LDS and BSA are parting ways at the end of 2019

[cinepro]

21 minutes ago, bluebell said:

Can you explain what you think is lame about the YW's program?  Sincere question.

In all my years in the Church and on the internet, I've heard girls who were friends, relatives and online acquaintances say that they wish they could participate (or could have participated) in some aspect of the Young Men's activities (or that the Young Women's activities and camps had the same selection and planning given to the boy's activities). 

In that same time period, I have never heard a guy say they wish they could participate in any of the young women's activities.

Edited May 9, 2018 by cinepro

[bluebell]

23 minutes ago, toon said:

That was my experience with scouting, mostly bonding and making life long friendships. I think that can be accomplished in a different program, but scouting provided a particularly strong framework making it easier for relatively untrained leaders to adopt and implement.

When I was growing up, there were usually two to four kids in our ward's scout troop that were not members and only participated in the scouting side. They joined because they wanted to be involved in scouting and the ward's program was easily accessible, usually because one of their friends or neighbors was a member. They and their parents knew that because of the LDS affiliation, there would be a religious aspect, but because it was still scouting and the uniquely religious aspect wasn't pervasive, it wasn't a problem for them. I'm good friends with some of them to this day, and while most didn't ever join the Church, they have a very positive opinion of it.

When I was a scout leader in our ward's troop about 15 years ago, it was the same, as there was always a couple non-LDS kids participating. Two of them eventually joined the Church and went on missions.

I suspect the new program, whatever it is, won't be as attractive to non-member kids or their parents. It's one thing to have your kid participating in a well known scouting program that is affiliated with the Church but is still scouting. It's another to have them participate in something that is exclusively an LDS program.

I think it just depends.  We currently have 3 nonmember young women who regularly participate in all YW activities (including sometimes coming on sundays) but there are no nonmember scouts in YMs.  And the Deacon's quorum has begun to lose some of the active deacon age boys on Wednesday nights because they got tired of so many scouting activities.  It's become a bit of a problem.

[ALarson]

9 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think it just depends.  We currently have 3 nonmember young women who regularly participate in all YW activities (including sometimes coming on sundays) but there are no nonmember scouts in YMs.  And the Deacon's quorum has begun to lose some of the active deacon age boys on Wednesday nights because they got tired of so many scouting activities.  It's become a bit of a problem.

But if they move away from doing scout type activities, then you lose the boys who were coming that loved scouting.  We have two teenage boys who do not attend  on Sunday anymore, they do not attend seminary, but they love scouting and come to the week day activity because of this (they rarely miss).  I think you'll get some who will come out more and some who will lose interest now.  I get that it's impossible to meet all of their needs and find activities that interest all the boys (and girls).

I am looking forward to seeing the new program.  I will be supportive of it.  But, I hope it's not just more spiritual teaching like they get on Sundays as there needs to be a time when they just get together and have fun and bond (with each other and the leaders)....then you can slip the spiritual messages in at times as well.  I just hope it'll be as well organized and supported as the scout program has been.

Edited May 9, 2018 by ALarson

[RevTestament]

20 minutes ago, CA Steve said:

Regardless of the reasoning behind why the Church is distancing itself from Scouting, I agree strongly with your assessment here. The Church I grew up in had a variety of programs that were interesting to young men of all ages and belief levels. Without the scouting program to tie together our group I think our activity rate would have been half what it was. Another big loss, in my opinion, was how much more attention the church paid to competitive church wide (in the USA at least) sporting activities. We bonded together as a group through both the scouting activities and sports competition, bond that have remained strong for decades, even with those who no longer believe and or attend Church.

 

I do not believe this is a good decision in an age where we are struggling to keep young males in the Church after high school. We need to find ways keep programs that are interesting to our youth, not get rid of them.

