Food For Thought...

[Gone]

I see nothing wrong with traditional outdoor activities (scouting for most of us) as a niche offering. Why does there have to be a huge national organization? Why can't it be viewed as some form of 'elite' status as long as it's available to everyone? To me it just needs to be scouting and we shouldn't worry about how bloated salaries are justified and paid.

 

Scouting is mismanaged from national all the way down to the councils. Does one council really need FOUR camps; all of them sub-par and never filled to capacity? Do these executives really need mid six figure salaries with golden parachutes without being held to achieving tough, measurable organizational objectives?

 

And then there's this.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Bad Wolf

[Stosh]

The gay issue is the media child du jour.   Female leadership was another flash in the pan.  Co-ed Exploring, etc, these issues come and go all the time and barely make a blip on the radar.

 

I do think you hit on a major issue that we've discussed before,   The current parents do not have either a background in Scouting or even camping in general.  If they do go "camping" it's at a KOA where there's a pool, game room, and grocery store.

 

I noticed this problem back in the 1990's when I was doing the Webelos outdoor training.  People would show up to the event with a tent and sleeping bag in the box with the Walmart receipt dated the same day.  They had no idea what it was like to camp, let alone take a group of boys out into the woods for an over-night outing.

 

When I came into scouting as a scouter, I had many, many years of camping experience, I had scouting experience as a youth, I had extensive experience working with youth, and the training I got as a new leader was okay, definitely not memorable.  WB was pretty much the same thing.  Kinda fun, but that's about all I remember.

 

So how does one recruit adults and boys who only have a cursory understanding of the program and we expect them to jump in gung-ho and take the reins?  If someone asked you to be the baseball coach, you'd have a pretty good idea of what to do.  Every soccer mom could do an adequate job of coaching soccer, but camping?

 

Last fall the Mrs. and I went to a Wisconsin state park where I spent many weekends camping as a child.  The fall colors were just coming in.  We first drove though the original camping area and it didn't look anything like I remember.  The massive units with the water, sewer and electrical hookups were crammed in rather tightly.  We then drove out to the "new loop" area that was the nature trail when I was kid.  Nice paved road, nice sites, a bit further apart, no water, no sewer, no electricity and no campers.    The Mrs. and I had a fantastic time.  For those of you who are married to a spouse that needs a Pace Arrow or Winnebago to "camp" in, my step-kids all chipped in for the Mrs.'s Christmas gift and it was a brand new 4-man tent so we'd have a bit more room than the old 2-man tent.    Now, she does go on an occasional activity with the boys, but she has more qualifications to be a scouter volunteer without any training than most parents today having taken training up to the WB level.

 

Generational interests have changed.

[Eagledad]

The gay issue is the media child du jour.   Female leadership was another flash in the pan.  Co-ed Exploring, etc, these issues come and go all the time and barely make a blip on the radar.

 

I do think you hit on a major issue that we've discussed before,   The current parents do not have either a background in Scouting or even camping in general.  If they do go "camping" it's at a KOA where there's a pool, game room, and grocery store.

 

 

Flash in the Pan? Go ask the Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls and Canadian Scouts how flash in the pan accepting gay scouts was to their program. It is the direct cause of the single largest loss of scouts in the history of all three of those programs. It completely change the face of Canadian Scouts to what is seen more now as kind of a YMCA style of program. We have yet to see how flash in the pan it will be to the BSA numbers, but it sure won't be anything to cheer about.

 

As for the parent not having camping experience, that happened the year they accepted women. The organization is still today realigning its traditional program structure to adjust for that one policy change. You think the water gun restriction would have come up in a room full of men? 

 

There are a lot of causes to the changes in the program or membership decline, but you can make light of the impact the gay issue acceptance of women have on the program. 

[Peregrinator]

If I remember right, the BSA made big membership gains in the early 90's where they had the most scouts ever. I can't remember the details, the 90s were a huge boon for membership. Theory is the Gulf war inspired a lot of patriotism. The big decline really started after 2000.

