Gwaihir

1 hour ago, Sentinel947 said:

Not to mention, Cub Scouting is absolutely a Parents and Child activity. 

TBF, it wasn't always.  When I was a Cub Scout, everyone went to Cub Scouts after school, and parents didn't show up till after the meeting was over.  The conundrum now is, if parents are now actively told to participate in every meeting and every event well beyond TIgers, what's the incentive to become a leader?  Why bother?  You're just going to be there anyway helping your kid.  The parent child activity aspect for Wolf and above has it's benefits, but it seems to me the dearth in uniformed volunteers has been a significant detriment. 

38 minutes ago, Sentinel947 said:

He mentioned Social media. I didn't mention his church because he has decided not to share more about it and I'm not going to speculate as to what happened. 

ah, I see the correlation now.  Missed it the first go around.  all good! 

9 minutes ago, qwazse said:

There's a reason why I omit the f- word doublespeak from my posts.

It's BSA4G that's in demand. For the past two decades, I've met girl after girl who broke ranks with their friends who prefer "glamping" to proudly participate in the BSA via any door that was open to them. None of those young women have said, "Please, Mr. Q, may I bring mom and dad along?"

I wish more would drop the f-word double speak and speak plainly. 

If you reply to two things separately, but relatively quickly... the software automatically merges the posts into one post... neat! 

Just now, Tampa Turtle said:

"Made not to feel welcome" by some in the congregation. (the irony is they aren't as active helping out as I) My denomination is under extreme strain right now. I'd rather move that discussion off-line. I know I brought it up, sorry--I don't want to de-rail the thread too much. (If you care you are free to message me)

I guess my point is that it is getting harder to know where the landmines are now and when you step on one real dialogue seems to stop. And I mean face to face communication. I shudder to think about social media.

We can end it here, I don't mean to pry or get into things too personal.  

Jordan Petersen, Steven Pinker and Bret Weinstein  and several others have all heavily stated of late how open dialog is becoming more and more forbidden because of the ramifications and accusations of isms that we're regressing and avenues of progress are blocked off because no one can talk to each other any more.  It's not a healthy time to be alive.  

2 minutes ago, Sentinel947 said:

Social media is basically a screaming match where the loudest voices win and only the most invested in a viewpoint participate. 

it's not just social media... TT is talking about in person, at his congregation... that's not social media, that's every day American life. 

1 hour ago, Tampa Turtle said:

I was almost run out of my church for the comment that "In a broad generality Men and Women experience the world differently". Somehow that made me a troglodyte, transgender-hating (since I brought up only 2 genders), homo-phobic (not sure how that staretd) etc, etc. Glad I didn't  bring up I was a scout leader. 

out of your church??? 

13 minutes ago, Tampa Turtle said:

...on the other hand....the boys feeding into our Troop is turning into a trickle (again) the last few years. We now have two feeder packs and share a third and are on the third year of only getting one or two cross-overs. I thought it was our program but when I checked in with two neighboring Troops they had big slow downs too. It was a discussion at Summer Camp in NC where many of the folks up there were experiencing a sharp drop off. So I can understand Nationals desire to recruit girls to bolster membership because it is right.

I get frustrated because while I carp here at the meetings I follow the BSA official line. And many folks doubted that their will be enough leaders to avoid gender-blended patrols and ,later, Troops despite what National said. I suspect that not only the 'separate but equal' scheme not survive contact with reality it will not survive the initial planning stages at the local level.

I'd LOVE to be proved wrong on this one.

Wait, wait, wait! so what you're saying is "Family Scouting" is a misnomer and the "family" doesn't really want to be involved in scouts, they just want a one stop baby sitting shop????? 

2 hours ago, gblotter said:

Ask the Duke lacrosse team.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/duke-lacrosse-rape-espn-30-for-30_us_56e07e33e4b065e2e3d486f7

https://www.watchdog.org/issues/education/texas-student-commits-suicide-after-title-ix-kangaroo-court/article_c16a55b7-0e53-5303-b39f-f5b4e4b834ae.html

1 hour ago, NJCubScouter said:

It is, but lately, on this general subject, the balance seems to be off.  We have about 90 percent "conjecture" and debate about the "conjecture" - including me saying that maybe so much conjecture is not very productive.  Some of the other 10 percent, the "learning" part, are posts by the one person (I believe its only one) who is a leader in a pack that is actually implementing the program now.  And I guess the posts by our friends across the pond also fall into that category.

