Push for Coed Scouting

[Rick_in_CA]

Well, that's the rub, isn't it? BSA *thinks* they know how to fix the problem. Yet they've been tinkering with the program for decades and nothing has stopped the slow and steady drop, drop, drop of membership. It's the Chinese water torture of membership loss...no cultural appropriation intended.

 

I'm not sure BSA knows what's trendy. We are talking about a company that uses 1990s technology. Do we really want them trying to figure out what's trendy? Does BSA have a good track record of developing successful changes to their core program? Even their spin offs are floundering. I feel they have too many failing brands. Perhaps they should focus on just 1-2 key brands and 86 the rest.

 

I think I am more like those who feel that maybe we should just keep the outdoor program focus we have now and let membership hit equilibrium. Find the niche and stay there. Quit trying to appeal to everyone. Go for your core group and be the best you can.

I have to agree with Col. Flagg here. I think the core outdoor program (patrol method, etc.) is what makes the BSA unique, and it should be the center piece of what the BSA does. Not that they shouldn't try new things, but it should always come back and tie into the core program.

 

As for numbers, the reality is that a large part of the drop in BSA membership over the years has nothing to do with the BSA, but with changes in society at large. More activity choices, societal fear and competition, changes in technology, etc. all contribute to dropping numbers. As flag points out, the question now is where is the equilibrium point, and how does the BSA maximize that number?

[Stosh]

The focus of any problem should never be what other are to do to correct the problem.  One cannot expect others to fix one's problems.  We spend a lot of time, money and energy in our society doing exactly that.  I'm hungry, we have  a program for that, I need clothing, we have a program for that, etc.  The solution is always someone or something other than the "poor victim of society".  Well, if one wants the problem to go away, one needs to first start with oneself.

 

BSA complains about all those out there that aren't sending their boys into the program as the problem and if they do, then that will solve all the woes of the BSA.  It' doesn't work that way.  So, since the 1970's, what has BSA done to fix it's problems other than shooting itself in the foot?  OMG, look at how the world has changed and left BSA in the dust!  No, BSA changed too and look what it got them.  Nothing but more problems.

 

BSA was built on male development through the childhood years to produce good men of character.  It worked for the first half of it's history.  The world went through a lot of changes during that period including 2 world wars and putting a man on the moon.  But scouting stayed strong.  Since then it has faltered...not because the world changed, it did that since the beginning, but because BSA changed.  Put the blame were it belongs.

[TAHAWK]

Waiting for: "The Year of the Patrol" or "The Year of Camping."

 

BSA says the Patrol Method is its most important method, but has not said in decades what it is in any list, chapter, article, or training.

 

Inconsistently, the Outdoor Method is said to best meet the objectives of Scouting, but the Outdoor Method has been deemphasized to the point where an indoor "lock-in" to play games is a "weekend campout" for the Journey to "Excellence" [sic].

 

If the product was better, sales might improve.

 

Shortcomings at the National level do not prevent local initiatives or excuse the lack of them.

[Stosh]

Waiting for: "The Year of the Patrol" or "The Year of Camping."

 

BSA says the Patrol Method is its most important method, but has not said in decades what it is in any list, chapter, article, or training.

 

Inconsistently, the Outdoor Method is said to best meet the objectives of Scouting, but the Outdoor Method has been deemphasized to the point where an indoor "lock-in" to play games is a "weekend campout" for the Journey to "Excellence" [sic].

 

If the product was better, sales might improve.

 

Shortcomings at the National level do not prevent local initiatives or excuse the lack of them.

Or as Pogo once said, "We have met the enemy and it is us."

[TAHAWK]

Stosh, you are a Scouter, not the BSA.  Whatever the shortcomings of BSA, Scouters are not barred from teaching and using the Patrol Method (It just takes unreasonable effort to find) or conducting a vigorous outdoor program.

 

So I agree.  It's us.  BSA could help, but it's us.

 

I just found a troop that tent camps every month and meets twice a month.  Its patrols meet four times a months.  A good starting place.  

Edited February 18, 2017 by TAHAWK

[Stosh]

I never said I wasn't part of the problem.    I do my best, however, to be part of the solution.  I don't blame the kids for wanting to be involved in sports, their churches, their schools, and their families.  I hope to have the opportunity to help them do better in everything else they are involved in in their lives.

[Eagle94-A1]

My thoughts.

