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[Kudu]

 

Ask any red-blooded American boy.

 

Even if Dale was reversed, our Cub Scout Survivor schoolwork/office theory program could not get any more "gay."(This message has been edited by Kudu)

[momof2cubs]

I don't think the gay thing has anything to do with it. Well, maybe some, but I doubt that there are millions of parents out there not signing up their kids for scouts because they perceive BSA to be "anti-gay".

 

I think the truth is that kids have a whole lot more options these days in terms of extracurriculars or enrichment activities as they call it. Plus I think sports have gone insane in the last few years. The commitment required from a very young age to become competitive in sports is a lot more now than it used to be.

 

And I don't know a whole lot about AHG. But I have heard of a lot of churches that charter AHG and not GS. My sister in law told me her church has Cubs and AHG and in fact they do a lot of joint activities with the girls, including a Poweder Puff/Pinewood Derby.

[Eagle92]

Here are my thoughts on the CS program. Please take it with a grain of salt as A) I've been with Cubs for 3 years now and B) i am only repeating what I'm hearing fromthe cubs.

 

1)As previously mentioned, there is a lot of options for youth these days. I hate to say it but I rarely get 100% of my den to show up. Football, basketball, daseball, etc all take their toll.

 

2) Some of the ideas are boring. Or to put it as my Cub said it 'There is no action. Grant you some of that is my fault, but someof the requirements are boring.

 

3) When are we going camping again? For all the scouters who say ' Cubs don't need to camp, HORSEHOCKEY!!!!!!! (and yes that is me screaming). Green Bar Bill himslef said "Outing is three-fourths of Scouting" (yes that is a MISPRINT in the current BSHB, just do the math). Notice he didn't say Boy Scouts, Sea Scouts, or Explorer Scouts (I think they were called that at the time he wrote it) he said SCOUTING and that includes Cubs. THEY WANT THE OUTDOORS!!!!!! (caps for emphasis)

 

4) PROGRAM RESOURCE BOOK. Ok I've fallen into this I admit it. The resoruce book can be dry. I try to use it to HELP with planning, but I admit whenm in a bind, or out of time, I go by the book. AND IT IS VERY DRY!. Glad theya er coming back with themes. But i admit I will probably feel like a Civil war officer or NCO readign the drill manual the night before he drills his units since I'm now CSRT commissioner and I have not used themes before. But from all that I've heard it helps tremendously in adding pizazz.

 

5) More challenging requriements, it seems as if some things keep getting repeated over and over again.

 

 

Now in regards to Dale, maybe I'm an old fogey. Maybe I'm the product of a mother who read about the New Orleans case of the 1970s. Maybe it's b/c I'm in the Bible Belt. But if the Dale decision was reversed, I think we would lose a lot of COs and Scouts. Heck I had a CO tell me that they did not want their unit anymore PRIOR to the Dale decision, even after telling them thjey they approve their leaders, etc. The did not feel comfortable, and they no longer wanted a unit.

[OldGreyEagle]

Just curious Eagle92, the CO's that wanted to drop their units, did they also run a Youth Group or any kind and what sort of training was provided and who picked the adults who ran the program?

 

[Trevorum]

I too am curious about BSA's relationship with American Heritage Girls. I wonder where this is going? AHG is explicitly exclusive.

[Eagle92]

OGE,

 

The CO that dropped their CS pack, and prevented a troop from starting up, was a private Christian school that had a whole range of groups and activities.

 

Long story short, when it was annouced that the Dale case was going to SCOTUS, just after their recharter, I was told by the CM that they were not going to recharter next year. When I had a meeting with the IH, going over everything about BSA policy for units selecting leaders, etc. I was told in no uncertain terms that the Board of Directors wants the pack dropped because they will not only not accept homosexuals as leaders, but do not want to have anything to do with an organization that would allow homosexuals in it that would have indirect contact with their youth.

 

Pack found another CO, but later folded.

[Oak Tree]

Kudu - yeah, I know :-) I don't think, though, that's the reason that parents aren't signing up their kids for Tigers.

 

I would think that for a drop off of this magnitude, it's not coming from attrition within the program, it's coming from a lack of people signing up in the first place. Has sports become all that more competitive for boys' time in the first and second grades? I don't have hard data, but I kind of doubt it.

 

If I had to guess, I'd think one factor might be that schools no longer charter packs. So before, it was a natural thing for everyone in the school to do, but not any more. That's a result of the Dale decision, but a bit more indirect. I also suspect that some schools have made it harder to publicize non-school groups - so it may be that Cub Scouts just doesn't get put in front of people as a choice.

 

There are undoubtedly lots of people out there who view Scouts as anti-gay and won't sign up their kids, but it's not clear how many of them would have joined Cub Scouts in the first place. Still, this effect is going to continue to grow worse as the younger generation continues to have a greater and greater acceptance of gay marriage. I do realize that the opposite problem would exist if BSA was to reverse its policy - but I don't know how bad that would be either. With the military now accepting gays, it seems like the only other organizations supporting BSA's policy are religious groups. I suppose BSA can become an exclusively religious group, akin to the Royal Rangers. That's going to be a bit more of a membership decline before we get there, though.

[JMHawkins]

I wonder how much simple transportation becomes an issue? When I was cub-scout age, I could walk or ride my bike over a fair chunk of the town I lived in. By the time I was a Boy Scout, I could ride the bus to the next town over by myself if I needed to. Bottom line, my parents didn't need to drive me all over creation for me to make it to a meeting.

 

It's not like that now. Parents having one more event they have to get their kids to becomes a problem.

 

All in all though, there are multiple problems dragging down membership. Lack of adventure is the least excusable in my book.

[SSScout]

Here it is again....

If you own a restaurant, you don't so much worry about attracting the FIRST time customer as making sure they come back the SECOND and THIRD time and tell their friends about your beef stew.

It's the same thing here. It is not so much why the parent might want the boy to join, but why would the boy want to STAY in Scouts?

A boy doesn't join Scouts to "learn to make good ethical and moral decisions". Good googamooga. He joins to have fun, to have some adventure, to get dirty and pee in the woods. He joins because his buddy has told him about the white water raft trip he went on last fall. He STAYS because he went camping on the AT in the spring and got wet and exhausted on the canoe trip.

If he learns to make ANY kind of decisions, whether they are ethical or moral, it will happen because he will be the recipient of the result of any BAD decisions he makes. Us adults should be there to be life guards, not so much tour guides.

The Patrol Method is hard to implement not only because the adults won't leave wel enough alone, but also because the boys don't believe it when it is offered to them.

From school, to parent, to community, everyone seems to tell our kids "no you can't". And they wonder at the lack of personal responsibilty exhibited by many kids at older ages.

[shortridge]

If AHG and BSA merge - and I think it highly unlikely - there will have to be some sort of local option in place. Otherwise, BSA will be adopting AHG's exclusionary ultra-conservative Christian approach, forcing all the Jewish, Islamic and Buddhist COs to take a hike. So BSA would be gaining 15,000 members of AHG in exchange for a firestorm of bad publicity and the death of interfaith good will. I certainly would not be able to participate in such a fused organization.

[Tampa Turtle]

Our old Pack is booming and is school based but chartered through the PTA.