MattR

I don't see that coed has nearly as much to do with survival of the BSA as adventure, fun, and the outdoors do. I'm excited about starting a venturing crew not because it has girls in it, but because it will get back to what scouting is all about; outdoor adventure and service. No Eagle. No kids that have to be there. No resume stuffing. No pushy parents. No merit badge schools at summer camp. No kids that are waiting around hoping for Eagle to drop in their lap. On the other hand, if you do a good job then you'll know it, your friends will tell you that, and that's all you need. You'll st

But my guess is someone that has experience in the outdoors in any of those areas would be willing to learn something new. If you like rafting you can probably pick up backpacking quickly as you're over the hump of dealing with bugs and sweat and enjoy the beauty and challenge. Getting someone up to speed for understanding scout led is another story.

Ah, yep. I'm the one with the big S stamped into his forehead. I'm in Colorado. I have to do the basic training just to figure out the program. I saw a Kodiak Training thing and I think these kids would be all over that. I sent out a couple of feelers for women with strong backs. That's the crux of this climb. Once that's in place we'll start talking training. My intent is we learn this together. You're in a much different place than me. This has nothing to do with the boy scouts. If they're interested that's fine, but the same rules will apply. They need to help out, participate, an

That was an amazing discussion with four girls. I don't know how I can possibly say no. At one point I asked them what kind of events they want to do. They looked at each other and one of them finally blurted out "klondike, I want to go to klondike." They had been told by the old crew advisers they couldn't go. A little more discussion and I asked whether the adults thought all girls couldn't handle it or just some of the girls. Pause. "Probably some of both." They're hungry to do scouting in the outdoors. They are sick of photography month and living history month. One girl said "I just want

The coed thread got moved to I&P and @@Eagledad brought up an important point that really belongs over here. Namely, there's a problem with getting inexperienced parents up to speed in a timely manner. I have noticed spending a lot of time talking to new-ish parents trying to convince them there is a method behind the madness. Barry said 3 years and that sounds about right. The problem is a lot of parents are starting to get burned out after 4 years. And that happens to be about the time their sons start going into slacker phase. Anyway, is there a better way to get them going faster? Ther

Engaging. Few words. Has a powerful message. A committee could never develop an ad like that and that's why the BSA hasn't done it.

I believe you. But then what's the difference between a venturing crew and a venture patrol? This is an honest question. In my view they are the same except the venture patrol has responsibility to the rest of the troop. So in my case the venture patrol has 40% of the scouts that want to do stuff with and help out the troop, and the rest are just hoping I don't notice that they aren't doing much of anything. The crew has more leeway on setting goals and has to organize their own events. The crew has more freedom and thus has to be more focused so they don't end up flailing.

I would not like coed patrols but I could go for all boy or all girl patrols. Patrol method would be easier to describe and see if there were girls. "They'd rather go canoeing than backpacking. Fine, what do you want to do? Blow things up. How about shotgun? Ooooooh yeah." Parents would be happier if they could bring all their kids to the same place. I've heard similar to what Skip said, that there just aren't as many girls interested. While there is an ugly social vibe that goes on in coed schools, maybe scouts could show the shy nerdy boy how to talk to the shy nerdy girl. Bi

Venturing, venturing, venturing. Done with the first lesson. The troop model of parents being the adult leaders just doesn't seem to work with the local venturing crews I know of. They don't have the energy to help with their kids, or their kids don't want them around. Especially with the 18-21 age. I think it needs the 25 to 30 year olds. Isn't that how the British run their units? Some old codger oversight and some young blood might work. The other issue is the maturity and confidence level of the venturing crew. While I'd like to believe Barry, my older scout program is still a wor

That's what the sister of one of my scouts said to me tonight. And my response was "ummm, oookaaay, talk to me." Short version is she and another 7 or 8 kids, mostly girls, are in another crew and they're tired of the adults telling them what the calendar has to be. They have events and there are more adults then scouts going. They want to leave that crew and start another. Word got out that I like this whole patrol method thing and they want to do that. To make things a bit more exciting I know some of the adults in that crew. They once tried recruiting my daughter as the crew president but a

How about National President of the BSA?

