Q. Hello,
One of the main questions coming out of the adviser sessions at conclave a few weeks back was why is the Lodge JTE membership different than the council?
It is difficult for a lodge to be plus 1 membership if the council membership is down. We didn't know the answer and someone said Ask the Chairman, so here it is.
WWW,
Steve
A. Steve:
Thanks for your note. We’re always looking at membership, both in terms of how we help our councils retain more Scouts, and how to best increase the number of young people served by the OA program.
The issue you describe is something we’ve wrestled with for some time: is +1 membership growth the best way to evaluate the membership of a lodge in a shrinking council? The opposite is true, as well: is +1 membership growth satisfactory for a council that grows 4%, for example?
One move on this issue has already been made. The 2015 JTE requirements have removed membership growth as a required item from JTE. Membership growth is still weighted more heavily than any other factor, and still should be of primary importance to your lodge, but these changes have made it so that your youth leadership still may be recognized in JTE if they excel in all areas except membership growth.
Your lodge may also have noticed a metric called “density” on their annual JTE report. This measurement looks at what percentage of Boy Scouts and Boy Scout leaders in the council are currently registered Arrowmen. These metric is a reminder to all of us on how far we have to go: the OA is still only serving 11% of the youth in Boy Scouting. Our JTE committee is continuing to look into this information, and in 2016 or future years may continue to make recommendations to the national OA committee on how to best proceed.
If you want more detail on the JTE program, or the direction it’s heading, I’d encourage you to contact the JTE team directly at @email. You will find them to be experts in this area and very willing to help you and your lodge move forward.
Ray