Snow Owl

Gulf Coast Council also emailed the increase out at noon today.  The cat is well out of the bag.

BSA should have a ticker showing the number of bot cubs and girl cubs

I would love to see a survey of how the packs are actually implementing the girl/boy dens.  My suspicion is many are doing separate dens on paper only. 

How do we find out if a registered leader has been bared are kicked out of Scouting?  Let's say for example an adult leader was arrested for several charges including drug and weapons charges, terrorizing and threatening a public official and is currently out on Bond.  How do we see if they are still authorized to be a scout leader and a MB counselor?  Would this person be at least temporarily bared from Scout events as a leader?  There is no conviction just a host of charges.

What if it is a Scout instead of the leader?

And no it is not me!

I am curious what councils are going to do with girl applications before the 2018 school year?  I cannot imagine my council turning down money or anything that boosts their numbers.

most Scout campgrounds etc. are more than an hour out from the city but there are two we have used that are much closer but not ideal

St. Bernard State Park  - 45 min South east of NOLA  GIANT Mesquites

501 Saint Bernard Pkwy

Saint Bernard, LA 70085

Phone number  (504) 682-2101  

Woodlands Conservancy

449 F. Edward Hebert Blvd,

Belle Chase, LA

504-433-4000

Allows Scouts to camp but no showers and very limited facility

The Scout reservation for the Southeast Louisiana Council is actually in Mississippi  http://www.bsa-selacouncil.org/

The neighboring council, Istrouma Area Council, has a nice camp to the west about the same distance as the Southeast Louisiana one https://www.iacbsa.org/

There may be others as well. 

And yes the WW2 museum is amazing!

Anything is possible, but the quote in the article from the council spokesperson says they are "evaluating" the matter - which suggests that they have reached no conclusion and it also suggests that the council was not consulted in advance.  If they had already reached a conclusion (either before or after the action was actually taken) it is more likely that they would have said something like "The council has investigated the matter and we have no further comment." As long as we're speaking hypothetically.

Agee completely

Where?  Show me a BSA rule that says if I, a registered volunteer, am falsely accused in the media of something improper, I cannot respond publicly to set the record straight.

 

I think you're confusing scouting with a school or medical provider, who do have statutory privacy obligations. 

 You can respond, it would not be wise nor advised. I do not see a den leader being specifically named so for them to throw themselves into the fray would be very unwise.  The Charter Organization also has a big say in this, As a leader you very well may have the survival of your unit in your hands.  Also,  as a leader you are covered by the BSA liability and E & O insurance, if you want to have that protection, you abide by their recommendations.   As soon as something like this occurs the gentleman in expensive suits call you.

disclaimer - I am not speaking about anything specifically related to this matter just general knowledge and observation.

Let say the scout was asked to leave for other behavior,  the Council nor BSA would say anything it would violate privacy and disclosure laws related to minors. 

This is completely a hypothetical mind you but for sake of thought.  The mother wanted a confrontation, feeds her son who shares her views very poignant statement thinly masked as questions.  She films the entire exchange (releases portions of it but not he entire meeting).  The Scouts had been given guidelines of proper behavior and the parents were also informed of the decorum and accepted behavior and if they did not agree to the guidelines set out they could choose not to attend. The mother's filming  violated the guidelines and agreed upon decorum for the meeting.  the Scouts questions also violated the set out rules.

Then after the Senator's visit has concluded, the den leader, being upset and possible politically aligned with the senator, confronts the mother and Scout about the incident.  Not kicking them out of the den but pointing out they had agreed by coming to the meeting to not do exactly whet they did.  But the Scout & his mother basically say we don't like your rules and we do not need to follow them.  Den leader says well if you do not like my rules and the way I am running the den, you can go to another den or sign up and be a leader yourself.

So again, hypothetically, the den leader, the cubmaster nor council or BSA would say anything different than they already have.  Again this is all hypothetical.  But you can see an easily alternative situation but BSA, the CO and the leaders cannot say anything related to any of it.

Just food for thought before we jump to conclusions based on only one side of the story when there are actually many sides.

I think we are not getting even close to the whole story.  The two statements I saw he asked where:

“I was astonished that you blamed black people for poor health and poverty because of all the chicken and barbecue they eat,â€

"I was shocked that you co-sponsored a bill to allow domestic violence offenders to continue to own a gun, Why on earth would you want someone who beats their wife to have access to a gun?"

