Goodbye, Boy Scouts

[KD5NRH]

The LDS church would have left BSA eventually anyway, due to the need for a unified program for LDS youth throughout the world. But I have no doubt that the changes in the BSA in the past decade accelerated the decision by at least a few years.

Much easier to gundeck the advancement requirements if they don't have some pesky outside organization looking stuff over. 

[KD5NRH]

I think a lot of troops are based in churches, too.

AFAIK, all the troops around here are church sponsored.  IIRC, generally with one large church on the paperwork and several smaller ones contributing officially or otherwise.  They're pretty hands off, though, and I doubt most Scouts could tell you which church sponsors their troop.  Heck, I think ours met in two Baptist churches, (one of which sponsored the other major local troop at the time) a DoC and a Lutheran one while our building was being redone at one point, and it was sponsored by First Methodist.

[Marnoot]

Do you know if the LDS youth program is open to non-LDS kids?

They haven't released many details about it yet, but I don't see why not. Non-LDS youth are always welcome at current church youth activities; kids in my congregation occasionally bring non-LDS friends when they're interested in the particular activity that's happening. Though the new program that's specifically replacing Scouting is likely to have a greatly expanded LDS-doctrine-based "Duty to God"-esque side to it, which may not appeal so much to non-LDS parents/kids.

Another aspect is the new program is likely to vary widely in different areas/congregations, as part of the reason for the change is to allow local leaders, families, and youth to customize things to their needs and interests. The specific needs and interests of a youth group in New York City or Paris, are likely different than a youth group in a village in Zimbabwe or rural Alaska. The flexibility is something I'm looking forward to. I was one of the leaders over the 11-year-old Boy Scouts in my congregation's troop for a few years up until late last year. While in general I supported scouting, I frequently chafed under the strict rank requirements I had to spend all our time working on.

I'd occasionally have a group of boys that would have really relished and benefited from, say, spending some time learning about basic car repair, or STEM activities, and had zero interest in learning lashings or pseudoscientific weather forecasting abilities. Merit badges allow some choice for sure, but the 11 year-olds were working on their ranks through 1st Class, not so much merit badges, as we just didn't have time for both. Not to say the general rank requirements aren't valuable things for young boys to learn (some more than others), but a fixed requirements list isn't truly one-size-fits-all, especially for a church with youth groups all over the world in anything from dense urban cities, to ultra-rural locations.

it will be interesting to see what they do with the 3 BSA councils in Utah, where 95% of the council membership is LDS. I imagine they'll have to combine them into a single council. There will definitely still be LDS boys participating in local troops, but it's bound to be a very small percentage of what they have now.

[Scout26]

Yes.

My son dropped boy scouting shortly after he finished cub scouts- he's too heavily involved in sports to do much else. My younger daughter is nominally in Girl Scouts (its more of a social club for her and her peers than anything else). There is no comparison between the two organizations, I would absolutely support my daughter going BSA if she wanted to.

This is what has reduced Boy Scout numbers more than any perceived liberal influence.  Back when I was Boy Scout the only Sports were School-based, except for Little League Baseball over summer vacation.  There were no outside sports leagues, parents didn't spend huge amounts of time and money to get little Timmy into Tournament/Travel Leagues and Professional Superstar's Extra Special Training Academy to help get your crumbcruncher to the Pro's. Most kids played a sport or two in High School (maybe three, if really athletic), but that was it.  You played that sport in season, not year-round.  Which left time to hang with friends, or participate in other activities.  Like Scouting.  Most of the sports we played were The Sandlot type games, with kids from the neighborhood, and whatever equipment you got as presents, nothing organized or run by adults like everything is today.   Same with Music, Dance, etc.  Used to be you had one hour of piano/violin or dance classes per week, and (maybe) an annual recital.  Band was also a class in school.  Now, it's 3-8 hours per week, monthly competitions and recitals, etc. 

The push and pressure to turn your kid into a Pro Sports star or professional Musician/Dancer, etc. leaves families with little time and being pulled in numerous directions.

And that was the feedback we got from parents.  They are very, very busy running kids to all these different activities, if there was one place to have all the kids involved they would be all for that.  And Scouting already has a program that imparts the skills and values that most families want, unlike the GSA. 


