shortridge

52 minutes ago, Monkeytamer said:

they all decided that they came into this and have worked all these years as Boy Scouts and that they deserved the right to go out as Boy Scouts.  I don't blame them one iota.  I could not be prouder of my son for earning Eagle, but I am also proud of the way he and his buddies decided to overcome this issue.

If you feel you can speak for them - why did they feel this way? Why do they see a girls’ troop as an issue to overcome? What impact did they see a girls’ troop having on their Scouting experience?

I’m sorry your son had that experience. Unfortunately, MBCs are not formally trained teachers and may not have experience working with Scouts who have dyslexia or other issues learning. It sounds to me like the ratio was less the problem and more the counselor’s inexperience and the setup of the program. 

Thankfully, your son can complete the MB the way MBs are supposed to be completed - by asking the Scoutmaster for a referral and working on the badge with the counselor and a buddy. Your son’s SM presumably knows about his dyslexia and can ask the council or district about recommendations of MBCs who may have some experience in that regard. (A local high school science teacher could be recruited to fill that role, for example.)

That said, Environmental Science is one of those MBs with a report/writing requirement that poses challenges to many a Scout. A good MBC shouldn’t let that stand in the way; whatever accommodations your son uses to get his written work done in school should suffice here (dictation, etc.).

7 hours ago, fidian said:

An email was sent out and the Scout Shops will hold the new Scouts BSA materials (handbooks, shirts, etc.) until February 1st as the official release date.

Do you have a copy of the email you can post? That contradicts what National staffers are telling people.

This is all covered, though somewhat imperfectly, in the BSA’s FAQ:

——

Q: What will the members of the program be called?
Just as today, they will be called Scouts. For example, “I’m in Scouts BSA, so I am a Scout.”

——

I think we’re just going to have to get used to calling groups of Cubs “Cubs,” not Cub Scouts. That’s manageable and reasonable.

21 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

The research for the data used in the article may have been more professional with more pragmatic results.

What data, Barry? The only membership numbers cited were historical, drawn from National’s own reports.

11 minutes ago, Saltface said:

Come next month, anything larger than a troop event will be de facto coed (and depending on your troop, everything might be coed). I don't see how anyone could be lulled into believing the programs are separate. 

On the unit level, they will be, as much as the CO wants. There are plenty of boys-only weeks at summer camp, and district events are entirely optional to attend for those boys units who want to avoid contamination.

The split Handbook is important to 

a. Show the die-hard boys-only supporters that the programs are separate

b. Show the girls’ advocates that the programs are identical

c. Show the female Scouts that they are included and valued by featuring images of Scouts doing Scouting things

d. Include female-specific information as noted

3 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

Note that the author was referencing two sources.  These sources are indicating membership didn’t surge. 

Those unnamed sources may have said one thing, but the numbers indicate another - and the framing of that assertion (which is specifically not attributed to a source) is flatly incorrect and lacking context.

When Truman ordered the military integrated, it took several years for an impact to be seen in the ranks. It wasn’t until three years later that the Army’s training divisions were integrated. And it wasn’t until Korea that many minds were changed in the military. It will take several years for Scouts BSA to become the new normal.

43 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

In addition, BSA’s efforts to be more inclusive— by dropping the ‘Boy’ in its main program and welcoming girls and transgender scouts to join— has not resulted in a membership spike.”

This is an incredibly misleading slant by the article’s author. Cubs has been open to girls for less than a  year and resulted in a six percent gross membership increase in the Cub program. (The net / total membership numbers, accounting for retention and new recruiting of boys, won’t be available for a while yet.) And Scouts BSA won’t even get off the ground for another few weeks, so there’s nothing to look at there numbers-wise.

The girl Cub numbers are entirely respectable and nothing to hide under a rock. As of late December, there were 73,000 girls in Cubs, or about 0.7 percent of all girls aged 5-9 in the entire country. (5-9 is how the Census divides it up.) Remember that from January to June, only early adopter packs were allowed to take girls - so it’s been really up and running on a truly national basis for only six months.

3 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Any idea when the 14th ed for for boys will be available?

 

Someone said later in the year, but IIRC that wasn’t from a National staffer.

Info being shared in one of the girls’ troop FB groups is that the new book for girls will be available later this month. Ditto for the uniforms.

