LDS Dropping Senior Youth Scouting

[Back Pack]

@@RememberSchiff, I read that "inconvient truth" line and all I could think of was Manbearpig. That may be a generational reference so I'm sorry.

 

It think there's a difference between the changes made to bsa's program historcally and the changes made recently. With 70% of your customers being associated with religious institutions, and the largest being lds, one doesn't change their product without addressing their needs.

 

One thing is certain, bsa has an ivory tower mentality, lead by clueless execs who are far too entrenched in their own bureaucracy to care about what goes on outside their window in irving.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Back Pack

[Eagle94-A1]

My thoughts, and I will be rambling as I always do.

 

We all know that LDS units are run differently, i.e. old 3 year Cub Scout program, 11 year old Boy Scouts in their own program, 14 becoming Varsity and focusing on basketball, 16 becoming a Venturer. From reading the comments on some of the links provided, as well as my own observations of and discussions with LDS Scouters, LDS units have major problems because of Scouter turn over. Let's face it, it takes more than 1, 2, or 3 years to be an effective Scouter. And from what I've seen the Scouters are not in that position even a year a times. Plus they are not volunteers with a vested interest in the units. LDS Scouters are "called" or appointed, sometimes even if they have no interest or sons in the program. Will a Scouter with no interest, seeing the position as a job with a definitive end in sight really invest in training? We all know the answer to that.

 

While I understand the 3 year Cub Scout program, heck that is what I went through, I really do not understand the constant changes from 11 year old to 12-13 to Varsity at 14 to Venturing at 16. From everything I've read and heard, again from LDS Scouters, the 11 year old program is a repetitive, Webelos 3, or in the LDS case Webelos 2, program where the adults do all the planning and teaching with little to no involvement. The sole purpose of that program is to "get First Class" by the time they turn 12.  The patrol method is not really used, being given lip service.

 

When you get to the Boy Scouts at 12 and 13, You get into the turn over and training problems I mentioned above. How can adult with no interest in being a Scouter really do an effective job advising and mentoring a bunch of Scouts who have for the first time been give actual leadership responsibilities?

 

More later.

[Snow Owl]

If you believe that I've got some swamp land...

Some of happen to like swamp land

[NJCubScouter]

But seriously, while I recognize that my neighborhood isn't necessarily an accurate microcosm of the BSA as a whole, I'm pretty confident that loosing our LDS Venturing and Varsity units will have close to zero impact on the day-to-day of my unit and my district.  I'm genuinely curious what the practical impact is that you expect to see on the scouts you directly serve.

 

The real issue here is money.  The LDS will be sending less money to BSA National than it has in the past.  If they decide to drop Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting as well, the reduction in funds will obviously be far greater.  In an earlier post I outlined how the BSA might deal with the reduction in revenue, and none of these things are pleasant, but none of them are new, either.

[Snow Owl]

It is about the money - which is why we will see girls in the cubscouts as paying members in 2018.  Pretty much all of the Scout Executives are for it - it gives them a larger pool of potential members and can increase their statistics.  The Paid side of BSA is all about the numbers and, in my opinion, could not care less about the wishes or needs of the units.

Edited May 12, 2017 by Snow Owl

[Back Pack]

@@NJCubScouter, while not new issues (memebership and revenue loss), the loss of lds is probably the most significant loss in memory.

[Back Pack]

It is about the money - which is why we will see girls in the cubscouts as paying members in 2018.  Pretty much all of the Scout Executives are for it - it gives them a larger pool of potential members and can increase their statistics.  The Paid side of BSA is all about the numbers and, in my opinion, could not care less about the wishes or needs of the units.

This is asinine thinking on bsa's part. You don't alienate your key membership in the HOPE of opening up a new membership category. It's ten times more expensive to attain new customers than it is to retain existing ones. That's Business 101 that any MBA student would learn. Heck, any BA Business student would learn that. If bsa is thinking like this their thinking is fundamentally flawed.

[Eagle94-A1]

Back.

