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On a practical level, being an active Arrowman provides experience planning activities and projects with people at some distance from your troop. Time practicing that regularly makes you a more skilled employ. For example, Son #2 did only a couple of things with O/A and a few more with our council Venturing Officers Association. This prepared him to work with total strangers to accomplish projects in college -- both in class and in extracurricular activities. Now in his internships, staff are letting the factory owners know that they think he is the best project manager of the students they've ever had. Like most things in life, you get out of it in proportion to what you put into it.

Well, here's my bottom line: It's the same program, only for girls. So most open-program things that have been posted about girls easily apply to boys. Therefore, they are not really "girl topics". They are topics about scouts trying to get the most out of their patrols or dens, and the adults trying to deliver on the promise of scouting. So, for example the adult trying to figure how to make old uniforms work for her new Scouts BSA girls' troop gets answers under program or uniforms. It's not in I&P. So far this month, I guess I've seen about a dozen such posts -- about scouting but so happen to be in a girls' den/pack/patrol/troop. So I guess that answers the "when it starts" aspect of your question -- it starts as of the past month, maybe earlier. But, your question implies a "when will it end" aspect. Well a topic, such as this one, that's about girls solely for the sake of talking about people enthused or opposed to girls in scouting, well that is an issue. As such it will always be filed in I&P. I'm fine if it takes a good long while before people stop bringing up the issue.

@seattlescouter, this is what I hate about partials being valid for more than six months. Little things like this wind up causing undo anxiety. This is really a simple task of your scout meeting with a new counselor in your neighborhood, explaining his situation, and being prepared to cover what he's done before if the new counselor feels that's what is needed. If the problem had been addressed in a matter of months, not years it would have been less stressful. If being a year out, the scout just had to meet with a different counselor "starting from scratch" but with some old notes, that would be less stressful too. Wondering how gracious some bean counter will be ... that's stressful for no good reason. At the end of the day, how the partial was documented is secondary. If the new counselor is satisfied enough to sign the scout's portion and retain his portion for record keeping, and the troop accepts the unit copy ... the SM attesting to that fact by his signature on the scout's copy, then all that is needed for evidence of an earned MB is in the appropriate hands.

In spite of decades of LNT propoganda, I find that strippers of candy still discard the wraps of said candy along our nation's byways. Perhaps a public school newspaper would do well to permit articles asserting that we should walk this earth as though we were endowed stewards ....

The company line, with links to tweets: https://www.nasa.gov/feature/spacewalk-reassignments-what-s-the-deal

School newspapers in our district clearly state that the views therein are those of the students and do not reflect the school district's endorsement or sponsorship of the organizations or activities on which they report.

Seems the first person you should ask is the scout. Why? Because You and your SM don't have time to train every counselor that signs off on your scouts. If you teach your scout how paperwork should be done, he'll become a trainer for the next counselor he meets. Your scout can tell you if he did the other requirements, and how. A scout is trustworthy. That will give you an idea if this counselor was a good one who just slipped up on paperwork, or somebody who ran a massive class and was to lazy to fill out partials for everyone who didn't bring whatever was needed for prerequisites. If your scout is clueless, you can suggest he take a clean blue card to a counselor who you trust to make sure the partial is filled in correctly -- i.e., your training the boy to keep track of his work as he progresses. If this is a counselor who you know and maybe is a little new to this whole thing, you might want to track him/her down and go over how the paperwork should be completed. But, if it's some mystery instructor from some MB university, you might want to let the district commissioner know of your disappointment. Bottom line: Deal with the scout first, counselor later.

I saw one announcement on Bryan about a chess club hosting an event for Scouts BSA girls in a council. My council is clearly not interested in making separate events for girls. They aren't seeing the demand. In terms of shenanigans ... the bitter truth around here is that middle school youth are a very high risk group. I learned very quickly as a crew advisor that that was the least of my worries with high school youth. Skills imbalance and uneven risk assessment were more palpable concerns. Actual physiological differences that may motivate camporees for specific sexes? I'm having a hard time putting my finger on enough that would justify that kind of segregation. Scouts in general are a mix of athletic abilities in the first place. Scouting is more like volleyball or tennis clubs than soccer pitches. Even in youth soccer leagues, I found there were points where the girls and boys were asking to play in the same match -- either opposing one another or in mixed teams.

