Scouting America

[Armymutt]

18 hours ago, yknot said:

I'm not clear what you mean by iteration. 

I sympathize with any struggling unit, but the point is that at least there is a unit for those boys; at least there is a hall to walk across. Girls in a lot of places aren't wanted or welcomed despite the nice words. You can see that in many of the anonymous comments here.  People want to go back to the 1960s. No girls. That's what girls and women are encountering, and it's kind of hard to assimilate and find help in environments like that. If a special camporee helps, I support it. The net effect will ultimately mean more people experienced in scouting who can help future boys and girls like the ones in the struggling troop you cite.  

Iteration is the number of events occurring of the same type.  Normally one reviews what happens and make changes for the next event with an eye toward improving.

I think you are creating a strawman.  The event doesn't address any of the concerns you bring up.  Frankly, it create more friction by identifying girls as special members rather than equal members.  If this was something like the Catholic Camporee in that it is hosted by the Catholic Committee on Scouting and the Knights of Columbus are cooking a dinner and a breakfast for the participants, but it is open to all Scouts, then I would have no issue.  If the girl troops want to host a camporee for all the Scouts in the council and staff the stations, cool, but I'm 90% sure that is not what is happening here.  

[Navybone]

4 hours ago, BinTharDunThat said:

 

3) "Is the Council providing a like program for those being excluded?"  Equal programming for all is critical.  I'm in favor of a campout for any group so long as other groups can likewise do so (Catholic Campout means campout for any and all other religions as well).  Here, I doubt Council is providing a male-only Council-wide Camporee.  

In light of Item 3, this female-only campout by the Council is a fail for DEI.

Alternative - what if one Troop (G) wanted to host a few other Troops (not nearly every other Troop in the Council or in the District) in a patrol competition? (I recognize this rises to a District-level program because of multiple CORs).  Then, yes, totally permissible because its a Troop-run activity.

 

If you read the comments on the facebook site, the council did offer a boys-only version, but there was not enough interest.  If true, then there is no issue here, huh?

[BinTharDunThat]

1 hour ago, Navybone said:

If you read the comments on the facebook site, the council did offer a boys-only version, but there was not enough interest.  If true, then there is no issue here, huh?

Concur and withdraw my conclusion.  (Wish I could edit above, but so be it).

As you noted, per Jeremy Castleberry, "the council offered to a a boys only also.. But the idea lacked interest from boys only troops."

Therefore no argument can be made that this is a problem as the non-elected group chose not to have a like event. 

[Tron]

Let me kick the hornets nest here.

During the NAM the marketing presentation broke down the demographics by race and locality of BSA and made some crazy claims. Specifically nationals marketing was concerned about over-representation of Asians and Whites, and suburban and rural. I had to just accept the numbers on what national considers suburban/rural/core city membership (right?); however, they gave percentages of membership race composition and I took those right away and compared them to the 2020 US census national composition and BSAs racial makeup is +/- 1% by racial composition. There is no racial disparity in BSA; contrary to perceived exclusion, or whatever people are thinking, statistically the disparity is not there. Yet again there was the claim that Asians and Whites are over-represented; it's just a DEI dog-whistle.

National also talked about male vs female but with far lest zeel except that female membership is a constant year-over-year increase. Female membership is currently right around 8% of the total membership. That's the BIG disparity; which is why we're changing our name from Boy Scouts of America to Scouting America. Our energies should be on recruiting as many people as possible; however, our target should be more than just growth, but exceptional growth for young women. They're 51% of the population so statistically speaking we're underserving young women until they reach 51% of the membership. This effort though is going to get watered down and distracted from because nationals marketing and HR/DEI are more focused on why we're over serving Asian and White males. 

[Eagle1993]

56 minutes ago, Tron said:

however, they gave percentages of membership race composition and I took those right away and compared them to the 2020 US census national composition and BSAs racial makeup is +/- 1% by racial composition. T

Most of the minorities in my area are part of "scout reach" units who's numbers are suspect.  They never appear at summer camp, camporees, etc.  There is history of BSA inflating their minority stats by counting kids in scout reach that are never active.

[MikeS72]

48 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Most of the minorities in my area are part of "scout reach" units who's numbers are suspect.  They never appear at summer camp, camporees, etc.  There is history of BSA inflating their minority stats by counting kids in scout reach that are never active.

Most but not all of the Scout Reach programs in our area are school based programs rather than traditional units.

