Older Scouts?

[Eamonn]

I really like the idea of the Venturing Patrol.

Sadly I don't see it happening or working in the District or the Council that I'm in.

I have seen all sorts of reports about when we lose members. All seem to make some sort of sense but few agree.

I was at one time all for recruiting Tiger Cubs in the spring and as a District we did well with recruitment. We held Tiger Fun Days and signed up a lot of little fellows. But we didn't do a good job of getting them active. So while they remained on charters till rechartering time, the truth was come fall they were no where to be seen.

I have read that we lose Cub Scouts when they are Bears, due to sports and the little guys finding that Cub Scouting isn't challenging enough. While I did find that some Wolf Den Leaders had found that being a Den Leader was too much and decided not to move on to the Bear Den, we never had a real problem with Bears calling it a day.

Looking at the Webelos Scout to Boy Scout transition numbers, it seems that most years we as a District retain or cross over about 70%. Some years it might go up a little and some years down a little.

I don't know how many of these little fellows remain in Scouting or how long they stay?

Looking at the Troop OJ is in it seems they lose a lot after two years. So I would guess they are about 14 years old.

Talking with Lads who are 15 and 16 years old, I have asked about summer camp? Many say they are not going because they have done everything that the camp has to offer and many who are going are just going because it's some where to go.

Most of the Troops in the Council don't have enough older Scouts to make a Venturing Patrol work. I'm not sure if we have the adult leaders who want to even try and make it work.

It seems that after 15 the Troops are happy to slap a JASM patch on these Lads and are OK with these Lads looking in at the odd meeting or camp out when they either want to or when they have the time. Which is what OJ does.

Many of these Lads stick around not because of what their Troop is offering them but because they want to work at camp or they are active in the OA.

Of course I could be way off base, but it seems to me that we really don't have a Boy Scout program that really caters to the 11 -18 year old group, but in the real world we are only providing a program to Boy Scouts up to the age of 15 or maybe 16 years old?

Maybe this is only true in my area? I don't know.

Our council is small. We have (2005 numbers)

3,223 Cub Scouts.

1,653 Boy Scouts.

250 Venturers.(These are year end totals, I don't know what the rechartering totals were)

Last year we had about 1,000 Boy Scout campers at Summer Camp, this includes the out of Council Troops.

We had about 350 Cub Scouts attend resident camp(not counting Day Camp and Parent and Son weekends.

We offer the Venturing Crews one week at the end of the summer and last year we didn't have any Crews attend.

Over the past few years our Cub Scout numbers have been falling and this will in time unless we find a way of doing a better job of recruiting show up in our Boy Scout numbers or we could try and go all out to retain older Scouts and provide a program for Lads past the age of 15 or 16. It would have to be a very long term plan. Looking at the District I'm in we have 14 Boy Scout Troops. The biggest only has 30 Scouts.Four Troops have between 20 -27 Scouts. Three have between 8-12 Scouts. Six have less than 8 Scouts.

It would of course be not possible to have a Venturing Patrol in a very small Troop unless of course the Troop was dieing.

Still I have to look at the money we seem willing to spend on Boy Scouts, while we at times seems to ignore the other programs.

Eamonn.

[SemperParatus]

Dear 17 Year Old Scout,

 

Congratulations on over a decade in the scouting program. That is an incredible accomplishment.

 

Many folks do not hold the same job, are married to the same person, or live in the same house for that long. Your dedication and commitment to being a scout for these many years is noticed and celebrated by many.

 

I know that life is standing at your doorstep. The world of work may be calling you, college may be in your plans, or you may be considering serving your country and protecting its citizens from the evils of this world. You are growing in your thoughfulness and relationships with others. You are slowly, but surely, coming to understand yourself and your calling in this life. The world is beckoning to you with so many choices, many good and many bad. The time is soon when you will put away the things of your boyhood and assume the responsibilities of being a man.

 

Do not be concerned or anxious about what the future holds for you. Whether you realize it or not, scouting has prepared you well for this time. You have shown time and again your ability to meet challenges, your willingness to help others, and to live by a creed that calls you to be the best that you can be. Along the way, you have been supported by parents, adults and older scouts that have cared and nurtured you, listened to your problems, helped you find solutions, all out of a genuine concern for your well-being and personal growth.

 

No matter where life takes you, understand that scouting will always be there for you, whenever you need it. Visit us as often as you can, remember us in those quiet moments of reflection, support us as your time and talents and means allow. You will be surprised at how fast the next decade of your life will pass by. You can certainly try and leave scouting behind as a mere childhood diversion. However, I think you know that is much more difficult that it sounds. Scouting is a part of who you are and what you will become. My hope is that you understand and embrace that thought.