I know as a teen one of the huge things I liked about Church was the activities - specifically, the dances. I wasn't much of a basketball player, but I enjoyed that later to some extent.  The Church gave me a new aspect to social life which had been lacking. I didn't do scouting stuff - I don't really even know how active our troops were. It didn't seem my dad encouraged that much. But we had Church friends over some, and did our own activities with them. One of the things about scouting is that fairly recently it went from expensive to very expensive. While that may not be an issue for many Utah families, for many other families - especially international families that is a huge issue. It is not really fair for the Church to place so much emphasis on the program when many around the world feel they cannot afford to participate. Basketball doesn't cost participants really anything. Nor do dances. There are some relatively minor expenses to the Church. Once scouting began to outsource everything, it became very expensive. We definitely noticed the change as this happened when the last of my boys were in the program. Scouting was beginning to place a strain on ward budgets, and cause some inequities in some areas between young women's budgets and Aaronic priesthood budgets. As much as our boys enjoyed cub scouts, they also quickly lost interest in the scouts at about the junior high level, and certainly by the high school level. So how much scouting is really helping to retain our young men is debatable. Hopefully, the Church can develop something more responsive to this age group. I believe developing its own program will allow the Church's activities to be more flexible and responsive to our youth rather than trying to hammer all youth activities into a square hole. The program was becoming more secularized as well. I suppose the Church can always go back to scouting, but I doubt that will happen. 

[nuclearfuels]

1 hour ago, ALarson said:

Why?

(And it's 18.5% or their membership.)

As a start...six-figure salaries for Scout Executives? Abandoning their morals in the hope of chasing more corporate donors? 

 

[pogi]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

What an interesting announcement.  If anything, it seems to be like a Rorschach test for people.  While we don't know exactly why the Church did it, we can definitely learn a lot about a person when they try and guess why the Church did it.  

So here's my guess.  Honestly, I think the timing was due to one thing:

President Monson Died.

It wasn't the homosexuals, or atheists, or girls.  The Church could have supported the program and done great for another 100 years if it had wanted to.  The BSA was obviously giving the Church latitude to adapt.

So if that wasn't the problem, then what was?

It's all about the money. 

I agree that the reason for leaving is not "homosexuals, atheists, or girls".  The first presidency announcement makes it clear that they have been preparing for this new initiative "for years".  That means, pre-gays/girls, etc. 

Here is the exact quote:

Quote

 

For years, Church leaders have been preparing a new initiative to teach and provide leadership and development opportunities to all children and youth, to support families and to strengthen youth everywhere as they develop faith in the Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. This new approach is intended to help all girls and boys, young women and young men discover their eternal identity, build character and resilience, develop life skills and fulfill their divine roles as daughters and sons of God. 

https://www.mormonnewsroom.org/article/new-program-children-youth?cid=HP_TU-8-5-2018_dPAD_fMNWS_xLIDyL1-B_

 

The church actually does give a reason for the change also:

Quote

 

In this century of shared experience, the Church has grown from a U.S.-centered institution to a worldwide organization, with a majority of its membership living outside the United States. That trend is accelerating. The Church has increasingly felt the need to create and implement a uniform youth leadership and development program that serves its members globally. In so doing, it will be necessary for the Church to discontinue its role as a chartered partner with BSA.

https://www.lds.org/youth/childrenandyouth/joint-church-bsa-statement?lang=eng

 

That to me is a very valid and legitimate reason.  But I do think you are right that President Monson dying and money were two more factors in the change.  Another very valid reason for the change (whether or not this was taken into consideration) is the steep learning curve for leaders in an exceptionally demanding 10 year calling, on average.  That is just unheard of anymore, but the lucky scout master is usually in there for 10 years or more.  Because of the extensive training that is required, you can't rotate leaders every 2-3 years - that is when they just start getting in their groove in scouting.  In many ways, it is a more demanding calling then bishop.  Gone are the days of the dreaded scout master calling!  I'll be honest though, while I had my many issues with the way the scouting program was set up, I did enjoy my time in it.  I really, really, really hope to stick around in the young men program.  Seeing that I am not only the scout master, but also serve a dual calling as the 2nd counselor in the YM program, I think my chances are good!

