Boy Scouting
Boy Scouting is possibly about to declare bankruptcy. I will here consider the reasons for this.
The first major question is why is Boy Scouts close to bankruptcy while girl scouts is not. The answer is multi-faceted but I will attempt to answer it.
The biggest reason is that Boy Scouts faces 140 suits over sexual abuse of scouts. The boy scouts kept a very large file of banned scout leaders. It has been forced into the open. On the other hand, some of the suits involve leaders who were never in the file. Many of these suits bate back 30 years or more.
Boy scouts is not the only organization facing bankruptcy over this issue. about 20 Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection. So has USA Gymnastics, which is mainly saddled with the Dr. Nassar scandal, but also faces lots of issues with abuse by coaches.
The answer to why Boy Scouts faces this problem but girl scouts does not is probably because men are much more likely to commit sexual abuse against children than women. A secondary reason is proably because boy scouts has long had the ideal of monthly over-night campouts and lots of other activities in the woods. Two deep leadership has not always been the goal.
Girl scouts think they are proclaming a strong outdoor ethos in their troop when they say it did 2 camputs a year. At least in modern times that is high for girl scout campouts. The fact that they also proportionately are less likely to be deep in the woods and more likely to be in cabins as opposed to tents may make some forms of abuse less likely.
The fact that Boy Scouts has always been a larger organization may also effect the process. Also the fact that Boy Scouts does not directly sponsor its troops but girl scouts does may have meant that Boy Scouts had a harder time of screening potential applicants.
There have been some cases of accusing girl scout leaders of sexual molestation, but there seems to not have been the large number of cases as against the boy scouts.
Other issues are involved as well. Boy Scouts has been flagged against by some sites that monitor charitable donations because it is paying out settlements on sex abuse claims. Also, boy scouts have faced multiple cuts in funding sources over their past stances on homosexual scouts and leaders. Their continued insistance that all scouts must in some way believe in God means they have not won many friends on the left with their compromises. The fact that a large percentage of troops are sponsored by various Churches causes many liberals to brand them as only Christians, igorning that there are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and probably scouts of other faiths in the US.
Girl scouts as a secular humanist organization have lost support from many religious conservatives. There are several alternatives that exist on the religious right, but none have undermined Girl Scouts in the broad scheme of things. I have known several Latter-day Saints who enrolled their daughters in girl scouts.
Considering the pro-Planned Parenthood and other extreme liberal positions taken by girl scouts this surprises me. However these extreme positions are often not evident at the local level.
I was a teacher at a school where all the 5th grade girls were essentially forced to participate in girl scouts during the school day. I have to wonder how much of their enrollment is based on such programs.
The girl scouts have faced major push back over their closing and sale of lots of camps, which has seemed to be built around meeting huge pension obligations. However the girl scouts have been much more realistic in their consolidation of councils, while Boy Scouts still have insame councils like Piedmont, California having its own unique one and many others that make little sense at present.
Boy Scouts are facing 20% loss of troops with the LDS exodus at the begining of 2020. They are kidding themselves in saying some LDS scouts will stay with boy scouts after the exodus, and that some scouts who were of other faiths in LDS troops will join other troops at the exodus. I personally think they are very heavily overemphasizing both of these phenomenon and that they should bite the bullet and consolidate the 3 Utah councils into one, and look at other councils in Idaho, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming and even Oregon and Washington to see if any others need consolidation.
The boy scouts also have a much more troop friendly system of distribution of funds earned in popcorn sales. The fact that LDS troops do not do popcorn sales while I doubt there are any girl scouts who do not sell cookies is hard to underestimate as a cause of financial problems for the boy scouts. Also girl scout cookies are an institution with a pull boy scout popcorn lacks.
That said, many people feel that the very low percentage of girl scout cookie money that goes to the girl and her unit as opposed to manufacturers and councils and the national organization is a travesty. Still, the addictive nature of the cookies has caused people with all sorts of dislikes for girl scouts to buy them, and turning down pleas of cute little girls to buy cookies is often difficult as well.
Basically girl scouts have an internal organization that people dislike more than boyscouts, but are less disliked on political fronts. They also have a more stable funding system, and while their major selling off of camps is an outrage to many true gilr scouters, so many women and girls accept the program with no camping at all this is not as big a downfall as it would be if boy scouts followed the same course of action.