50 minutes ago, walk in the woods said:

I'm curious who you see doing these things?  In my mind these are exactly the types of things the Commissioner Corps should be staffing.  

Perhaps it’s a local thing, but in my neck of the woods the activities and programs are organized by a much younger group of volunteers, mostly unit-serving folks who happily put on another cap to organize a fun camporee. The commissioners, such as they are, are typically older gentlemen who haven’t slept in a tent in years. They don’t go to Roundtable, they don’t run training, and they certainly don’t help with camping events.

18 hours ago, walk in the woods said:

The relationship between districts and units is broken.  I think a solid commissioner corps could be the source of the fix,

I happen to think the entire commissioner system is broken and needs to be scrapped: 

- It’s nearly impossible to find bodies to be commissioners, let alone good people who will do a good job.

- The commissioner system is foreign to outsiders - and, frankly, to many experienced Scouters as well. It requires a lot of explanation just to get a foot in the door. Few people understand just what a commissioner does, and there is not a clear counterpart out of Scouting to help with that understanding.

It’s far easier to find people willing to serve in a specific unit than to serve in some nebulous, ill-defined, relationship-building role that exists outside of the unit structure. Why are we spending our time recruiting people to be a sympathetic ear and a word of advice for unit leaders when we could be taking concrete action? (And let’s face it - most people are not good at that type of work!)

Let’s put our energy into program-side unit support with tangible results:

- Compelling training

- High-quality Roundtables

- Solid districtwide service projects

- Great outdoor program (camporees, Klondikes, day camp, chariot races)

- Strenghening summer camp infrastructure 

At a time when our volunteer pool is shrinking, we shouldn’t be wasting time on propping up an antiquated organizational structure that confuses more people than it helps. Let’s shift people to direct program and support work - where they usually want to be anyway.

Absolutely have a conversation with him, from the position of “Hey, we need everyone to pick up their Scout as agreed upon,” and not from “Hey, I was really inconvenienced the other day.” They’re probably not going to fess up, but you will have at least cleared the air and establish expectations for the future.

Also put estimated arrival times on the outing’s permission slips (both the signed half and parents’ half), so from now own there can be no confusion.

I have seen and heard many people opining that two-deep means they have to have two 21+ registered adults attending every instructional session at summer camp, or in each classroom at a merit badge fair. Worse is their insistence that a 21+ registered female leader has to be present in the room at every session or class where female Scouts are. That would make every session of summer camp come to a grinding halt for new Scouts next summer.

National needs to update the G2SS and YPT with some very clear verbiage explaining the difference between two-deep and no one-on-one, and the meanings of activity, event, outing, etc.

21 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

However, it is now my turn to make a request - please do not tell me where I should post anything again when you are in no position to do so. 

I’m going to dip back in here to point out that I never told you or any other member to do anything. I stated that the proper place for that type of commentary and discussion was in I&P, based on my understanding of the longtime precedents set by mods here in years past. Comments and threads critical of the BSA’s previous membership rules were shunted over there out of the main program subforums. That has been the consistent approach, and I’m simply asking* the mods to follow their past practice.

* not telling

We now have 61,000+ girls in Cubs, and I’m hearing that a very solid chunk - nearly half - are in the Southern Region. Anyone from that neck of the woods able to shed some light on how that region is having such outsized success? Is that in line with the South’s share for overall Scouting membership? Are they actually making magic happen, or is another paper Scout scandal in the offing?

(I would link to the source, but it’s from a closed Facebook group. The 61,000 number has been posted publicly, however, and the Southern Region’s numbers have been consistently high in previous reports.)

There are some interesting observations in this article in the New York Times that may have some applicability to Scouting (sorry for the giant text - I don’t know how to fix that):

>> “Parents spend a lot of time and financial resources on youth sports, which can prompt some to want a payoff greater than watching their children perform well or enjoy themselves.”

>> “... children who perceived their parents as investing heavily in their sport tended to report a greater sense of parental pressure and a reduced sense of enjoyment.”

>> “... a desire to belong is another reason some parents become emotionally overinvested in their child’s sports. Traveling to tournaments and other investments of time and money can produce a tribal effect and sense of community.”