[ttribe]

59 minutes ago, toon said:

Except that, with regard to LDS troops, that's not true. (I get that your comment might have been sarcastic.) The LDS church has complete control over who it calls and appoints as leaders. The inclusion of girls in scouting would not have applied to LDS scouting, unless the Church wanted it to. And gay and straight kids who maintain the church's moral standards have long been allowed to participate in Church youth programs, and I suspect this will continue to be the case even after the Church leaves scouting.

Lots and lots of sarcasm.

[ALarson]

5 minutes ago, nuclearfuels said:

 Abandoning their morals in the hope of chasing more corporate donors? 

What morals had they abandoned?  Other than you having financial issues, what was immoral about the changes being made?

Edited May 9, 2018 by ALarson

[nuclearfuels]

16 hours ago, pogi said:

It makes you wonder if they would have made the move to start allowing girls if the church would have stuck around.  I think they got wind of the changes and are making pre-emptive moves to recover some numbers.

This is a huge blow to the scouts.  I should feel worse then I do...but I don't. 

You should not feel worse, Pogi.  Millions are rejoicing with you

[Prof]

15 minutes ago, bluebell said:

I think it just depends.  We currently have 3 nonmember young women who regularly participate in all YW activities (including sometimes coming on sundays) but there are no nonmember scouts in YMs.  And the Deacon's quorum has begun to lose some of the active deacon age boys on Wednesday nights because they got tired of so many scouting activities.  It's become a bit of a problem.

I can't speak for the girls, but with respect to the boys, we have lousy attendance on Wednesday. It has been very hard on our scoutmaster to prepare for an activity and have only a few boys show. They have been working on the same merit badges for the last 5 months. Hard to complete them when attendance is so inconsistent. 

Most of the time, all the guys want to do is play basketball or dodgeball.

[ksfisher]

4 hours ago, nuclearfuels said:

As a start...six-figure salaries for Scout Executives? Abandoning their morals in the hope of chasing more corporate donors? 

 

Unfortunately, the way economics work you need to pay an executive that much.  If you paid them less you would either have  a) people doing the job who aren't able to land higher paying jobs (less talented), or b) a high turnover as executives leave the the low paying job when something else opens up.

Edited May 9, 2018 by ksfisher

[stemelbow]

1 hour ago, Scott Lloyd said:

Yeah, with all those changes the program is still fundamentally the same -- except that it isn't.

 

I see...so those changes are what ruined it in your view.  

[ALarson]

17 minutes ago, nuclearfuels said:

You should not feel worse, Pogi.  Millions are rejoicing with you

Millions?  Rejoicing?  I don't think so....(exaggerate much?).

I think some are happy about this change, but just as many are saddened to see the end of scouting for the YM in the church.  Many dearly love scouting.  

I see people supporting this decision and supporting the church leaders.  Most are anxious to see the new program and are looking forward to getting more information about it. 

 

 

Edited May 9, 2018 by ALarson

[pogi]

9 minutes ago, Prof said:

It has been very hard on our scoutmaster to prepare for an activity and have only a few boys show.

Even worse is planning and preparing for a camp-out, reserving and paying for a campground, planning meals and purchasing food, taking work off so that we can leave early Friday morning, taking all the boys to walmart to get fishing licences, preparing all the fishing gear, packing all my gear, showing up at the church early Friday morning to load all the gear from the camping shed into our trailer, and only having one other leader show up...no boys...ever...showed...up!!!  This happened to me 2 times!  This was after verbal commitments and reminder calls to boys and parents.  What the...!

[Amulek]

Royal Rangers, here we come! 