 

#1 BSA changed its program in 1972 to make it more relevant and it was a failure. William "Green Bar Bill" Hillcourt had to come out of retirement, bring back traditional Scouting skill, and save scouting.

 

#2 Scouting's decline in the 70s caused some very questionable actions among professional staff.And that continued until the 2000s when pros were being charged with fraud. IMHO you got to take the membership stats from that 30 year period with a grain of salt.

 

#3 At least in my neck of the woods, Scouting is really suffering since the membership policy changes. We lost 1/2 our district committee, and several units.

 

#4 not everyone wants traditional Scouting. But if BSA tries to do everything aka STEM, it will not do it well, and everything wills suffer.

[TAHAWK]

Membership growth flatten out.  Studies were undertaken.

 

The Improved Scouting Program (which I thankfully missed) was based on the notion that Scouting needed to be more urbancentric ("Rat bite, not snakebite"), ignorant of the reality that most of the membership had always been drawn from urban areas. And, imagine, they never asked the "customers."   Woops!  Membership crashed.  

 

Nothing new about "Digging Deep for Scouting" (someone has to pay the membership fees for nonexistent members).  Cleveland lost its SE in 1926 over phantom membership, and another SE more recently left for promotion only to be fired when his successor ( a good man who just retired) had the poor taste to take a 30% membership hit, year over year, eliminating phantom members. Before that last, systematic wave of phoniness, when I tried to recognize my districts five oldest troops in 1989, they all turned out to exist only on paperwork forged by the DE.

 

BP said to use what attracted kids.  The methods are not the objectives.  But can we have more faith in the latest revelation than was due the prior revelations?  I have no idea.  I try not to confuse what I think is best for the final solution just because I like camping and it worked before.  Can it work with only "Introduction to" outdoors skills training of adults and no outdoor skills training for youth - outside what an average ninth-months-tenure SM can provide on his own?  And it's not "how to teach" training on its face.

 

In fact, I believe, training generally is weak and not greatly valued - at least here.  The materials are not fantastic when they need to be just that.  The time allocated keeps shrinking even as the supposedly required information increases.  Training is still seen as a revenue source and still priced accordingly (AKA "the pad").  District-level youth leadership training - which ought to be important to our "most important method" -- has been MIA for over fifteen years.

 

Volunteers can do better - or just complain.  

[Stosh]

@@TAHAWK you're analogy of urban/rural is spot on.  As our society moved from an agriculturally based rural society to a urbanized, mechanized/information based society, the world around us changed.  That's a fact, the numbers are accurate.

 

Yet I am reminded that while I was born right in the middle of this transition, (coming out of the machine age of WW II), BSA was still enjoying it's Golden Age.  Various clubs, schools and churches had exchange programs were urban kids would spend time in the rural areas and vice versa.  "OMG that's what a tree looks like?  I have only read about them in books."  or  "OMG, that building is 10 times taller than the silo back at the farm."  The best one I experienced in life was the boy I took on an church convention to a big city.  He was from the rural area of North Dakota.  When we got on the elevator to go up to our rooms, he just stood there.  I had my hands full and told him to just push the button.  "Gee, there were numbers from 1 to 15, which one?"  We're going to the 12th floor, push button marked 12. He smiled and said the elevators back home only have an "On" and an "Off" button. 

 

So the BSA changes it's focus to "reach the urban kids" which they already were doing because that's were their membership was, small town urban and suburbia.  The kids wanted the adventure of getting away from that and out into the rural areas where there were woods, and swamps, and mountains, and.....  After all the rural areas is where BSA's Lone Scout program operated, which is virtually non-existent today.  In all of it's logical meddling they created a urban program for urban kids and the numbers started to fall.  The OMG factor was gone as was the adventure, the movement out into the unknown, the beauty of the natural world was seen only in books.

 

Have even the books gone away, too? and the only real adventure is virtual reality?  If so, BSA will never regain it's past luster.  Virtual reality may be great entertainment, but so is reading a book, the real adventure comes in being there and seeing for oneself and having their OMG moment.

Edited February 18, 2017 by Stosh

[Eagledad]

Maybe because most of the active members on this forum now are troop leaders, the discussion is missing the bleeding membership problem. I havent looked at the numbers in about 10 years, but up until then less than 50% of tigers become bears. Less than 50% of webelos join a troop. That is not including the drop outs during the other years.