 

The 12 and 13 year olds are Boy Scouts, they are on their own. There are no older Scouts who model the patrol method, and mentor the young leaders. The successful non-LDS troops I've been in and seen would usually have 14-17 year old Boy Scouts in the old "Leadership Corps" positions, i.e. QM, Librarian, Instructor, etc, and a SPL who had experience as a a PL. In one troop I was with,one SPL had over 2 years straight as a PL! His patrol kept reelecting him. With the LDS program, they have 2 years only, and the focus of Boy Scouts as I am told and read comments is to get them Eagle before they turn 14. While doable, it is challenging. Unless the troop is adult led.  And with the number of young Eagles comign from LDS units, the commentary and personal experience, there are a lot of adult driven LDS units. (NOT picking on LDS units, There are non-LDS units that are just as adult oriented, and it drive me nuts)

 

I can't sat anything about Varsity. Even with the LDS wards I've been in contact with, they did not have active Varsity Teams. In the one ward I am very familiar with, the Varsity Scouts ( 2 or 3 of them) met in the same gym as the Boy Scouts, and only played basketball. And that was the extent of the meetings for both groups: basketball. And the Scouter serving as both SM and Coach really had no interest in Scouting. He was "called" to both roles (aside he was the 3rd or 4th adult in the role since recharter, 7 months previous), had no kids in Scouting, and really was not interested in the program.

 

As for Venturing, I have not seen LDS Venturers in the district I've been in.

 

All that said, the LDS essentially has been running their own program for years. They said in the article, and is all over the comments, that Varsity and Venturing are not run like they are supposed to be run. Is it any wonder why the youth are not interested in those programs? Some commentators noted they duel register in their LDS troop, and a non-LDS troop, in order to get a true Scouting experience.

 

Regarding money and BSA doubling down on failed and/or questionable programs.

 

Having been a professional on the council level, and also working for national supply, I can tell you there are professional who not only have no interest in the outdoors, But i would not trust to teach the old Map and Compass belt loop as they would get lost on a football field being used as a compass course. Seriously, you have "experts" being hired for whatever specialty is needed, but they cannot apply their expertise to Scouting's core: the outdoors. If these "experts" are liek the ones I've seen in academia and medicine, they are so focused on their specialty, they cannot "think outside the box" and adapt their specialty to others. Instead they force other areas to adapt to their specialty. And that results in failure.

 

 

Soccer and Scouting is one failed program taking out the outdoors. Some can argue Exploring and Venturing are dying because they dissipated the outdoors. Exploring started losing numbers when it became career oriented. And Venturing has the outdoors as one of 5 specialty areas. Look how that is going. And of course, the elephant in the room, the failed Improved Scouting Program of the 1970s. The only good thing out of that fiasco was Green Bar Bill came out of retirement to rewrite the Boy Scout handbook, and training programs, and saved the BSA. I was lucky enough to use that handbook, and do his training as a Scout.

 

I see the same failure coming with STEM Scouts. I know that there were several STEM MBs that folks tool last year because they thought it would be fun, and it was. Different camp advertises these MBs in the STEM program area, there is no interest from those who were but didn't take it last year. All because of STEM. It is resource intensive, and I cannot see it as sustainable without large expenditures of money.

 

And out current CSE has a background in Exploring. I see folks trying to dissipate Scouting's original focus, and be all things to everyone.  And you cannot do it. I see traditional scouting losing. T

 

As for money, others have said what I would say.

[jwest09]

This is asinine thinking on bsa's part. You don't alienate your key membership in the HOPE of opening up a new membership category. It's ten times more expensive to attain new customers than it is to retain existing ones. That's Business 101 that any MBA student would learn. Heck, any BA Business student would learn that. If bsa is thinking like this their thinking is fundamentally flawed.

 

I'd challenge the suggestion that the LDS represents "key members."  At least around here, the LDS represents numbers on paper, and probably some revenue.  But these kids aren't the ones participating in the program, patronizing council properties and events, purchasing uniforms and such...

 

If I told every committee chairman in my council that our Varsity Teams were shutting down, 99% of them would say, "huh? Who cares?"  Now I get that this is a much bigger deal deeper in the heart of LDS territory... but I still think we're not really talking about the core target market here.

 

And if the local councils in the affected areas were smart, they'd be bending over backwards to identify new COs (or even supporting the starting of "Friends Of..." organizations) to charter replacement units to provide a seamless transition for those affected LDS scouts who do wish to participate in the Scouting program.

 

But my strong suspicion here is, these events just bring the BSA's membership numbers more in line with the numbers of "real" scouts and "real" units who actively participate in Scouting programs.  Its true, its a "loss," but I think more accurately its a "correction."

[EmberMike]

Welll if bsa doesn't replace all the members and revenue they've lost as a result of these changes, the on they've lost. No company makes changes that loses revenue AND customers to its flag ship product to focus ona less productive and unknown product. That's just bad business.

 

It's not necessarily bad business if the business is already in sharp decline. It would be seen as a risky move, but when you can start to see the end of the line for scouting in America as we know it if the rate of decline doesn't change, taking risks becomes necessary to change direction. 

 

Of course one could argue that there are plenty of things the BSA could do outside of membership polciies to try and address the membership decline. And I'd certainly agree with that.