 

[cinepro]

9 minutes ago, ksfisher said:

Unfortunately, the way economics work you need to pay an executive that much.  If you paid them less you would either had a) people doing the job who aren't able to land higher paying jobs (less talented), or b) a high turnover as executives leave the the low paying job when something else opens up.

You could get executives who are willing to volunteer without a six-figure salary, like the General Authorities do.

Wait...what?

[bluebell]

18 minutes ago, Prof said:

I can't speak for the girls, but with respect to the boys, we have lousy attendance on Wednesday. It has been very hard on our scoutmaster to prepare for an activity and have only a few boys show. They have been working on the same merit badges for the last 5 months. Hard to complete them when attendance is so inconsistent. 

Most of the time, all the guys want to do is play basketball or dodgeball.

Spending months on one merit badge was also the problem in our ward, though attendance was really high for most of that.  It wasn't until the last 2-3 wednesdays that active boys started to just refuse to come.  I agree that it is really hard and not fair to the scoutmaster (or the scouts who care) who is trying his hardest to help the boys.  It's not  fair for those YM who don't care about scouts but want to be a part of the YM activities to either.  I think that's one reason that it's best for the church to let scouts go.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, bluebell said:

I think that for boys who truly enjoy scouting, non-LDS troops are the way to go.  Then they can be in a troop that is going to continue to function and support them after they turn 14.

We admired our scoutmaster and his assistant scoutmaster.  They were great role models.  The camaraderie with other guys was very important, and so was the effort we made in getting merit badges in areas we knew nothing about previously (our scoutmaster was a professional chemist with Sunkist, and he took 3 of us to his lab to do the chemistry merit badge requirements).  We didn't know it then, but we were really learning how to become men.  That was the actual meaning of Scouting.

[bluebell]

31 minutes ago, ALarson said:

But if they move away from doing scout type activities, then you lose the boys who were coming that loved scouting. 

My interaction with the YM's program is fairly limited (being a girl and all) but from what i've seen and been told, we don't lose any YM when they transition out of scouts when they leave deacons quorum and become teachers in our ward.  The teacher's quorum is big and most of the YM in it are active.  The same seems to be true for the Priest's quorum (my son is a priest and the same kids seem to be at all of his activities that were there when he was a deacon).  So, in our ward (and I know that every ward is different), I don't know that there are any boys who will stop coming when scouting stops being included.  As long as they still get to camp and hike and stuff (which seems likely given the YM leaders in the program right now and how Teachers and Priests operate right now), it shouldn't make much of a difference.

Quote

We have two teenage boys who do not attend  on Sunday anymore, they do not attend seminary, but they love scouting and come to the week day activity because of this (they rarely miss).  I think you'll get some who will come out more and some who will lose interest now.  I get that it's impossible to meet all of their needs and find activities that interest all the boys (and girls).

Why are their quorums still doing scouts?  At the age they are (if they are old enough for seminary) they wouldn't really be in a scout troop anymore anyway.  Or is your ward still doing older scouts for some reason?  I know it is hard for youth like that.  So many different needs and no program can meet all of them. 

From the church's perspective though, if the youth aren't gaining a testimony and aren't developing a relationship with Heavenly Father and their Savior, then the worth of scouts to them is very much in question, even if it get's some inactive YM into the church.  From that perspective, there isn't a lot to lose in trying something new.

Quote

I am looking forward to seeing the new program.  I will be supportive of it.  But, I hope it's not just more spiritual teaching like they get on Sundays as there needs to be a time when they just get together and have fun and bond (with each other and the leaders)....then you can slip the spiritual messages in at times as well.  I just hope it'll be as well organized and supported as the scout program has been.

We have a great time at our weekly YW activities, manage to spend at least 1 Wednesday a month on service, and are very well attended (probably 80-90% for most Wednesday nights, including the service ones).  The Young women will even have an opportunity to go camping 2-4 times this year (depending on their age, older girls get more opportunities than the younger girls) so there is precedent for that being very possible for YM even without scouts.   

