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@@Phrogger, kudos to you for helping your son give it the "college try." Sometimes we have retention problems, other times we can't keep the little buggers away! And by little buggers different classes of crossovers flag at different age and to different degrees. Obviously, if I thought there was a pattern, I'd be pitching it to national by now. Sometimes tweaking along the points you made helps, other times it doesn't. But, the other thing we've observed: Lot's of boys come back after a couple of year's hiatus. The one thing that is hard for such older boys; however, is shifts in leadership. Some can flex with it, other's feel the troop shifting under their feet and don't fit in anymore. I don't think I could tell in advance who would be which type of returning scout.

DL comes and says, "It's either them or me." CC replies, "But I just processed your application!" DL: "Did you process anyone else's." CC: "None came forward." DL: "Your options: a) garner my replacement, or b) get the parent/boy out of my sight." CC: "I see your point ...." Not pretty, but it happens.

The shirts have been pressed and hanging in the cupboard for a while. How girls should earn Eagle: do the requirements as written. How they should integrate into troops: Charter as a unit of girls. (In a year IT business logic should support that.) Collaborate with the CO's other BSA units, sharing resources/opportunities with their permission. How they should handle OA Follow the lead of national chiefs (for once). Membership requirements as written should suffice if the chiefs recommend inviting those all-female units. If the chiefs do not recommend it, the committee must rewrite regulations to stipulate "troop for boys." It should be a familiar exercise, having done it once to gerrymander explorers out of the equation. That's ironed out enough for any scouter willing to give it a go.

It sounds like you are getting mixed messages. That's no surprise. SM's may tolerate things that ASM's have no patience for. Clearly, you want to get to a point where neither you nor an ASM have to remind them to stay on task. The only way through this, I think, is persistent after-action review. This is where you guide the guys with open-ended questions after each event. The three boiler-plate ones are: What went well? What didn't go so well? What should we do differently next time? You might be more familiar with "Thorns and roses." Same principle. It's up to the leaders to decide if participants are the PLC or the troop as a whole. In your case, sounds like it needs to be the troop as a whole, at least for a couple of meetings and events. What I've seen happen when this is done is that some of the things the leader likes to see happen become the scouts' idea, But, the leader also gets an idea of some of the scouts' priorities. This allows you all to tweak plans to catch up on some things the boys my be missing, or set goals the boys might value. But let's not whitewash things. You've got a tough crowd. Some attitudes have shifted, or they were never quite right in the first place. When that's happened to us, we've emphasized that everyone must develop leadership skills, even if they aren't wearing a patch.

Welcome! And thanks for all you do for the youth!

Welcome, and thanks for all you do for the boys.

I understand the sentiment. The program is in a sense being handed over to mavericks. But why? GS/USA broke unwritten rules by dropping the concept of First Class Scout. Any attempt to have a program that truly would parallel Cubs and Boy Scouts requires tremendous nonconformity on the part of the leaders of a community's GS troops. Their outdoor program gets lawyer-ed to death. I don't think they feel rewarded at this point.

This happens. Actually, the worst case I know of did not involve scouting. The otherwise very competent varsity freshmen on a girls soccer team were not taking their cues from the goalie ... to the point that during a game, they asserted from the field that they didn't have to listen to her. Needless to say, that loss were humiliating. I only heard about it because I was announcing the following game, and prior to the opening, the coach visited me in the press box (which is odd) and requested that, after the usual introduction of each starting player on the visiting team, I read through his team's starting line up quickly instead of waiting for each individual to take center field. As I did that, they were to walk out on the field together holding hands. This was not the girls' proudest moment. But, they did manage to eke out a couple of wins during the remainder of the season. With scouting, it's not always as clear cut. Boys and their PL are goofs at a camporee. Do, I, as an SM/ASM ask the SPL to run a tighter ship, or do I encourage the him, as he's on his second term, to lighten up? Chances are, I recommend one or the other but: I set a time with the SPL for us to evaluate if my suggestion is working. Trust me, years ago I wouldn't have done the part in bold. So, maybe, @@ItsBrian, your way through this is tell the SM you will try to use the lighter touch as he suggests, but ask if you and he can review how it's going in a month.

Should you be mad that this forum scooped BSA? I think one or more of us had dredged up quotes of Mike referencing "accessible to families" since last year. The "youth"/"children" rhetoric has been in CSEs' talking points for some time. Partly on account of venturing. But also with ideal that if BSA takes care of the boys, a similar synergy will happen with girls. It didn't. AHG came close, but they were counting on years of constancy, regarding BSA's membership bans. So, they dropped us. No girls program stepped up to fill the void. Meanwhile, we have a silent insurrection of scouters who insist on making their efforts count for girls as much as they do with boys. Whatever you think of their means, you gotta respect them as men of action ... supporting co-ed experiences any way they can. So, BSA had passed up some key junctions over the years where they could have said, "Listen guys, if girls aren't being served a program of methods and ideals desirable to them and their parents; we're all gonna suck it up and make it happen for them ... for the nation." They could have said this 40 years ago. I'm sure some execs were thinking about it, but concluded the demand was insufficient. Then they could have evaluate the need to change tracks every few years and put an executive summary of that to the Report to the Nation. They didn't. Instead they wallowed in self-denial that this constituency should be their "first G". Then, they probably hired some consultant to figure out how they could market this without enraging their base. And that genius told them to bury the headline. Frankly, I'd have fired the guy on the spot. Scouters are, and have been a plain-spoken lot. So, a very expensive summer was wasted in unnecessary obfuscation. So, now, instead of rolling into fertile ground, it feels like the train is jumping tracks. From a boots-on-the-ground level here are our options, as far as I can tell: Stay mad about the summer's double-speak. Do our best to preserve our outstanding boys' program. Help address the desires of girls and their parents who would like what we (as local scouters running some pretty good units) have to offer. I'm fine with 2 or 3, although some doing one while some do the other will make for more mess at camporees and such. I don't think #1 will do much good unless you are on a council board and can knock on a lot of doors until the air is cleared. In other words, staying hot is not getting the train back on the previous track. But, it may help the guys in the field roll along.