Given his mother's significant political activism I have a hard time believing the story on face value.  BSA nor the unit can comment on what issues may or may not have existed with the Scout and his mother or is he was asked to change dens what was the reason.  Again we do not know, but what if there was another issue or problem unrelated to the statements he made to the state senator?

I have first hand knowledge of a number of situations when a Scout or their family have been separated from a unit.  No details or any information is ever disseminated or released.  There are major privacy restrictions so BSA at any level, as well as the unit, is bared from explaining or giving any details.

In the story at hand, the mother and the Scout can say what they wish to the media, BSA, the unit and the chartered organization are greatly limited as to what they can say.

I can't help but think this was orchestrated by the mother to get the exact media attention she is getting.

@@John-in-KC thank you for posting the video. https://livestream.com/bsa/nationalcouncil/videos/164161163

 

1) I think he is telling some tall tales.  Cub Scouts has not been 'Family oriented" for "generations" It only goes back about 20 - 25 years.

I was a cub in the 70s and my brothers were cubs in the 60s, there was less camping but when we did it was the entire family including Moms and sisters.

 

2) While I have not been to PTC, I really do not think somoen would take there granddaughter there. I could be wrong on that.

My wife and son went to PTC and there were plenty of girls in the family programs, I am sure some of them were someone's grandaughter

 

3) he's stated that the SEs were behind him. Then why was mine shocked?  I never trust what the SEs tell me, well at least ours.

 

4) He talked about the townhalls and surveys. What he didn't mention was A) you tolded the SEs to do these townhalls  the day before jamboree starts, which many attend  B) and give a  a one month period for council to do the town hall meetings IN WHICH  PART OF THAT TIME IS DURING THE JAMBOREE! ( emphasis.) Yes, my SE was extremely ticked off about that one.  Our town hall was after Jambo, but this was a very frequent topic at Jambo.

 

5) Only way to take the survey was to get to the townhalls, and there were not given enough time. only 11000 folks participated.  That is sad and should have been done better.

 

6) says the survey questions were neutral. To quote Col. Potter,  " HORSEHOCKEY!" The were designed to get a specific response: allow girls in Boy Scouts.   Agree, a survey question is NEVER neutral.

 

Ok I can't take it. I can't finish it/

It is truly unfortunate Scouters feel the need to leave, the program is too important to abandon, why not work to ensure the program continues to serve the youth of America now just include the girls.

I felt a response was warranted. 

Sure it already happens, but is it widespread? And intentional? In the rush to award girls the rank of Eagle Scout, there's going to be a taint of "her dad's the SM, her mom's the CC, and mom and dad were MBCs for most of the Eagle-required MBs."

 

I am already hearing from long-time district advancement chairs who are worried.

The number of Eagle mills out there is significant.  Merit badges get handed out like candy at many camps and troops.  We see it very often - Scouts earing a merit badge at camp that has requirements that clearly could not have been completed.

Summer camp seems to be the biggest problem that the local option crowd is either ignoring or unaware of. Regardless of your own troop's policy, you're going to be affected.

Attending a council camp used to mean a week away from girls, electronics, and other distractions, now you only get this if you hold your own camp.

 We have seen girls at summer camps both on staff and as attendees for the past few years.

I have been using a sears Kenmore basic sewing machine and it works great.  Biggest thing it to use new needles.  the patches and the backing on the patches dull the needles very quickly.

Here's the problem that I see, as I'm not opposed to letting girls into Cub Scout, it's a problem of logistics.  Our CO is a civic club and we meet in their building.  We have 45 boys and we are bursting at the seams of what our building can accommodate. So, where do we put the girls who join?  We physically don't have the space to add more kids.  Okay, so we're a civic club, if we don't admit girls, we're going to get sued into oblivion.  I guess I have two  choices, find another local CO for a girls pack or recommend to my club that we no longer sponsor scouts period.  This, on top of national "kindly" deciding to effectively steal 1/4 of my pack budget with their fee increase after recruitment has led to this whole thing being more stressful than I care to think about right now.  I'm not at burn out yet, but I can see it from here.

 I don't see the getting sued into oblivion as being an issue.  I think all of our packs will have growing pains, I think one way to approach it is to require a much higher level of adult leadership.  As in if you want your son or daughter to be a cub we need you to get trained and register as a leader. 

