Falling Membership - 2011 Annual Report

[SeattlePioneer]

 

 

 

Congratulations on identifying effective methods to find new Scouts and on doing the work needed to take advantage of those methods. Relatively few Troops have the sophistication to do those kinds of things.

 

Just out of curiosity, are you in an area with a significant Asian, Latino or African American population? If so, has your Troop been successful in recruiting among these populations?

[Eagledad]

>>We have to remember that our program is run by amateur volunteers, many of them coming in with no Scouting background at all and no idea of what Scouts do -- they just want to help and do something good for their kids. And I think BSA gives us an organization, administrative burdens, and even a program that is ridiculously complicated.

[SeattlePioneer]

 

 

 

Unfortunately, Scouting isn't all that's changed.

 

Seattle has a public park, Camp Long, devoted to camping. However, you aren't permitted to set up tents or put tent pegs in the ground, because they installed a sprinkler system and you might puncture the plastic piping.

 

You stay in, and pay for, cabins instead. And the park department charges for every little thing, such as the use of a campfire bowl.

 

I'm headed out to Camp Long today to help a Cub Pack set up a monkey bridge for their June camping trip. But I'm not a fan of this camp.

 

A Kiwanis Club has a camp they support not too far away, which has a variety of different camping facilities from a lodge to tent camping space. They make it available to youth groups at no charge.

 

My Cub Pack uses the Kiwanis Club camp, as do a number of Scout groups and the Cub Scout Day Camp.

 

 

[Basementdweller]

I still bet probably at least 20% of the falling membership numbers are from the SE's trying to correct membership number that are shall we say less than truthful.

 

http://www.wheremostneeded.org/2006/06/alabama_boy_sco.html

 

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/6988233/ns/nbcnightlynews/t/fbi-investigates-boy-scouts-fraud/#.T-YHZpHqjbg

 

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2006/01/07/176830/-BSA-Inc-Boy-Scouts-a-Corporate-Fraud

 

http://www.readersupportednews.org/pm-section/78-78/619-as-the-boy-scouts-of-america-goesso-goes-the-usa

[JMHawkins]

Just out of curiosity, are you in an area with a significant Asian, Latino or African American population? If so, has your Troop been successful in recruiting among these populations?

 

We don't have a very large minority population, but we've had some success recruiting from what there is, though we don't do anything to tailor our message to any particular ethnicities. There are scouting organizations in other countries, it's not just WASPs who do this stuff. Granted, membership in Latin American countries isn't very high, but WSO outfits in Asia seem to do okay. There's probably a lack of "brand awareness" about BSA in some communities, which is what Marketing and Advertising are good for overcoming. National could do a better job there helping local units out, and I don't mean Soccer Scouts either (though recruiting scouts from soccer leagues isn't a bad idea).

 

Most parents, regardless of where they were born, want good things for their sons. It's a matter of convincing them Troop 123 provides that. Think back 100 years - the folks who first sold scouting to WASPs didn't have Normal Rockwell nostalgia to fall back on, they had to sell the benfits of the program. Yeah, it's harder, we're just a bunch of volunteers, but that's what's needed. Maybe you can find a parent volunteer who's good at marketing and get them to help with a strong message that sells the program.

 

 

[Basementdweller]

Retaining Latinos is difficult.

 

The Family unit and all activities associated with the extended family are the most important. Every weekend a birthday, anniversary, baptism, or other celebration.....

 

 

We have a number of families that drive 300 miles round trip to grandma's house every single weekend. It is really difficult to be involved in the program when you miss all the cool stuff.

 

We have lost a number of boys to the family business. They work in mom and dads restaurant every single night, because it is their responsibility.

 

At times I envy how tight knit the family units are, but, going to grandmas every weekend make it tough for sports or scouting.

[Eagle92]

I hate to say it, but I know for a fact that inflated membership numbers is a reason for the membership decline. Heck I'm willing to bet that probably the #1 reason for overall decline.

 

As for the CS program, it's too long at 5 years, burning out both parents and scouts, and IS complicated. That is self evident when you are doing online advancement and can record the Sports and Academics Belt Loops, which is officially NOT advancement and hence restricted, BUT you can not record the Academic and Sports Pins.

 

I think some of the "uniformed Mexican Generals" that flks complain about wearing all sort of dodads and gegaws come out it. Heck it was promoted at the CS RT training I went through.

[qwazse]

Coming in late to this conversation because I was with our boys having a riotous time at summer camp.

 

Regarding Horizon's comments about BSA being shut out of the market of "Top academic kids" "Top athletes", etc ... I'd like to point out that son #1 was in the top 10 of his class and earned 4 varsity letters (and a girlfriend) before earning Eagle. Several of his classmates were scouts/venturers and equally high achievers. True, he never made it to Philmont, but so far neither have I. Our troop now has more tech-school students among it's senior membership, but they are really good friends for son #2 and it's true they have more time for scouting, but scheduling around them is equally challenging.

