Putting the pieces together - Where are we headed?

[bearess]

On 6/1/2018 at 10:56 AM, an_old_DC said:

I am curious how the leaders get away with flagrantly disregarding several National policies. Do they collect membership apps and dues from the girls? Do they submit Advancement reports for the girls? Is “Sam” really Samantha? Or are the girls really tagalongs?

are there registered female leaders over 21 at meetings and campouts?

 

I also have questions.  I try to stay out of Troop stuff— it is much better.  My tendency is to worry and nag, and staying away from the Troop lets my son have his own experience!  

I do know they have female ASMs who are at every event.  The girls tent separately.  My son says the girls have advancement signed off by the PL, but they can’t get badges.  I think, on paper, the girls are Tagalongs, and they will officially join in February.  I could be wrong.

They don’t collect dues from anyone— the Troop fundraises regularly and all dues are covered.  I highly doubt the girls are registered.

[qwazse]

On June 2, 2018 at 3:32 PM, bearess said:

I also have questions.  I try to stay out of Troop stuff— it is much better.  My tendency is to worry and nag, and staying away from the Troop lets my son have his own experience!  

I do know they have female ASMs who are at every event.  The girls tent separately.  My son says the girls have advancement signed off by the PL, but they can’t get badges.  I think, on paper, the girls are Tagalongs, and they will officially join in February.  I could be wrong.

They don’t collect dues from anyone— the Troop fundraises regularly and all dues are covered.  I highly doubt the girls are registered.

@bearess, this sounds like our typical rogue troop. (I know of one such troop in our council.) Sometimes these troops register their girls through GS/USA  or some other organization, but everything else is a Boy Scout  program. Others don't register their girls at all until they turn 14. Evidently there are enough such troops out there, that giving them legitimacy seems worthwhile.

[Eagle94-A1]

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

@bearess, this sounds like our typical rogue troop. (I know of one such troop in our council.) Sometimes these troops register their girls through GS/USA  or some other organization, but everything else is a Boy Scout  program. Others don't register their girls at all until they turn 14. Evidently there are enough such troops out there, that giving them legitimacy seems worthwhile.

One of the reasons why BSA is promoting coed, it is already happening.

[bearess]

I actually think they are counting on rogue troops to eventually make the case that co-ed troops are fine.  It’s a strategy that really seems foolish to me— they’ve put a not-very-practical compromise in place (separate dens/troops) that they know everyone won’t follow to the letter, and then they can use the results from places that don’t follow to the letter to advocate for same Den/Troop.   I don’t care for it, frankly.

[codger]

This is not a prediction, but, with the way things are developing, I believe councils and national will be under heavy financial pressures for a good generation (20+ years) until the changes settle down.  So, I suggest one model of scouting might become  a community-based distributed model, where Amazon or some equivalent vendor is tasked with managing advancement and equipment supplies, and Packs and Troops become islands of Scouting in their communities - without interaction with National or Council involvement. After all, Troops and Packs are now the only organization most SCOUTS NEED - run the program, and recognize achievement.   Nothing about the program would be lost if National stopped recording and controlling registrations, and since a lot of councils have trouble keeping a camp running (including my last two iterations of councils) camping facilities could simply be public destinations or privately sourced.

Of course, Jamborees would become a thing of the past.....

 

[NJCubScouter]

19 minutes ago, codger said:

This is not a prediction, but, with the way things are developing, I believe councils and national will be under heavy financial pressures for a good generation (20+ years) until the changes settle down.  So, I suggest one model of scouting might become  a community-based distributed model, where Amazon or some equivalent vendor is tasked with managing advancement and equipment supplies, and Packs and Troops become islands of Scouting in their communities - without interaction with National or Council involvement. After all, Troops and Packs are now the only organization most SCOUTS NEED - run the program, and recognize achievement.   Nothing about the program would be lost if National stopped recording and controlling registrations, and since a lot of councils have trouble keeping a camp running (including my last two iterations of councils) camping facilities could simply be public destinations or privately sourced.

Of course, Jamborees would become a thing of the past.....

Wow, you've got a lot going on there in a fairly short post.  Specifically you have a lot of money and real estate changing hands, or not changing hands, opposite of the way it does now.  It seems pretty unlikely that that is the future.  (And I do realize you said it wasn't a prediction.)

Edited June 14, 2018 by NJCubScouter

[walk in the woods]

17 hours ago, NJCubScouter said:

Wow, you've got a lot going on there in a fairly short post.  Specifically you have a lot of money and real estate changing hands, or not changing hands, opposite of the way it does now.  It seems pretty unlikely that that is the future.  (And I do realize you said it wasn't a prediction.)

IDK, seems like a lot of the infrastructue is already coming into place.

- Scoutbook seems to be the chosen platform.  Once unit leaders submit an advancement report the system could flip you over to an outsourced web page to order all the awards and have them shipped by drone to your house.  BSA supply division is dramatically reduced in size and complexity.  Not sure whether these are bad example or apropos, but, this is basically the model that Borders and Toy's R Us pursued with Amazon.

- Combine Online Registration and Scoutbook rosters and there's really no need for a scout office registrar or the minions who have to manually enter or misenter paper applications.  

- Once you've eliminated back office and scout shops is there really any need for a scout office?  Councils become virtual operations with a few professionals.

- Councils could spin off their camps as separate NFP organizations and let them live or die on their own.

I think @codger might be wrong in that National would survive, but the councils might all die off (kind of like regional offices did a few years back).

[NJCubScouter]

43 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

- Councils could spin off their camps as separate NFP organizations and let them live or die on their own.

Let's assume they could.  But why would they?

[walk in the woods]

1 hour ago, NJCubScouter said:

Let's assume they could.  But why would they?

I could imagine a couple of reasons:

- To offload the salaries/pension, maintenance, and insurance costs.

- To deflect bad press if camps can't make a go of it and shutdown/sell to developers

[NJCubScouter]

2 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

- To deflect bad press if camps can't make a go of it and shutdown/sell to developers

That's been going on for years in my area, due to the merger of councils.