If there's one thing I've learned in my years, both as a forum mod and simply as a human being participating in this thing called life... conversation, natural organic conversation never has balance in the short term, but the scales tend to balance themselves out over the long term.  Even if it's debating conjecture... sometimes that's necessary just as a thought exercise, to allow someone to get feelings, thoughts, ideas off their chest and into the open air where they can germinate, propagate, or wither on the vine.  On this subject, people are passionate about the topic, the course of history regarding it, their role in it, and how it will ultimately affect the youth in their charge in the longer term yet even in testy, heated discourse, no one here, at least that I can tell, hates their fellow scouter or wishes them ill will. 

8 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

The change at the Cub Scout level has been in place for 23 days.  The details of the change at ages 11-17 have not even been announced yet.  I suppose one alternative would be to wait until we see what actually happens rather than drawing all kinds of conclusions based on what any of us thinks will happen.

But I realize that in this forum, that's crazy talk. 

Of course, until something is rolled out we just don't know. 

But this is a forum, which by definition is designed for exchanges,  discourse, conjecture, learning and debate.   

8 minutes ago, Hawkwin said:

I emailed my SDE shortly after the announcement offering my support and volunteering to help make it a success.

Will have to wait and see if I am called on my offer as implementation gets closer.

In the meantime, I might volunteer for an early adopter pack.

But you're already a Scouter.  My point was that National repeatedly stated 1. this move was to get non-scout families into scouts 2. this move was wildly popular with families who aren't currently in scouts.  By National's own position, there should be an influx of excited adults, motivated by this historic change, to hand in their paperwork, take their training and become a Scouter. 

 

7 minutes ago, Col. Flagg said:

Right. For those of us on the ground we see the issues with recruiting and keeping volunteers. Now BSA wants COs wishing to roll out Coed Scouting to have *TWO* units with two leadership teams? Or were they thinking that the already overburdened Boy Scout leaders would simply sign up to run the girl's unit too? Who knows.

If girls in Boy Scouts was as popular as National keeps telling us, there should be a surplus of fresh volunteers ready to carry the flag for this historic change.  

1 minute ago, gblotter said:

All true, but it extends further. As the girls begin to occupy major troop leadership positions and the boys step back, Scouting will become known as primarily a girl organization. Then the boys flee altogether in favor of gender-segregated sports teams and others masculine pursuits. This is the path that Scouts Canada has followed. After going co-ed in 1998, Scouts Canada encountered dramatic membership declines, and it is now primarily a girl movement. Summer camp facilities are for sale across Canada. Welcome to the future.

So the boys who (and I know I keep saying this) statistically face higher suicide rates, higher drug abuse rates, higher high school drop out rates, higher illiteracy rates, lower college success rates... will be left behind once again.  

 

Just now, Hawkwin said:

Let's not jump to conclusions by calling people liars.

Their intent may indeed be and have been to keep them completely separate but upon further examination of the plans for implementation, they may end up determining that the final result has to be different. That doesn't make them liars. I often tell my kids we are going to do this or the other but sometimes life happens and we have to change our plans.

He was unequivocally firm on that point, at every step of the way.  The lack of subsequent transparency with regards to that backpedal in ANY other avenue of life, would result in the valid claim of lie.  

5 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

 

Actually according to some national level volunteers, the "separate but equal" Girls' Program troops is being reconsidered. The PTB are now looking into coed troops with segregated patrols. That is what is being reported on Talk About Scouting facebook group.

Meaning Michael Surbaugh and the rest of National are in fact liars and sold the idea of Family Scouting on a lie.  I remember in our own family scouting meetings, the ONE thing that almost everyone was firm on, was "i dont care what happens to the cub scouts, but boy scout level must be separate" and the response from professional was "and that is exactly what is being proposed".  

35 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

.

Only 11.2% of corporate officers in Fortune 500 companies are women (I assume that means 88.7% are men and 0.1% are other).       Only 4.2% have female CEOs.  Clearly there is a fall off of women leaders somewhere...

I touched on that, the idea of a "boys club" and the barring of women in positions of power is largely gone, especially in the last 15 years.  Especially in the US.  A large part of the reason, I believe, and a lot of people much much smarter than I am, also believe, is because women, educated women, in general, simply aren't interested in those positions.   

