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What an awful disgrace from the adult organizers here. I would have some blunt feedback for the District Chair after this. The people organizing this Camporee need some better guidance going forward. One thing that particularly saddens me is that this kind of behavior always backfires. There are lots of Scouters out there who are apprehensive about the impact of girls entering the program. We've seen several instances of that in just this topic alone. It only serves to further feed that apprehension when nonsense like this occurs. Volunteers have to approach troops for girls and tro

I don't think its fair to say people cheated, if the rules were "give this ribbon to whoever you want for whatever reason you want". There are all kinds of conscious and unconscious biases that come in to play but that's not cheating. Under those rules handing a ribbon to a new patrol because you're excited they're there and trying is valid even if their performance is sub-par. Is this a common camporee scoring system? Is this how this particular camporee has been judged in the past? because it's terrible.... and sad if it took girls winning for people to realize it. I would definit

I am really really liking the linked troop model. Maybe because we are linked to a really great boys troop. Separate (so far) meetings and all outings to date. Joint (so far) opening flag ceremonies. Upcoming planned joint activities: the annual Court-of-Honor and family potluck, the annual family camp-out (siblings invited), ILST. Merit badge groups will likely be open to scouts from both troops. The girls (and boys) have their own space. They can do things with their own style. (What do my newbie scouts plan and cook on their first campout? Gourmet meals -- but the co

I’d bet dollars to donuts a girl joining BSA instead of GSUSA is several standard deviations from average.

I'm sorry your District isn't supportive of how you're running your dens. Ours knows, understands, and is fine with it. They understand the challenges of running a program with very few kids in it. It would be different if we had 16 Bear Scouts, but we have 4 as our combined girl/boy total. If we were going to attend a district event we'd make sure in advance that they'd be allowed to function as a single den because otherwise they won't function at all. Maybe your CO would be open to starting a linked troop for the girls. I actually like this as an option because it allows the units to

Sad indeed. It's a steady progression towards a wimpier, less self-confident kind of boy. Challenges help a kid grow and meeting them head-on are what make a man. Looking back at the original 1910 BSA rank requirements, I see this for First Class... 4. Travel alone by foot or rowboat to a point at least 7 miles distant and return (15 miles if by vehicle or animal), and write a short report. It is preferable to take 2 days to do this.

Tatung, I must agree with @mrkstvns . Buying at any store gets you retail. Your local food bank is most likely a member of a regional food bank. In turn, THAT organization is part of Feeding America, a nationwide umbrella organization. These organizations have contracts with manufacturers, who are either outright donating, or selling food at production cost. The better way to thank the place that lets you set up is to encourage the adults to shop there.

I like that setup. I will have to show that to my SPL

Look, I get what your saying, but the fact is that putting a single webelos girl in a den with a lion and tiger would be a poor experience for that girl. Honestly all of the kids are blind to these higher level pack structure discussions anyhow. They do their requirements and don't give much of a second thought to who they do it with. Other then one cub at the beginning of the year who said 'cub scouts is for boys only!' at the first meeting (he was a tiger, and was quickly corrected) the girls in are pack have been part of the family. Also, rote following of the rules can be trouble

As a district volunteer, I'd be floored if the council key three had an inkling of how Camporee planners were scoring events. The council key three should have significantly bigger fish to fry. In fact, I doubt our district key three know how Camporee events are scored. My recommendation is to ask some of the planners how they decided on the format. Explore it with them. Then, I'd recruit a couple of experienced troop adults to join the Camporee committee.

Not quite a cobbler and card game but definitely scouts being awesome to other scouts ☺️

That's easy. Because bedridden medical patient's aren't the same as studying the effect of staying in bed for otherwise healthy individuals. Medical patients would introduce too many confounding variables. I'm not sure what they research was designed to evaluate, but I can guarantee that sick people aren't good analogues for healthy people.

Look, I'm certain we come from widely different points of view and personal experiences. I think it's a great time for growth in scouting. I think that in order to expand we need to have flexible options for families. I see no reason, even if we concede that the ideal should be separate dens or troops or patrols or what have you, to have options for those who that doesn't mesh with. After all, we have the lone scout program. No one would argue that is the ideal way to go through scouting, but it's there because there may be times it's the only way for the scout to participate. That's

@mashmaster was this a real image from the fire at Smilin V? If so, I'd like permission to use it, would love an original of it. Pictures of the Pam would be bonus points. RichardB

I reacted too hastily in my previous response. (Bad SSF, bad!) I do see that you condemn the scoring used and I presume that's where the upvotes come from. I agree that scouts and units should vote with their feet and avoid this camporee if biased judging of any form is going to be taking place.

I have three grandkids under the age of 3 now. My daughter said the other day that she now sees that even at a few months age, girls are different than boys. Experience behooves making changes to find maximum performance. Logic dictates doing what works. My experience over the years is the same as Terasec's. Of course there are always exceptions to the rule, but instinct drives consistent human behavior. Barry

Yep. The cliche that says "kids will be kids" is true. I tried my best to child-proof my house, but those kids still manage to get in!