We have been going to district and council events for years with the Cubs that had significant numbers of sibling girls participating in all activities.  The last two years of Summer camp and winter camp for the Scout had venture crew girls and female staff.  I don't see that anything will need to change much.  Except attitudes perhaps.

I have not seen a cub scout event in the last 6 years that did not have sibling sisters participating and camping. 

There will be hiccups but I thing we will be stronger when this is all done.

Unfortunately so few know anything about venturing other than always being told " it was a way for girls to join Boy Scouts" 

I know our School has been hesitant to start a crew because of the age issue  - members being over 18 and therefore by definition no longer students. 

We had originally asked the Scouts from the various levels of the dens if they had an issue with the girls being Scouts. We did not ask it as direct as that but their response was confusion.  They could not understand why they were not already in the Pack.  They saw the difference between Cub Scouts and Brownies/girl Scouts as "Cub Scout go camping, girl Scouts sell cookie"  Not my works, Scouts honor.

We originally were going to have a girl den for all the girls called the Fox Den, we learn combining the ages did not work and we did not have enough girls or leaders to make separate girl dens at each level so we just put them in the mix.

We treated them the same as the boys, they did all the den activities and pack activities just like the boys.  We encourage all parents to become leaders and we really encouraged the girl cubs parents to become leaders; some did.  We already had/have female leaders so it was not a gender issue.

We were careful to not step on the toes of the girl scouts at our School so we never actively recruited, we just said we were open to youth 1st grade through 5th and no longer turned anyone away.  We expect now to have many more

We camp often and it is family camping so the families are responsible for their own children and scouts do not share tents so we did nothing different at campouts either. 

Even things like the buddy system were the same unless they were walking to the bathroom or showers then it either had to be two girls or an adult with a girl and boy.   In our Pack of 100+ Scouts we have only had a few girls each year so far - we did not seek them we just did not turn them away. 

We would award them patches and rank patches etc.  The only issue we had was uniforms.  We had a tie dye shirt made, intending it to be for the girls only, well all the Scouts wanted them so everyone has a tie-dye class B and the girls still have no uniform.  We were always very open about everything we were doing, both to the council and especially the parents.  The parents knew their child was not full BSA members so there was some dissatisfaction from the parents - not toward us but council.  That issue should be gone very soon too now.

We stumbled into allowing girls a few years ago when a girl came up with one of our scouts and asked if she could join, we though she was his sister so we said yes you can come to everything your brother does. She said no, I'm his friend.  We said yes and decided to see how it went.  It was much easier than we ever thought it would be.

There were no issues with the girls doing the program, there were no issues between the boys and girls.  I think the younger scouts are easy the boy scout age will be much more difficult but I think still easier than people think.

We have had girls in our dens for a couple of years now, the only change for us will be we now turn an application in to council.  We have had zero problems with "coed" dens.  There are many units nationwide for a number of years that have either been part of the some pilot program or just doing it in full sight of their prospective councils and national.

National nor council tracks anything related to dens or patrols for that matter.

Also not sure how this is going to help families with boys and girls to participate at the same time except for Pack meetings.  The pack in our area have den meetings on all different nights, so unless the siblings are twins or in the same grade, they wouldn't have meetings on the same night anyway.  I assume some packs have all den meetings on the same night, but don't see it working in our area.

That is how the Cubs were run when I was a kid but Our Pack meets as a Pack every other week then splits up into dens.  Everyone meets at the same time.  There is only one den per grade level. So there may be a 24 scout den, at the den level of the meeting it splits into smaller groups for the activities.   I think many Packs use this model.  It has several advantages.

  We thought that, or a version of that, would be in the new program when the Cub program was revised but it was tabled. 

Put me in the "I'll believe it when I see it" group.

Every family that wants to have a girl join should be given a packet with both Youth and Adult apps. That should get the message across. If you want her in, you are in, too.

I would be willing to bet that of the few that express interest, fewer than half will step up to the plate and contribute.

 

Some may think that's harsh, but when we already have problems getting enough volunteers, that may be the only way to get enough on board. And even then I'm skeptical.

We do that for the boys now   It is not difficult to get youth to sign up, it's getting the adults you need that is the real issue.

Has anyone seen any evidence of implementation?  The rumor mill is churning but I have not seen anything recent.