That's what drives the change.  As I have previously point out.  We're on the 13th Edition of the Handbook since 1910.  So there's been change about every 10 years.  There are many merit badges that are no longer offered, and new merit badges that reflect the changes in society and technology.  But throughout all that, the basics and fundamentals of the twelve point of the Scout Law and the Scout Oath remain the same.  But it's all the people that have zero connection to Scouting that are screaming the loudest about "Ahhh Scouting has gone all libtard !!!" and know nothing about the program. 

[brimic]

^I agree with all of that^
There are a lot of negatives... If I had a do-over, I probably would have pushed for less emphasis on sports (much of it is/was driven by his mother) and more time taking him fishing.
The big positives is that he stays really fit (he goes to the gym every day on his own and lifts with his friends), and has a lot of friends in HS that are on teams.

[KD5NRH]

While in general I supported scouting, I frequently chafed under the strict rank requirements I had to spend all our time working on.

And it never once occurred to you to have the boys do them instead?  It's not grounds for excommunication.  (Really.  I promise.  I checked CHI 1, and it's not in there.  A couple years of disfellowshipment at the absolute worst.)

I'd occasionally have a group of boys that would have really relished and benefited from, say, spending some time learning about basic car repair,

Surprisingly carefully hidden in the Automotive Maintenance merit badge.

or STEM activities,

About a third of the merit badge list. 

If the Church could have stopped looking at Scouting as nothing more than a way to give the kids an unearned Eagle rank for their future resumes as fast as possible, it does (or at least did, before the last several rounds of dumbing down requirements and nerfing activities) have a lot of other benefits that were removed from the LDS program.

and had zero interest in learning lashings

Sure, because nobody ever needs to tie stuff together.

or pseudoscientific weather forecasting abilities.

"Describe at least three natural indicators of impending hazardous weather, the potential dangerous events that might result from such weather conditions, and the appropriate actions to take."  This ain't reading goat entrails.  Dismissing basic knowledge of weather patterns is why retards end up trapped on top of a mountain in a blizzard or drowning in a flooded canyon.

[Hawkmoon]

60+ years ago, I was a Cub Scout for many years but I only lasted about a year in Boy Scouts. I was a sailing instructor during the Summers. I learned marlinspike seamanship (knots and splices) from an Englishman who had single-handed a sailboat around the world. When I got to the knot typing merit badge, they failed me because I tied a bowline with a one-handed flip rather than the prescribed "The rabbit comes out of the hole, runs around the tree, and goes back into the hole" routine. Even then, I had a low tolerance for buffoons.

Maybe five or six years ago my wife and I attended the Eagle Scout ceremony for the son of one of her friends. I was shocked. When I was in the Boy Scouts, we wore uniforms -- as in, everything matched. These kids all wore BSA shirts, but that was it. Pants didn't match (mix of jeans and other styles and colors), belts didn't match, socks didn't match, footwear didn't match. And they ALL looked like they had been sleeping i their "uniforms" for at least a week. If I had a son of scouting age today, I doubt I'd let him join.

[T.O.M.]

Maybe five or six years ago my wife and I attended the Eagle Scout ceremony for the son of one of her friends. I was shocked. When I was in the Boy Scouts, we wore uniforms -- as in, everything matched. These kids all wore BSA shirts, but that was it. Pants didn't match (mix of jeans and other styles and colors), belts didn't match, socks didn't match, footwear didn't match. And they ALL looked like they had been sleeping i their "uniforms" for at least a week. If I had a son of scouting age today, I doubt I'd let him join.

When my oldest was looking at different Troops, we saw several that looked like this.  I joked that they looked like they did nothing more than set down the XBox controller, wipe the Cheestos dust off their hands, and put on the tan shirt that was laying in a ball in the corner.  He ended up joining a full uniform troop, which is what I ended up volunteering with.  Footwear doesn't match, but everything else (socks included) does. 

Apparently, that is a unit by unit choice.  Some, like ours, wear uniforms all the time (even camping).  Some wear full uniforms for formal occasions, and not for weekly meetings, camping trips, etc.  Some, I guess their idea of Class A uniform is jeans without holes.

[Marnoot]

I have should expected you'd be triggered by my post, KD5NRH.

And it never once occurred to you to have the boys do them instead?  It's not grounds for excommunication.  (Really.  I promise.  I checked CHI 1, and it's not in there.  A couple years of disfellowshipment at the absolute worst.)