 

As you enter into your final year as a boy scout, I want you to know that you are always welcome. I understand that as your world has become larger, scouting has become a smaller piece of it. This is natural and to be expected. While we would all like to see the same level of excitement and commitment that you had when you were 8 or 10 or 14, we understand that you are standing at the precipice of adulthood with all of the gifts and pressures that it offers. As you prepare to jump, remember we are here for you always.

 

After a decade of dedication, I think you have earned the right to show up when you can and take part in scouting as your time and interests permit. We will continue to dedicate our efforts in providing opportunities for you to grow, develop, explore and have fun in the coming year. We certainly hope you take advantage of these opportunities, but if you choose not to please feel no guilt or shame.

 

Scouting is and has always been about you.

 

Yours in scouting,

 

SemperParatus

 

 

 

 

 

 

[Eagledad]

Of course many have read my opinions of the Venturing Patrol and older scouts in general in the Troop. Im glad you mentioned the Cub Scout program and its effects on future Troops Eammon, that tells a lot about your insite learned from your experience. When the BSA change the Tiger program about 5 or 6 years ago, I was curious if that was going to negatively effect the Troop numbers. I am not involved enough to know, but I wish more folks would at least understand how little changes can make big waves.

 

I agree with you that older scouts 16 and older are difficult for the troop program. I have for the last ten year been talking how I think the BSA misses the boat completely on the older scouts. You like the Venturing Patrol and Im curious what it is about that part of the program that appeals to you. From experience, it neither challenges the young adult mind or their spirit. It just seems to me an added program meant to pacify the older guys with entertainment to stay in the troop another year or two. It is patronizing at best.

 

We have worked with the older scouts awhile and tried many different approaches. Eventually our older scout program was so successful that Council was sending all older scouts transferring into our area to our troop. We average five new scouts a year just in 14 year olds or older. From a numbers stand point, at one time we had more older scouts than any Troop, Venture Crew or Explorer program in our Council and I found myself fighting off council for a couple years trying to turn our older scout program it into a Crew. They didnt understand that our success came from the over all troop program, not just the older scout side of the program. I keep telling less experienced Troop Adult leaders that the success of the younger scouts in a boy run program is primarily based on the success of the older scout program. It is a circle that if cut anywhere, will affect the whole.

 

You heard me say it before, but it goes like this; younger scouts rely on role models and examples to grow. If the troop doesnt have older scouts, then the adults must take up the slack. Problem is the more the adults are involved in, the less the program is boy run and the less they learn from the struggles and mistakes made learning how to run a troop program. Adults leaders by nature tend to be perfect in their performance and thus rarely look back on it to learn from the mistakes even if there were many. Even worse, adults arent very humble in front of boys because pride gets in the way. I think one of the best attributes of the adults in the troop is the willingness to learn from the scouts. It is a rare attribute.

 

Anyways, a program that understands that young scouts learn by older role models put a high emphasis of quality on the older scouts. They are expected to be role models of integrity and moral responsibility. The older scouts are expected to control behavior and acknowledge both the good and bad behavior. The older scouts are expected to be the behavior role models of the program, not the adults. The older scouts are deeply rooted and connected to the actions and behaviors of all the scouts in the program just as the adults are rooted and connected to the behaviors of the cub scouts in the cub program. The success of the older scouts will produce the success of the rest of the program just like failure will lead to failure.

 

The very title of Venture Patrol doesnt imply a program for all scouts, but for only special scouts. It implies a program of play without brotherly responsibility. It implies a game without a purpose.

 

Until we adults understand the 16 year old scouts are adults, not boys and treat them as such, they will leave. You already pointed out that the ship is exciting to you because it is different from the troop. I imagine part of that difference is the scouts in your ship act more and are treated more like adults. Im betting you give them a lot of room to run their program. Do your adults in the troop do the same? Nope, the BSA and most adults in general dont really get it. Adding a Venture patrol was there way of saying I know your bored with the young guys, well go on and play, we will take care of them. As I said, the quality of the Troop program as a whole is based primarily on the older scout program. You want to judge how boy run a troop is, just watch the older scouts. Do they take charge of the troop or wait for the adults. Do they control behavior of all the scouts, or stand back and watch it? Do they suggest new directions for the program, of ask for permission to give an idea?

 

Im not suggesting that working with older scouts is easy and the BSA is missing the boat. It isnt that it is easy or hard in fact, it is just different. Older scouts want to be treated like adults, but adults tend to view the scout troop program as basically repeating a first class training program over and over when in reality scouts need to be challenged as they grow. That is a hard concept to understand, and I think the BSA hasnt figured it out.

