HashTagScouts

That they would be independent thinkers and learners is hardly socialism or communism.

I'd start by referring her to read the rank requirements, pointing out: 30 days (minimum) required to earn Tenderfoot due to the fitness requirement, 4 weeks (minimum) after earning Tenderfoot to earn Second Class (fitness requirement), 4 weeks (minimum) after earning Second Class to earn First Class (fitness requirement). I appreciate the kids enthusiasm, but it is a marathon and not a sprint. To each unit their own, but I wouldn't accept the youth doing videos for rank requirements. If the youth wanted to come to a troop meeting and ask the SPL if there is time for someone to test him on requirement X if time allows, that is at the SPL discretion.

The last unit I was with had purchased new tents the year before that YP change, and they were intended to be used for three youth - bad choice IMO (3 per tent?), I came in at the tail end of that decision and couldn't understand that logic- also thought they went with too high-brow of a tent model, and within a year two of them were missing poles/had broken poles/had tears in the rain fly. Prior unit did individual, Scout (parent) purchased, tenting and that worked out well. Troop had a few troop owned tents that mainly were used for the first campouts after crossover so the youth transitioning in had a little time to learn the ropes. For the kids who preferred hammocks, they used hammocks. Their tent, they were in charge of bringing it home, airing it out, and keeping it in good repair. Some kids would bring their family 6 man tent to a campout, but the other Scouts would make it known that this was not up to expectation pretty quickly (usually by making that Scout wait it out before helping them to set it up- watching an 11 year old try to set up a 6 man tent by themselves is a sight to behold). Some Scouts would start off with a $30 Walmart one-man tent, some went right for the REI models. My son had a Walmart one, but he saw me taking care of my tent, so with him hitting it with waterproof spray at the start of each year and checking seams that tent held up well for him over the years. That tent only weighed a little over 4 pounds, so wasn't bad for backpacking or regular weekend outings.

Also are not supposed to be tenting youth together that are more than two years apart in age. For mixed age patrols, that just requires a little extra vigilance on how the patrol decides on tentmates, which then means adults having to be hovering over their shoulders for something that years ago we just left them to it.

We had started off with intent to keep units separate, then when numbers fell and recruitment just wasn't bringing in new girls, for practical purposes we had to do everything jointly. The pilot just made sense- especially as we were told from our Field Service Director that National did not want councils to keep letting units re-charter with 3-4 youth year-over-year anymore- that it was survival for us. Too many girls in our pack have brothers, and to lose pairings each year would kill us, and eventually begin to make parents question why they are even registering their kids in our pack when they'll have to move to the town over in 3 years like their BFF's kids had to do.

The "Make Our Program Highly Relevant" presentation was the relevant one to watch (https://nam.scouting.org/presentations/). Angelique spoke in that video on the pilot and what they are reviewing and timing as "fall". The "Opening General Session" Roger Krone" mentioned October on decision specific to this pilot. Not sure where the December was coming from, but the February that Angelique mentions in the FB post is - to me anyway - odd If the pilot is killed for existing units (for forming new units, that would correlate to AoL crossover, which makes sense if continuing the pilot). I still say that with the 174 units that are in pilot, Scouting America is highly unlikely to do away with this option.

General discussion at National Annual Meeting on it. Videos of presentations found here: https://nam.scouting.org/presentations/ No decision on continuing the pilot will be announced until October.

Why? If your Council is anything like mine, these Council weekend camporees and events are adult planned and adult lead, not Scout planned or Scout lead. Taking a smaller, younger unit to one a year to spark them to suck up some knowledge might be good, but otherwise, I'd rather have them off learning by doing. Making mistakes is a part of learning in my book. It is long and complicated history to get all into Scout camps and long-term resident camp structures, but for me one has to first look at the program itself and how it morphed over time. The earliest days of Scouting were small and fairly widely distributed on units that were formed prior to 1910 and in that first decade 1910-1919. Mostly rural, and camping meant hiking across town to a patch of woods rather than trekking off to some 500 acre camp. BSA growth from 1920 to post-WWII was predominantly in urban areas, and that began the rush for councils to acquire property for these units to have spaces of their own to build out and structure for solely Scouting purposes. Not all of these properties were huge tracts, some were just several acres. Residence camp ("summer camp") for many was multiple weeks, and didn't involve brining in adults to lead- the Scouts/units themselves generally lead the program. Our legacy council was split to three districts, and camp, up until the early 50's, was two weeks per district. The SE was the camp director and in charge of logistics (how to get Scouts and food to camp), and there was one other adult that was "staff"- that was the program director and worked with the with units to carry out their planning of daily activities. The camp property the council had in those years had no dining hall, no showerhouse, etc. There were only three structures on the property when it was sold in the early 1950s and they acquired a new, larger property. Beginning in the 1970s, as membership had peaked and began to drop in many areas, "excess" properties began to be sold off or sometimes transferred to state/municipal entities. For New England as a whole, from about the mid 1990s to present, about two dozen properties have been sold or transferred (many in the later category will still allow some limited weekend usage by Scouting units). Some of those were several-hundred acre type properties, some were hold-over small properties (often with little to no developed structures or water/electricity supply) from decades past. From the mid 1970s to the mid 1990s, several dozen properties were dispatched, often as part of paying down debts to stave off inevitable council mergers. Our youth several years ago tried to get SPLs from other district units together to plan a fall camporee, as our troop stopped going for a few years because it was all adult lead. The District Chair and the District Activities Coordinator were all onboard, until suddenly after a few meetings they weren't. The weekend went off fully adult planned and lead. When we inquired why this had changed, the response was that the "at large" District members (these are adults that are not registered to units, and not in a District Key 3 position, but are still registered to BSA) felt that they were being "left with nothing to do". Our unit had nothing to do with Council/District, aside from Eagle Boards, for the next four years. We couldn't understand how adults that were supposedly sticking around in a front of "supporting Scouting" took over youth running an event, and that seemed appropriate to everyone in a position of authority. I certainly don't have all the answers, and I may be completely wrong on this (even just for simple basic "health and safety" concerns we have to face today), but I am fine with the organization being at the size of youth membership that it is today, if only we could go back to that simpler time when a Council was only a small cluster of towns and had one employee, and camping and program in general wasn't big production. If we could process paperwork with nothing more than typewriters and the USPS back then, technology today should certainly make it feasible to scale appropriately without over-the-top bloat.