As I said, we were focused on rank advancements, the boys are free to pursue merit badges on their own, but we didn't have time to do it in our 11 year-old patrol meetings. Rank advancements were what I was asked to focus on by the troop committee, the scoutmaster, and the executive. Merit badges were the focus of the older Scouts. Regardless, some boys just aren't interested in Scouting at all. Another reason I'm happy with the split. Scouting is great, and is extremely beneficial for many boys, but it is not a one-size-fits-all end-all be-all program for all boys.

If the Church could have stopped looking at Scouting as nothing more than a way to give the kids an unearned Eagle rank for their future resumes as fast as possible, it does (or at least did, before the last several rounds of dumbing down requirements and nerfing activities) have a lot of other benefits that were removed from the LDS program.

Gee, I must have missed the Eagles for Resumes section of the LDS Scouting Handbook. There are wards that run Eagle mill programs, that's on them; it's certainly not church policy, and certainly not what is encouraged at Roundtable. I only signed off requirements that the boys actually achieved, and I know our Scoutmaster does the same.

Sure, because nobody ever needs to tie stuff together.

I'm not talking basic knots. When do you expect a resident of downtown Chicago or DC to need to lash-together a tower or a cooking tripod? Despite being a do-it-yourself type and comfortable in the back country, I've somehow managed to not run across a need to use actual lashings on anything (aside from artificially needing to do so at Scout camps and to teach the skill) for 37 years and running. Just because you like knowing how to make your own bike helmet by lashing matchsticks together with floss, and your own chainsaw chains by gluing chunks of angle iron onto bicycle chains with pine sap doesn't mean that's a necessary skill that everyone must know.

Are lashings "good" to know? Yes. Necessary? No. Good for a Scouting requirement? Sure. Being mandated via Scouting requirements to teach it to all boys under my care in my ward whether they care about Scouting or not? Not a fan. Glad to see it go away. That's all I'm saying.

This ain't reading goat entrails.

While there are several accurate techniques taught, a couple of the "techniques" taught in the Scout Handbook are about as accurate as reading goat entrails, which is why I made my original comment.



Look. I'm not saying Scouting doesn't teach valuable things, or it isn't beneficial. It is. I'm saying it's not a great fit for a unified worldwide church-related youth program for boys and girls. It's not.

[KD5NRH]

Gee, I must have missed the Eagles for Resumes section of the LDS Scouting Handbook. There are wards that run Eagle mill programs, that's on them; it's certainly not church policy, and certainly not what is encouraged at Roundtable.

So who was behind the push to add six more troop positions to the "while a ____ Scout, serve as ____ for _ months" requirements for Star, LIfe and Eagle?  The only reason I can see behind that is so that the Eagle mills could crank more Scouts through faster, but they couldn't have made it happen without the support of the Church.  

I'm not talking basic knots. When do you expect a resident of downtown Chicago or DC to need to lash-together a tower or a cooking tripod?

Interesting choices of cities; I'd expect those to benefit most from being able to make prison escape tools.  Even when I was living in Dallas, it wasn't uncommon to need to lash a couple of sticks together to make the light bulb reaching thingy longer, temporarily repair the fake Christmas tree until a replacement could be had cheap at the after-Christmas sales, prank the CTO and attach a flag to my balcony rail.  Tripods have other uses besides cooking, and there's always the possibility that one of those people might even wander outside the confines of the city once or twice in their life.

While there are several accurate techniques taught, a couple of the "techniques" taught in the Scout Handbook are about as accurate as reading goat entrails, which is why I made my original comment.

I don't see anything about it in the 7th Edition, and I don't have my 9th Edition handy, but I'd be surprised if the current BSA Handbook of Choosing a Motel Because the Outdoors is Icky and Has Bugs and Stuff includes much more than the instructions for a weather rock.

EDIT: Found a 12th Edition PDF.  Still not seeing anything way out there; the "weather signs" listed are the same ones that have been used for centuries, some even referenced by Christ Himself, for the simple reason that they're about as accurate as one can get in the absence of radar, a barometer or other methods most people don't have easy access to outside of a smartphone.

[Marnoot]

Dude, chill. Scouts is good. Scouts for all is not a good fit for a global church. That's all.

[freakazoid]

Even when I was living in Dallas, it wasn't uncommon to need to lash a couple of sticks together to make the light bulb reaching thingy longer, temporarily repair the fake Christmas tree until a replacement could be had cheap at the after-Christmas sales, prank the CTO and attach a flag to my balcony rail.  Tripods have other uses besides cooking, and there's always the possibility that one of those people might even wander outside the confines of the city once or twice in their life.