So, on account of some scout who might have to face down micro-aggression from a hypothetical scouter "out there" with some agenda looking to hear his/her precious shibboleth during a personal growth conference, you're saying that I should tell all the good scouters on the interweb to curb their enthusiasm? Well, maybe I'll change my tune ... as soon as they scratch the tenth point from the Law!

sometimes you get a class that's just a little rough. No scouter knows the right balance of firm and friendly to ask from the SPL in such cases.

There is a cultural gap ... A story at the Brits' expense: Year's ago, at a family picnic, one of Son #2's teenage friends commented, in my hearing, that her brother "looked like such a girl." My uninvited reply, "He has quite the manly frame, only in a British theatre sort of way." The boy was never a scout, but he grew up to be a fine actor.

During a really tough production period on the shop floor Son #1 got his crew to exceed targets and maintain a flawless safety rating. And wrap each day ahead of schedule so the opposite shift could pick up where he left off. The opposite shift did not reciprocate. When he tried to point out that there was no reason they should be leaving a mess of unfinished product for his guys to roll out, he was told by the guy who worked opposite him, "You really stress out too much." It took a while, but the VPs eventually sorted out who was a drag on the company. (Hint, it wasn't Son #1.)

If I'm a Commisioner wondering who might be willing to help the folks who've been talking to me about their daughters, newly minted Eagles would be my first ask. Your frank answer to such a question would be welcome.Rest assured, in one way or another, you will be asked how you expect to contribute to scouting in the future. But relax, there are no wrong answers. Let me be very clear. The wrong answer is the one you say because you think that's what people want to hear. Any scouter would welcome a reply like "Respectfully, sirs/madams, I would rather put my support behind an all-boys program if time allows." Yes, the BoR will ask some opinions. Scouter's need to know what their youth are thinking. They often have opportunities for specific youth ... if they know who those youth are. Asking how a scout would like to contribute is one way to find out.

I think trying to keep existing troops stable is BSA's aim. They clearly want units who hold to a traditional membership model to continue doing so without disruption.Units who have unofficially been incorporating girls in their programs must decide if they want to adjust to BSA's proposed model. I suspect most of those will shell out the extra $40 for the chartering fee, pay the registration fee for each girl, and multiple register each leader. The hard work will be for COs who want to incorporate a unit for girls, but their traditional unit does not want to contribute any leadership to making it happen. Regarding software, there's plenty of room for pessimism.

I wouldn't ask what he thinks. I'd ask how he'd help.

@@gblotter, thanks for all you've done for the boys. If you wind up landing in a boys club that suits your aspirations, drop a line here and let us know how it's going.

I tell my crew that we play a Skyrim-like video game. Our senses are the console. Our hiking boots are the game controller which we work with our feet.

Met with our COR tonight. Ran by the possibilities. She (a former explorer scout) made clear that the CO will support whatever we think should be done. Stay all boy? No problem. Add a pack (and, later, a troop) for girls? No problem. Meet separately? No problem. Meet at same place and time? No problem. This CO's basic need is to serve their community as broadly as possible. They themselves are losing members. So, for them, it's "go big, or go home."

Thanks all! You reminded that I had misplaced my usual necker, so I dug deep and grabbed one from my old lodge that I'll cinch with a slide from the '81 Jambo. Just in time for the meeting!

I've been assuming these are trail to first class skills (e.g., two half-hitches). Although 11 is the ideal age for instruction of such things, there is a WIDE bell curve in terms of mastery. Son #2 could light fires at age 4. Catch a ball? Maybe by grade 12? (He still blames me for that last one.) Although we want all boys to master 1st class skills, the fact is there will be a cluster for whom those skills will elude them into adulthood. For some, it's lack of attempts/practice; others it's poor spatial coordination; others poor memory; others lack of confidence. Some years, you have a variety of boys who face these challenges. The next year's boys are so quick on the uptake it makes your head spin. Yes volition is a factor, but it can be more than that. So, you will need to be a persistent but patient coach. Although I learned to be dead on with archery (with a 20 lb wooden recurve at 50') with backyard practice the spring before I took the badge at camp, sighting in a rifle with tight scatter eluded me until I was 40. Something in my brain took that long to gel before it just clicked. I remember one summer church camp, the priest who drove me there spent a lot of time at the pool because the director was an Olympian, and he wanted her to help him finally master diving. It was my first object-lesson in "you can teach an old dog new tricks." All that is to say, don't give up on these scouts. Expect more. Challenge them to use the handbook as a reference. If that's not working for them, find them a knot guide, draw a diagram on their arm, or find them different color rope to practice with. And if they are still having trouble, keep challenging them to try, and try, and try ... and let them know that even if the don't master it by the time they turn 18, this nation needs them to keep trying!

Per Webster rhetorical questions are "asked in order to make a statement rather than to get an answer". So, you weren't trying to say that scouters who allow girls to scout in the same place and the same time as the boys in their packs couldn't be trusted to ensure YPT, BALOO, and Safety Sweet Sixteen? I apologize in advance if I misunderstood.

@@KYScouter, (welcome to the forums,btw) are you really expecting that level of demand?

Good for you trying to round out your counselor list. Call around to neighboring council HQs to see who they have on their list for that MB. They would be your most reliable resource. Good luck in your search.