Not really sure since I stole the picture off the web, but either type could be set up in this configuration.

I guess we're just perceiving things very differently. I feel like we had PLENTY of information, and I don't know what else they were supposed to convey that they didn't.

I think we can start with some guidance & standards. I don't disagree and several previous posts in this thread underscore your point. Some Camporees (such as our District's) are 100% adult-run. Appears @cocomax is as well: While @qwazse recalls 100% scout-lead: Not to mention @Jameson76 point that points for subjective criteria such as "scout spirit" or enthusiasm and such are inviting trouble. Bottom Line: Has anyone seen "Best Practices" for Camporees published by any Area, or National? Seems like all of us on this thread, including me, are winging it.

I saw one announcement on Bryan about a chess club hosting an event for Scouts BSA girls in a council. My council is clearly not interested in making separate events for girls. They aren't seeing the demand. In terms of shenanigans ... the bitter truth around here is that middle school youth are a very high risk group. I learned very quickly as a crew advisor that that was the least of my worries with high school youth. Skills imbalance and uneven risk assessment were more palpable concerns. Actual physiological differences that may motivate camporees for specific sexes? I'm having a

Wow. Just wow. This is certainly not my experience at all. Most of my daughter’s friends are boys and one of the reasons she didn’t want to join Girl Scouts is that she wanted a program she wouldn’t have to exclude her friends from. Even in Kindergarten when we discussed joining GS she perceived it as something she would want to invite her friends to. So I looked into Campfire for her only to find it isn’t active in our area anymore, and she didn’t join anything until cub scouts opened up when she was in 2nd grade. In our pack the separate den thing is only on paper. The girls and

That's why I chose to label this behavior as "thumbs on the scales". Cheating is contestant-driven, and often comes from seasoned participants. (Although coaches may be involved.) I could blame modern British fiction writers, but I think I'll put it on the shoulders of reality TV. In my day, there were the champions and there were the honor campers. The two might overlap on occasion, but were often distinct. I agree with @Eagledad Although I'm personally impressed that this year it looks like we will have 10,000 Scouts BSA girls, it's only one story. It also looks like we have t

@chief027 You are getting a lot of good advice on the what/what not to bring stuff. And you will learn more about that with experience specific to your camp and accomodations. In my opinion you are working in a super fun and super important position on the waterfront. Your full attention will be required at all times, and it may sometimes get a bit tedious. An added bonus is that you should end up with a fairly nice suntan. We called the guys that worked the pool and lakefront at my camp, "bronze gods."😂 Every Scout that attends your camp will be at your program area at some point

It's too bad that as Scouters, some pretend to go by the rules (on paper), when in reality, so many dance around the rules that are set in place. And then we wonder why our youth take it upon themselves to decide which rules to follow and which ones are ok to just pretend that we follow. Either we have co-ed dens, or we don't. If co-ed Dens are what BSA wants, then why do we have to whisper it? If co-ed Dens are not what BSA wants, then why do we pretend to follow the rules, on paper, but really openly go against it?

I have one of these https://www.mydogtag.com/military/army-medical-warning-tag hanging with a normal dogtag/silencer My name, DOB, emergency contact is on the normal with more medical information on the medical tag. The red medical tag has more space (19char/line, 6 lines) than a normal sized dog tag. As far as I am concerned it has all the medical information needed in an emergency situation. I wear them when ever I am in the wild. My suggestion is to summarize the important info on one or two tags. The point about my epilepsy is that it doesn't change appropriate seizure first

I think the critical question is why the older scouts don't care. If they have grown past the " gotta have more bling" stage and care more about having fun and teaching the younger scouts then yes that's a good thing. Bur we had a district camporee that the same troops patrols" won" year after year. Even when it was very clear that they didn't. Somehow the numbers always got tweaked just enough for them to win. After a while the older scouts just stopped competing. Sometimes they are smarter than we think.

I'm a den leader. My daughter won the pinewood derby this year. No one blinked because, well, her car was the fastest, and that's how it goes sometimes. She was surprised, tbh, and I was of course proud. I think, especially with the cubs, we have to move away from making gender a highlighted thing in general. Scouts are scouts. We judge them on their performance at events like cub games or jamborees. We are guided by the oath and law, and our training as leaders. That said, I've often though coed dens might help this, and of course it should be up to each pack. But in our case, a com

I've often seen biased judging too and I rarely like camporees competitions, unless we win. But except for the physical size, I don't see much advantage by older scouts. Younger scouts often benefit from more recent teaching and being a little more focused. Older scouts have size, but have often forgot or are not as committed to the competition. My experience is few older scouts really care about the competition.

I hope you take it up with your district committee. That had nothing to do with those girls.

I'd love to see more *photos* of the various set-ups in the field. If I can avoid dragging a heavy framed cover thing on outings, I'd sure like to. Especially shorter outings, where it hardly seems worthwhile to drag that thing out for 24 hours or less. But the reality of our location is that outings happen in the rain or not at all, so good covers are necessary.