 

But look at it from the National point of view. They've been throwing new programing, tech, STEM, SBR, etc., at the problem for years and it hasn't helped. Making changes that would have previously been viewed as risky or bad for business all of a sudden look a bit more appealing when your list of things to try is getting shorter and shorter. 

[Ankylus]

It is about the money - which is why we will see girls in the cubscouts as paying members in 2018.  Pretty much all of the Scout Executives are for it - it gives them a larger pool of potential members and can increase their statistics.  The Paid side of BSA is all about the numbers and, in my opinion, could not care less about the wishes or needs of the units.

 

I agree that the professionals are all about the metrics, and that it will lead to coed membership eventually. Perhaps not in 2018, but probably within 5 years at most.

 

And that will be the death knell of BSA. Because once girls become a part of the demographic and they start running the numbers, they will begin changing the program to appeal more to girls. Which will make it less appealing to boys.  And eventually it will find a steady state where it appeals to some groups of boys and girls both, but it won't be anything like BSA today. And, IMHO, it will be much less of a program. Especially once the leftists get a hold of it  and push the feminist agenda on it.

[Snow Owl]

The soccer for scouting is offensive - the way it was presented in our council was that it is targeted at the Latin/Spanish families.  Apparently people who speak Spanish are not interested in camping, only soccer.  "HispanicInitiatives > Become A Scout > Soccer and Scouting"  the BSA link is http://www.scouting.org/HispanicInitiatives/BecomeAScout/SoccerandScouting.aspx

 

it is another example of BSA spinning their wheels and spending our money on non-Scouting experiments.

[NJCubScouter]

@@NJCubScouter, while not new issues (memebership and revenue loss), the loss of lds is probably the most significant loss in memory.

 

I would rather not rely on memory, and certainly not mine. Somewhere on the Internet there is a chart showing membership in all the different programs year by year, going back a number of years.  I can't find it.  It would be interesting to see actual numbers.

[Ankylus]

It's not necessarily bad business if the business is already in sharp decline. It would be seen as a risky move, but when you can start to see the end of the line for scouting in America as we know it if the rate of decline doesn't change, taking risks becomes necessary to change direction. 

 

Of course one could argue that there are plenty of things the BSA could do outside of membership polciies to try and address the membership decline. And I'd certainly agree with that.

 

But look at it from the National point of view. They've been throwing new programing, tech, STEM, SBR, etc., at the problem for years and it hasn't helped. Making changes that would have previously been viewed as risky or bad for business all of a sudden look a bit more appealing when your list of things to try is getting shorter and shorter. 

 

This brings me back around to--what is BSA's core mission? Is it simply to expand membership? Is it to provide jobs and retirement for the professionals? Is it to serve as a proving ground social justice warrior agendas? Is it to teach boys leadership and outdoor skills?

 

What is the core mission?

 

My understanding is that it is to teach boys leadership and outdoor skills. If that is so, then they have made so many missteps that it is hard to tally them all.

 

If we are to infer the core mission from their actions rather than their words, then what would that be?

 

I still think they have no idea what their actual core mission is, and that they blow with the wind. (Don't get me wrong about one thing--they know what they say their mission is, but they don't act in accord with it.) Which leaves them looking at the metrics. The two greatest metrics are revenue and membership. Profitability is probably third. And so that's what they are focusing on.

 

And still, they can't get it right.

[jwest09]

And that will be the death knell of BSA. Because once girls become a part of the demographic and they start running the numbers, they will begin changing the program to appeal more to girls. Which will make it less appealing to boys. 

 

You're perhaps forgetting that girls are appealing to boys ;-)  And that the model has worked in pretty much every other country with a Scouting organization.

 

 

Especially once the leftists get a hold of it  and push the feminist agenda on it.

 

Well, sounds like your mind is already made up.

 

It's so easy to blame abstract (and usually fictional) ideology when the truth is rather hard to digest.  Youth who are active in Scouting of their own free will are in Scouting because the like the program, they like participating in the program with their friends, they like the challenge and opportunity the program offers.  And, most importantly, they have units in their area which deliver this high quality program. Youth who take a pass on scouting do so because either they aren't interested in the program, or they don't have local access to a unit that delivers the kind of program they are interested in.  The "3Gs" really don't come up when you ask the youth what about Scouting they do or do not like.  It's all about program.

 

Tip O'Neill is credited with saying, "all politics is local" - and I think that's a good metaphor for what we're seeing in Scouting.  Its easy for us, as adults, to blame (or credit, depending on your position) big-picture ideology for Scoutings' success or failures.  But, in reality, when it comes to actually serving youth, the biggest impact is you as a unit-level leader, what you bring to the table, and what program you deliver.