BSA membership in 1990 was about 80% of what it was in 1970. By 1999 it had nearly gotten back up to 1970 levels:

http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/443_boy_scouts_and_girl_scouts_membership.html

 

But keep in mind that there were more programs in 1999 than in 1970. In 1999 there were far fewer Cub Scouts (I'm assuming that Webelos were counted as Cubs in 1970) and fewer Scouts than in 1970 -- 1999's number includes Tiger Cubs, Venturers, and Learning for Life.

[Stosh]

Flash in the Pan? Go ask the Girl Scouts, Campfire Girls and Canadian Scouts how flash in the pan accepting gay scouts was to their program. It is the direct cause of the single largest loss of scouts in the history of all three of those programs. It completely change the face of Canadian Scouts to what is seen more now as kind of a YMCA style of program. We have yet to see how flash in the pan it will be to the BSA numbers, but it sure won't be anything to cheer about.

 

As for the parent not having camping experience, that happened the year they accepted women. The organization is still today realigning its traditional program structure to adjust for that one policy change. You think the water gun restriction would have come up in a room full of men? 

 

There are a lot of causes to the changes in the program or membership decline, but you can make light of the impact the gay issue acceptance of women have on the program. 

 

When I used the term "flash in the pan" I wasn't using it as a long term issue,  It was a huge, overblown media blitz intended to focus damage on an organization.  From experience with these other programs, the liberal bias knows how effective such tactics are.  This is why Heritage Girls and Trail's Edge are becoming so popular.  They are the traditional forms that rebounded off the media blitzes. 

 

Yes we have to live with the residual debris of such efforts and the boys always have the opportunity to choose a troop with a male SM if they wish.  My tenure in the second troop I was involved with lasted about 3-4 years.  When the female CC took over the first order of business for her was to remove me as SM.  It took a couple of SM's to cycle through, but they now have a female SM with about 1/3rd the number of scouts.

 

I have a female ASM now who has asked to be my ASM so as to learn how the Boy-Led, Patrol-Method under my way of doing things works.  She is also the District Commissioner and wants to understand so as to promote it among the other troops in the district.  She is her on worst enemy when it comes to "helping" out.  Her 'MOM" gene seems to take over and she apologizes many times because she is still learning how to read herself as she interacts or shouldn't interact with the boys.

 

I hope this doesn't come off sounding biased against women and homosexuals, it's just that the dynamics of these groups is rather counter-intuitive to a BOY Scout program that is supposed to be nurturing and developing male characteristics in our young boys.  Of course if that is NOT what you wish to be doing, BSA has chosen the correct course of action.

[Eagledad]

BSA membership in 1990 was about 80% of what it was in 1970. By 1999 it had nearly gotten back up to 1970 levels:

http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/443_boy_scouts_and_girl_scouts_membership.html

 

But keep in mind that there were more programs in 1999 than in 1970. In 1999 there were far fewer Cub Scouts (I'm assuming that Webelos were counted as Cubs in 1970) and fewer Scouts than in 1970 -- 1999's number includes Tiger Cubs, Venturers, and Learning for Life.

Yeah, and Bad Wolfs baby boomers explanation makes sense as well.

 

There was a lot of program dynamics going on in the 90s. I was right in the middle of it trying run a program that looked something like what I experienced in the 60s/70s. It was a challenging time. We had the video game challenges of the time, but I missed the social media thing the scouts have today. 

 

Barry

[TAHAWK]

Context.   I again note that membership from historic highs is sharply down in bowling leagues, garden clubs, 4-H, YMCA, Campfire, adult fraternal organizations, Little League,"slow pitch" softball, PTA, and amateur theater groups.  The only groups who seem to have increasing membership are street and motorcycle gangs.

 

When you are up against a mega-trend, you need to really up your "game."  BSA needs to be pushing for use of proven, best practices.  I just do not see that focus.  So Scouting -- the volunteer movement -- needs to take up the slack.