I feel like this is just the same as people who are like "why do we need to teach such and such in school" Or "Why would you need to carry a knife with you". They have just removed themselves so far from it that they can't see any way that such things are very useful and can be used all the time for regular everyday things.

[freakazoid]

Well that didn't take long, http://mobile.wnd.com/2018/05/condoms-required-at-scouts-24th-world-jamboree/

[HeroHog]

"Always be prepared?"

[T.O.M.]

Wow, boys and girls in their late teens and early 20s at an event together, and some may engage in sex.  I'm shocked by this.  Shocked I say.   

Frankly, what I am shocked by is that someone involved in Scouts isn't sticking their heads in the sand, pretending that these young men and women aren't all virgins with no such desires.  Far too many of the Scout volunteers I've met seem to ignore the fact that teens boys and girls think about sex a lot, and will engage if given a willing partner and 15 minutes of privacy.

[Scout26]

So far my Cub Scout Pack has 12 girls (or at least their parents) interested in joining (many already have brothers in the program), and we haven't started recruiting for the fall yet. 

https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/familyscouting/pdf/Updated-Family-Program-FAQ-10-26-17-547pm.pdf


The Scout Oath and Scout Law have not changed.  This is simply the expansion of program that helps develops youth leadership, citizenship, and character.   And benefits both Boys and Girls.   And just to calm everyone who is not in Scouting nerves, teenage Boys and Girls will be separate units. 

https://www.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Scouts-BSA-FAQ-050218-2.pdf

[KD5NRH]

I feel like this is just the same as people who are like "why do we need to teach such and such in school" Or "Why would you need to carry a knife with you". They have just removed themselves so far from it that they can't see any way that such things are very useful and can be used all the time for regular everyday things.

Or they've decided they can be completely dependent on people like me to open their packages, non-twist-off bottles, etc.

[Hawkmoon]

And just to calm everyone who is not in Scouting nerves, teenage Boys and Girls will be separate units. 

With separate camps, and separate (but equal, of course) Jamborees?

[makattak]

With separate camps, and separate (but equal, of course) Jamborees?

When the answer comes back "No, they'll be going to the same camps and Jamborees", they'll then accuse those who see the clear problem with that as being "behind the times".

And also that they are not the least bit shocked that the "Scouts" are having sex at those camps.

[Angel Eyes]

And also that they are not the least bit shocked that the "Scouts" are having sex at those camps.

They don't appear to be surprised in the least:

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/may/22/boy-scouts-require-condoms-upcoming-world-jamboree/

[T.O.M.]

Here's the thing,  making Scouting coed wasn't something I was a big fan of.  But, if I had a daughter, I'd rather her be in Scouting BSA than the Girl Scouts.  Better at teaching important life skills.  I know, because I've seen First Aid taught in both programs.  BSA classes were longer, and more in-depth, with skill testing at the end.   The GSA class was over in two hours, with badges handed to everyone.

As for the whole boy/girl things, it's really no different than marching bands, youth groups, or other coed activities.  You do due diligence to prevent the sex, keep them supervised,  and teach the program.  Yes, it will change, because boys will act differently with girls around, but the lessons are still the same, and still worth teaching.

[KD5NRH]

http://babylonbee.com/news/bigoted-boy-scouts-welcome-girls-but-still-exclude-all-49247-other-genders/

[T.O.M.]

http://babylonbee.com/news/bigoted-boy-scouts-welcome-girls-but-still-exclude-all-49247-other-genders/

That's funny!

[bedlamite]

Here's the thing,  making Scouting coed wasn't something I was a big fan of.  But, if I had a daughter, I'd rather her be in Scouting BSA than the Girl Scouts.  Better at teaching important life skills.  I know, because I've seen First Aid taught in both programs.  BSA classes were longer, and more in-depth, with skill testing at the end.   The GSA class was over in two hours, with badges handed to everyone.

As for the whole boy/girl things, it's really no different than marching bands, youth groups, or other coed activities.  You do due diligence to prevent the sex, keep them supervised,  and teach the program.  Yes, it will change, because boys will act differently with girls around, but the lessons are still the same, and still worth teaching.

This one time at band camp ...

[Angel Eyes]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoEVPtVk9nE&feature=share