I have never asked anyone from that Council, but I did talk with an old timer from NY several years ago and they came up in conversation. The longstanding rumor is that they told National many years ago- like, when they were still headquartered in NYC- that they would never agree to change any of the charter agreement language, so that what you stated would remain the case as it had been going back to 1912, that Council was in charge of hiring their own staff. Camp Seton is also believed to be legally owned by the Greenwich Council corporate entity, and Greenwich Council "threatens" National that they will never agree to transfer ownership of it if National tried to take away their charter. 250 acres in Greenwich CT is worth a pretty penny in todays real estate market I'm sure. This all as I say rumor, would be interested if it is accurate.

Greenwich Council covers only just Greenwich, CT. Sometimes it comes down to the donors.

Aquatics guide is now available digitally: https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/Outdoor Program/Aquatics/pdf/Aquatics_34346.pdf?_gl=1*o4y99g*_gcl_au*MTQ1MzU5MzYwOC4xNzQ5NzM1MDgw*_ga*ODM0ODQ1MjkxLjE3NDk1ODQ2OTI.*_ga_20G0JHESG4*czE3NTI1MTMyNTAkbzMkZzEkdDE3NTI1MTMyNTckajUzJGwwJGgw&_ga=2.213894036.1402502429.1752513250-834845291.1749584692 All swimming and activity afloat must be supervised by mature and conscientious adults, age 21 or older, who • understand and knowingly accept responsibility for the well-being and safety of youth members in their care, • are experienced in the particular activity, • are confident in their ability to respond appropriately in an emergency, and • are trained and committed to the nine points of Scouting America’s Safety Afloat and/or the eight points of Safe Swim Defense. The Den Leader, Cubmaster, Scoutmaster, crew Advisor, or Skipper who accompanies the unit on an outing is responsible for the first and last bulleted points. However, Scouting America policies do not specify that the unit leader must be the one who satisfies all of the above criteria. Under appropriate circumstances, the unit leader may delegate responsibility to others. For example, a Scout troop at a water park with trained lifeguards on duty need not assign separate unit personnel to perform water rescue. A Venturing crew on a whitewater excursion may rely on a licensed outfitter to provide the necessary equipment and trained guides. As the above examples demonstrate, a unit can participate in fun and challenging aquatics activities even if unit leaders lack the knowledge and skill to conduct the activity themselves, provided leaders ensure that others, such as venue staff, provide the required components. On the other hand, a troop on its way to a jamboree need not forgo the use of a hotel pool just because the facility does not employ a professional lifeguard, provided unit leaders are properly prepared.

Don't disagree with you on when they could have messaged. Does seem to be desired to use NAM as the showcase the past few years- but that could be self-serving trying to get more people to attend ((BSA makes $ off the registration fees for NAM).

I think the roll out timing post NAM 2024 was a little late to see immediate impact - AOLs would have already crossed over at that point. Waiting to give measurement now that they have seen numbers for the pilot units that took on crossovers this spring, plus seeing what recruitment numbers look like for those units as they approach back-to-school recruitment events, you should see a better picture.

In the two years of fumbling it took us to get enough girls to start a girl troop, we lost five kids (two sibling pairs + 1 friend of of one of the families) from out of our own pack to a neighboring town because they had a functioning linked boy troop and girl troop. We managed to get our stuff together to charter a girl troop with minimum #s that next year, but by year's end one aged out and one of our female adults moved. We were down to four girls going into 2024 and knew one would age out over the summer, so the mixed gender pilot was the saving grace for 2025. Very doubtful that BSA is going to drop that, and would bet the farm that by 2026 it is just one of the membership options that any unit can use.

NAM 2024 they announced pilot for mixed gender troops. My former linked units merged to single mixed gender unit for 2025 re-charter. NAM 2025 briefly mentioned it- no immediate plans to fully incorporate it as a full-fledged program option yet, but as I understand it, the plan is to expand the pilot in additional councils in 2025. https://filestore.scouting.org/filestore/NAM/2025/0 - Opening General Session.pdf