[Gone]

Context.   I again note that membership from historic highs is sharply down in bowling leagues, garden clubs, 4-H, YMCA, Campfire, adult fraternal organizations, Little League,"slow pitch" softball, PTA, and amateur theater groups.  The only groups who seem to have increasing membership are street and motorcycle gangs.

 

When you are up against a mega-trend, you need to really up your "game."  BSA needs to be pushing for use of proven, best practices.  I just do not see that focus.  So Scouting -- the volunteer movement -- needs to take up the slack.

 

Well, many of those entities saw declines for other reasons that don't necessarily apply to BSA:

• Bowling leagues: More a 50s phenomenon and has been slipping since then.
• Garden clubs: Not exactly something Mad Men werre joining. Maybe their wives.
• 4H: Continued movement since 1946 from the farm to suburbia.
• YMCA: When from a christian men's organization to family organization.
• Campfire: They let in boys, lost members as a result.
• Fraternal Orgs: They stopped recruiting legacy members. My grandfather and father are Masons. They did not go after me or my brother. Little did they know we are holding the Holy Grail for them.

You missed school sports, band, choir, etc. In many districts youth now have to pay for their gear. 

 

Youth sports, especially soccer, has seen an explosion of members. That's one area that has bucked the trend.

[SSScout]

Lessee now...   From Gilwell Park to New York to New Jersey to Texas I 1979.    Keep moving west?    Denver got any cheap real estate? 

[Eagledad]

Yes we have to live with the residual debris of such efforts and the boys always have the opportunity to choose a troop with a male SM if they wish.  My tenure in the second troop I was involved with lasted about 3-4 years.  When the female CC took over the first order of business for her was to remove me as SM.  It took a couple of SM's to cycle through, but they now have a female SM with about 1/3rd the number of scouts.

 

This is not what I mean. I don't have a problem with female leaders per say, I am being more pragmatic to how the introduction of female leaders has changed the program.

 

And really, it not so much about females, admitting females was the defining moment when the majority of adult leaders didn't have experience with scouting or camping. Even men who have never camped or experienced scouts from a youth perspective have a completely different vision of boy scouting. Just the simple task of starting a fire is a huge undertaking for these adults. Can they really appreciate the reward of watching a boy mature from the decisions made from being responsible for some tasks. The last thing on my mind of a Scout taking on a POR is that he can use it to advance in rank. I think of it as maturing in making decisions based on thinking for others. I think in terms of character, but folks who never experience personal growth in the scouting seem to think in terms of rank. When a scout takes on a new MB, I am more concerned how well he performed the responsibilties of communicating the counselor and filling out the paperwork than I am of him completing the badge. 

 

Lacking enough experienced adult leaders is what I mean by the changes as a result of admitting women. 

 

Barry

Edited June 12, 2015 by Eagledad

[TAHAWK]

BSA membership in 1990 was about 80% of what it was in 1970. By 1999 it had nearly gotten back up to 1970 levels:

http://www.allcountries.org/uscensus/443_boy_scouts_and_girl_scouts_membership.html

 

But keep in mind that there were more programs in 1999 than in 1970. In 1999 there were far fewer Cub Scouts (I'm assuming that Webelos were counted as Cubs in 1970) and fewer Scouts than in 1970 -- 1999's number includes Tiger Cubs, Venturers, and Learning for Life.

Historically, BSA membership numbers are not reliable.  

 

GIGO:

 

My older council took a 30% membership hit about seven years ago when the new SE discovered the "air" in his predecessor's numbers.  Being an honest man, he corrected the numbers. (The SE responsible had moved on to a promotion in region.  He was first fired when the scamming became known and then was promoted to lead a very large council at a much increased salary.)  

 

In 1926, the SE of my older council was fired for cooking the membership numbers.  

 

In the 1980's we had five registered troops in a near west-side suburb that had not met once in four to seven years.  

