Membership Decline Reasons

[Eagle92]

LLbob,

FYI on BP scouts, they have been around for a long time, since the 1960s/70s if memory serves. Ran into 1 troop of them in the UK back in 1995 and they were great. Kudu would love theme except for the 300' rule as the cam couldn't accommodate that. Lots of basic traditional scoutcraft.

 

Also ran into another troop, that while part of the Scout Association, were also old school. They were a blast to hang around, knew how treat a dinner guest who was allergic to what they were eating (they ran to the local market and got me a steak last minute when they found out!), and introduced me to Bitters. Again Kudu would love, save the 300', as the scouts actually made a pioneering fence, tower, and gateway with scout staves to mark the troop's campsite, and individual patrols areas. Really sharp groups both.

[LIBob]

Yeah I suspected the BP scouts had been around longer, they just seem to have taken a bump in membership in Can. and the UK in response to attempts to modernize scouting in those areas.

 

what's the 300' rule?

[Eagledad]

HI All

 

First off, National does try to stay in touch with the workers in the trenches through polling the professionals at their conferences and training, and scout leaders in some more local areas. If you attend Training at Philmont, you will likely get polled about the program. I was polled heavily when I was the Council Chairman for Junior Leader Training. Seems they didn't listen. Some of you may in fact be part of a test Council for some perspective program changes. They arent out of touch by any means, but Im not sure they analyze the data well either.

 

>>If the number of NEW members is the reason for decline...meaning that the number of new people joining up is dropping. well,it can't be due to the change in this program or that program.

[Eagledad]

>>The results? Well its hard to say. In 1998 number of scouts (tens of thousands I presume) left the program and formed a parallel program affiliated with the Baden-Powell Scouting association. Their numbers continue to free-fall but many of those scouts may have joined the BP scouts so raw numbers are kind of an apple-to-oranges comparison.

[Beavah]

Yah, gotta agree with Eagledad, eh? The collapse of Scouts Canada has been a real tragedy, and an illustration of what happens when the "top" of da organization isn't in touch with its members.

 

Our National Organization is somewhat less clueless, eh? At da same time, they're in some ways even more insular, just by virtue of our corporate model and our size.

 

Da national office, to be honest, can be kind of depressing. Not the most healthy corporate culture. And the structure of the thing discourages a service-oriented philosophy. Some outside input makes it through occasionally from good folks puttin' in an awful lot of effort and developin' connections. Perhaps just enough for us to avoid da Scouts Canada mess, but sadly not much more.

 

Thing of it is, there are some good folks in the pro and senior volunteer ranks, and quite a few fine folks. Da institutional structure just handicaps 'em badly.

 

Beavah

 

[packsaddle]

OK, I think most of us are in agreement with regard to the institutional structure. What changes would be needed and who would make them? What is the impediment to change?

[Eagle92]

In my limited contact with national folks and seeing folks move up to national, the overall impression I got is that these folks move up from the SE ranks, only getting folks form the outside when absolutely needed. Case in point, the guy who was originally put tin charge of SCOUTNET in '97 or '98 had NO IT expereince. non, zip, nil. And once they get there, they really loose contact with the little folks.in the trenches.

[BadenP]

Barry

I have to disagree with you on your points that National really keeps in touch with whats happening in the field, or even truly care, by polling DE's at trainings and volunteers at Philmont, et al. even though you may see that as the case. First no scouting professional, if he truly wants to move up in the organization or even just stay employed is going to tell National that a program or policy they have in force is bad, wrong, or just isn't working. The key to the corporate scouting world is survival, and getting marked as a rebel is a surefire way to insure your career will be limited at best.

 

Second polling scouters at Philmont, etc. is kind of like polling people at Disney World as to if they are having a good time, and what would they change, your answers will be somewhat jaded at best and not truly indicative of what is really wrong. As far as polling councils I think you will find that how they select those key councils and who they talk to in those councils is calculated/slanted to get the answers they want to hear. I can say this because I did work at National for a year and took part in many of these Q&A sessions. I know how they were set up to deliver what the CSE wanted to hear. I know you "love this scouting stuff" Barry but on the National level the BSA is little more than ruthless politics.

[Eagledad]

>>Case in point, the guy who was originally put tin charge of SCOUTNET in '97 or '98 had NO IT expereince. non, zip, nil.

[Eagledad]

I can't disagree with you on how National uses their data BadenP because I don't know, I just know that they do ask.

 

I also know that they poll parents, or use too, because I've seen that data. I just don't know how they pick the parents or how the polling is done.

 

Barry

[emb021]

The B-P Scout Association groups got started around 1967, after the "advanced party report" in the UK lead to their "modernization" effort that spread to the other commonwealth countries (Canada, Aus, NZ), which lead to B-PSA groups getting started there as well. Should be info on-line as to what the "advanced party report" was all about, but you could compare it to the BSA's own urban emphasis movement in the 70s or so.