That's why I chose to label this behavior as "thumbs on the scales". Cheating is contestant-driven, and often comes from seasoned participants. (Although coaches may be involved.) I could blame modern British fiction writers, but I think I'll put it on the shoulders of reality TV. In my day, there were the champions and there were the honor campers. The two might overlap on occasion, but were often distinct. I agree with @Eagledad Although I'm personally impressed that this year it looks like we will have 10,000 Scouts BSA girls, it's only one story. It also looks like we have thousands of Mormon youth who want to be scouts even when their church isn't requiring them to do so. We have scouters who don't like the change but are still pitching in. I would love media spots with folks like the former Cub mom (now great grandmother) who I sat with at our troop's spaghetti dinner. She said "Boys should learn to do boy things and girls should learn to do girl things." Her daughter tried to be more PC about it, but I thought that a video with hers as the opening line would be the best marketing Scout's BSA could ever wish to have. I think we would all like to hear about the girl's troop who's having a rough start but the boys and venturers around them are stopping by to encourage them to keep trying ... perhaps with an offer of dutch oven cobbler and a game of cards.

You could have stopped right there and won me over. Even if @Eagledad didn't mean to imply adults had their thumbs on the scales, that's what this was. The new patrols don't deserve to be patronized like that. My favorite camporees were run by JASMs. Adults might help set up etc ... but the youth allocated points, etc ... If the boys want to patronize the new scouts that's on them. Chances are, they'd do it by being cheerful and courteous, not doling out bling. @cocomax if your PLC really feels burned by this, they should write a letter telling the district key-3 so, and copying every SM in the district.

Or .. you could do what 'schiff suggested a couple months ago. Start the topic in Open Program (because helping scouts navigate their religion and citizenship is part of the program) and add the label Faith & Chaplaincy. Everybody wins!

Then I misunderstood what you meant when you said " the boys aren't just competing against girls, but the adults as well." And "no hope because I've never heard of a new scouts doing so well so fast ...  " Either the adults tipped the scales, or they did not. So, you don't believe they tipped the scales? Fine. We agree. If they did not, then these particular new scouts actually did well. They either did well because they are endowed with gifts that boys could never possess. Or, they are really excited about the program, and practiced hard and looked sharp for the big game. I choose to believe the latter. Because if that's true then I can tell that losing patrol to start practicing for the win next year. If the former is true, then we are stuck with a "Sorry boys, there goes your safe space" whine that just smacks of defeatism. If all you are saying is that you find the biased hype aggravating, I kind of agree. I think 'Schiff points to it in the misconception below: They are no more "rookies" than any other newly formed patrol. Many have been working on skills for months or years. Some could have already been friends for some time. That friendship might have forged by one common interest ... They just love this scouting stuff.

I'm confused. Were they not on the ballot? If they were, all they would need was for half the scouts to vote for them. There's no limit to the number of candidates a scout can vote for, so the scouts who didn't get elected need to learn what it was that made more than half their fellow scouts conclude that they were not worthy.

You were quite explicit ... How else am my supposed to understand what you said in any other terms besides your articulated belief that the adults wanted scouts of one sex to win so badly that they tipped the scales in their favor?

I know. I'm not saying this has to be done for every troop. But for this troop, at least a year. FWIW, I don't carry anything other than pump spray. Hard lesson learned when I was a PL and brought a stencil, pillow-case, and spray can to camp to paint our flag. I had no clue what a temptation that would be for my boys. Fortunately, it was a fairly wet year at camp. Also, the SM was not mean to any of us when I brought the can to him and explained why it could no longer stay in my tent.

The boys in the district where the new patrol bested them, had the opportunity to contend with some real first class scouts (patch not withstanding). They now have the opportunity to step up their game. Obviously I think @Eagledad's assumption that someone rigged the scoring to favor a particular sex is profoundly flawed. I think any new troop of scouts, be they immigrants or minority groups, have a lot going in their favor. They've stepped in from the outside and are gun-ho for something they can master while other patrols have taken for granted that everyone else in the district slacks a little. They will come on the field looking sharp. They will have been practicing. In this case, one or two of them will have been camp staff or will have picked up skills from their brothers. I have also seen that, if their brothers are Arrowmen, they will have loaded their siblings with top-notch gear. The bitter truth, however, is that as time goes forward these new troops likely become lax, and they will go through the team-building cycles that other patrols have. Their uniforms won't look as sharp. They might not always show scout spirit. The lion-tiger-... burnout* will affect parents of girls as well. I am pleasantly surprised that we have as many girls interested in the program as we do. But, as confident as I am that most who've joined "are all that", I'm also skeptical that the year-one Scouts BSA hype will tell us much of anything. *P.S. - A friend who counsels medical professionals sent me a lecture that the proper term for "burnout" is "moral injury". When time allows, I may open a topic on it in I&P.