You might want to actually talk to the people at your food bank to see if there's a better, more effective way to handle donations. Food banks are often FAR more effective at actually addressing hunger using cash donations than handling food that you would buy at retail prices. Events like Scouting for Food do provide some limited benefit to the community, and it's a visible effort, albeit one that's more about PR and "feel good" than it is about actual bang for the buck. Giving the cash directly to the food bank can feed 20 times more people than buying those cans from Walmart. Rea

So a group of girls who are all brand new to the BSA outperformed boys, many of whom presume, have been in scouts for a number of years, but the brand new girls still outperformed the more experienced boys for the top district award...interesting. I'm presuming that there was a judges meeting before the competition. Did you, as planner inform the judges beforehand that you wanted to ensure that the girls would not be judged unfairly? We have to bear in mind that judging for many camporee or klondike events is heavily subjective. Going a step further biased judging is also not uncom

Are you saying that the normal natural talents of these girls in a patrol method program were enough to earn them the highest skills awards in the district, in just one month? Somebody was trying to prove something. Was it the girls? The list was warned about this. There is a reason single gender is preferred for growth in this age group. Not just scouts, but any area where growth is the primary objective. When one gender has an advantage to gain recognition or power over the other gender, the other gender naturally feel disheartened and belittled. The natural reaction is retreating away

This has been a problem with our troop for the last few years. Our older scouts did not have this requirement and have no idea how to teach this. Typically they (first class and above) sign off on requirements and we had a few sign off on the use of a car GPS using a street address. As SM I feel that the BSA is an outdoor program and a handheld should be used in the back country or while camping for 4b. Our solution was to have a meeting with the scouts and discuss what they felt should be taught and learned in this requirement. The consensus was to learn waypoints, lat/long, working the inter

Yep, definitely a great motivator to encourage more boys to join. Barry

Too many (not on this forum) seem to think the requirements are to be done at home and then signed off when accompanied by a parent note. This is not cub scouts. First step is instruction on the GPS etc, by their Patrol Leader, Instructor, etc... This instruction should include using the gps to determine location, provide driving directions, walking directions, off road travel, etc... The instruction should not be limited to the most basic minimal "sign-off" of the requirement. Then they practice. Then they are tested. I always like to have requirements be part of the adven

Our district (maybe even our whole council) doesn't even bother with Popcorn sales. The district fundraiser consists of Camp Cards in the spring and chocolate and meat sticks in the Fall. My daughter sells the camp cards door to door and she loves it. Last year I didn't think she was ready developmentally for booth sales, but I think she's ready to try it this year. Veering a little off topic: For chocolate and meat sticks, this fall she put on her uniform, made some signs to tape to an old baby stroller frame, and we went downtown to sell snacks to all the Pokemon Go players on tw

I think it needs to be made clear that our church simply doesn't have "community bulletin boards" where people can come and post whatever events or programs they wish. So if somebody wants to recruit LDS boys into Scouting, it has to come from people acting for themselves, and in venues apart from the Church's facilities. Those who wish to remain in Scouting are perfectly welcome to go and obtain the information they need, but that is outside the parameters of Church leadership and responsibility, and it to be done outside of our properties to ensure that the separation is both amicable and un

My take is National's reply is code for just relish in the new program where girls are earning Eagles. All this patrol method and youth protection stuff is noise that will eventually blend into the future of the program. All is good. One of my neighbors, who was also an ASM while I was SM, stopped by to chat while walking his dog. He brought up his son and how he takes his family camping a lot. I took that moment to asked him what he thought about the new BSA program, without giving him any of my opinions. His only comment was, "thank goodness my son and I were Boy Scouts before all these

Forty two years ago.... We mostly worked. As @MikeS72 well said, it was still fun, even the work weekends. Conclaves and the '79 NOAC were enjoyable. Looking back, I think the prime motivator for me was OA camaraderie, rather than an emphasis on fun. Quiet pride. To make the cut at the troop level, complete a difficult ordeal, and associate with like-minded honor campers whose outlook was "give the us the tough jobs", that to me was more important than fun. To be around those types of scouts and scouters made me strive to be a better camper and leader. Taking on the dirty jobs

G2SS May 2018 All Scouts registered in troops are eligible to participate in troop or patrol overnight campouts, camporees, and resident camps. Patrol Activities—A Scout patrol may participate in patrol activities. Two-deep adult leadership is required. Patrol Leaders Handbook (2010) Most patrol activities take place within the framework of the troop. However, patrols may also set out on day hikes, service projects, and overnighters independent of the troop and free of adult leadership as long as they follow two rules: • The Scoutmaster approves the patrol

The camporee was set up so that the adults running the events could give the ribbons to anyone they wanted to for any reason they wanted. The scoring system was things other than best time or best score. I know this because our troop went head to head with the girls in the Alligator Pit Crossing (lashing contest) our boys got a better time then the girls and were told we had the 8th best time of the day so far. So the girls had a time that was 9th best or worse. When the awards were given out we got a second place ribbon in the event that our boys feel THEY DO NOT DESERVE. The troop that