 

I was reading the different views of the SMs responsibility of MB counselors on a different discussion. I was surprised on how much adults take upon themselves in the name of giving the scout a quality program. Instead of teaching and giving scouts the experience of judging quality and applying scout personal safety, the adults instead take on the responsibility themselves and deprive the scouts of those experiences and developed skills. They may have learned a skill from the MB, but the learned nothing toward life skills of survival of independent thinking they need later as an adult. We are just talking about meeting a counselor for a MB for goodness sake, can you imagine the real challenges of planning and running a program. Arent those the kinds of things we want our sons to learn? No wonder adults dont let older scouts take on adult responsibilities, they never taught them those skills in the first place. Reminds me of a SM I knew who was waiting until his scouts were 14 to let them lead the troop. When they reach that age, they quit from the sudden expectation of them because they hadnt developed any leadership skills that would give them that confidence to even try. I give the SM some credit, when he realized his error, he quit and told the committee to find someone who understood boy run better than he had.

 

Am I disappointed in these types of adults? No, its not really in the training and while BSA says a lot of good things about a boy run program. It is implied, but not really taught. Maybe teaching and expecting independent thinking of youth and allowing them to learn the hard lessons from experience is a hard concept to expect in this day and age. Maybe it is a philosophy that our culture in general is no longer willing to accept for our children. I think it is realistic to suggest that our culture has regressed just enough that the boy run part of scouting is too progressive for our culture anymore.

 

I am glad you are enjoying the Ship program. I think you deserve to enjoy working and mentoring young adults who want and need your wisdom. I know that I would push for my kids to be involved with adult such as you. I see you feeling the frustrations of watching possibilities fading as the program progresses through the years. You are a romantic with the same visions of Badon Powell and want to understand why the visions seem so far away.

 

I think this is a good topic to ponder and maybe learn something from each other. Maybe youve taken a step toward changing the a small part of our world. You proven to us you are certainly capable.

 

Have a great week. I love this scouting stuff.

 

Barry

 

[Scouter4321]

Barry wrote: "Adding a Venture patrol was there way of saying I know your bored with the young guys, well go on and play, we will take care of them."

 

This is how it is in the troop that I serve. Some in leadership are encouraging the older boys to join a Venture Crew (not a venturing patrol), giving examples that on their last major outing (a long-distance bike trip), the older boys complained that they had to "babysit" the younger ones.

 

>>You want to judge how boy run a troop is, just watch the older scouts. Do they take charge of the troop or wait for the adults. Do they control behavior of all the scouts, or stand back and watch it?

[Trevorum]

At our Spring Court of Honor last Monday, we recognized five young men who had recently turned 18. All are Eagles; four had been SPL in the troop and all are active in our Venturing Crew. We formally invested these fine young men as adult Assistant Scoutmasters. You should have seen the eyes of all the new Scouts, shining up in awe at these big fellows who not so long ago were also working on their Tenderfoot and learning how to tie a sheetbend. Each of the five spoke for a moment about their most memorable scouting experience and told us what their plans are for the future. You should have seen the eyes of all the new parents looking up at those role models as, one by one, they said they had been accepted into The University of Texas, or Texas A&M, or Rice.

 

As Barry says, I love this Scouting stuff.

[eagle90]

Beautiful sentiments, Semper. Thanks for the post.

 

Last night just before our troop meeting began, one of our former scouts now in college came, due to being on spring break from college. Within the half hour, 3 others joined him, and we had a reunion of collegiate Eagle Scouts. It was great to see them again, reminisce, and see a couple of them pitch right in and begin teaching knots to our new crossovers. When things get a little rough and you get down on the program or some of the people involved, I think of all the great kids this program has helped produce. It makes all the hours worth it!

 

Dale

[scoutldr]

Our troop has a bimodal distribution...one group of 11-12 year olds and one group of 16-17 year olds. Needless to say, the attendance of the older group is sporadic at best, due to jobs, band, sports, etc. Last Monday night, NONE of them showed up, not even the SPL. No phone calls, nothing. Nothing was planned, nothing passed to the ASPL or SM. Since the SM was out of town, I (CC) and the ASM had to "entertain" them for 90 minutes. We did manage to get a SM conference (thanks to the ASM) and a BOR done (two other MC were present). During the BOR, we drove home the point of personal responsibility and honor...how the group suffers when one person falls down on the job. A teaching moment.

 

The SPL is working on his Eagle project, but has done nothing in his POR as SPL, except show up at a couple of meetings and lead the pledge. I'm afraid he's in for a rude awakening.