 

 

I would have to agree with BadenP's comment about National. I would add that it seems that his comments about professional also applies to volunteers who want to contribute and help out beyond the unit level. I sometimes wonder if there is some list of 'troublesome' volunteers, who don't get asked to help out. I find it strange that I can't seem to get any traction to help out in the BSA beyond the local level, but in other organizations I'm in, if you show yourself to be dedicated, knowledgeable, have ideas for improvement, etc, you will many times be SOUGHT out and recruited for positions. Other orgs seem to want such people, as they know they need them; the BSA seems to prefer to ignore or drive them away. Maybe they see them as a threat or something.

 

 

[jhankins]

The culture of "The professional knows best" needs to change. I've seen SEs go on countless retreats, trips to Philmont, cruises (That one miffs me to no end) to discuss Scouting from the professional standpoint, but never from the volunteer's view.

 

We need a revival of volunteers read to hold professional accountable and take the vision back from those getting paid back to the boys. Our VPs of Finance need to be in the books every month inspecting expense reports and auditing event budgets. Our VPs of Program need to be handed event evaluations from participants and go over those with their council operating chairs. The VPs of District Operation need to meet with the District Chairs and discuss how their professional worked that month, what got done, and what needs to be done. The Presidents of the councils need to be knee-deep in leading a concentrated vision for the council facilities, goal setting and the future. The council key volunteers should be pointing to the SE and saying "Here's our vision, go make it happen!" not the SE saying to the Key 3 "Here's what we're going to do, and I'll tell you how I'm going to do it."

 

[packsaddle]

jhankins and others who are frustrated,

Don't let this get too far under your skin. The boys are still there and they will benefit from your leadership. You can turn your back to the rest.

Let's face it. You and the rest of us are serfs. The top leadership in BSA is the Supreme Soviet. Alexander Nevsky isn't going to save the day. Might as well focus on what's really important and ignore the BS.

(note: this was for analogy only and is far from any kind of historical accuracy)

The point is, what you want isn't going to happen. So the best response is to change what you want...to working with the boys and the unit. Ignore all the rest. Or as my coffee mug says: Don't Let the Turkeys Get You Down. (not that there is anything wrong with being a turkey)

[OldGreyEagle]

Beavah, if you are correct in your data, then there is a conundrum. If people are volunteering more today than ever before, how can people be so much busier that they cannot be Boy Scout leaders? If someone says they can't help at a Troop event because they are committed to the Salvation Army Soup Kitchen, I can see that, but thats not a reason given

 

If more people are volunteering more hours than ever before, and the BSA is in need of Volunteers the issue may not be the spirit of Volunteerism ( I could be wrong, it happens) so then the issue has to be with the BSA itself, hmmm, I wonder what THAT could be

[LIBob]

As someone who is recently returning to scouting, I must say I have zero (nada, zip, nil, zilch) problems with "national."

 

As someone who was a full-time scout in my adolescent/teenage years I can only imagine what sorts of problems those might be (and fail to understand why such things might be problems.)

 

I mean . . . . okay I don't know what I mean. but I suspect there is some sort of "code talk" going on here.

 

I'm an idiot (a bona fide card-carrying idiot,) who believes that scouting is scout-led and patrol-based. I find it really really hard to believe that an organization run that way actually takes orders from Irving Texas.

 

So I don't see that changing the old training program into "wood badge" could create this sort of problem.

 

I equally do not see that any sort of "3g" policy from Irvington could create a sharp decline.

 

Given that scouting in the UK and Canada have experienced similar declines I am inclined to say that

-Boy scouts are enrolling at roughly the same rates as before,

-the lack of enrollment is completely among cub scouts, and is more likely a symptom of the Gameboy generation, than a symptom of anything "national" is doing wrong.

 

 

Still if anyone can honestly say "I've lost 10% of my scouts because of policy XYZ" (noting that the total cub decline is ~20%) then I'd be willing to listen.

 

 

Until then.

I think we should continue providing a damn good program and should not care if the cub sector used to attract 4% of the population and now attracts only 3%. Seriously, I am not all that concerned about that other 1% of the population.

 

 

OK,

so we used to have 900K - 1M scouts, and 2M cubs.

Now we have 900K - 1M scouts, and 1.65M cubs.

RULE 1: I'm not sure this is a problem

RULE 2: Since the same things are happening in the UK, and Canada (and Australia btw)I'm not sure we can blame this on any policy coming out of Irvintgton TX.

RULE 3: Even if rules #1 and #2 are thrown in the garbage, do we REALLY want to fundamentally alter the nature of scouting for the current 1.6 million scouts just so we can artificially (and temporarily), pump our numbers up to 1.8 million or 1.9 million?

 

 

Sheesh, scouting is cool, let's leave it like it is.