 

In other words, scouting is good for everyone, otherwise I wouldn't waste my time with it.

 

Finally, I agree with Barry that units need to think of visibility in their community. We could spout "youth-led," "adult trained," "#eagles," etc ... But folks (parents especially) need to see that their boys will be doing important stuff if they stick with scouting.

 

[Oak Tree]

There are clearly lots of things that an individual troop or district or council could do, but if membership is falling on a national level, there is going to have to be a national solution.

 

Individual units, in my opinion, are never going to be great at recruiting as a whole. The vast majority of leaders are doing the job because of their own kids. They just don't have a lot of incentive to go recruit more kids. Our district does a one-day recruiting day for Cub Scouts, and our pack shows up for that, but that's pretty much it.

 

National could certainly do more marketing, and they could make improvements on generally appearing to be a modern organization, and those would help, but these factors have been consistent over a long time and it doesn't seem like this is the big reason for the drop.

 

National could also take steps to make the program more rigorous. Require uniforms. Require certain minimums. Increase standards. That would be a huge change and very much in opposition to the general culture of the organization.

 

I still think that if we really want to figure out what is causing the great Cub Scout decline, we have to look at what has changed. One thing is certainly the addition of the Tiger program. Membership has certainly dropped consistently since Tigers became a part of the pack.

 

There is undoubtedly some effect from membership corrections. How much does this account for? Who knows?

 

Some of the drop is undoubtedly a permanent part of the new landscape that has more and more options for kids, and earlier specialization.

 

I still think that a large part of the drop off is because of the increasing out-of-touch impression that parents of potential Cub Scouts have of the BSA. I don't think this is going to change until BSA accepts gay leaders. There are more and more parents who just automatically dismiss Scouts as an option.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Oak Tree,

 

You have an interesting list of ideas.

 

I'll give my own evaluation based on my time as a district Membership Chair since 2004, although that doesn't make me right. Just a different perspective.

 

>

 

Individual unit ARE great at doing recruiting! Unfortunately, a good many are lousy and poorly motivated at recruiting, just as you suggest.

 

At my district Roundtable in August, I will be doing a model recruiting night, giving the Cub Scouts of pack leaders the fun of making and competing at launching stomp bottle rockets as an activity to attract unit leaders and to show them how they can use an activity to attract new and existing Cub Scouts to their pack.

 

The aim will be to motivate pack leaders to take recruiting seriously and show them how to do it.

 

 

 

 

 

Personally I think the Tiger year is the best year in Cub Scouts. The problem with the Tiger Year is getting the program started since it generally involves EVERY family being new to Scouting. That is often tough for packs to do, can take months to do and not infrequently results in a failed den.

 

It would be nice if National came up with improved ideas on how packs can get those Tiger Dens started reliably and effectively.

 

 

[JMHawkins]

Personally I think the Tiger year is the best year in Cub Scouts. The problem with the Tiger Year is getting the program started since it generally involves EVERY family being new to Scouting. That is often tough for packs to do, can take months to do and not infrequently results in a failed den.

 

Agreed, this is a major challenge. My pack tends to "affiliate" the new Tiger den with the old Tiger (now Wolf) den until there are enough new Tigers and an identified Tiger Den leader to make the den work on it's own. That's the best solution I know of, but it's still not easy.

 

I'm torn about the Tiger den idea. They do tend to be wildly enthusiastic and full of energy, and the parents are highly involved so they get an idea of what it's all really about. But... I see a lot of burnout on the other end of the Cub spectrum. Webelos Scouts, and their families, and their leaders, are running out of energy by that fourth or fifth year. My own son skipped Tigers and started as a Wolf and he's running on fumes for the CS program. I'm not sure how much of that Tiger enthusiasm is because they're Tigers, or just because they're new. My son was pretty excited about the Wolf program, but it was all new to him. It may be that starting them a year or two later will still have the same level of excitement and interest when they join, with less burnout before they finish the Webelos program.

 

One idea aside from shortening the program would be to enforce (or at least strongly encourage) a leader change half-way through. Kind of hard to do for units struggling to get leaders to step up as it is, but I think it provides two benefits: one, the leaders don't burn out quite as badly, and two, the boys have a chance to re-invigorate their interest from the simple change of leaders. It's the "Hawthorne Effect" from manageent studies.

 

Of course, I can't finish a discussion about Cub Scout retention without mentioning that national sure isn't helping membership numbers by taking away their little red wagons.

 

 

[Oak Tree]

Individual unit ARE great at doing recruiting!

 

Yes, absolutely. Every district and every council has examples of good units, even great units. And there are all kinds of things that individual units can do to get better. I am all for individual units doing all they can, and they can clearly operate well or poorly in the current environment. Things at the national level do not make all that much difference to the individual troop program

 

At my district Roundtable in August, I will be doing a model recruiting night, giving the Cub Scouts of pack leaders the fun of making and competing at launching stomp bottle rockets as an activity to attract unit leaders and to show them how they can use an activity to attract new and existing Cub Scouts to their pack. The aim will be to motivate pack leaders to take recruiting seriously and show them how to do it.

