ParkMan

I think you're conflating issues here. Yes there are YPT rules. The point is that we shouldn't fall into the same trap we all describe the GSUSA of doing - assuming the women need to the leaders of troops with scouts who are girls. Aside from YPT rules, I envision a lot of fathers who are looking for ways to participate in the Scouting activities of their daughters. If my daughter wants to join a troop I'll volunteer.

The promise of Scouts BSA isn't that there are outdoorsy mom that serve as Scoutmasters. It that it no longer matters that it's a male or female Scouter who serves as Scoutmaster. Scouts no longer cares what your gender is.

Sounds great - very nice approach. I only made the suggestion because I've learned in my own scouting travels that Scouters come from so many different backgrounds that I've gotten a lot out of being flexible and always listening. Sure, often the conversations go nowhere. But sometimes I find there's a volunteer with some idea or energy that made the call worth it.

I always stuck to God. I gathered it was the most transferrable between faiths. A way I've also seen this done is to pick prayers from different faiths from time. It seems like a nice way to share some different things with the scouts. You've just got to be careful to avoid @qwazse's "God Jesus" example. Another variant here is to ask around you pack and see if there are people from different faiths and enlist their help with a prayer from time to time. On the question of Lord. I was reminded that Lord is used in the Philmont Grace. That's about as close to a Scouting prayer as

Our council has all 3 digit troop numbers and uses a system where a district or two share the same first numeral. I.e. all packs and troops in district Something are in the range of 100-199. I suppose a mix up could happen - but it doesn't seem terribly likely. If you had a conflict, someone would catch it quickly. I haven't heard of a rule about not sharing numbers in our council - but I doubt we'd see that rule. Our council doesn't seem to make a lot of rules like that.

My short answer would be yes - they are separate entities and probably should have separate bank accounts. Longer answer is that it depends on how you're structuring the troops. Are these linked troops? Will they often go on joint trips? Will they have the same troop meetings? Do they share equipment? Do they share common committee members? Do they share a treasurer? Lots of yes's here may suggest that it makes more sense to have a combined back account and have your treasurer track money as appropriate. You very well could quickly end up where your doing lots of transferring

What not just give him a call and listen to his input? I'm always happy to talk on the phone to someone for 15 minutes about something. Who knows, maybe he's got some good insight. Maybe he's interested in helping, but felt unwelcome because of his WB status. You never know, a phone call might be the start of a really productive volunteer to your team. Or again, maybe it's 15 minutes of your life wasted that you'll never get back. Guess it's a roll of the dice.

That's my read too. The name of the program you join is more important than the name of the organization.

Perhaps not - but I do think we have to separate what "makes the GSUSA happy" from what the BSA can legally do. I suspect for a long time - there will be people who will have to internally translate from "Boy Scouts" to "Scouts". That's normal. You could probably also just refer to is as "TPFKABS" (The Program Formerly Known As Boy Scouts) But it has nothing to do with upsetting girls. The very fact that people say this is about not upsetting girls is exactly why we need to change the name. On Feb 1, 2019 the program is equally one for boys & girls. It's not about upsetti

Sure - my son had a den of 16 boys. It was awful. It was big enough that you really couldn't do much as a group of 16. So, they'd split in half for everything. It would be different halves each time. At 16, it was also big enough that you had cliques within the den. So boys hung around with each other. My son, more of an introvert, never really bonded with those boys and so never really had more than a friend or two in the den. In the spirit of full disclosure. My wife is a GS leader of a troop of 12 girls. She's resisted the pressure for years to add more girls. As a result, it

Great list! I think of it as "community scouting". These are all hands on jobs that let you work with Scouts & other Scouters. Most of them result in direct, hands on impact for Scouts. Sure, you're not impacting 30-60 scouts in your troop, but you are impacting hundreds of Scouts in your community. Very cool.

If you're the BSA, you don't go through all the effort of making the organization open to both genders if you really just want to attract more boys. Yes, I'll grant that the BSA wants to increase members. It if came from 100% growth in boys and 0% growth in girls, I'm sure they'd still claim victory. But I have to imagine that the BSA leadership would like to see their joining rate among the population the same for all parts of the program. So, since we're essentally 50% girls/boys in the country, it would seem too that getting their membership there would be appropriate. I think th

I'm happy to stipulate that many think staying with "Boy Scouts" would have made sense. The BSA wants to expand and fully welcome girls - not just pick up a few girls as members here and there, but get to a point where 50% of the members are girls. Continuing to call your program "Boy Scouts" doesn't seem to convey that inclusiveness. Maybe you pick up the really adventurous girls who don't care. But, I think when you go to the larger population out there and some parent asks their daughter "do you want to be a girl scout or boy scout?" Girls are generally going to pick "girl scout." So,

