My ward’s Cub pack has about 3-4 cubs. We have one den leader. A nonmember parent is the Cubmaster. The committee chair is a Ward clerk (and until recently, the early morning seminary teacher). Scouting is a small part of his church service. The committee members are one parent (who is the EQ president), and a former bishopric member who was put in that position when we rechartered just because we had to have two committee members and he was already registered and done youth protection training. Committee service is fairly minimal. We have all the scout positions that are required to have a charter, but virtually all of the week-to-week program is the responsibility of the den leader and the cubmaster, one of which wouldn’t have a church calling otherwise. Abolishing cub scouting in my ward would free up exactly one adult leader for other callings. And that leader would still be needed for Activity Days, or whatever replaced cub scouting for the boys.

As for non-member scout leaders, it’s about as common as literal descendants of Aaron serving as bishops without counselors. In areas I’ve served (Idaho, Utah, Alaska) bishoprics insist on youth leaders that will motivate YM to be worthy priesthood holders and full-time missionaries, which functionally means non-members are a non-starter.

Your mileage may vary, but that’s my experience.

Yup. The amount of callings could really be significantly reduced. A big deal in small wards.

Before the current change, the Handbook has allowed wards to charter a Troop, a Team, and a Crew with the idea that deacons would be registered in the Troop, teachers in the Team, and Priests in the Crew. The wording of the recent change makes it sound like that this setup is SOP. Since the early 1980s , I’ve never been in a ward that has actually done that, or had the demographics that would allow them to do it. I think a ward I belonged to in the early ’80s had a Troop and a Varsity Team that were both functional.

Depending on ages, move-ins and move-outs, who is active or inactive, each Aaronic Priesthood quorum in my ward typically varies between about 1 and 4 active members. You need to have 2 just to keep your unit charter active. Setting up separate scouting units for each age group would be pointless. Your charter would lapse every time the number in that age group dropped below 2. And even with 4 or 5 the program isn’t functioning as intended. Every ward I’ve been in has a Scout Troop, and all registered boys 11-17 belong to the Troop. And even that’s a very small troop by non-LDS standards.

It doesn’t reflect the reality on the ground to suggest that only 11-13 year-olds register in the Troop and do advancement, and earn their Eagle, after which they move on to a Team/Crew and do Varsity/Venturing stuff. Somewhere over the rainbow there’s a ward that has been doing that. But I don’t know where they are. The “new policy” is nothing more than what the rest of us wards and branches have been doing for decades. Every ward will have a Troop, and scouts will belong to the troop for as long as they are advancing or want to participate, or until they turn 18. Just like now.

It was different before, what with the Venture and Varsity “groups” – as well as different wards’ intepretation and implementation, but this change should help clarify the process.

The bigger curiosity is this: will all YM automatically be registered with the scout troop, or will the Scout Committee Chair or COR or whoever is doing the annual registration have to ask each YM between 14-18 whether or not he wants continue scouting? My guess is that registration will be done on a boy-by-boy approach only (for cost savings along!).

Sounds like you really enjoyed the mural project. Any online pictures? What was the mural subject?

I’ve known many kids in my career and I know these two students have continued their quiet works of service in the community. If I could bottle what these two ladies learned and knew about service, BSA would actually work. But it would be a BSA with multitudes of badges and ranks. It would be a BSA without the military paraphernalia.
I think these ladies were part of a service organization that taught them the values they displayed. It was the LDS Church’s YW program. Can’t we have a program that helps do that for all of our kids? The YM have been deprived for long enough. They may do better with more values and less money!