 

In 1989, I found that the four oldest troops "in" my east-side district existed only on paper.   One registered SM had been dead for four years.  (Imagine the confusion of his widow when I called, introduced myself, and asked to talk to him.)   Another "troop" met a block from me.  Exactly three adults and five youth registered.  I walked over on "meeting" night and found the church custodian: "Scouts?  Wadda' ya mean Scouts?"  Another phantom discovered.  And the DE was angry at me when I insisted that the phantom units be officially terminated.  

 

In 1994, en employee where I worked came to ask me how it was "allowed" to forge her name on the registration papers for a cub pack.  That pack was another phantom unit.

 

Membership after the disaster of the Improved Scouting program never approached what it had been before said disaster.  

 

The numbers today, sad as they are,  are inflated by school-centered programs that are not recognizable as Scouting.  

[TAHAWK]

Reasons surely differ in detains.  The trend exists across the spectrum.

 

What I hear and see is that adults do not want to commit there declining "free" time.  Without adult support, the youth organizations are as vulnerable as the all-adult organizations.  All those adults who left over the Improved Scouting program did not come flocking back when Bill was recruited to save Scouting, and others were not found.  I had so many one-active-adult troops in the 1980's. Never saw that in my first life in Scouting.

 

 

Campfire said at the time that the decline in female members created the "opportunity" to offer the program to boys.

 

Does BSA recruit "legacy" members?   I doubt that they have anything like the information to allow it.  The records are pitiful.  If I have not mentioned it lately, the official records show I completed SM training in 1910.  That would make me at least 125-126 years old.  I am also recorded as the chairman of a district in the 1930's - long before I was born  or the district existed.

 

I forgot to mention another youth program slipping away -- Indian Guides/Indian Guides and Princesses/Adventure Guides.  Follow the bouncing name.  Say goodbye.

[Gone]

 

I forgot to mention another youth program slipping away -- Indian Guides/Indian Guides and Princesses/Adventure Guides.  Follow the bouncing name.  Say goodbye.

 

Indian Guides lost me (legacy member) when they went politically correct. When my son was eligible I spent the summer talking up how he gets to pick his Indian name, wear a head dress and feathers, become a member of a tribe, carve totems and other such fun things...all done to honor native Americans, not belittle them.

 

We go to our first meeting. The dad in charge steps up and says, "Indian Guides is changing. We are now called Y-Guides. We cannot use any native American names, references, gear, clothing, traditions, etc. We will now be based on adventurers and explorers. So let's have fun."

 

My son gets up out of the circle, walks over to where I am sitting with the other dads outside the ring of kids, takes my hand and says, "No Indian stuff? We're outta here!"

 

We left, never went back and joined Tigers the next year.

Edited June 12, 2015 by Bad Wolf

[Stosh]

@@Eagledad

 

While I'm not anti-women, nor am I anti-homosexual, it does change the dynamics of what was once a boy to manhood progression program.  It does, however, beg the question, "What then IS the program?"  One can't change course without knowing what the new destination is going to be.  Oh? Half the people don't want to go that direction.  Okay, that's just the way life is.  Now to change course, change dynamics and then expect everything to basically stay the same is not even a realistic expectation.  Even as a child, I remember how different it was when we hung out with our Dad and his friends and when we hung out with our Mom and her friends.  Of course it was always the best when we just hung out with our buddies.  That, dynamic in BSA, has also changed.  Now one needs to babysit boys up until they are 18 years of age.

 

I have no wonderment when it comes to trying to explain why the numbers are down.

[CalicoPenn]

There are far too many factors to try to explain why membership numbers are down - and I believe it may be too simplistic to even try to pinpoint any one or two or three things to blame.  Membership levels from 2012 to 2013 down nearly 6% sounds an alarm in folks and the first reporting in the media is it must be linked to the change in policy towards gays, yet membership levels dropped by nearly the same percentage from 2011 to 2012 when the BSA announced it was keeping their former policy towards gays.  Membership levels dropped from 2010 to 2011.  They dropped from 2009 to 2010.  Search enough and you'll find stories about how the scouts are holding on despite declining numbers going back to the mid-2000's.  The Girls Scouts have tried to understand the reasons behind the decline in their membership, and the explanation that much it it is likely related to changing economic stability in individual households sure does make sense.  I'm pretty sure the BSA has also studied it as well but just haven't released the information, perhaps believing it's better for the media and volunteers to speculate.  I suspect that they may be seeing a lot changes in economic stability, in competition, in relevancy (they sure are making a big push for STEM - that is not just coming out of the blue, folks), and potentially competing forces within membership policy.