But where it's different is imagine you're having this conversation with a den leader - not a Cubmaster. In the GSUSA system, there's no Cubmaster, no Pack Committee, no treasurer. You've got a den leader and assistant who has agreed to lead his/her kid's den. The den has 12 scouts today. You come along and say "I'd like to add my child and have it be 13". You're probably the fifth or sixth person (if not more) who has asked. The den leaders knows - if they don't say no, they are going to be leading a den of 20 kids. I use the den leader analogy because that's really what it is. Th

Yes - agreed. Sure - but I've no idea what you'd call it. Boy Scouts really wasn't a viable long term solution as they wanted to market the program on it's strengths to girls. Continuing to call it "Boy Scouts" would have hamstrung making it a program for girls as well. You could get rid of Scouts - but that would be a huge loss. Once you get past that, what do you do? Add some new prefix?

The other big thing I see is the loss of mentors to encourage new leaders. Imagine if every Cub Scout pack & Boy Scout troop had to figure out it's program from scratch. In the chartered organization system, we have programs that build on each other year after year. Imagine if a den leader had to figure it all out on their own and do it by themselves. Imagine if new Troop parents had to figure out how to do things from scratch constantly. To me, this is one of the biggest consequences of that approach.

A large part of this stems from the charter partner concept. It gives the BSA packs and troops more permanace. In the BSA, units stay around a lot longer too. In the GSUSA, units tend to form around a group of girls. When they are done, so too are the troops. It may just be a local thing - but around here we see what they call multi-level GSUSA troops. These function much more like a BSA unit and have girls of all ages. Most tend to be large too as they pick up more membership from all the small troops that are at max capacity.

I like the GSUSA, but I've never understood this. In the BSA we bend over backwards to have female leaders. Yet, in my daughter's troop - all women. Never even once have they even suggested that fathers could help. It's really a shame that they overlook the fathers who would love to help out.

I was quite surprised to see that quote. I can definitely see the struggle here. I do know that in our local GSUSA has several very good outdoor camps. Some of our local Girl Scout troops are as outdoor focused as Boy Scout troops. My daughters both started attending an outdoor focused week long away summer camp before my son did. In fact, I think my daughters have continue along in Scouting longer than my son because the have both had very good summer camp experiences.

Our prior SM took a year off from the troop. He came back and helped with summer camp and the new scout program. But for the first year, he stayed away from the troop. I know of another Scoutmaster in a similar scenario who came back and coached scouts on organizing Eagle Courts of Honor. Me - I'd encourage becoming a Commissioner or joining the district camping committee. Our districts need more experienced Scouters to help coach units or to make our district programs stronger.

Why would you have a preliminary board though? I don't know the number, but I've got to guess something like 95% or greater pass their EBOR. I get that from time to time an EBOR runs into some weird case where the board feels they need to reject a scout. But, if that rejection is something that that could have been mitigated by a practice board, that seems incorrect. Sure, the board can have some aire of formality because of the importance of the board. But, once the board starts thinking that they might need to reject a candidate, I would sure hope the board members switch gears

I like to think of the adult leaders in my troop as a team. We're all in it together to bring Scouting to the youth in our troop. If some of the leaders in our troop are uncomfortable with certain language, I'd hope they'd say so. Generally, I try to keep our meetings fairly professional - so I tend to shy away from any kind of adult language. Not so much because it's a Scout setting - but because I wouldn't do it at work, church, etc... But, if something we do say or how we say it is bothering some members of our team, I'd really hope they would tell us. I'd encourage you to bri

HI @desertrat77 & @69RoadRunner, I fully acknowledge that there are lots of Scouters who get their beads and then walk around like self appointed experts. There are many, many more who do not. Scouters come from a wide array of backgrounds and there are numerous archetypes. I try not to make fun on them in my posts. I just seems to me like it's considered good sport for some reason to make fun of the WB'ers - so much so, that it's considered the "thing to do" to make fun of the WBers. It's like they're the OK group to kick around. Feels like folks do to them the exact same k

I think part of the discussion here is whether there really is a place for Scouters to reject a Scout for Eagle rank. While I know we all hold the rank in very high esteem - it appears that the BSA doesn't want us to do that. Short of the scout spirit requirement, I couldn't find anything in the Guide to Advancement that says we should reject Eagle candidates because of an action like this. So - perhaps there's an unwritten code here - but, it seems likely to be a question of wide opinions.

Kudos on the great camporee. I've found in our district that they are begging for people to lead camporee planning. I know our district camping committee would welcome a camporee just like you describe. Huge props for organizing it. Nice story and good point. I most respectfully just wonder why the need to keep make it at the expense of WB folks. There's 10 posts around here critical of people who have taken WB for every one supportive of it.