MattR

I don't think you'll get flamed. In fact, this seems to be the one thing that keeps coming up. There isn't much concern with girls. Moms are another story. People bring up the idea of girl scouts being the better option for girls but at the same time there's a problem with girl scouts not doing much in the outdoors. I'm sure there are exceptions but on the whole it's a problem. Maybe it's not GSUSA per se but that dads aren't welcome and not enough moms understand the outdoors and/or the patrol method. Well, come to think of it I'm not sure GSUSA is interested in patrol method either. Anyw

Doing my diligence. Here's the survey. You can read the leaves any way you want. Questions in bold, answers not copied so well because I couldn't just copy and paste. An ellipses means there were 5 or so answers in a range. --------- Did you watch the video which discusses the proposed Family Program? Thinking about today's families, how relevant and appropriate do you believe the Cub Scout program materials and activities are for girls age 6 to 10? (not at all … completely, don't know) ----- The BSA is thinking about including Cub Scout program options from which Chartered Or

There's nothing stopping anyone from going to the scout store and buying any patch or rank badge, except for eagle. To be honest, I'd be interested in a modified venturing. Ranks up to first class, 11-21 (but split into two age ranges) and more emphasis on outdoors and leadership/teamwork and less on advancement. Call it retro scouts.

I think here's your answer, NJ https://youtu.be/fFDpe7GIuEk This is a video from the national meeting. I found it here: https://www.glaacbsa.org/Scouting_Accessiblewhere there is also a place to sign up for a survey It's about a half hour long. The driving force behind this is that there are fewer families with two parents and only one working. Consequently every youth program, GSUSA, Rotary, PTA, etc are declining in numbers. It looks like they are looking at local option for cub scouts with all boy dens, all girl dens, or a mix of boy and girl dens. It appears to me that they wa

On this subject I've never had to deal with parents. If there was a problem I'd talk to the scout, ask him what he did, finally get to the point that parts were missed, and then I asked him what the right thing to do was. Even if they started off with "just let it go" it eventually got to "I guess I have to do it." When I promised to work with them on it they were usually happy about it. My guess is it never got to the parents. Now, talking to parents about leadership positions that were stopped in the middle .... Most scouts are good about it. There were only a few over 12 years but man t

@@Eagledad. Okay, "models what the youth go through" is not quite what I meant. What I meant was make it fun, make it outdoors, have levels of learning (kind of like ranks but not the same ones), and have something similar to badges so adults can focus on something. It's not just about outdoor skills but also how a troop is supposed to work. Make a big deal at a COH when someone advances. Ease them in. Don't just dump a FOS presentation on them. I agree that putting adults in a patrol and expecting them to understand the difficulty of creating that for scouts is a waste of time. I've seen

Someone should start a poll: Biggest concern is -girls?, -too many moms?, -lack of moms? I lean towards the last. Eagle94-a1, Would it be easier to get moms involved in crews if they were coming up with their daughters? There's a long learning curve for adults. Eagledad says it's 3 years. What parent is going to get involved when their daughter turns 14? I know some moms of scouts that were girls scouts as kids and did a lot of outdoor stuff, didn't have any daughters and never felt at home in the BSA. Some of them made it work but it was a struggle. I know this won't change the wo

I'm worried bout this as well. But there are a few things that might solve this. I'm not worried about the easy campouts, more so with the challenging ones. 1) Do moms not show up because they don't want to be around a situation that is obviously all male. i.e., if there were girls would more moms show up? 2) If the troop is girls only then there's no problem for the all boys troops 3) While the college aged women that like the outdoors might not be interested in being an adult leader, it might not be too hard to convince a few that the girls 7 years younger than them could really

When they allowed gays they changed their minds from making it local option to requiring it in all units. As I said, I wouldn't doubt if they are going to allow girls in at all ages. What we don't know are the details. Your link to the national SE blurb sure implies to me that Family Scouting is just a way to say girls in scouting. The fact that they are staying away from the term coed might mean they are not tied to mixing boys and girls within a unit, but have all girl units as well as all boy units.

Everyone seems to be making a lot of assumptions here. The only one that I'd believe is that the BSA will increase programs for girls. Whether that means packs, dens, troops, or patrols will be coed nobody knows. Whether it means extending venturing down to 11 and making cubs coed, nobody knows. It could be local option and the unit decides. It could be they are all coed. Maybe they just don't know and that's why they're asking questions.