This probably highlights why girl scouts is engaged in such high pressure tactics including a law suit to try to stop or at least hamper recruitment of girls by the boy scouts. Unlike guiding in some countries, girl scouting in the USA was formed as a girl version of boy scouts. It has long structural and philosophical differences that make it so a merger with boy scouts was not doable. However Boy scout troops that are girl lead, only girl, but focused on the boy scout program, is the best of all worlds for many, many girls and will mean that girl scouts will loose a huge number of potential members.
With the cubs seperated by den and seperate girl and boy troops, much of the hand ringing about this change is overblown. Also with local sponsoring organizations retaining rights on membership criteria and leadership criteria, this change is not what the nay sayers say it is. This is not to say BSA will not loose people over this change. It is however to say it is probably far less than any discussion on the issue indicates it will be.
One issue that is not clear to me is if other religious organizations will follow The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in ending boy scout troops. My general feeling is the answer is no. The Church of Jeus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a very integral relationship with boy scouts, in which being a member of a troop was the unavoidable default state for all member boys, leadership in the troop was through Church calling, and the troops were fully creatures of the Church. In other Churches they generally sponsored troops, and in a few Evangelical Christian troops leaders needed to be fully believing Evangelical Christians, but for example while Catholic parishes sponored boy scout troops, there also existed the totally seperate Catholic Youth Organization. A few other groups such as I believe the 7th Day Adventist essentially ran their own internal scout-like organizations.
Most of the Church exodus from scouting happened in the immediate aftermath of decisions on homosexual scouts or homosexual leaders. I see little likelihood of more exodus happening, although some Church sponsored troops in some Protestant congregations may die because of the changes making recruiting need leaders harder.
More general declines in youth organizations, increased competition from sports, and a decline in local organizations to sponsor troops have a broad impact, but tracing it is hard. The United Methodists still sponsor the most overall scouts, and they have embraced forming troops for girls at least in some cases.
The fact the United Methodists are close to a major fight over acceptance of same-sex marriage and related issues may splinter the Church in ways that hurt sponsoring organizations. Also the overall number of United Methodists is in decline in the US, and the number of congregations is also bound to go down. Fewer congregations may lead to fewer troops, although how all this will play out is hard to say.
My next reccomendation is some people seek to get good views on the ground as to what is actually going on with scouting.
The first major question is why is Boy Scouts close to bankruptcy while girl scouts is not. The answer is multi-faceted but I will attempt to answer it.
The biggest reason is that Boy Scouts faces 140 suits over sexual abuse of scouts. The boy scouts kept a very large file of banned scout leaders. It has been forced into the open. On the other hand, some of the suits involve leaders who were never in the file. Many of these suits bate back 30 years or more.
Boy scouts is not the only organization facing bankruptcy over this issue. about 20 Catholic dioceses have filed for bankruptcy protection. So has USA Gymnastics, which is mainly saddled with the Dr. Nassar scandal, but also faces lots of issues with abuse by coaches.
The answer to why Boy Scouts faces this problem but girl scouts does not is probably because men are much more likely to commit sexual abuse against children than women. A secondary reason is proably because boy scouts has long had the ideal of monthly over-night campouts and lots of other activities in the woods. Two deep leadership has not always been the goal.
Girl scouts think they are proclaming a strong outdoor ethos in their troop when they say it did 2 camputs a year. At least in modern times that is high for girl scout campouts. The fact that they also proportionately are less likely to be deep in the woods and more likely to be in cabins as opposed to tents may make some forms of abuse less likely.
The fact that Boy Scouts has always been a larger organization may also effect the process. Also the fact that Boy Scouts does not directly sponsor its troops but girl scouts does may have meant that Boy Scouts had a harder time of screening potential applicants.
There have been some cases of accusing girl scout leaders of sexual molestation, but there seems to not have been the large number of cases as against the boy scouts.
Other issues are involved as well. Boy Scouts has been flagged against by some sites that monitor charitable donations because it is paying out settlements on sex abuse claims. Also, boy scouts have faced multiple cuts in funding sources over their past stances on homosexual scouts and leaders. Their continued insistance that all scouts must in some way believe in God means they have not won many friends on the left with their compromises. The fact that a large percentage of troops are sponsored by various Churches causes many liberals to brand them as only Christians, igorning that there are Muslim, Hindu, Jewish and probably scouts of other faiths in the US.
Girl scouts as a secular humanist organization have lost support from many religious conservatives. There are several alternatives that exist on the religious right, but none have undermined Girl Scouts in the broad scheme of things. I have known several Latter-day Saints who enrolled their daughters in girl scouts.