 

I'm thinking of calling a pre-Eagle BOR for this Life Scout...to discuss his disappointing performance and let him know that now is the time to choose to change if indeed the Eagle is one of his goals.

[OldGreyEagle]

scoutldr, call a Board of Review for sure, just make sure you dont retest, well, wait a minute thats another two threads. Anyway, by all means, give him a BOR, tell him where he needs to improve, work with him to develop a plan and get his committent to improve. If he doesnt improve, discharge him from the POR. Dont wait until the last moment, as deputy Barney Fife would say "nip it in the bud"!

 

[Eamonn]

With all due respect to everyone.

Sure some Lads do remain in the program.

Heck I have a fridge that is forever empty the work of a 17 year old Boy Scout.

Most of the Lads in the Ship are multiplies.

I really do like the letter SemperParatus and have saved it.

But as they say in the movies "Houston, we have a problem".

For the sake of this thread?? Let's put Venturering aside. Venturering and Sea Scouting can be great programs for older youth. But they are not what this thread is about.

We stand up and say that we have a program for Boys aged from about ten and a half years of age that runs thru eighteen years of age.

Over the past ten years, Lord knows I've suffered my way through enough over cooked chicken at B&G banquets and sat through a lot of AOL and cross over ceremonies.

Looking at the numbers from the Webelos Scout Transition Reports from the past few years, it seems that in our District we "Cross Over" seventy to eighty little fellows a year. (Sadly this number is bigger than the number of Tiger Cubs that we are now recruiting -But that's another thread.)

I don't have our District Boy Scout membership numbers. But we are the smallest of the four Districts in our Council.

So I'd say that if we were to multiply our number of cross overs by four we would have a conservative estimate of approximately three-hundred little guys joining Troops each year.

The program is supposed to run for about seven years (10 1/2 - 18)

If we didn't lose a Scout and didn't recruit any??

My math has us with 300 new Boy Scouts each year for seven years. Which should mean that at the end of the day we ought to have 2,100 Boy Scouts and 300 Webelos Scouts waiting in the wings.

But we don't!! We only have 1,653 Boy Scouts.

The loss of 447 Scouts over seven years might not seem like a big deal (64 a year.)

Of course with the decline in little fellows joining the Cub Scouts the number of cross overs will go down.( Sadly I don't think starting a program for little fellows younger than Tigers is going to help)

So we are losing Boy Scouts.

There is room for debate as to when we lose them.

I don't have the real numbers or know where to start looking for them, to find out when these boys are leaving.

I don't know how much success other Districts have recruiting Boys of Boy Scout age?

Looking back to when we were trying to meet membership goals for Quality District, the District could recruit maybe 40 Boy Scouts a year. However in 2005 we needed 68 and while at the time I kept my mouth shut, I kinda knew we were beaten before we started. We didn't make it!!

As a Council we spend a great deal of money on Summer Camp. Mainly because it takes a great deal of money.

While there have been some improvements, Camp today really hasn't changed that much since I worked there back in 1977. We have cut back on the number of weeks and don't have as many Scouts as we used to.

Cub Scout camps are now an important part of the camp (Scout Reservation??) operation. With Webelos Scout Resident Camps, having the best attendance.

I'm uncertain if this surge in Webelos Scout camping is helping or hurting the Boy Scout program. Our Cub Scout camp is just down the road from our Boy Scout camp. So I don't know if it's a case of "Been there, done that, got the T-shirt!! But if a Lad attends both Webelos Scout resident camps, he will have been camping at the same place for five years by the time he is 13. A lot of the thrill and excitement of just going to camp is lost.

Of course if we try and "Water Down" the Webelos Scout program, we risk losing our primary source of membership.

Watering down programs is not the answer.

I strongly suggest that we need to be "Beefing Up".

Of course many Councils don't have the money to add what might be needed (I'll be honest and admit that I have no idea what might be needed) But if we are really going to retain our older Scouts we need to look at more Area or Regional Activity Centers that cater for older Scouts. These need to be located within easy traveling distances from where the Scouts are and affordable.

We know that Troops want the programs that Sea Base and Philmont offers. We only have to look at how fast they fill all the spots. Scouts from our area would love to participate in the sorts of programs that the high adventure bases offer, but getting there is just so darn costly.

At the Troop level we need to give the SM's a good swift kick in the pants!!

They need to stop being "Mother Hens" and do what they should be doing!!

Train Them, Trust Them, Let Them Lead. Will do more to retain the older Scouts than anything else we can do.

Sadly I don't see that much Training of PLC members, without the training the older Scouts don't have the skills to be trusted and never get the opportunity to lead. They get bored and then quit.

Eamonn.