[ksfisher]

18 minutes ago, cinepro said:

You could get executives who are willing to volunteer without a six-figure salary, like the General Authorities do.

Wait...what?

I would wager that all of the general authorities could (or could have in the case of the older ones) leave their current employer and find more money elsewhere. 

Edited May 9, 2018 by ksfisher

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, rongo said:

The impact felt will be more financial and disproportionate intensity and leadership, not raw numbers. Mandatory chartering fees paid by the stakes for all those active and inactive/attending and non-attending boys, FOS, Scouting pyramid scheme racket money (badges, uniforms, camp fees), etc. And, unlike other churches, we made Scouting our "activity arm" for boys. The loss of the church will leave a gaping hole that won't even begin to be filled by whatever girls participate in the coming years. 

That may be true.  Particularly in Utah, although the SLC and St George areas are quite heavily non-Mormon, so that they will probably be able to finance community troops.  One nice thing for the LDS youth is that plenty of summer camps exist built/owned by the Church, so that those wonderful experiences will continue.  I know that I always looked forward to summer camp each year and have many pleasant memories of them.  I hope that hiking and camping will continue to be emphasized by the LDS youth program after 2020 -- worldwide, where military uniforms would not necessarily fit in any case.

[mfbukowski]

16 hours ago, tulip said:

They told us that Scouting was the activity arm of the priesthood.   I guess they changed their minds.   

"Was" is the important word here.

And yet the critics will say that the church is no longer guided by revelation.

Change is proof that it is.

[bluebell]

12 minutes ago, Robert F. Smith said:

We admired our scoutmaster and his assistant scoutmaster.  They were great role models.  The camaraderie with other guys was very important, and so was the effort we made in getting merit badges in areas we knew nothing about previously (our scoutmaster was a professional chemist with Sunkist, and he took 3 of us to his lab to do the chemistry merit badge requirements).  We didn't know it then, but we were really learning how to become men.  That was the actual meaning of Scouting.

I get it.  My dad was scoutmaster in our ward for years (over a decade if you add it all up) and he still get's grown men that he hasn't seen since they were 12 coming into town and visiting him, telling him out much all of those memories mean to them.  When the leaders are invested, it is an amazing thing.  

[Calm]

1 minute ago, bluebell said:

I get it.  My dad was scoutmaster in our ward for years (over a decade if you add it all up) and he still get's grown men that he hasn't seen since they were 12 coming into town and visiting him, telling him out much all of those memories mean to them.  When the leaders are invested, it is an amazing thing.  

My husband had a scoutmaster like that (he died awhile back).  The scoutmaster before that one though...his opening pep talk was "you are all losers and will always be losers" (paraphrase...and my husband definitely has the impression it was not meant as reverse psychology).

The investment is a huge thing.

[bluebell]

1 hour ago, cinepro said:

In all my years in the Church and on the internet, I've heard girls who were friends, relatives and online acquaintances say that they wish they could participate (or could have participated) in some aspect of the Young Men's activities (or that the Young Women's activities and camps had the same selection and planning given to the boy's activities). 

In that same time period, I have never heard a guy say they wish they could participate in any of the young women's activities.

That's not really a surprise.  Boys are raised to believe that the best way to insult another guy is to compare them to a girl in some way.  Even without knowing much about what happens at YWs on Wednesday night, I think most boys would just assume it was lame on principle alone.  

It really does depend on the YW leaders though.  We do fun stuff because my counselors and I want to do fun stuff.  We just did an awesome behind the scenes aquarium tour last wedesday were we got to prepare a raw fish dinner and hand feed it to amazon jungle fish, cayman, and turtles (among other things) and are going camping on Friday. We will be tubing a river, hiking to waterfalls, caving, (hopefully) rock climbing, kayaking, and going camping again three more times (for the older girls) in the next few weeks alone.  We know how to have a good time!