This didn't happen with just one scout. They must have been talking about it all day, and the kid got inspired to try it. The whole troop should be in on making restitution, if that's even possible. No more cooking spray for anyone in the troop. Going forward, only provision with olive oil, lard, margarine, or butter. Check provisions for any other spray-ables. That includes deodorant. This means a thorough shakedown before departure for a year. Finally: buddy system?

I'd like to see the fundraiser that your SPL would pull off to get your QM that extra $15million suit! P.S. - Some folks in town are working on the next gen suit. It really is a nationwide endeavor.

We only set up the big dining flys (as you describe them) if we're expecting guests, setting up tables, etc ... Otherwise, it's tents and hammocks by patrols around their respective open-air fire/cooking area. Or maybe a small fly for each patrol as @jjlash described. FWIW, I met one troop from Michigan who had backpacked in on the North Country Trail and only set up flys ... no tents. They seemed happy as clams.

With each iteration of GPS tech, I've made a fool of myself. Then I went in the trunk, set up my burner, cooked up some espresso, unfolded a map, committed my route to memory, and when necessary corrected any wrong turns by celestial navigation.

Consider yourself lucky. Scouts around here (and I've seen a lot of them) don't put anything but the MBs they've earned on their sashes. I've tried to encourage them to do otherwise, and they look at me as if I'm some kind of alien. Full disclosure: I've never put anything besides MBs on my sash. But, I thought that would inspire my sons to be different. No such luck. At least your rodeo clowns are proud of all the places they've been!

I think you mistake what it means to be partisan. To allow individuals to express their political views on non-uniform gear is not partisan. That opens the door for productive debate. One kid brings a MAGA hat, another a Hope-and-Change hat. They invite dialogue upon themselves. Partisan is using your associations with an organization to misrepresent an organizational endorsement of a particular candidate. Most people know that if one scout is wearing a hat or even a campaign pin, and another is not, that the scouts are expressing individual -- not organizational -- aspirations. If the community at large is getting the impression that your troop is favoring a partisan endorsement (e.g., the candidate's banner on a campsite flagpole.) The scouter needs to reign things in. If the individual expressions are leading to boys not working amicably with their mates of differing views, the scouter needs to reign things in. If all the different hats look stupid, the scouter needs to lean on the PLC to adopt a headgear standard. I say this as a scouter who would probably tell boys to not wear their campaign hats at unit activities. If they have an opinion, they may articulate it while they cook a meal, clean up, chop wood or otherwise serve their fellow scouts. That's me. But, I never rushed my kids out of a troop when my boy's leaders let the scouts sport a slogan. That's basically because all the folks who actually held views I thoroughly despised never dressed the part.

Let us remind ourselves that it is a big country. What you've been told things represent may not be exactly what they do represent. One is certainly allowed to drop from any troop that allows for symbols that they don't like, but I would suggest that could lead to your youth falling in with persons whose malice is more vile than that of the youth sporting their trite shibboleths.

@Eagledad, That's like saying our patrols' consistent victories at Klondike is discouraging other boys in the district to join scouts. Let's face it, this isn't an absorption of GS/USA. This is a recruitment of scouts who care about skills the way many boys who drift into a troop actually should. In the short term, we can expect them some of these Scout's BSA for girls troops to give the lion's share of established patrols a run for their money. In the long term, we can expect the boys in the district to step up their game if their SM's are half the coaches they should be. Why is this? Most Scouts BSA for girls are a de-facto patrol. They have to work together and plan their own rank advancement and activities. If there are seasoned boys who they'd like on their team, the can't have them. They have to build their own with what they have. It's basically the mythic Rat Patrol or McHale's Navy in kid form. This weekend I finally got to meet a troop of Scouts BSA girls. They are sharp and diverse age-wise an slowly chipping away at their Scout Rank after one month of existence. (I.e., this is not one of those previously rogue troops.) I encouraged them that, from here on, their line to their leaders must be "Mrs. SM, where to this month?" If that does happen, then the boys in their linked troop will be inspired to step up their game as well as these upstarts who are sharing their CO have done.

This is a very simple and practical scout skill. If I'm transporting scouts who have hand-helds (and their parents will allow it), I always ask them to look up directions and help me navigate. I might even suggest they add a coffee shop I'd like to try as a waypoint!