>> “Dr. Dorsch’s laboratory is also testing parental emotional involvement in the performing arts, such as musical theater, orchestra and dance.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/11/01/well/family/why-sports-parents-sometimes-behave-so-badly.html

What are your worst parent stories, and how do you counter that and help their kids to grow in Scouts?

20 minutes ago, PACAN said:

His Star rank date is June.  GTA para 9.0.1.3 last paragraph applies.

Once a Scout has been advanced in rank, advancement errors subsequently discovered must not be held against the Scout for any future advancement, even if the requirements were not properly completed. As an example, if after a Scout was advanced to Life rank it was discovered the Scout had less than the required six months between Star and Life, that would not be cause to deny advancement to Eagle.

https://www.scouting.org/resources/guide-to-advancement/eagle-scout-rank/#9013

36 minutes ago, The Latin Scot said:

Eliminate my comments and you must therefore eliminate any positive perceptions as well. Are you prepared to do that?

No one’s eliminating anything. You are not being censored. I’m simply asking that the same standard be applied to discussions of the BSA program now that it is accepting girls as was applied when it was rejecting them. Comments of the sort you are making were spun off into I&P threads in years past when they were on the other side of the fence.

As to my misunderstanding of your comments - sir, two of the sentences in your original post referred to the video. The others were about how the BSA has changed. That speaks for itself.

Please let those of us who want to discuss the program as it is have these program subforums. If you want to change it or bemoan the changes, then go to I&P. That is the place for it.

Thanks! I’ll wait for the mods to make a ruling one way or the other.

29 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

Ah, finally. A profound statement that will be used in a lot of future discussions.

Barry

Yes, Barry. It’s the same love-it-or-leave-it line that people on the anti-gay, anti-girl side spouted at me and mine for so many years when we were advocating for inclusion.

12 minutes ago, qwazse said:

I strongly disagree with @shortridge and @ParkMan wanting to relegate dissent to I&P.

I appreciate your candor, but ask you and any mods reading this to consider this with deep thought.

Many threads from here on out will be about the Scouts BSA program and discuss girls. They will be about YPT, adult leadership, girls’ uniforms, the girls’ handbook, linked troop operations, girls at summer camp, recruiting and marketing to girls, and much, much more.

If those threads on aspects of the Scouts BSA program and unit leadership can be detailed and taken over by people who simply oppose the direction of the program, that will be to the severe detriment of this forum and its users. There is a place for threads from people opposing the direction of the program, and that’s I&P.

In previous years, threads on inclusion of girls and gays - and those of us advocating for the same - were relegated to I&P. Those topics were not generally permitted in the regular program sub forums. The same principle should apply now. The program has changed, and that’s that.

8 hours ago, The Latin Scot said:

I believe it has the power to save boys from a world that increasingly wants to demean, disenfranchise, and even destroy the masculine identity.

Actually, you were talking about masculinity.

Your points all have to do with the fundamental changing nature of the Scouting movement in the United States, and nothing to do with the modern Scouting program.

4 hours ago, ParkMan said:

I would very much welcome a policy decision by this moderators of this forum that posts continuing to debate the merits of girls in the BSA get moved to I&P.

Perhaps I’m wrong, but understanding is that there has been such a decision. All the threads that I’ve seen discussing the creation of Scouts BSA have been in I&P. That is the appropriate place for @The Latin Scot and others who want to debate and express their opinions, ideology, and viewpoints. This is not that kind of thread.

I&P-style discussions about the fundamental nature of the program should not consume program threads. The program is here; girls are here. Those of us who are working in this new program should not have to constantly justify and respond to complaints about the program’s very existence when we are trying to do our jobs. That’s what I&P threads are for.

@The Latin Scot, I disagree with you 1,000 percent. However, all that aside, this isn’t I&P, and this thread isn’t for debating the merits of girls in Scouts BSA. I&P is the appropriate forum for sharing your feelings about masculinity. This is the open program forum.

Do you have specific thoughts on the marketing video separate from your overall opinions about the new Scouts BSA?

Thanks!

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

Pulling it back on topic that's the other thing that this particular promo is missing, adult association.

It’s a marketing piece, and they can’t be all things to all people, or expected to encapsulate the entire Scouting program in a short period of time.