Membership, Mergers, and a Plan?

[LeCastor]

This weekend I participated in the Central Region Area 7 commissioner conference in Oak Brook, IL and it was an eye-opening experience for me. It was certainly interesting to see all the white-haired, be-knotted, and beaded commissioners of the area. (I'm poking fun about the white hair, of course. But I was probably at least a decade younger than the 2nd youngest person there.)

 

What I learned, besides unit commissioner basic training, was that membership is pretty much down all over the dang place. Being located in Northern Illinois, the conference was a good place to hear about the recent merger and creation of the Pathway to Adventure Council. Walking around in the hallways between presentations, I couldn't help but over hear the myriad discussions about which councils were next to merge. "Is it Blackhawk and Glacier's Edge? Or will it be Potowatomi and Glacier's Edge? What will happen to Chicago?"

 

I guess mergers aren't anything new. But with the continual downhill slide I've seen with membership in my council, I have to wonder what the plan is. We continually talk about decline in membership but I don't see any real concrete plan. Also, our first instinct is to ask, 'well, why is this happening?' and I honestly don't think you can pinpoint one single reason. Sure, the membership policy debate ruffles feathers on both sides. STEM programs, too, make some uncomfortable.

 

One attempt at recruitment that was mentioned at the conference was interesting from an urban viewpoint. There is now a storefront discovery zone at a large shopping mall in Schaumberg, IL which is aimed at interested youth...those who might not be Scouts yet.

 

So what's the plan? Just keep on keepin' on?

[RememberSchiff]

Mergers save money, not members.

 

 

Another problem is too many clueless adults in leadership roles.

 

My $0.02,

[walk in the woods]

The BSA would make a great business school case study. One could probably take the better part of a semester unwinding the organization and it's issues. The opening paragraph of the scenario reads, "One hundred year old business finds that despite significant investment in infrastructure (the Summit), revenue (membership) continues to decline. Multiple surveys have been completed with significant stakeholders resulting in mixed feedback between the traditionalists (the process has worked for over 100 years, we're just not working/marketing/selling hard enough) and the change agents (it's all broken and needs to be replaced). The financial performance of the regional offices is inconsistent at best. Your team has been hired to review all the relevant business practices and survey data, perform a SWOT analysis and to recommend a national strategy to keep the company viable as a going concern (i.e. relevant)."

 

One of the challenges with balanced scorecard management is that managers at all levels tend to micromanage the metrics and measures rather than look at the processes surrounding them. The first reaction is always "we've always done it this way" which results in the "we need to work harder, recruit harder and sell/fundraise harder" mentality that burns people out and is only successful if the actual problem is people aren't working hard enough. My impression is that's where the BSA finds itself today.

 

I find the outpost idea at Woodfield intriguing. It meets kids and their parents where they are (at least some of them) and it beats the heck out of holding another school flier blizzard recruiting night. It might be interesting to combine the idea of the outpost with the idea of a traveling trailer. I also find the idea of STEMscouts interesting. It's certainly not traditional scouting but under the heading of "going concern" one has to consider alternative ideas or be the last buggy whip maker standing.

 

More importantly I'd be interested in hearing what we're doing to benchmark ourselves against other youth-serving organizations. Internal surveys and navel gazing are only going to take us so far, that is to say nowhere. For example, 4-H is nearly as old as the BSA and is still going strong. They've managed to move beyond their rural/ag base and county fairs to embrace STEM without damaging the former. They run camps, hold national meetings, etc. They obviously have the strength of the USDA behind them but are there ideas we can steal from them to improve the BSA? Likely.

 

With the warning that not every change is an improvement but every improvement is a change, ultimatley, in order to change our reality, BSA will have to change. Part of our challenge might be in recognizing that what used to be a strength (getting boys into the wild overnight without direct parental oversight) might actually be a weakness with today's parent demographic. Regardless, we do need clear leadership with a clear vision and an understanding that the change might be painful. But hey, scouts are brave, yes?