I got the same note from my wife.

While we aren't ripping on each other we are ripping on national. We all agree with each other, for a change. So in a way this is a team building exercise But seriously, there is an underlying issue here. My two cents: First of all, this change in palms will have no impact on anything I see. It looks to me like a symptom of how national does not have much of a vision on how to turn things around. The one message that we, on this forum, keep coming up with is fix the program before tinkering with anything else. Changing the way palms are handed out does not fix the program. It sounds a lot

Because it's a lot easier than fixing something that matters? Hammers looking for nails? Because someone realized that most scouts that earn Eagle with plenty of time to spare still don't get palms. Rather than say there's something wrong with the MBs it's easier to just pave the way to increase numbers. From the survey linked to above: "Eagle Palms ranked sixth [behind good quality troop programs, high adventure, strong Scout leaders, troop positions of responsibility, and Order of the Arrow when it came to eagle retention]. However, when asked separately, 69% of respondents agree

This will have no impact on anything of importance to me. So I guess I don't really care. Most scouts don't really care about merit badges, especially those that are close to 18 when they get Eagle. I hate saying this but MBs are mostly boring homework assignments. I would much rather see a push to make MBs more activity based than they are now (describe, discuss, explain, snore). The changes are orthogonal to what I would like to see.

@@Cambridgeskip, that looks like fun. My guess is a punt is the same as a gondola in Venice? The closest thing to that in the US is a paddle board, but a lot harder and much less relaxing. @@Col. Flagg, Lake Powell is in Texas? I always thought it was in Utah and Arizona

How does one plane on a forum? Is this like a wake board? Is that even in the GTSS? I think you should be down voted for suggesting dangerous activities.

We had a similar discussion about Obedient once upon a time. Trust is a big part of it. If you don't trust your SM or PL then there are bigger issues. If you trust them, then do as they say.

Then delete the post. I mean, you pissed everyone off.

I'd be careful with green=I agree and red=I disagree. FB does not have a dislike button for a reason. What they have is a bunch of different ways to agree. And the result is great for pictures of kids graduating from school. When it comes to anything with more than one side it has created an echo chamber. Now throw in a dislike button. Kaboom. We already know who agrees and disagrees. I'd rather see green=this is helping the discussion and red=this is not helping the discussion. My guess is a lot of people don't see the difference between "I agree" and "this is helping the discussion" so m

All the scouts I know couldn't care less about the toilets and showers. A nearby council's camp has the worst shower and bathroom facilities I've ever seen and every troop I know loves the place. That's because they put all their money into the staff. They have the best staff I've ever seen. That's what the scouts like. The scouts do not care about the showers. As long as they take a shower on Friday I don't care either. Move on. Scouts can figure out shower schedules. Asking the scouts what they think about girls in scouts would be much more useful. Based on previous membership issues

If you go to Home -> BSA -> Camping -> Knives & Accessories -> Knives (through the menus) or http://www.scoutstuff.org/bsa/camping/knives-accessories/knives.html There are 4 Helle knives. Not sure what this is about, just trying to help.

We had several exchange students live with us and we heard the exact same thing. The difference seems to be the level of trust between parents and kids here vs elsewhere. I see a lot of parents in scouts that very explicitly develop trust with their kids. I also see a lot that are flat out afraid of what their kids will do on their own. Boy led/patrol method/the heart of scouting/whatever anyone wants to call it implies trust between the scouts and adults. Many parents don't trust their kids so scouting has a big challenge. I don't see this having much to do with girls, moms, or previous s

To contact the Daleks you'll need a pointier hat than that.

I've seen people name things that are quirky and unique. If it can have a personality of its own, it can be named. Guns could fall into that. Cars definitely fall into that. My guess is it started with boats. The older and more you've worked on it, the easier it is to name it. As far as your shooting range instructor goes, speaking of quirky, I've met interesting young people all over the world. They are happy, confident, and content with who they are and don't mind using their character to facilitate creating a relationship. They tend not to worry about what others think, see the good in

2 cents: We live in an area that can get windy and tents with just tent stakes can get pulled up and roll away like tumble weeds. All 4 season tents have tie downs that are fairly high up the tent but they are expensive. We found 3 season tents that have tie downs and they are much better in the wind. I believe they are ALPS Mountaineering.