So after a false start in the ’70’s, now it really will be “Scouts USA”.

Without that pesky “Boy” at the beginning.

What a horrible mistake. This isn’t how you fix the Boy Scouts, who are just as SJW-ridden as the GSUSA. The National Council has been panicking for years over membership decline, yet every liberal-pacifying solution it’s attempted since I was a kid in the movement has driven more families and chartered partners away — and hasn’t ever satisfied the liberals in any case.

I knew the Boy Scouts were on the way out clear back when I was a teenager, when they changed the program and started de-emphasizing traditional Scouting in favor of a more “urban” version — all to attract inner-city boys, who had less opportunity to camp and do stuff in the woods, into the program. Whoops, that failed.* And so have most of the changes National has promulgated over the years since. I got out when I was 14 and had better things to do with my time.

I got back in as an adult at 27, served as ASM, merit badge counselor, district committee member, unit commissioner, and finally ended up in the Scouter Reserve to keep my membership active for the past 15 years or so. A group I work with just chartered a Venture Crew for Amateur Radio at the local camp, so after four years working on that with absolutely zero help (and a lot of negativity) from the local Council, I’m back active as a Venture Advisor.  Yay me.

In 2019, when I turn 60, I’ll have 40 years of Scouting under my belt.**

And then I’m going to walk away. Because National won’t stop listening to the SJWs and go back to Scouting’s roots, which is where most people truly interested in Scouting would like to see it go.

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* In Indianapolis, there is an entire district in the inner city that was carved out of the rest of the districts in the county at about that time, with the intention of creating that “urban Scouting” experience for the kids who lived down there. Except that, like the Indianapolis Public Schools, in the 40 years since then they’ve started running out of kids to serve. Because nobody with children lives down there anymore. It’s not just white flight, it’s everybody flight.

The last I heard, there were only one or two troops left downtown, and they were seriously considering merging that district into mine. What a waste of resources and forty years.

** 7 as a youth, 33 as an adult, and yes, they all count.