Originally Posted by Rock Chuck
Enter Trail LIfe. It's very similar to the BSA but without the baggage. All troops are sponsored by churches and it's Christ based. A lot of churches are dropping the BSA and switching to Trail Life. Ours made the switch 2 years ago. I've been teaching compass and map reading to our troop and a few weeks ago, we took them on a map reading expedition in the hills. We've been heavy into fire starting and emergency shelters, too. We have a campout of some kind every month, year round. Last winter we camped in 3' of snow at 10F and the boys constructed shelters to sleep in.
TL has about 250 troops across the country and 30k members so far. It's growing fast. Like any organization of this type, though, it's hard to get the boys' interest with all the competition for their time. Sports, internet, social media, etc. all have a strong pull away from outdoor activities.



the issue I think is what is going to prevent them from facing the same issues that the Boy Scouts faced

I know we jumped through hoops to make sure no scout was ever in danger around an adult. I couldn't bring a scout home from a meeting, heck, I dreaded the idea of being in a situation where I was waiting for a parent with the last scout. We never let that happen because we always made 2 adults stick around until the last scout was gone from the meeting. Scouts could never tent with an adult, even their parent and they had to tent with scouts their own age.

but while we didn't have any issues (as I suspect most troops did not) even with those precautions, there were still enough instances of it happening that the scouts are filling for bankruptcy.


have you paid your dues, can you moan the blues, can you bend them guitar strings