National, Religion, Membership, Oath and Law

[Jameson76]

14 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

Looking at all the discussion of Family Scouting, adding girls may be just an intermediate step. IMO, National's long game plan is to switch from recruiting individual scouts to their whole families - all in the family would be on the books as members whether they participate or not, similar to the Y.  Increased headcount and revenue.

My $0.02

P.S. Our leaders may have lost their way but at the unit level, we are doing are best to faithfully delivering the program to the scouts we have.

 

In talking with the Boy Scouts in our troop, they are meh about girls joining BSA.....hey separate troops, we don't typically camp with other units, do council events, and are not really camporee people...so except for summer camp, minimal impact.

They did / have asked what's the deal with Family Scouting / Camping?  Does this mean Mom and Dad will come on outings?  Isn't one the fun parts of scouting NOT having the parents and siblings along?  As leaders our input is we do not plan any changes and will continue to execute a fun and challenging program.  

The Family Scouting is the sort of the unknown lurking in the shadows.  I would tend to agree, little Johnny signs up and EVERYBODY signs up

Edited May 9, 2018 by Jameson76

[NJCubScouter]

41 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

I can’t imagine all councils surviving.  I would expect mergers at councils heavily impacted.  Bryan isn’t stating mergers but he is stating some councils will be impacted.

 

https://blog.scoutingmagazine.org/2018/05/09/what-you-need-to-know-about-the-lds-church-announcement/

“While most councils have some LDS membership, roughly 10 percent of councils have a significant population of LDS members. These councils may be affected more significantly by the LDS church’s decision.”

There probably will be mergers of councils, but it's not like that is a new thing.  I believe that ALL of the current councils in New Jersey are the product of mergers (or in one case a council simply going out of business) that have occurred in the past 20 years.  If you go back to the mid-1970s there were probably more than 20 councils in NJ.  Today there are 6 or 7 (two of which are headquartered in Pennsylvania.)  There were at least nine councils in the territory that is now the Northern New Jersey Council.

[Eagledad]

1 minute ago, cgail said:

Remember that retention is just as large a problem as recruiting.   How many Scouts have you had that fell off over the years?  In Cubs,  it's a large problem with varied reasons - but most boil down to if the Scout is having the most fun out of all his/her activities.

It falls on us as their leaders to offer an effective and enjoyable experience to keep them involved to the point where the Scouts recognize the importance of the program.

Good post. As has been pointed out in previous threads, other than tapping into a new demographic to refresh the recruiting, National isn't proposing any program changes to attempt fixing the retention problem. 

Barry

[AltadenaCraig]

1 minute ago, ParkMan said:

Makes me think the BSA had too many eggs in one basket.

Bingo.  I've enjoyed - and hope to continue to enjoy - the camaraderie of my LDS Scouter friends (they can still enjoy scouting independent of their church - if they can't, that's another problem).  But I've long felt the "LDS Scouting" publications and special classes at Commissioner College made me feel not only that the "tail was wagging the dog", but frankly I felt a tad resentful at the apparent exclusivity.

[RememberSchiff]

18 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

They did / have asked what's the deal with Family Scouting / Camping?  Does this mean Mom and Dad will come on outings?  Isn't one the fun parts of scouting NOT having the parents and siblings along?  As leaders our input is we do not plan any changes and will continue to execute a fun and challenging program. 

IMO, Mom and Dad, as members. will agree to come along at SM's request in order to meet YP and other safety requirements.  At the unit level, many of us are already doing this with our special needs scouts.

Another $0.02,

Edited May 9, 2018 by RememberSchiff

[NJCubScouter]

18 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Good post. As has been pointed out in previous threads, other than tapping into a new demographic to refresh the recruiting, National isn't proposing any program changes to attempt fixing the retention problem. 

First of all, I think that if there were ANY "program changes" made at exactly the same time as the transition to accepting girls as members, some people would scream to the high heavens about the program being "watered down" to accommodate girls - even if the program was actually being strengthened.  Second of all, I think the reason that changes are not made to increase retention is that there is no consensus as to what those changes should be.  That is played out in this forum all the time.  Every time a a program change is suggested, there are arguments against it.  There probably IS consensus that there should be fewer "homework badges" required for Eagle, but when a specific badge is being discussed, it is a different story.  Then there was the discussion of going back to the 1911 camping requirements (50 nights for Camping MB, I believe.)  Ok, but it's not going to happen.  Then there was the discussion of "classical Scouting" (or some similar term), where a lot of people were all for going "back" to an earlier decade, but then it turned out that everyone wanted a different decade, usually the decade in which they were a Scout.  (Except for the 70's, probably.)

[Eagledad]

2 minutes ago, RememberSchiff said:

IMO, Mom and Dad, as members. will agree to come along at SM's request in order to meet YP and other safety requirements.  At the unit level, many of us are already doing this with our special needs scouts.

Another $0.02,

Yes, but my experience is that when parents are more personally invested as members, they are more proactive with giving suggestions. Not that big a deal in cubs, but stressful at many levels in the patrol method program.  Unless the unit has adult leaders with a strong and confident understanding of the Aims of scouting, and how the Methods structure reaches those goals, the troop typically tends toward parent run. 

