The Boy Scout Troop has been struggling the last couple of years with low attendance. There are only a handful of boys now registered, and most of them are about to age out.
The minimum to maintain a Troop is five (5). By next April, we will be down to one (1).
There are other Troops in the area who don't seem to be suffering from the same problem as ours. One of the troops just up the road has nearly sixty boys; another, up north of town, has eighty. So we know there are eager Webelos IIs out there, somewhere; but when it comes time for them to check out potential Boy Scout troops in the area, they either don't come to ours, or they show up once and never again afterward.
It's a bit disheartening.
Part of the problem, as we have observed since we first arrived in this area, is that none of the Scouts actually attend the church which sponsors the Troop. That's very odd. In most cases, the Troop is an outreach of the Youth Ministry at the church. In fact, according to the typical charter, both the Scoutmaster and the charter organization representative are members of the church. (The charter organization representative is often the Youth Minister for the church.)
When we started with the Troop, there were a few people at church who knew that a Scout troop met there, but no one was participating, not even the youth minister.
The consequence of this disassociation is that the church staff starts to treat the Troop like just another community group who happens to borrow a room in the building during the week. And when something inevitably goes wrong (e.g. boys will be boys, things will be broken or left in a mess), the staff takes punitive measures. Can you imagine the staff telling the youth minister that the youth group will no longer be allowed to meet in the building because they failed to put the chairs back properly after their last meeting? Yet that becomes the response when the relationship between the Troop and the church is so skewed. And then all kinds of tension builds up, and communication breaks down, and then even more problems occur.
I have worked very hard over the past few years to patch the relationship between the church and the Troop, but it still faces the near-insurmountable obstacle that none of the church members, other than myself, are involved with the Troop. There are no children interested, no parents asking questions about joining, no elders or deacons with sufficient bandwidth to participate. I have talked to the leadership numerous times about it; while they are enthusiastic about the idea of hosting a Boy Scout troop, they are all too overhwhelmed with other critical concerns to play a more active role.
There is also a lingering sentiment on the part of the staff that the Scouts are just another community organization, so they aren't allowed to put up posters or bulletin boards or anything that might advertise their existence. I'm not quite sure how to handle this, since that viewpoint is informed mostly by the fact that the church is not invested in the Troop in the same way they are with other mission work. Were there more direct involvement, it would obviously be a more pressing, more supported concern.
Then there is the economic angle. Scouting is getting to be a very expensive exercise; and, with the latest re-organization of the Michigan council (which was not, in my opinion, done well), that situation isn't going to change any time soon. It's difficult to approach a parent with yet another activity for a child that will cost money, and oh, by the way, we're not too keen on the way they've organized things, although we really haven't had time to know if it will work out. It might be a bit off-putting.
It's equally as difficult to approach a parent about joining a group that is already struggling. We had contacted a Council rep who was supposed to show up at our meeting last week to discuss how to save the Troop; from what he had told us when he took on the job, there are other local troops of boys in need of adult leaders and/or places to meet. But he never appeared. And he didn't return my calls or emails. And he never called anyone to explain his absence. My only conclusion is that he gave us up as a Lost Cause.
So, as we face dissolution of the Troop1, we are left with a large number of things to resolve: selling off our inventory of camping supplies, finding another group willing to purchase our trailer, and finding a place to store enough supplies so that, if in the future the Troop gets restarted, we are ready.
Meanwhile, we had our next-to-last2 Court of Honor tonight, and the Committee decided to do it all in grand style: a catered dinner of barbecued ribs, gift cards for the adult leaders, a birthday cake for one of the old guys, and some heartfelt comments from the Scoutmaster.
Oh, and some Merit Badges were handed out, too!
1The Troop was established in 1958, making it over 50 years old!
2We'll have one more Court of Honor when our last Scout completes his requirements for Eagle.
4 comments:
Marketing is the key. Alas, you are hindered from marketing due to the constraints of the charter organization. I have often wondered at the lack of similar involvement by our own charter organization. Our CO is the Methodist church, our last two scoutmasters have been Lutherans, and the scouts themselves come from so many different religious backgrounds--I don't think there are more than a couple of the older boys who actually attend the CO church. More of the younger boys do, perhaps, but it is painfully obvious that this CO is not using the Troop as a tool. Not that I want them to, but that is the original purpose of HAVING a CO. Have you ever studied how the Mormons use scouting in their youth program? I haven't, but I have a feeling it's an integral part of it throughout their churches. Our congregation used to have a troop until it disbanded for lack of interest or because the original participants outgrew it. Of course our youth group has fluctuated so much in the last six years, I'm not surprised. We can barely get kids to come to Bible class, let alone get into Scouting. The troop we're a part of has also just passed it's 50 year anniversary, and has had a strong showing throughout the years. It's still going well, just ebbs and flows, but you sure can tell when the older boys get too busy for it. I've always thought that if the boys could be infused with an enthusiasm for being a scout, and could be shown how to "pass it on" we could have a really vital group. But mostly it's just a case of Eaglemania, and how fast can you get your Eagle rank, better get it before you turn 14 or you'll never get it, something like that. In the past several years, most of the Eagle candidates have been at the verge of hitting the age cut off, achieving it by the skin of their teeth so to speak. Caleb has yet to earn his Life rank--even now he's only one Eagle merit badge away, but it eludes him. And I don't know if the drive is there. We don't push, just a nudge now and then. I sympathize with your plight, at any rate.
:O)
How sad--Perhaps that is just the congregation's way of saying we don't care about our youth anymore.
I have the same difficulty with the Scouts as I do with the church in general. We need more men to step up to the plate and get involved with our children's programs. But they're all busy with the adult programs. Which is fine, I suppose. But the children are the future, and at least some of us need to be passionate about teaching them.
Our scout troop meets at our church but the whole time we've lived here the only church members in the troop have been Brason and his friend Jacob, with their dads playing integral roles in the troop leadership.
The Mormons are pretty heavily invested in their troops, but then again the members are assigned "callings" from the church leaders to be involved as cub masters, scout masters, etc. LOL I would love to be able to assign "callings" to some of the folks I know who could help with teaching the kids.
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