Eammon, I like your idea of having people that can help a unit, but there needs to be a common objective, and that's missing. For example, how many SMs would say there unit is boy led? All of them, so apparently there's no problem to solve. Better communication would start with a concise description of what the program really is and how it works. We all need to be on the same page as to what the program is. The methods of scouting should handle this but is too brief and vague. Just for fun, go read it and compare it to the worst troop you know of. They have patrols, they repeat the scout

@Eammon, I'm not going to use past tense, my troop is finally getting close to where it should be and the results are good. But there are certainly challenges. In the "good ol' days" the Boy Scouts had a monopoly on time and everyone's attention. Nobody had to sell this program so nobody did. That's not the case anymore. I have plenty of stories of boys that have grown immensely but some parents don't see it. I just did a SM minute on how I don't want to waste a problem by solving it for a scout. The parents think that's fine until they realize that it can get messy for the newer scouts wh

If you really want to find out what a troop is about ask if you can go camping with them. Afterwards you can talk to your son about whether the adults were doing things or the boys were doing things. You'll learn a lot more there than at a meeting. Likely questions a 10 year old is really going to ask: Are the scouts including me? Am I having fun? Do I get along with the scouts and adults? For the parents, the same questions are important. Are the adults including me? Do I get along with them? Have they invited me to go camping with them? As much as everyone wants to know if it's

Just an update. I talked to this boy Friday night and asked him if I could make right what went wrong. I said I'd listen to what he had to say. He said he'd think about it. Then we somehow ended up talking about religion for an hour. Well, he mostly talked and I mostly listened. And then another boy joined us and we talked some more. The boy had a good weekend. Time will tell.

I noticed in that article that nobody from a local tribe said anything. I'd listen to what they have to say a lot more than students. I suspect MikeS is right. It could be a great way to teach people about another culture. I looked up the Indigenous Graduate Student Collective and found this quote: One of the founding members, Nikki Silva hopes to conduct research with American Indian communities however in her words she doesn’t “have a lot of background in American Indian issues and is interested in learning more about the specific and unique issues facing Native peoples. I hope m

I'm looking for some suggestions. I just had a long phone call with a mom that went through a lot of emotions, crying, pleading, laughing. Her son, in my troop, is struggling in so many ways I never knew about. School, family, everything. All I can say is it's serious. He is getting professional help. This kid really needs scouts because he doesn't have any other friends. He's also 16, so his parents are fairly stupid. Any slight is blown out of proportion. He used to be the kid with all the confidence but now he has none. He also used to be very active in scouts and he wants to like it, b

As others have said, a single program for everyone won't work. The common theme of all troops should be the methods of scouting. Unfortunately those aren't described very well. It doesn't need to be 300' but patrols do need to get away from each other. @@Eagledad talks about growth, and that's really important to keep older scouts around. How each troop does these things can be different.

I just quoted the less inflammatory parts. Another way of saying this is the Eagle brand has become so strong that there's pressure to cut corners. Everyone wants it and they don't see the rest. They just see a bunch of check boxes. I agree with Fred (I think) that this isn't the scouts' fault so we shouldn't give them grief, but we should prevent adults from cutting corners. I really agree with Stosh's point that the scouts are getting ripped off by adults cutting those corners. Unfortunately this is also hurting the whole program because there are plenty of kids that know junk when they

@@Scouter Matt, just my view but: 1) Get over the idea that anyone will change anyone's mind on anything related to gays. I have yet to see anyone say "you know, you're right, I think I've had this all wrong." Accept that a bunch of people will leave, wish them luck. For those that struggle with this and stay, listen to what their units want and help them out. 2) Get back to the outdoors. That's what we do best and that's the best way to teach kids to make good decisions. Figure it out with your buddies while having fun. 3) Look at British Scouting as they are growing. Yes, they al

I love it. Thanks for posting. At least everyone will agree on this one. Are you sure you're not trolling for some good vibes on this website?

@@CricketEagle, you're close. We don't need a path so much as we need a patch. Everything in scouts has a patch for it. In our neck of the weeds it's not a left/right split on volunteering it's an indoor/outdoor split. All of my ASMs love the outdoors. Most keep their faith to themselves. If the religious groups all started their own program it would not hurt my troop at all because everyone likes scouting. The really religious kids in my troop already go to their church youth group activities. If they were so great then the kids would not be in scouts. They are not in scouts to learn reli

It's simple, they're pissed off. Honestly, we are always making decisions because there are no perfect organizations. I have to make a decision as well. I seriously doubt if my CO will allow gay adults and my religious beliefs are to let them join. At the same time my CO is the only facility in town large enough to hold my troop. So, do I start tearing things apart, moving, and just making a big time stink? Or do I just keep working with the boys, like I've been doing for a very long time and ignoring the parts I don't like? This gets even more crazy because it seems to me that it's going

My mantra throughout all the bad stuff has always been I'll do my best and ignore the rest. Whether it's myself doing a poor job or something else I have no control over, it doesn't matter. I'm having some fun and helping at least a little bit. Now, I'm going backpacking with my troop. Have a nice weekend.

I'm sure nobody has an answer to this one, but let's look for the murky grey areas that enable lawyers. How solid is the CO/unit relation? Is a scout unit really part of the CO? Or is it really part of the BSA? I know that the contract says it's part of the CO but the BSA picks the program and defines it. There's a long history of the COs picking the people so it should be fine, but what about the case of my troop. I'm Jewish and the CO is Christian. Not only that but the church will likely leave things as they were but if it were my temple they'd change it. Can someone sue my CO and say t