How accountable are councils and national for this continuing decline?

[Eamonn]

I really ought to have done a spin on this. But I didn't!!

I seen this and when I posted I intentionally didn't go near it.

We had our monthly Roundtable meeting tonight. It was the meeting where we cover youth protection, for some reason we seem to get a better turn out for this, more than anything else. I really have no idea why. Just about every unit was represented, there were about 80 people. Most were in some thing that they thought was a uniform!!

Even though most have been through this training before they seemed to pay attention and seemed interested.

We have a lot of trainings going on all over the District, these were covered in a news sheet, as were the details about Scouting For Food. Still there were a few questions about both.

I thanked all the units who allowed us in to do FOS presentations and made mention of the fact that our District has more people attending the Council Recognition Dinner than any other District. Which might be because Her That Must Be Obeyed is the Chairperson? But is a little surprising as no one from our District is receiving a Silver Beaver and the Dinner is a good 45 minute drive from my house and I live in about the center of our District, the people on the far side have another 30 minute drive.

Looking out at the unit people that serve in the District, I realized that they don't care about National, most have no idea what Region they are in!! Council to them is just the service center a place to buy uniforms and pick up advancements.

When there was a problem before they would call our old DE, but they don't seem to know the new DE's phone number. The number of calls and E-mails I receive has increased slightly.

These people do what they do for the kids. The kids in their homes and in their units. I will bet almost any amount of money that most of them have no idea about what has been going on in other parts of the country. Most do know the name of our SE, but would say that they know the Lady who looks after the shop far better. I very much doubt if they could name our Council President or Commissioner. They just don't want to be interested.

We have units that are small and they have been small for as long as I can remember. We have units that were large and almost closed and are now large again.

A little while back someone said that maybe we need to look to National to put more meat on some of our programs. I shot the idea down. Maybe I was wrong!! Much as I think the program can be what we want to make it, maybe the people I was looking at tonight do need to have a program that is full of challenges and offers more adventure, maybe if they see it in black and white they will go for it. Maybe we need to have more requirements that require our Scouts to participate in more outdoor pursuits and do more stuff, not just add another required merit badge, is the direction that the National office should be leading us.

The people I seen tonight will do what we ask of them they really want the kids that they serve to do well. They may not all be imagine-eers!! But their heart is in the right place.

Eamonn.

[Torveaux]

Good observations. I have attended every roundtable this year (except the one that was snowed out!) and I have no idea who anyone is above the DE level. I could find out easy enough, but I haven't needed that info yet.

 

Is there an exit interview process or some follow up on families that do not re-register from year-to-year?

 

I think it would be imperative to determine why individuals are leaving. Some may be convinced to return, others may simply provide insight to avoid future losses.

 

I also have some 'out-there' ideas that may help (at least at the Cub level). What if the Council/National would create Cub leagues for the basic area sports? We seem to lose a bunch of interest from some kids that participate in sports because they have too many conflicts with the Pack/Den meetings.

 

If each Pack had a soccer team, the boys could play in a league that integrated Scouting values to the sports and did not detract from the boy's chance to attend other Scouting events. I'll admit that this idea just popped into my head, so I have not begun to analyze potential problems, but conflicts and lack of 'coolness' seem to be our biggest obstacles (unscientific survey).

 

 

[cajuncody]

Council, hrumph, council is on my list right now, more so than the SM who wants no ladies on camp outs. Here is why

Heard about the National Pinewood Derby this year? No one in my district had including the Round Table Commish. Wanna know why? SE received the flyer but couldn't "find" a sponser or a place to race so he just didn't bother. Now all packs have already built their cars and District races are coming up and I found out about the national race. Plenty of people are ticked that we weren't informed, plenty of packs would have provided a track and somewhere to have the race. Now it is too late. Now the SE says, "Gosh, I didn't think anyone would mind, send in some cars and I will pick one to go"

Council stinks, I would rather deal with District folks. If council is that way what should I expect from National.

Kristi

[FScouter]

It's easy to slam "council" and the SE. I'll bet that your council does not have a chairman of the Activities and Civic Service committee (a volunteer position). That person would be the one you should slam. If your SE is trying to do the volunteer jobs too, don't be too harsh if he doesn't get it all done.