[Tron]

On 6/12/2024 at 3:18 PM, Eagle1993 said:

Most of the minorities in my area are part of "scout reach" units who's numbers are suspect.  They never appear at summer camp, camporees, etc.  There is history of BSA inflating their minority stats by counting kids in scout reach that are never active.

 

On 6/12/2024 at 4:08 PM, MikeS72 said:

Most but not all of the Scout Reach programs in our area are school based programs rather than traditional units.

Both of your comments tie together. Scout Reach is supposed to be about financial disadvantage regardless of location or race. One of the units I volunteer with finally was able to brow-beat the council into giving us Scout Reach funding (council ponied matching funds for disadvantage scouts in the unit); we just would not shut up and kept beating up council staff on the fact that our community is primarily white with 41% living at or below the poverty line (56% of youth in the community are reported to be in disadvantaged households) and that it shouldn't matter that we're not in the "inner city" of the council. Scout Reach is pure broken in my opinion. 

[OaklandAndy]

What makes an area/community eligible to participate in the ScoutReach program? I'm sure there is some type of income cap for the area, county, or something like that. 

All I find online is brochures about participating, but no set requirements outside leadership requirements and charter stuff. 

 

[Eagle94-A1]

On 6/21/2024 at 11:36 AM, OaklandAndy said:

What makes an area/community eligible to participate in the ScoutReach program? I'm sure there is some type of income cap for the area, county, or something like that. 

If there are any national requirements, I do not know about them. Back in the late 1990s, there were no national requirements that I was told about, I and I started 2 ScoutReach units in my district, and a friend of mine was SM for three or four in the early 2000s.

[BetterWithCheddar]

My son's interest in Cub Scouts in waning. He still likes it, but a few unruly kids in his Den have dampened his enthusiasm. He'll be a Wolf this year and doing the same Pack activities for the 3rd time. He's not even halfway to Boy Scouts (Scouts? ... sorry, I don't know what to call things anymore). I'm going to take a radically different approach to scheduling Den meetings this year and try to line-up field trips to points of interest like our local college basketball team and minor league baseball stadium.

Basketball has started ramping up for my son. This was the first year he's participated in summer camps. My wife brought him to a day camp at an athletic training facility and mentioned they kicked out an unruly boy within the first 20 minutes. He apparently got one warning and then was gone. They have a waitlist for their programs, so they didn't need his parents' money. I'm beginning to see the upside to youth sports. 🙂

[MattR]

@BetterWithCheddar, I think that's about the same age my son got fed up with cub scouts. We took 2 years off and came back in time to do webelos and then join a troop. Kids in that midrange of cubs can be so far apart in maturity. Anyway,  for us that break really helped.

BTW, my son now has his own, so this was a long time ago.

[BetterWithCheddar]

Thanks for the reply, @MattR. I'll definitely consider that route if this winds up being his last year in Cubs. I started Scouts as a Tiger Cub in the early 90s and don't remember it being such a slog. The extra year doesn't help. I wish they would have considered making 4th grade the transition year during the recent program revamp. Instead, we have Lion, Tiger, Wolf, Bear, Webelos, and AOLs - 4 cool animals followed by 2 made-up-sounding words. 😒

If you asked my son to name his two favorite activities, he'd probably tell you 1) playing basketball, and 2) watching YouTube. I'm inclined to indulge him in the one that doesn't involve a digital lobotomy. There are 50 boys in his grade who come out for basketball every year. In 5th grade, they begin sorting by ability into A-, B-, C-, and D-Teams. Talent wise, he's upper middle class, but seems willing to put in the work. If he doesn't make the A-Team in a few years, I'd really like for Scouting to still be there for him.

[PACAN]

Goal is to emphasize inclusion.  Of who?  Girls, minorities?

Is there a membership percentage goal?  50/50?

A friend sent me the July membership and % girls.   838K   17.8%

Compared to Dec 2023   1015K  17.4%

So the  % girls is up and total membership down which tells me the % of boys has dropped a bunch.

He didn't send any minority numbers but they have historically been weak.

 

 

[MattR]

22 hours ago, PACAN said:

So the  % girls is up and total membership down which tells me the % of boys has dropped a bunch.

Well, the girls membership has dropped by roughly 20% in 18 months. My guess is the boys are similar, given that the girls percentage is nearly the same over that period.

The point is a 20% drop in 18 months is ... more than a bunch.

[PACAN]

12/23 to 7/24   losses 175k

 

Girls 25K  or 14%

Boys 150K or 86%