[scoutergipper]

I just spent the last couple of years on the Membership Committee in my District. I focused my efforts primarily on the 4 public and one private grade school in my area. We had 1 Pack at a public school, 1 Pack that serves a public school but meets at a church, and one pack at the private school. During this time, we lost the private school Pack to Leadership Standards issues and the public school Pack to disinterest and PTO hostility, and re-started another Pack at a public school that had been shut down about 5 years ago. We increased Membership at the Pack that meets at the Church and gained Members for that Pack from 2 public schools that don't have a Pack. There are more total Cub Scouts in this area now than 3 years ago, but the difference is small.

 

Recruiting is hard work. Pack's need to have visibility year-round at their school or Chartering Organization. Packs need to recruit year-round. Any event at the school that brings families in (carnivals, concerts, etc) where the Pack can have a display table and a chance to talk with parents and kids should be taken advantage of. Any opportunity to send information to school families about the Pack should be taken advantage of.

 

BSA does a miserable job of marketing. There is no competing public narrative to the "child abusing, gay-hating" narrative Scouting's enemies use. Neither units, nor Districts nor Councils do enough (in many cases they do nothing) to let the public know through use of earned or purchased media the good they are doing in the community. If this, in particular, does not change, Scouting will have a tough time surviving.

[SeattlePioneer]

I spent eight years as District Membership chair. I never found another volunteer willing to help with that task on a district level, so when I quit that was another vacant district leadership position.

 

I've spent the last eight years (and counting) building up a pack that was down to a single boy when I got started --- we had 23 Scouts registered for 2014 at rechartering. Tough to build that up, though, and not much assurance numbers wont crash again when I leave.

 

 

<< despite significant investment in infrastructure (the Summit>>

 

 

My IMPRESSION is --- what a waste of money! And no doubt a sinkhole for maintenance costs for decades to come. Unfortunately, national BSA seems to have bought into the idea of Scouting as a Disneyland type of experience.

 

Another aggravation of mine is that BSA loads down volunteers with large amounts of bureaucratic record keeping and administrative detail work when isn't needed and is a waste of the time of volunteers. Rechartering, internet advancement and the BSA adult and youth leadership forms and such are vastly more complicated and burdensome than are needed.

 

And then there are the youth. When I'm in schools doing Cub Scout recruiting, I often ask the fifth and sixth grader if they would like to go out on a weekend adventure hiking and camping ----"Yeahhhh!" I then say, "of course, there wont be any opportunity to play video games>" Marked lack of interest!

 

The biggest turnout I ever got for a Boy Scout recruiting night was when I did and video game night --- but none of the new boys who attended ever showed up again.

 

If hiking and camping are no longer of interest to MANY youth, is it a surprise that Scouting is having trouble with attracting the interest of boys?

 

 

 

 

 

[TAHAWK]

BSA has done many studies about what variables correlate with "success" (differently defined over the decades). The variable with highest correlation with success is training - not infrastructure - not money raised- not numbers of employees. Well-trained adults and leaders (i.e. Scouts) put on good program. Good program attracts members. Boring program that offers nothing distinctive out-processes membership.

 

Numbers of person using wilderness areas are at an all-time high. Interest in being in the wilderness is at an all-time high.

 

Talented leadership would see that training is critical instead of merely an item on a check list. The promised district-level youth training syllabus is thirteen years overdue. The new Scoutmaster Specific syllabus to replace the current wreck is still not out. The outdoor program is said to be the method that best meets BSA goals, but there is no advanced outdoor program training, much less required advanced outdoor training. Powderhorn is closest, but not it.

 

Talented leadership would see the need to do what other national Scout organizations do - directly recruit adults.

 

Talented leadership would REQUIRE use of the Patrol Method, recognize those who use it, and those who fail to do so. I have put this question to BSA: "If the Patrol Method were important to BSA, what might be done?"

 

If we are going to go down, how about at least trying Boy Scouting?

[SeattlePioneer]

I'll add to what I posted earlier by noting that demographics is working against Scouting. Hispanic populations are exploding, especially among youth, and African American populations are substantial, but BSA isn't having much success recruiting among either group.

 

My district and area of my Cub Pack has a LOT of Hispanic families, and I made intensive efforts to recruit among Hispanic youth and families for several years, with only limited and temporary success.