[cajuncody]

I would be happy to call the activities people at council but they refered me to the SE as HE was the one the Derby info was sent to and He is the one who is supposed to take the car. He didn't pass the info on to the folks incharge of activities. He pushed it to the side of his desk.

Kristi

[fotoscout]

I'm confused, what decline are we talking about?

[OldCrab]

In an attempt to answer fotoscout's question, from my perspective there are a couple of recent declines:

Dept. of Defense giving ground towards military disassociated with Scouting. I did a search on "scouting ACLU defense" and got 7600+ hits

National giving into ACLU recently and will no longer allow Public Schools to be Chartered Organizations. Heard on radio yesterday. One online news article: http://www.sbcbaptistpress.org/bpnews.asp?ID=20306

 

Now one can complain, etc. I would think it more Scout like if we did things like Citizenship in the Nation- maybe petition Congress or be Helful by seeking other facilities for Scouts to meet in, etc. On MY honor I will do MY best... The emphasis on what can WE do for Scouting.

[Eamonn]

fotoscout,

I'm sorry old Lad, I wasn't very clear. In another thread someone asked about declining membership. Amid a lot of reasons there was this question.

I posted in the thread but didn't go near this. Last night when I looked at the people who serve in the District where I'm Chair. I seen that the everyday volunteer really isn't up on what is going on either at the Council or the National level.

A week or so back SemperParatus, had posted that maybe National could do a better job of improving the program. I disagreed with him. My thinking being that we can make the program as challenging and adventurous as we want.

I was wrong. The people I looked at last night will deliver the program as it is in the book.

I apologize for the confusion.

Eamonn.

 

[anarchist]

Heck Eamonn,

 

It's not even a matter of improving the program...though that would be nice! Its a matter of National using its size and status to ADVERTIZE Scouting... Nationally, to bring in more 'customers' and income and sponsors etc...Saturday Morning TV PSAs would be a great place to start...

 

Program impovements require guts, particularly if they are dramatic changes...They probably have way too many Attorneys on staff to do anything creative toward impovement... But I am almost sure that if the National office would support more positive advertizing the units out there (twits like me and all) could deliver...

As to growth...my area is growing like a fast cancer and Scouting is fairly healthy...many of us would love to grow more UNITS...but guess what, if you ask council for a 'sales package' for say a potential CHARTER ORGANIZATION...

 

THEY GOT NOTHING! AN application and pamphlet with 10 minute tape for the COR. We should at Least have a SLICK color glossy package to give to churches, community groups, Fire Hall, rescue squads, clubs, VFWs, Lodges, and more...Good gosh...is any one out there in Pro Scouting Land really thinking about real growth???

rant over(This message has been edited by anarchist)

[Lynda J]

I think it is about 50/50. The councils aren't doing a good job recruiting. The last recruitement that the pack had was a bust. The DE came to the school. We had about 50 kids there. The council didn't want any other Boy Scouts of Cubs there. No displays of crafts of pictures of what they had done. He stood up and talked, just like kids sitting in class with a teacher. We had 7 boys sign up. Two years ago we did a recuitement and had a like a mini Scout Show. Got almost 30 boys.

Kids need to see what fun things they can be doing. They don't respond to an adult standing up there talking "at" them. That doesn't show the fun.

They didn't even do a power point presentation of camping or hiking. Just talked.

Smallest group of boys we have had since I have been involved with this unit 7.5 years.

 

The the troops and packs have to have programs that keep their interest.

One short coming I see is with the recruitement of

Hispanic boys. Our Council is heavely Hispanic and there isn't one Spanish language hand book in the Scout Shop. When I ask for a parent I was told they had to be special ordered through National. I contacted National and was told 6-8 weeks. The boy ended up dropping out. Sad.

 

 

[fotoscout]

I think this topic is about much more than Nationals support for recruiting, although some positive press and advertising would certainly help.

 

As Ive said before, I believe that there is a perception issue with regard to Scouting. And as a result Scouting has become polarized and political. Many people just dont want to be associated with the current perception of scouting. This is not helping when it comes to recruiting. National should find a way to fix this!

