SeattlePioneer

BSA has thousands of Christian only organizations as chartered partners. Lots of additional chartered partners are Jewish only, Muslim only or whatever. People seem to forget that freedom of religion is one of the cornerstones of liberty in the United States.

Tea and sympathy.

> Wow! I din't know that. It's a pretty peculiar situation, with local councils being locked in to BSA desires as to who runs their program. We really oughta have a thread to discuss all that in more detail.

> We shall see. I will be making a major effort at Latino recruiting beginning next month. That will include a bilingual woman who is also interested in recruiting more Latinos and is well plugged into the community. I'm expecting she will be the "Den Mother" for Latino parents, especially those who are primarily Spanish speaking. I'm expecting that she will be a main channel of communication to keep those new Latino families informed about what is going on. I have bilingual flyers being made up and have Spanish den handbooks that will be available for sale. Pack dues through December are $20, and we encourage new families to sell popcorn right away to pay for pack dues, expenses, uniforms and such from Scout accounts. My hope is that this will pay off with new Latino families that will not just join but stay in the program. And I will be using the experience I gain to try to improve my practices for recruiting next spring. Many schools around here are 60% Latino and 10% white. We need to be on the right end of the numbers game. When I figure out effective methods that make Cub Scouts work for Latino families, I will then be spreading those methods to the other Cub Packs in my district --- and perhaps beyond that to the council. The short answer is.... we shall see.

Hello Shortridge, I support BSA in it's current policy towards homosexual membership. Should BSA choose to change that policy, I will continue to support BSA. Personally I see no need to change the policy. The real frontier for membership and growth for BSA is recruiting additional members from the mushrooming populations of Latino, African America and Asian populations, not homosexuals and their sympathizers. The hysteria homosexuals and their sympathizers attach to BSAs policy is absurd, in my opinion. President Obama just got around to endorsing gay marriage about a month ago. It's ludicrous to be angry with BSA because its not following the fashions of the trendy left. If BSA chooses to make changes to it's policy at some time in the future, I expect to conform to and support those changes just as I support BSA in its current policy choices.

Hello Eagle 92, > Haven't heard of that one before. How does that work? I imagine getting 14 days and nights of camping would be a barrier for a lot of Cub Scout leaders.

Sometimes it's best to simply let sleeping dogs lie. I wouldn't yank up a popular and highly functional program just to get back at a youth group with which I had a bone or two to pick. This also explains my continuing support for BSA over the homosexual issue, of course.

In my Cub Pack, I go over the Bobcat requirements with new families. I define "Duty to God" as involving two things: 1: Respect by each Cub Scout for the religious traditions of their family 2: Respect for the religious traditions of other families. No complaints yet. I'd be inclined to do that with an AHG unit as well. I'd like to look through the program material to see what that has to say. Since the unit is chartered by a Catholic parish, it's hardly unreasonable that there might be a bias towards Christianity, but my preference is to make as many as possible feel welcome while preserving a religious rather than a secular atmosphere. My usual approach where their are minority religions is to recognize them and give parents an opportunity to explain the religious traditions of their faith and family. Respecting the religious traditions of other families goes both ways. If some part of the program is distinctly Christian, I'd simply look for a way to fudge that a bit and frame the program in a way that would keep everyone happy if possible.(This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

> Whoa ---- not THAT camp Sunrise, I hope!

Seattle's Catholic Committee on Scouting lists a woman volunteer who is an AHG representative on the committee. I called her this morning to get some ideas on how the AHG committee member functioned on the CCS committee and ran my ideas of using my Cub pack to help get an AHG unit started for girls. She called me back about an hour later and we had a good discussion about Catholic Scouting, AHG and Girl Scouts, She also mentioned that AHG did the same background check as BSA. She was a commendably sharp person, and offered to attend a meeting when I get around to proposing a girl Scouting program to the Institutional Head of our Cub Scout program. There are several AHG units in western Washington listed on the AHG website. Most of them are chartered to Catholic churches.

> Interesting idea. In my experience, Cub Scout dens really need Den Chiefs, but they are hard to attract. It's a very considerable sacrifice of time by a young man. I had an excellent Den Chief when I was leading a Tiger Cub Den. My aim was to make the Den Chief a partner in the program and to give him real leadership and teaching responsibilities. I hope that made it worthwhile for him.

> Worth a try, Eagledad! As an added bonus, I suspect that most such ASM's have a close relative who could be the Den Chief!

Hello Beavah, Once again you have discovered the limits of making claims based on your authority as an anonymous person posting on an internet discussion board. Of course it happens to us all.

It would not surprise me to learn that GSUSA programs are embedded in a lot of Catholic parishes and that there may be little interest in changing to another program. However, I'm expecting to research the issue of whether GSUSA, AHG or some other group is the preferred or recommended choice for a new program for girls in a parish. I would suppose the Catholic Committee on Scouting might have recommendations on that, and the parish leadership might as well. I'll be interested to find out what that might be. As I noted, I do find it interesting that a CCS volunteer represents the AHG program while the much larger (as noted in this thread) Girl Scout Council has no one. Could be just a coincidence of course. Newspaper articles suggest GSUSA is at least somewhat out of favor with the Catholic leadership around here, and apparently nationally as well. I suppose I ought to contact that CCS leader who is representing AHG and see what they might have to say about these issues.

