MattR

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.

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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)

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The BSA is thinking about including Cub Scout program options from which Chartered Organizations can choose :

• • Packs for boys only 

  • Packs for girls only

  • Packs that include boy dens and girl dens that meet together for the opening and closing, but separately for den activities.

How do you feel about the BSA offering these options?

(pick an answer)

If the BSA were to make the Cub Scout program available to girls while still maintaining the single-gender nature of the program, which of the following approaches do you think the organization should pursue for girls age 11 to 18?

-partner with a separate org for a program that serves girls 11-18

-Develop a BSA single-gender program for girls ages 11-18

Thinking about today's families, how relevant and appropriate do you believe the Boy Scout program materials and activities are for girls age 11 to 18?

Not at all … completely, don't know

To what extent do you agree or disagree that the BSA should have a single-gender program for girls 11 to 18 years of age that uses the same requirements and activities as the Boy Scout program?

Strongly agree … strongly disagree

If the BSA were to offer a separate, single-gender Boy Scout-equivalent program for girls, should the members be eligible to earn the highest rank of Eagle if they have completed the same requirements?

Definitely yes … definitely not

Currently, the Order of the Arrow is not available to young women in the BSA.  If girls are members and have completed the same eligibility requirements as boys, should they be allowed to be members of the Order of the Arrow?

Same as previous

If the girls program described in the video moves forward, what are the possible positive effects you foresee for your council?

Open

If the girls program described in the video moves forward, what are the possible negative effects you foresee for your council?

Open

Are you a Volunteer or a Professional? (Select one.)

I am a volunteer at the: (select all that apply)

More questions based on previous results

What region and council are you in

What is your age, sex, OA level

Are you an Eagle

That's not really the question.

 

The question is would there be anything to stop it happening in terms of rules and regs? People will always look for ways round things (I normally work on the basis of its easier to gain forgiveness than permission) and its one way I could see it happening. A given group calling themselves a venture crew but operating as a scout troop so that they could be coed.

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 want to keep the single gender aspect of scouts.

From there Surbaugh said you can't just stop girls at cub scouts. The options are find another program or make one. Strong hunch but they don't want to find another. If they make one then there are a bunch of questions and it honestly sounded like the survey is to help with that. If there's a girl troop is the program identical to the boy's program, or is Eagle off the table. What about OA?

Anyway, I asked for a survey. I put in my council, name, and email. If I get one I'll try and post it.

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 that left a bad taste.

@@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 the exact same thing you have.

The only thing I don't like about the coach idea is we already have that and it doesn't work in my council. They're called unit commissioners. I bet you'd be a great coach. I can guarantee you that we don't have anyone with any experience at turning troops around. Besides, people might not listen to a coach. As much as I don't like power point presentations some structure would help.

I hadn't thought of the moms-want-male-roll-models scenario. Here's another one. Don't moms also want that for their daughters? My wife is the softy and I'm the hard one. We appreciate that both are needed for both our kids, a son and a daughter. Also, shouldn't every girl be exposed to men that treat women right? How many single moms of daughters would like their daughters to know what a gentleman is?

I have concerns as well. I'm just trying to find ways to make it, which is likely inevitable, work.

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 worry about getting sued but as long as there are dads with daughters around, nobody will do stupid stuff. How about if there are no moms then at least one girl's dad must be there. Call him the designated mom.

Eagledad, I believe your concern with moms not being interested. But isn't that just the canary in the coal mine? There are also fewer dads that are interested in the outdoors or letting their kids learn things the hard way. Girls or not, the program issue is still there.

I think the BSA has been selling scouts the wrong way to parents. All they say is volunteer or else. I joined because I wanted to have fun with my son. Yes, I had outdoor experience but I have learned so much more as an adult. The best adults are those that act like kids so why not push that model. Have a training program that models what the youth go through. The current adult training is pathetic. It's mostly classroom. It pays lip service to outdoor skills. It's one and done. Where have we seen these problems before?

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 use them as chaperons on campouts. All they need to do is show up and camp. I could see that a lot more than seeing college aged men helping a troop.

4) Patrol method. Girls patrol, boys patrol. Do what you want.

5) Girls or no, we have to figure this problem out because there are fewer people of either sex with good outdoor skills. Lots of people camp in the summer, few do in the winter. An advancement program for adults would be useful.

As @@qwazse pointed out, when has BSA done this? They usually know which direction they want to go, but first they test the waters with a survey, have some "meetings" and then do the opposite of what the majority suggest.

 

Why do we suddenly expect they will alter their mode of operation now?

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 like FCFY. And that's based on the view that the only thing scouts want is bling. That's what everyone is ripping on. Scouts want friends, fun, challenge, and growth. Merit badges could be part of that as a way to get scouts to try new things, but merit badges have become too much class work and the scouts are not interested. I would much rather see a rewrite of the fun merit badges to include more doing and less discussing. Or have a bronze, gold, and silver palm for each MB that increases the skill so the scout that likes shooting or climbing or first aid is encouraged to get to the next level. Or help councils create events so scouts can more easily participate in the fun parts of the MBs. There are lots of things that could be done but just greasing the bling sled is not helpful.

So then, why even change?

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 agreed at some level that the Eagle Palm program is an important factor in retaining Scouts."

At some level?

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
 

True. Most forums are just to plane.

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.

I don't know, some members here struggle with "master" in Scoutmaster. If they can't get past that, how can they understand the adult/scout relationship?

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.

Yea. Please don't downvote me anymore! My snowflake millenial heart may break..... =)

 

 

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 maybe it just doesn't matter.

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 I suspect the scouts have a much better insight than the adults.

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.

My acquaintances among international scouts are somewhat baffled by the existing lack of independence of American youth in general. So, I don't think staying unisex is helping to address that concern.

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 scouting experience. I've seen moms make it worse but a lot of dads, eagle or not, are also guilty. There were comments on this forum that as soon as girls are let in the male scouters are going to be regularly implicated in sexual misconduct because ... we can't trust girls. I stepped down as SM a month ago and the adults have already started taking over. "We need those tents checked in and the scouts are busy so the adults just decided to do it." I guess we can't trust the scouts anymore. These are all the Eagle scouts that don't trust the boys. A month ago, when I was still the SM, I would have gently asked all the adult Eagle scouts to put the tents down and walk away. I would have asked a few questions of the SPL and then I would have walked away. Not only do I trust the SPL but I trust the system as well.

Getting back to the exchange program, those kids have to figure out much much more than any scout I've ever seen. Imagine a 16 year old get on a plane and fly half way around the world and mom and dad are told not to talk to them for the first month. It's not 300 feet, it's more like 10,000 miles. Some kids fail because they won't let go of mom and dad. A few get in trouble. For the most part they learn self reliance.

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 others, and they enjoy what they do.

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.

How about let them "see" V=IR. Voltage is how high water is in a bucket. R is how big a hole is in the bottom of the bucket (or the diameter of a tube sticking out of the bottom of the bucket that you can pinch). I is how fast the water comes out. Give them a stop watch and a cup and see how long it takes to fill up the cup given different sized tubes. Open up two tubes the same size and see if it fills the cup in half the time. Or use a bigger tube. Use a bucket with only 3" of water in it vs 3' of water. In parallel they could make an electrical circuit with a battery, a light bulb and a resister. The water bucket model isn't as simple as V=IR but close enough. And they get to play with water. A 50 gallon drum would make a good "battery."