Barry

[Eagledad]

1 minute ago, NJCubScouter said:

First of all, I think that if there were ANY "program changes" made at exactly the same time as the transition to accepting girls as members, some people would scream to the high heavens about the program being "watered down" to accommodate girls - even if the program was actually being strengthened.  Second of all, I think the reason that changes are not made to increase retention is that there is no consensus as to what those changes should be.  That is played out in this forum all the time.  Every time a a program change is suggested, there are arguments against it.  There probably IS consensus that there should be fewer "homework badges" required for Eagle, but when a specific badge is being discussed, it is a different story.  Then there was the discussion of going back to the 1911 camping requirements (50 nights for Camping MB, I believe.)  Ok, but it's not going to happen.  Then there was the discussion of "classical Scouting" (or some similar term), where a lot of people were all for going "back" to an earlier decade, but then it turned out that everyone wanted a different decade, usually the decade in which they were a Scout.  (Except for the 70's, probably.)

NJ, I think your second point is the reason why your first point is just plain silly.

Barry

[Eagle1993]

2 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Yes, but my experience is that when parents are more personally invested as members, they are more proactive with giving suggestions. Not that big a deal in cubs, but stressful at many levels in the patrol method program.  Unless the unit has adult leaders with a strong and confident understanding of the Aims of scouting, and how the Methods structure reaches those goals, the troop typically tends toward parent run. 

Barry

Perhaps we need a parents scouting program at AOL crossovers.  The youth cross the bridge and become Scouts and the parents cross a different bridge and become BSA4Adults.

[Eagledad]

1 minute ago, Eagle1993 said:

Perhaps we need a parents scouting program at AOL crossovers.  The youth cross the bridge and become Scouts and the parents cross a different bridge and become BSA4Adults.

There are a great many of adults in our district that think Woodbadge is BSA4Adults.

Barry

[bsaggcmom]

We are already seeing the whole family joining scouts. The new rules about parents attending summer camps with their scouts having to have a membership in order to go. In order to go to summer camp or camp more than 72 total hours in a year's time adults must now be registered adult members in the unit. So we will have even more adults registered than we used. IMHO, this is going to put a real hurt on summer camps especially at the cub resident level. 

The cub resident camp my kids work at is running less than 50% of the registrations it had at this time last year. My college aged kids are fearing they may not have jobs as a result of this decision. It isn't profitable to run a camp session for 20 kids and adults with a staff of 20. Hopefully, it is just parents being slow to register.

At the troop level, this decision has caused 2 of my very small troop of boys not to go to camp. The parents don't want to/won't pay the membership fees, might not meet the background check requirements, I don't know why, but their kids aren't going to camp without them. So Junior isn't going to summer camp and parents are blaming the new rules as the reason. At any rate we have 3 boys going to camp and 5 adults traveling with them. 2 won't be staying in camp because they have younger siblings travelling too. We are going 3/4 of the way across country but still 5 adults to 3 kids. Glad I'm not going this year.

 

 

[Eagle94-A1]

1 hour ago, Jameson76 said:

In talking with the Boy Scouts in our troop, they are meh about girls joining BSA.....hey separate troops, we don't typically camp with other units, do council events, and are not really camporee people...so except for summer camp, minimal impact.

Have not seen the results of our troop's poll, but this is what I am hearing. Small die hard group against a "Linked Troop" girl's and a small die hard group for "Linked Troop" with girls. While the overwhelming majority think this is a mistake, they d do not have a problem with girls starting a separate troop and having nothing to do with the boys.

1 hour ago, Jameson76 said:

They did / have asked what's the deal with Family Scouting / Camping?  Does this mean Mom and Dad will come on outings?  Isn't one the fun parts of scouting NOT having the parents and siblings along?  As leaders our input is we do not plan any changes and will continue to execute a fun and challenging program.  

The Family Scouting is the sort of the unknown lurking in the shadows.  I would tend to agree, little Johnny signs up and EVERYBODY signs up

 

Yes, I am hearing complaints from the Scouts about too many parents and a Cub Scout sibling constantly camping with the troop.

[NJCubScouter]

1 hour ago, Eagledad said:

NJ, I think your second point is the reason why your first point is just plain silly.

Barry

You are correct, it was silly to say "I think..." when I should have said "I am absolutely certain..."   

[RememberSchiff]

National Annual Meeting

http://nam.scouting.org/Activities/Events/Sessions.aspx

Strategic Initiatives 

Thursday, 10:45 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

After the Business Meeting, join us for a discussion of Strategic Initiatives that will help chart the course for the movement’s future.  Discussions will include an update of the Game Plan, Youth Protection efforts, and information on the progress of Family Scouting. There will also be time for questions and answers.

 

 

[AZScoutLeader]

I've never felt compelled to write on a forum until today.  In my view, it is abundantly clear that the BSA knew this was coming and thus opened membership to girls in an attempt to shore up numbers and balance out the anticipated losses from LDS departure.  What I find incredibly frustrating is that the BSA, as an organization, has taken the position of looking out for the BSA's best interest (member numbers, $$$) versus looking out for the people it is meant to serve (boys and young men).  This shift in priorities is the hallmark indicator of a failing organization and is a an example that has been repeated time and time again across many spectrums of organizations.  From public companies, to religious entities to athletic teams and more, when the original mission takes backseat to the organization's interest, then it has failed.  The BSA will begin a slow downhill slide as a result of this, no doubt.  We all know the program, over time, will become watered down, gender neutral, and thus the original spirit will die in favor of a more politically correct and progressive curriculum.  Shame on our leadership for losing focus on the original mission and charter of the BSA which was to provide a means of developing our young boys into virtuous confident and independent young men utilizing principles of the Scout Oat and Law.