 

Membership levels started booming from the mid 1950's on, though there were some years in the late 1960's and early 1970's when it dropped - at the time, a lot of reporting centered on it being related to anti-Vietnam war views.  Membership really peaked about 1973, then started declining again all the way through the eighties, then started growing again in the 1990's, declining again the the 2000's.  Maybe, just maybe, it's cyclical. 

 

Could it be the gay issue?  Maybe that's part of it, but given that a nearly 6% drop in membership equates to about 160,000, and total membership of the "robust competitor" Trail Life is 21,000, there must be something more there.  We've heard about a lot of CO's dropping units, but we've also heard of a lot of new CO's replacing those that dropped and lot of folks transferring to other units.  Percentage wise, the biggest drop off was in Tiger Cubs so it's wuite possibile a lot of new folks that would have joined didn't because of the new policy, but keep in mind that there were a lot of people who said they wouldn't allow their sons to become Cub Scouts until the BSA opened up adult membership - I'm not sure we can quantify if either of those groups were in the majority or if it was a wash between them.  The second largest reduction was in Venturing - now that's a bit less easy to explain. 

 

That still doesn't take into account earlier declines - remember that the BSA took a real bad publicity hit with the secret molestation files - could that have had a significant effect?  Or maybe it's the "gay effect" in reverse and that the loss of public schools as chartering organizations and as recruiting points because the BSA discriminats hurt a lot more than we're being told.  We really just don't know.

 

There have been all kinds of stuff tossed out here.  It's the BSA banning things that we used to be able to do (I suspect that's a reference to the water gun silliness - except that is nothing new - the BSA has said for at least 35 years that squirt gun fights weren't officially allowed - so why is it a big deal now?).  I doubt anyone outside of Scouting knows anything about the height restrictions on monkey bridges and towers.  I doubt anyone outside of Scouting knows anything about restricting the use of wheelbarrows to older ages.  Frankly, I doubt there are many people at the unit level that know or actually care about either of those things.

 

Seems to me it's become real easy to scapegoat National for the failure of local troop programs and its become real easy to scapegoat Council and District for recruiting failures.  I firmly believe that the propensity that society has for finding anyone else to blame except for ourselves over the last 30 years has eaten away at Scouting as well.  Problems with recruiting, with attracting and retaining Scouts?  It surely can't be the unit's problem, it must be National's policies, or Council's failure to recruit.  Sorry - I don't buy it.  There have been plenty of examples and bragging over the years on this very forum about successful units, and what makes them successful.  There have been plenty of questions asked and suggestions given on this very forum about how to make units more successful.  Unfortunately, there have also been plenty of examples of units with problems that are self inflicted on this forum as well, with folks asking questions and then dismissing the suggestions out of hand (Den Chief for recruiting Webelos?  Bahh - we've never used Den Chiefs and never will - the other unit supplying Den Chiefs and getting all the Webelos must be doing something sneaky), and examples of folks with more insular units feeding into that downward cycle with their own tales of woe and dismissal of District, Council and National as worthless entities they can do without, all the while bemoaning the fact that their own units are struggling.

 

Has National made some blunders along the way?  Sure they have - I would argue First Class, First Year; Tiger; Webelos 1 & 2; turning a blind eye, if not outright encouraging Merit Badge "Colleges"; and allowing Troop-only Merit Badge counselors were/are all blunders.  But - if the unit isn't running a good program, that is not National's fault - it's the units.  If National's lawyers saying you can't build a pioneering tower more than 5 feet off the ground has that big of a hit on "adventure" in your unit, then maybe you need to re-evaluate just where your unit stands.