I would really recommend doing the Webelos Woods campout. One of the keys to a great Webelos experience is going camping, and that should be a good introduction to how Webelos camping can be done. It's probably also an introduction to using Boy Scouts as part of your program and getting introduced to one or more Boy Scout troops, which is another key to a fine Webelos program. Done right, with Webelos being a real transition between Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts, it should be a great transition into Boy Scouts for boys. Good luck with your program!

Hello Bando, Sorry, I didn't remember your comments accurately at all. I apologize for those remarks.

Hello Bando, I recall you saying that you had mailed back your Eagle award to BSA to protest BSA's policies towards homosexuals. I can respect a principled resignation over policy, which is what I thought you had done. Just mailing back your Eagle award without resigning is pretty shallow and trivial though.

http://seattleoyyam.org/programs/catholic-scouting/catholic-committee-on-scouting The Archdiocesan Catholic Committee on Scouting for Seattle had a coordinator for Girl Scouts listed on their website a couple of months ago when last I checked. Now it's gone, but there is a coordinator for American Heritage Girls listed. I wonder if the Catholic Church is pivoting away from GSUSA and towards AHG?

You have resigned from Scouting over a matter of principle, Bando. I respect that, but WHY ARE YOU STILL HERE? Why aren't you organizing a Scouting program for homosexuals? Personally, if I were you I'd be petitioning GSUSA to admit boys and men into their program, they are already notably friendly to lesbians. You could explore their attitudes towards men while you do that. (This message has been edited by seattlepioneer)

The AHG website has all the AHG units located on an interactive map. That allowed me to identify the nearest AHG unit, which is a Catholic Church at the opposite end of Seattle from where I am. I talked to the unit leader, who was supportive and invited me to attend one of their meetings. He was a man. Apparently AHG is quite open to having men and fathers in particular as part of their program, while GSUSA often seems hostile towards men. Rather than getting huffy about that and DEMANDING that GSUSA change its ways, my bias is to charter with AHG, which doesn't seem to share a bias against men. Anyway, I guess I should add visiting that AHG unit, and perhaps another one or two units as an additional step to the ones I listed.

Hello Outdoors, What time do your Sunday meetings start? I was right there believing everything you said until the part about girl friends not being a conflict. That one sounded like a whopper!

My pack went to individual Scout accounts a year ago. It was a major success and we will be doing it again this year. Our normal pack dues are $5/month or $60/year. Scout families that sell $200 in popcorn get their pack membership paid. Anything less than $200 nets ZERO. For sales over $200, the family Scout account is credited with 25% of SALES over $200. Families can use Scout accounts for anything Scout related including uniforms, day camp fees, outing fees or whatever. Cub Scouts who transfer over to Boy Scout can transfer any credits to a troop Scout account. Otherwise if a family quits Scouting the funds reverts to the pack. I'm the Treasurer. I set up a Quicken account for any family with a Scout Account and charge any qualified expenses turned in to me against the account until it is exhausted. MOST families paid the pack membership with popcorn sales. A number of familes had $200-250 Scout account balances after the popcorn sale. Our pack is in a low income area. We can mostly avoid leaning on family budgets using this method. September 12th will be our pack recruiting night. New families can join the pack through the end of December by paying $20. New families will be exposed to a site sale on our September 22nd outing, and will be encouraged to pay for the 2013 pack dues by selling popcorn if they wish to do so. So even NEW families will be exposed to selling popcorn in a fun activity, and will be able to get in the swing of the popcorn sale easily should they wish to do so. Those families that prefer not to sell popcorn at all, or just nominal amounts, are welcome to do so.

Hello AHGnBSAMom, After llooking through the AHG website, I got a callo back from an AHG rep and we talked about the feasibility of my plan to add an AHG program for girls to the current Cub Scout program using a common committee and chartered organization for both. That appears to be quite practical. When I read threads about GSUSA, I usually see comments about how GSUSA and BSA are fundamtally different and at odds in program and organization. With AHG the two programs seem quite complimentary. I figure I'm a year away from actually adding an AHG unit. I've identified the following steps: 1) investigate the feasability of having a twin Cub Scout AHG program. That's pretty much done and seems desirable. 2) Obtain an opinion on GSUSA vs AHG from the Seattle Archdiocesan Scouting Committee. From their website they seem to endorse both. I'd like to explore that in more detail (the chartered organization for the pack is a Catholic Church) 3) Propose adding a girl's program to the Cub Pack committee. I would suppose they would be glad to add a program. 4) Go to the Institutional Head of the parish with the plan to add a girls unit along with the Chartered Organization Rep, who is a member of the parish and was formerly active in the Cub Pack. 5. If the parish approves the plan, start making plans for a joint recruiting program next spring or fall.

> So what was the nature of that campaign?

> BSA has tried the route of tracking predators. That doesn't work either. The YPT guidelines are a new strategy, and among the methods used are rules that require reporting incidents to the police. No one method is likely to always be effective, but I hope that the combined methods will be a lot more effective than those used up to now. If you don't like mandatory reporting requirements Beavah, fine. My intention is to conform to YPT rules and hope for the best.