 

Part of that is lower income, lower educational levels which means less leisure time and money for Scouting. Language barriers are significant among Hispanics, in my experience. Plus Scouting simply isn;t part of the culture of those groups, by and large.

 

Some of the schools in my area are 90% Hispanic and maybe 5% White. If your main appeal is to the 5%, it's tough.

 

My council had a major workshop on just this issue a couple of years ago, bringing in specialists from BSA National to discuss methods to overcome these difficulties. Despite my best efforts, I was at be only marginally succesful.

[scoutergipper]

 

Some of the schools in my area are 90% Hispanic and maybe 5% White. If your main appeal is to the 5%, it's tough.

 

This is also an issue for our District. The Pack we re-started that I mentioned above includes an Adult Leader who is fluent in Spanish. We have used him extensively for outreach at any school that has a significant Hispanic population. We believe that Districts should note on their websites (or BeAScout) which units have Leaders/Adults who are fluent. We had parents telling this guy, "Oh, we would like to come and join your Pack."

 

[Bangback]

 

Mergers aren't a bad idea. I was doing some research tonight and wondered whatever happened to Camp Wenasa. Gone 20 years after a long overdue merger. Both camps are sold in favor of bigger, better camps out in the actual woods. Does it mean anything that they're now districts instead of councils? -- it probably means a decent amount in terms of shared activities and shared camps. 8 years we never did a single thing with the rival council. You don't see that any more.

 

The outdoors is a double-edged sword:

1) Kids aren't that interested in the outdoors

2) Scouts are well-positioned to be a positive gateway to the outdoors

 

The less parents understand and are comfortable with the outdoors, the more they need something like scouts to provide that. But that assumes they're interested at all.

 

For your case study, you should add the upcoming cub scout transition. Cub scouts have become pretty much the exclusive flow into the program (as with similar extracurriculars other than some little-kid challenging sports). Yet they are blowing up the entire program in one year without ever testing how the new program works. The new program looks pretty good and they've tested a few of the "adventures" -- but why not deploy it in 10 councils for a year or two first before going nationwide? Sigh. And I wonder how the new emphasis on religion will play -- not a popular topic in some communities though I'm sure a large segment of chartering organizations are thrilled.

 

Scouts have a great opportunity to solve these problems through empirical A/B testing but seem totally uninterested in the concept.

[qwazse]

I missed NER-A4's meeting, so I can't contribute a broader perspective than my own observations.

 

In general, local management makes for a better program. However, the rural councils surrounding us have had incredible boom and bust job cycles. Thus in almost as many years, two councils merged with Greater Pittsburgh to form Laurel Highlands Council. So, the challenge is to allow local management to occur while maintaining accountability across a wider area. Then we have to figure out the right "carrot" for the local boots-on-the ground.

 

Do we consolidate properties? Do we keep a diversified collection? (I think most of our properties revert to the original donor's estate, so there's no windfall to be had from consolidation.) What council activities can we have in the areas that were recently absorbed? How do we pitch that to to scouts and parents who have to commit to driving to those events for them to be successful? How do we make teleconferencing fun?

 

Plus, there's the big picture for our nation's youth. It's not merely Hispanics. Many of our fellow citizens are living what I call a "Post-Modern Nomadic" lifestyle. Committing their youth to 7-14 years of scouting is just not in the cards for them.

[MattR]

I'm voting with Tahawk (there is interest in the outdoors and the training needs improving), and SeattlePioneer (the demographics are changing). If families are struggling to make ends meet then maybe meetings should be set up to include siblings. The kids in my troop don't have that issue so much as they have, how can I say this politely, cultural pressure to win, succeed, and sign up for everything. What they really enjoy about campouts is a chance to get away from the daily grind of school, parents, and home. They just want to hang with their friends.

 

Scouts is local and success will happen because parents find a good, local unit. A big camp on the East coast won't help a local unit. The biggest bang for the buck would be to give DEs better pay and better resources to help develop better units. The emphasis now is on making more units. If it were on making better units the more would take care of itself. Unfortunately, I'm not sure many units know what better looks like. There is JTE but that's lacking.

