout meeting.

 

6 boys all 11 years old except one who just had a birthday, he's 12. One of the boys said he just qualified as black belt in karate and won't be able to make scouts anymore because of the scheduling conflict. The boys though about it for a while and then decided they would now start meeting on Tuesday nights. I have an 11 year old PL who has taken seriously Stosh's Leadership training program. "Take care of your boys." He's the one that told me the patrol will be meeting on Tuesdays from now on and why. I have had 15 and 16 year old boys who would never have come up with that solution and would have simply wished the boy good luck with his karate.

 

Stosh

 

By the way. What if I had 16 boys, 2 patrols. Does that mean I may have to have one patrol meet on Mondays and the other one on Tuesdays? How is this any different than 1 CO having 2 units without the hassle of multiple leadership structures, programs, etc.? How would that disrupt the "troop"? So for the big events, camporees, outings, summer camp, they come together... It can work and will work a lot easier than doubling up on a ton of organizational structuring.