 

This is great. All for it.

 

>

 

Those things are already in place. I personally don't see a need impose more requirements on units. They are capable of deciding what they can do and want to do themselves.

 

My point here was going along with dkurtenbach's statement: "I think that BSA suffers from putting out a product that is highly inconsistent from unit to unit. Of course, there is a fear that improving consistency from unit to unit would mean not only eliminating units that fall below a certain minimum standard, but reducing the quality of highly successful units to make the product more uniform."

 

Sure, current units can run to high standards. They can also run to low standards. Right now the BSA seems to be fine with units that run absolutely terribly, so long as they aren't actively publicly harming the image of the BSA. This is a choice, and I understand it, but I do think it can create a fair number of people who are disillusioned through their experience with a local unit.

 

Personally I think the Tiger year is the best year in Cub Scouts. The problem with the Tiger Year is getting the program started since it generally involves EVERY family being new to Scouting. That is often tough for packs to do, can take months to do and not infrequently results in a failed den.

 

Yes - actually, I'm not too worried about the Tiger year itself. What I wonder is whether the extension of the Cub Scout experience to a five year program does burn out families.

 

I think LOTS of packs do a poor job of welcoming new parents into Cub Scouts and making those families welcome. Even packs that do a good job on recruiting too often leave parents fumbling once they collect a membership application and check. [...] We need to do a better job of remembering our first days as pack members and the confusion we usually had at that time.

 

This is a great suggestion. My only point is that we aren't going to fix national problems by improving one pack at a time. Packs are constantly either improving or deteriorating. We should continue to try to improve packs, but because of all of the packs in the country, changing the average performance is going to have to require some type of national change.

 

I very much appreciate your perspective, SP. I think you can definitely make a difference to the people around you. This, in many ways, is even more satisfying than fixing things on a grander scale.

 

In my every day troop life, I only worry about what I can improve at the troop level. Here on the boards, though, it's fun to take a broader perspective.

[fred8033]

Eagledad wrote some great comments.

 

- Change "scouting for food" from a two day drop and run event to a "knock on the door, meet and greet" event. Great for marketing and great for our scouts to learn to present themselves.

 

- District derbies - Yeah, our district derby is held at a church. Not visible at all to the community. Not everyone has one, but it would be great to do them at "public" venus such as malls.

 

- How about a few more shared activities? Pack leaders get burnt out and bad packs just don't have enough good events.

 

- I must admit the "five and a half" years of Cub Scouts is getting to be long. Kindergarten thru Feb of 5th grade. Too much repeat. Gets very flat by the end of the program. It's often not that Webelos are excited for Boy Scouts. Its more than they can't wait to be done with Cub Scouts.

 

- There's also a quality issue. Way too often scouting falls short on the promises of adventure and fun. Way too often scouting falls flat on big promises for great events.

 

That's why baseball and sports leagues work so well. Most people know the rules and how the games are played. Expectations are managed. Everyone knows what to expect at most levels to play. Plus go to a tournament and odds are you'll get a trophy.

 

In a way, I think this is how scouting will recover. Focus on what everyone expects. Getting outside. Camping. Hiking. Outdoor skills. Focus less on the advancement program. Focus more on what people innately understand about scouting.(This message has been edited by fred8033)

[Eagledad]

>>Personally I don't think the program is the problem, by and large.

[Brewmeister]

Basementdweller writes:

 

Youth sports has dramatically increased since the 60's....Soccer, Baseball, Football, lacross, hockey, tennis,

 

Perhaps, but perhaps that is changing:

 

http://www.southcoasttoday.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20110522/NEWS/105220327

 

And Little League has been in particular deline:

 

http://www.sentinel-echo.com/localsports/x1058960971/On-the-decline

 

http://www.infosports.com/baseball/arch/3109.htm

 

Here's the nut of it if you don't want to wade through it all: "In 2011, overall participation in Little League nationally dropped by 20,820 players and 1,388 teams. In the Little League division (ages 9-12) baseball dropped 783 teams and 11,745 players while softball dropped 183 teams and 2,745 players."

 

Now, the question arises, why would Little League be in decline? Did it go through a period akin to "urban scouting" or otherwise stray from its roots? Hardly--baseball is still baseball.

 

So what else is going on with what's happening to youth, and are there parallels between Little League and Scouting as it relates to decline?

 

Perhaps: He said there is so much going on nowadays in families and so many other options for children after-school activities like band, theater and dance and karate, judo draining participation from organized sports.

 

"There's a lot of different things for kids to do that didn't exist 10 to 15 years ago," he said.

 

When I was a boy, Scouting is what there was to do. And we didn't have video games.

 

Now?(This message has been edited by brewmeister)