End of 2024 membership numbers

[Eagle1993]

One interesting comparison.  GSUSA has slightly more members but only 111 councils.

[Eagle94-A1]

19 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

• Grow our Membership by making our program more relevant, easy fun.  
  • Fully digital program
  • Make a single scout program (that was confusing to me, but on a slide)

Did whomever who came up with this not look at history and the 1972 "Improved Scouting Program" fiasco, where it was possible to become an Eagle without a single night of camping?

19 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

• Outdoor method was mentioned in a lot of slides

 

 HOW ( emphasis) was it mentioned? Do they realize that this contradicts the fully digital comments above? Do they not realize the  'OUTING is three-fourths of ScOUTING?"

 

[mrjohns2]

23 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

but only 111 councils.

They made that move starting in 2007 and went from ~312 to ~111. There were a couple of lawsuits that ended up allowing a couple of councils (at least 1) to not merge. It was an interesting take. 

[Jameson76]

On 3/4/2025 at 11:24 AM, Eagle94-A1 said:

Did whomever who came up with this not look at history and the 1972 "Improved Scouting Program" fiasco, where it was possible to become an Eagle without a single night of camping?

 

They figure all of us that endured the ISP effort of the 70's have maybe forgotten.  (We have not) Even as a youth we fully understood it was a fiasco.  I got my Eagle (had to accelerate the process) under the "Old" requirements.  On camp staff a few years later there were Old Eagles and New Eagles.  Even though they camped and were actually on staff, there was still the pecking order.

Scouts can easily read and understand requirements.  They see that much of the advancement now is focused on classroom and less on experiential learning.  Youth want action, not more school.  Go and DO

[InquisitiveScouter]

4 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

Scouts can easily read and understand requirements.  They see that much of the advancement now is focused on classroom and less on experiential learning.  Youth want action, not more school.  Go and DO

They know who the "academic" or "paper" Eagle Scouts are, too.

"If the minimums weren't good enough, they wouldn't be the minimums."

I do not like that way of doing business, but the world is full of folks who accept that currency.

[Eagle94-A1]

1 hour ago, Jameson76 said:

 Youth want action, not more school.  Go and DO

One reason why my troop is still alive: we DO stuff.  Except for 2 members, all of my Scouts transferred from other troops. And one of the 2 had brothers who transferred into the troop.

1 hour ago, InquisitiveScouter said:

They know who the "academic" or "paper" Eagle Scouts are, too.

Sad thing is this: it can be very, VERY (emphasis) discouraging for some Scouts who see the 'Paper Eagles" I cannot tell you how many times in the past few years I have seen Scouts discouraged and not want to earn Eagle, because of "paper Eagles." Sadly I have met too many folks that believe summer camp/ merit badge weekends/etc are "purchasing" MBs.

[InquisitiveScouter]

1 hour ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

One reason why my troop is still alive: we DO stuff.  Except for 2 members, all of my Scouts transferred from other troops. And one of the 2 had brothers who transferred into the troop.

Sad thing is this: it can be very, VERY (emphasis) discouraging for some Scouts who see the 'Paper Eagles" I cannot tell you how many times in the past few years I have seen Scouts discouraged and not want to earn Eagle, because of "paper Eagles." Sadly I have met too many folks that believe summer camp/ merit badge weekends/etc are "purchasing" MBs.

Agreed.

I think BSA was hoist by its own petard on this one.  The focus of Summer Camp is, generally, the merit badge program.  This is a mistake, because it turned the focus to Advancement.

And then, to do it on the cheap, camps hire 15 & 16 year olds to teach MBs, when this inherently violates the "spirit" of what the MB program is about.  (This is where you can go down the rabbit hole of the responsibilities of unit leaders and "actual" merit badge counselors as well...)

Summer Camp is a "pay your fee, get your degree." operation.

On the whole, we have a huge integrity problem when it comes to Summer Camps and the Merit Badge program.  Parents, Scouts staffs, unit leaders, paid professionals, National... all complicit.  This is one of our biggest "dirty little secrets."

I used to work with Scouts after camp to go through their MBs and ask them how they completed the requirements.  Many, many times, I got the answer "Oh, we didn't do that one." or "My counselor said we didn't have to do that." or some such response.  After working with Scouts to correct, I filed quite a few of these:

https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/pdf/512-800_WB.pdf

Know what became of them?  Nothing... ignored

 

[ramanous]

council: your troop has paying members, well "nothing to see here"

[BetterWithCheddar]

I had a pretty traditional Scouting experience that culminated in earning the Eagle Scout award after I had a lot of fun and finally got around to the paperwork.

One of my best my friends could be described as a "Paper Eagle." He made it through the program with very little camping and had everything wrapped up by high school so he could focus more on academics. Today, he's a professor at a prestigious university and travels the world to present his research. He is absolutely someone we'd want to represent the program.

Scouting just means different things to different people and we all have to be OK with that for the BSA to survive.

[Tron]

On 3/8/2025 at 5:52 AM, BetterWithCheddar said:

I had a pretty traditional Scouting experience that culminated in earning the Eagle Scout award after I had a lot of fun and finally got around to the paperwork.

One of my best my friends could be described as a "Paper Eagle." He made it through the program with very little camping and had everything wrapped up by high school so he could focus more on academics. Today, he's a professor at a prestigious university and travels the world to present his research. He is absolutely someone we'd want to represent the program.

Scouting just means different things to different people and we all have to be OK with that for the BSA to survive.

The argument around this sort of thing is odd. The standard is the standard. 21 MB, so many camping nights, pass the swim test, etc ... right? This is sort of a like the old school adage that A's may pay, but C's get degrees. For the scout that goes above and beyond, fantastic, but it does not redefine the standard. The kid that does just the standard is just as much an eagle scout as any other eagle scout.