Considering the pro-Planned Parenthood and other extreme liberal positions taken by girl scouts this surprises me. However these extreme positions are often not evident at the local level.
I was a teacher at a school where all the 5th grade girls were essentially forced to participate in girl scouts during the school day. I have to wonder how much of their enrollment is based on such programs.
The girl scouts have faced major push back over their closing and sale of lots of camps, which has seemed to be built around meeting huge pension obligations. However the girl scouts have been much more realistic in their consolidation of councils, while Boy Scouts still have insame councils like Piedmont, California having its own unique one and many others that make little sense at present.
Boy Scouts are facing 20% loss of troops with the LDS exodus at the begining of 2020. They are kidding themselves in saying some LDS scouts will stay with boy scouts after the exodus, and that some scouts who were of other faiths in LDS troops will join other troops at the exodus. I personally think they are very heavily overemphasizing both of these phenomenon and that they should bite the bullet and consolidate the 3 Utah councils into one, and look at other councils in Idaho, Washington, Nevada, Colorado, New Mexico, Arizona and Wyoming and even Oregon and Washington to see if any others need consolidation.
The boy scouts also have a much more troop friendly system of distribution of funds earned in popcorn sales. The fact that LDS troops do not do popcorn sales while I doubt there are any girl scouts who do not sell cookies is hard to underestimate as a cause of financial problems for the boy scouts. Also girl scout cookies are an institution with a pull boy scout popcorn lacks.
That said, many people feel that the very low percentage of girl scout cookie money that goes to the girl and her unit as opposed to manufacturers and councils and the national organization is a travesty. Still, the addictive nature of the cookies has caused people with all sorts of dislikes for girl scouts to buy them, and turning down pleas of cute little girls to buy cookies is often difficult as well.
Basically girl scouts have an internal organization that people dislike more than boyscouts, but are less disliked on political fronts. They also have a more stable funding system, and while their major selling off of camps is an outrage to many true gilr scouters, so many women and girls accept the program with no camping at all this is not as big a downfall as it would be if boy scouts followed the same course of action.
This probably highlights why girl scouts is engaged in such high pressure tactics including a law suit to try to stop or at least hamper recruitment of girls by the boy scouts. Unlike guiding in some countries, girl scouting in the USA was formed as a girl version of boy scouts. It has long structural and philosophical differences that make it so a merger with boy scouts was not doable. However Boy scout troops that are girl lead, only girl, but focused on the boy scout program, is the best of all worlds for many, many girls and will mean that girl scouts will loose a huge number of potential members.
With the cubs seperated by den and seperate girl and boy troops, much of the hand ringing about this change is overblown. Also with local sponsoring organizations retaining rights on membership criteria and leadership criteria, this change is not what the nay sayers say it is. This is not to say BSA will not loose people over this change. It is however to say it is probably far less than any discussion on the issue indicates it will be.
One issue that is not clear to me is if other religious organizations will follow The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in ending boy scout troops. My general feeling is the answer is no. The Church of Jeus Christ of Latter-day Saints had a very integral relationship with boy scouts, in which being a member of a troop was the unavoidable default state for all member boys, leadership in the troop was through Church calling, and the troops were fully creatures of the Church. In other Churches they generally sponsored troops, and in a few Evangelical Christian troops leaders needed to be fully believing Evangelical Christians, but for example while Catholic parishes sponored boy scout troops, there also existed the totally seperate Catholic Youth Organization. A few other groups such as I believe the 7th Day Adventist essentially ran their own internal scout-like organizations.
Most of the Church exodus from scouting happened in the immediate aftermath of decisions on homosexual scouts or homosexual leaders. I see little likelihood of more exodus happening, although some Church sponsored troops in some Protestant congregations may die because of the changes making recruiting need leaders harder.
More general declines in youth organizations, increased competition from sports, and a decline in local organizations to sponsor troops have a broad impact, but tracing it is hard. The United Methodists still sponsor the most overall scouts, and they have embraced forming troops for girls at least in some cases.
The fact the United Methodists are close to a major fight over acceptance of same-sex marriage and related issues may splinter the Church in ways that hurt sponsoring organizations. Also the overall number of United Methodists is in decline in the US, and the number of congregations is also bound to go down. Fewer congregations may lead to fewer troops, although how all this will play out is hard to say.
My next reccomendation is some people seek to get good views on the ground as to what is actually going on with scouting.
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