24 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

I think leadership of coed Packs and BSA4G Troop who will run like coed will have to watch for this and it may be a good reason to ensure there remains some segregation within a coed program.  I don’t see much concern at Cub scouts as it is parent run and there are really no leadership roles.  At Boy Scout level, for those Troops that combine (they’ll exist) I certainly hope they keep the Patrols separate to allow both boy and girl PLs and even keep separate SPLs.   

While girls dominating may contine into high school, I’m actually not seeing women leaders take over my workplace (in the USA).   I still see male leaders dominate the ranks after you get beyond the first level.  This is such a concern in our corporation that I’m being pulled into new training titled Men Advocating for Real Change.  Essentially watching for bias within the organization that could be preventing a diversified leadership.  I could see BSA as a great method to help build both male (and female) leaders of the future.

Cub Scouts is a DIRECT feed into Boy Scouts.  We have enough problems with Helicopter moms and dads not letting boy led  BE boy led after cross over... not establishing segregation at the Cub level now and laying down clear groundwork that will carry upwards, is only going to muddy the waters at cross over and make things a mess.  The concern should be even higher at the Cub level specifically because of this reason.   We can't keep thinking of these things in their separate bubbles, there needs to be a big picture view of how things are interconnected and play themselves out over the long haul. 

I'm also very suspect of the Troops that are not obedient that flout the policy, they won't keep patrols separate because they're either agenda driven, or they really only care about making things easy for themselves.  And if the boys decide they don't want co-ed patrols, I'm sure that would be overruled as well.  Would love to be proven wrong, but I don't see that happening. 

As for the workplace, personally speaking, women dominate leadership positions in my workplace (also in the USA), but again, as with anything in this world, it largely has to do with the uniqueness of male and female interest.   Both in being interested in being a leader at all at that level, and having interest in being a leader in a field that interests you.  
 

On 2/4/2018 at 8:54 PM, NJCubScouter said:

I think I have said this before, but I wish that the BSA, as its first decision after letting girls into Cub Scouts, had NOT issued a new article of clothing for the girl-Cubs that emphasizes differences between the genders.  Why couldn’t they just let the girls wear the regular blue shorts and long pants?  And if necessary, offer a girls’ version, the same thing the boys are wearing, just a different “cut.”

I really hope that when the Girl Boy Scouts starts, they just let them wear the uniform pants or shorts and not have a green “skort.”

Is there a “skort” for female Venturers?

 

 

If what the girl wants matters at all, lots of girls want skirts.  I know my own daughter prefers skirts and dresses.  Sometimes it's a fight just to get her to wear jeans. 

I'm a little confused tho, the difference between genders is as plain as using one's eyes.  It's been universally acknowledged for all of human history.   There's no emphasis needed.  I thought the whole point of this family scouting thing was to accept and capitalize on the differences in genders (single-gender programs) while providing the quality content of the program.   

As for Venturers... I don't know, but Scouting Magazine floated this image around a little while back when touting Woodbadge. 

The boys interviewed in that piece look thrilled... 

On 2/4/2018 at 8:12 AM, RememberSchiff said:

There is a lot of real anger and hysteria in America. I think trustworthy, loyal, helpful, friendly, courteous, kind, obedient,... scouts and Scouters are part of the solution.

My $0.02

 

In the age of the viral internet and the court of public opinion reaching a verdict quicker than an eye blink... even if you live up to those ideals... it doesn't matter much. 

Jordan Peterson is live on Joe Rogan Experience right now, he's touched on the responsibility aspect quite a bit.  He's also said what CalicoPen has said about we the left and right need each other, but they're not talking. 

21 hours ago, EmberMike said:

But current membership is not what the BSA is fully focused on, not should they be.

you're right, the 90% of boys who aren't in Boy Scouts and could use that moral barometer in their lives so they don't succumb to academic failure, drug and alcohol addiction, incarceration or sexual violence... should be their focus.  

On 1/24/2018 at 9:23 PM, Eagle94-A1 said:

 

 

How can folks trust national?

Because a Scout is Trustworthy... 

16 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

Do you mean single gender dens within coed packs, or single gender patrols within coed troops?  Or both?

I think he meant Single gender patrols in coed Troops, which is what I was hearing rumblings of prior to the Buzz-Feed article... 

Also, Happy Upcoming Birthday