 

We also have kids who are involved in everything under the sun. The choices are many, and instead of being one of just a few, scouting is now one of many activities available to todays youth. To go along with my last comment, the parents who do get involved with their kids lives are also involved in more things. Consequently, fewer parents have less time to dedicate to work in BSA than perhaps 10 or 15 years ago. And, with fewer parents having less time, the kids are involved in fewer activities that would make the program visible in your community.

 

My take on recruiting follows the thoughts I listed above. I dont think that tweaking the program will increase recruiting. I do think that some more realistic program helps would or could aid in retention. Basically, program helps is setup for weekly meetings. We all know that most dens do not meet weekly, and as a result, the program helps are of little assistance. Even with weekly meeting, the program helps can be ambitious.

 

As for Leaders interest in Council and National activities, I think that few care. They are doing there own thing and just dont want to be bothered. This is especially true in CS. The ones that care will seek out information and ideas, the others are just doing enough to get by.

 

Within our current framework there are three items that I believe would enhance recruitment; mandatory training, required participation in District/Council Events, and Flag retirement ceremonies in each town (or so, but local not regional) two times each year.

 

And thats my 2 cents.

 

[ASM1]

Wow, I guess we never know how lucky we are until we really see what we have. Our council got a new SE 2 years ago. I was angry because I loved our old SE and thought "there goes the program". I could not have been more wrong. Everything I read here about what you don't have from council, we have. Our council is fabulous! Glossy flashy packages for new charter organizations? We have them. Support from council? We have it. Recruitment? We have that too. Our council is growing leaps and bounds and it is because of our new SE. Don't get me worng, we have problems, but they are shrinking. Our biggest problems are politics at the district level. The "good ole boys" that run our district have been holding units down that they do not agree with, they don't like someone so that unit is kept out of the loop so to speak. But our SE has seen this problem even before anyone told him about it. And guess what? It is going away. I guess we here are very lucky to have a council and SE that is extremely active in the program, even all the way down to an individual unit level.

 

ASM1

[Backpacker]

Lots of good answers in this thread. Having been on both sides of the picture, volunteer and professional, I see room for improvement. Whether we like it or not the BSA is a business and one of the first rules of business is advertising and promotion if you want to be successful, the more members the larger the income. This is where I feel National have fallen down on the job. If there was a strong nationwide campaign promoting scouting we would see scouting take off to new heights. With tv, radio, the internet, papers and magazines there is no reason scouting can not be more in the public eye than it is currently. Many of these sources give large discounts to free air time for groups like scouting. Hitting kid and teen publications can also be a great source of new recruits. Personally, I think most National office personnel are more concerned about their large salaries then helping scouting to grow.

[Lynda J]

Recently at a Round Table we had a dad comment that Scouting needs to market itself like sports. But to the point that there is "No Second String in Scouting and that no one sits on the bench."

Many kids in sports never get to play. I know one kid that went through 4 seasons of soccer and played in one game. He wasn't good and the coach simply didn't want him on the field. He is in scouts and is very active and a great kid. Good leader. Just don't ask him to walk and chew gum at the same time. But he can hike, camp, canoe, swim. Everything.

[John-in-KC]

I think several have hit nails HARD in this thread

 

National owes the Councils a marketing program that puts Scouting, especially Cubbing and Boy Scouting, in front of youth. This means:

- Standard ads at movie theaters as part of "pre-show"

- TV, especially Saturday morning

- Marketing ideas like Lynda's ... ALL get to play in Scouting.

 

COUNCILS owe their units local marketing. We can have the best internal PR in the world, but the message needs to get to parents in the Council area. Hiking and camping for Boy Scouts, family fun for Cubs. "Timeless values" has a place ... in marketing to grownups, not to the kidddlets.

 

WE IN UNITS owe our kids first rate programs, training for adult leaders, and lots of ideas. Boy Scout units owe Cub Packs den chiefs and program support. Venturing Crews owe troops and packs the same.

 

We in units also owe our parents some pretty blunt messages on values, including the value of selfless service. My troop lost an entire recruiting season because certain leaders did not understand Boy Scoutings role in the Cub Scouting program.

 

My thoughts.