KRT Wire | 08/08/2005 | Co-ed Boy Scout group part of broader effort to boost ranks: "Worried by a national membership drop of about 6 percent from 2000 to 2004 - to roughly 3.1 million - the group has also targeted Hispanics with new initiatives, updated its camping programs and modernized its merit badges.
But officials acknowledge they face an uphill battle because younger boys often prefer video games to outdoor activities, there is peer pressure against the group's image as a 'goody-goody' organization for boys only, and some adolescents resent having to wear uniforms.
'The challenge is competing with video games and a society that is a lot more dormant, a lot more individualistic,' said Renzo Martorella, of the Gulf Stream Boy Scout council in Palm Beach Gardens, Fla. 'Peer pressure becomes an issue where it's bad to be good, and Scouting is a good gang.'
It has been a rough decade for the Boy Scouts."