[TAHAWK]

The biggest bang for the buck would be to give DEs better pay and better resources to help develop better units.

 

Matt, a DE's job is to raise money in the short term through begging, selling goods, and membership fees. Having the employees focus on better units would require convincing BSA to abjure the short-term goal of raising money in favor of the longer-term goals of better training and program, leading to better units. To be as fair as possible would require acknowledgement of the old saw about alligators and draining swamps.

 

It's the volunteers' job to build better units. The volunteer leadership in two of the districts where I help is pretty weak. That leadership, for the most part, is selected by the employees of councils. A "good Scouter" used to be someone who often agreed to take on a job in Scouting and did well at those jobs. Now, the primary consideration is how much money the volunteer contributes to making payroll. So we have "good Scouters" in the top leadership, and they do not do well as leaders.

[LeCastor]

It's the volunteers' job to build better units.

 

Yes, T. And more specifically I think we need to be training our Unit Commissioners to make sure this is happening. I don't think UCs are necessarily dedicated to this task, unfortunately. It kind of feels to me that some UCs are just Scouters who have been around a long time and don't necessarily want to do anything of any importance.

 

Also, I have noticed in my council that we see the same volunteers over and over again. Lately, the numbers have been declining and since I've been showing my face I've been asked to fill up to three different district positions...at the same time. I'm currently serving as a Scoutmaster and a Roundtable Commissioner. There have been attempts to make me Boy Scout program chair and membership chair for the district committee. Of course I want to help as much as possible but I can't do all that work by myself.

 

I'm trying to rebuild my Troop and the Pack that is associated with us. At the same time, I'm trying to rekindle interest in Scouting through Boy Scout roundtable breakout sessions. It's tough, though, because fewer and fewer Scoutmasters have been showing up to roundtable over the last three years. I definitely feel like we're in a "rebuilding season" to use a sports metaphor.

[BadenP]

Tahawk is correct unfortunately, the only things National really cares about is seeing more numbers and units, even though many of them are little better than paper units and will fail in their first year, quality has never been an issue with National since all they really want to see is "the money". UC's are becoming an extinct species and new unit leaders in many districts get very little support, which they desperately need from council. Sadly we watch scouting shrinking more and more every year and wonder why, we blame sports and other activities that pull kids away from scouting instead of looking internally at our own organization for the answer.

[TAHAWK]

 

. . .

 

Also, I have noticed in my council that we see the same volunteers over and over again. Lately, the numbers have been declining and since I've been showing my face I've been asked to fill up to three different district positions...at the same time. I'm currently serving as a Scoutmaster and a Roundtable Commissioner. There have been attempts to make me Boy Scout program chair and membership chair for the district committee. Of course I want to help as much as possible but I can't do all that work by myself. .

 

At least two things may be at work.

 

1. Having a position filled on paper, with a "good Scouter" [$$$$] if possible, is the actual goal - not having it filled with a performer-.

 

My old district has a Program Chairman who has done nothing anyone has noticed, and he was just "elected" to his third year of nothingness. He went over two years before recruiting a Cub Training Chair. This good and willing Cub Scouter was immediately told by our DE that he "had to run" Scoutmaster Specific Training, despite having never even participated on the Scouting side, This Program Chair just found a Scout Training Chair. As a result, two training events have happened in over two years (two INDOOR Baloo sessions, and, God help me, I staffed both imitation events).

 

Our District Commissioner served two years and never found anyone to run roundtables - Cub or Scout. He did find paper UC's for 1/3 of our units. My old troop has had a visit from a UC - actually twice in 28 years. But it was a relatively strong unit and usually had no UC assigned, as is the case since our new super-district was formed. We now have a new DC. One hopes.

 

2. People trust and recruit known performers - until they die or otherwise go away.

 

Either factor can be -- and has been - poison. We need the best quality volunteer staff regardless of whether they are James West Fellows or not,. We need to stop pretending about whether a position is actually filled. And we need to constantly bring in new players for the future.

 

We can fix these problems with quality leadership at the top or, to a lesser extent, partially remediate them in spite of incompetent leadership at the top. But not if we give up.

 

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What might BSA do if the Patrol Method were important to BSA?