 

Now consider, if a New scout is still in a troop after six months, he will likely stay in Scouts until he is 14. Ignoring the first six months drop out numbers, which is the largest of all scouting, the troop program has a very low drop out rate compared to all the other years. What that means is that the troop program is not driving Scouts away. The cub program is where the bleeding is the problem. Of course the first six months troop drop outs is a concern, but that is a different problem which has been consistent since the BSA tracked membership.

 

The cub drop out problem is complicated, but so as not to drowl on as I typically do, the core of the problem is adult burnout. The average volunteer in any organization has about 20 months of enthusiastic service in them. After that, they start to become a drag on the program. The Cub program is FIVE YEARS LONG. Solutions? Start by making the cub program shorter.

 

Barry

[MattR]

Eagledad, I was thinking of something related to this. Here are some problems:

 

1) Webelos are bored to tears

2) Webelo parents are bored to tears

3) NSP for a year is too long

4) New scout parents don't understand the scout program

 

So how about taking the 2nd webelo year, keeping nearly the exact program, and just moving the webelo den into a troop as a NSP? They keep working on the cub scout program but it can be less about pins and more about getting ready for boy scouts. It is a den, so they don't need a PL. Troop guides or Den Chiefs can be used to teach the scouts how to do really simple things. The parents will get a chance to back off and learn while the boy scouts will get a chance for more leadership. The webelos can slowly transition to regular patrols, rather than all at once. And the webelos don't have to go from few if any campouts to every month. Start them off with warm weather and easy, under the guidance of scouters and boy scouts that know what they're doing. For those boys that have never gone camping with their parents they can learn slowly, at their pace. Better than that, the parents can learn as well.

 

[Stosh]

Does that mean we're going to get 12 year old Eagles and major burn out on the Scout level?

[MattR]

Does that mean we're going to get 12 year old Eagles and major burn out on the Scout level?

No, boy scouts doesn't start until normal and the webelos still do their program. It's just that the webelos do their last 9 months much closer to a scout troop so they can see what the future holds. They still go camping with a parent and maybe it's just 4 campouts instead of 10, but they see the boy scouts getting ready for 10.

 

Webelos was always supposed to be a transition from cub scouts to boy scouts but it's just another cub scout den. All I'm proposing is put that den at a troop. If the troop is doing patrol method then it should fit just fine.

 

For a discussion about scout burnout, there's another thread: http://scouter.com/index.php/topic/28836-wheres-the-adventure-that-was-promised/Oh wait, you started that

[Eagledad]

No, boy scouts doesn't start until normal and the webelos still do their program. It's just that the webelos do their last 9 months much closer to a scout troop so they can see what the future holds. They still go camping with a parent and maybe it's just 4 campouts instead of 10, but they see the boy scouts getting ready for 10

I did this with my Webelos and it worked pretty well. We only did one camp out with troop because it is a lot of work for the PLC. But I believe one camp out is fine anyway. Also we allowed Webelos to visit campouts and participate in the Saturday activities, which works fine as well if the adults are separated with the troop adults so they get an explanation of how the troop works. I remember one parent who got concerned when his son rode his bike in the lake. It was 35 degrees that day. He later joined our troop because he was impressed by how the adults stayed by the fire and let the Scouts take care of the Webelos. He also said our calm response of "he'll never do that again" was the best example of how the program teaches Scouts he could have seen.

 

You are right, so long as Webelos can see a future that looks like fun, then it helps them through the boring days of being a Webelos.

 

Let me just say not all Webelos den are boring, I found most den packs find pretty good den leaders. But loosing over 50% does show an overall problem. A problem I believe starts at Tigers.

 

Also, the BSA membership problem of loosing Scouts the first six months in a troop comes down to the shell shock of young boys taking on so much responsibility and independence all at once. Webelos that have watched and experienced some of that independence have much better odds of getting through that first six months. And as I said, if you got them after summer camp, you pretty much have until at least 14. Longer if the program has the maturity for older Scouts.

 

Barry

Edited February 19, 2017 by Eagledad

[Back Pack]

It's hard enough that getting fifth graders to adapt to camping without mom and dad. Couldn't imagine them doing it earlier.

 

Why not just have the PARENTS of Webelos get more involved and deliver a good Webelos program? Make it more outdoors and more camping. My guys camped monthly for nearly two years. Weren't bored. It's all what the leader makes of it.

Edited February 19, 2017 by Back Pack