Eagle1993

I had an engineering team that used to work for me out of Germany. One of them told me of the time he told his son about WWII. He got through telling his son the history and his son asked...”dad, we were on the good side, right”. “Well son, as a matter of fact....” it was a tough conversation to have.

I’m hoping they most if not all come through... so far a lot of verbal interest.

What I am starting to see is several dads who only had daughters volunteer to be leaders. One was a former ASM, Eagle Scout and OA member. He only had girls so stopped his involvement if BSA and is now interested in volunteering as his girls are getting involved. We are also seeing other parents volunteer as they are talking of having their daughters join. Right now we have the possibility of adding 26 scouts to our pack of 71 over the next 2 weeks. 4 are boys and 22 girls (2 boys joined along with their sisters). 7 of the girls are from a separate school who’s Pack is not adding girls at this time. So far, there are 5 new parents volunteering to be leaders in our Pack along with these 22 potential scouts. I don’t expect all to join right now, but it does seem that there are parents out there willing to volunteer along with having their daughters join. I will say adding this program midstream has been a lot of work, but I think it is helping us understand how we should add girls to our Pack Early on I was one concerned that we couldn’t do separate girl only dens due to volunteers. What I am seeing is that we should be able to maintain separate dens (with the additional volunteers I am seeing) and there are benefits. So, going into the fall we will be enforcing separate Girl/boy dens.

I’m in the med device industry and I’ve seen this with PMP (project management professional) and various nursing certifications (CNA, RN, etc.). However, I do agree some can go overboard. Generally it’s a red flag if the characters in your degree and certification list exceed your name length. 😀 As far as eagle candidate on your resume I’d keep it to Life Scout for now. At 15 that is a great accomplishment.

Our settings have been updated and we have been able to register our first girl. I believe we are the only Pack in our council doing this at this time, but there are other early Packs showing some interest. Next up parents meeting and more homework on condensing a program down into 5 months.

Good recommendation and thanks for the additional DE insight. Our DE has been very supportive so I’ll lean to the side of him thinking down the road on ensuring a quality program vs padding the numbers. I definitely appreciate the ideas and will focus our leaders on planning for a large Pack vs breaking it apart.

Today, there is no requirement for male YPT adults to be present at Cub Scout outings. You can simply have two female den leaders and your fine. When adding girls, I believe BSA worked with both legal and other authorities and realized that having two males leading would be an issue, so they added in the YPT female requirement. The question is why they didn’t go back and put in a new requirement for all Boy dens. My guess is that he BSA didn’t want to negatively impact existing Packs and Dens for something that is not needed for safety or legal reasons. That said, I do think they should have consistent policies with othe coed groups within the BSA. Perhaps providing existing Packs transition timing to allow them to find additional male YPT adults may help.

That is interesting, as in our case the council is the one initiating the idea of splitting the Pack up... no one inside our Pack has even thought of this. I’ll focus on adding adult leaders in various roles to improve our program instead of breaking the pack up. Thanks for the insights.

@Pselb We would have 1 Pack for K5-3rd grade and the other Pack for 4th & 5th graders. I don’t see splitting friends as much of a risk. Most of the scouts in our Pack hang out with their own grade level. We do have other Packs in town but all are heavily segregated by school... there are no scouts in any of the Packs from other schools. When we lose scouts, we lose them to sports not other youth organizations. Even with all of that, I am definitely leaning to keeping 1 Pack and look for other solutions for our primary issue (Webelos and AOL linkage to Troops) and secondary issue (entire Pack outings/meetings/event) exceeding capacity.

My primary issue that I have is the lack of involvement with Troops for Webelos and AOL. The AOL does the Klondike with one Troop but I would like to see more activities with multiple Troops. That would allow the scouts to get a feel of the various Troop options in our area. As the CC (same with the CM), it is difficult to have the time to help make that happen when supporting a Pack that is this large and ranges from K5-5th grade (and now girls). I may just lean on my den leaders and give them contacts. Another option is den chiefs... perhaps I can reach out and see if any Troops would be interested in that role as well. Otherwise I agree that splitting the pack could just result in two weak packs. I’ll see if there are other ways to skin this cat.

My Pack has grown a lot over the last few years. A few summers ago we were down to 26 after a crossing over. At time of recharter this January we hit 71. I now have 11 girls joining with 5 additional girls possible pending a parent meeting next week. At he same time, 5 more boys are joining. So, if all some thru we will be at 92 Scouts with 16 of them girls. Looking at the trend I think our Pack will settle out at 100 Scouts with 25 girls. Given those numbers my DE is starting discussions of possible different Pack configurations. One idea is separate Boy/Girl Packs. The other, which I find more interesting, is a Webelos/Arrow of light Pack. So, one pack for K5-3rd and the other as 4th and 5th graders. Other than the additional overhead this sounds like a great idea. Has anyone setup separate packs like this? Any thoughts of this subdivision? This is very early and I haven’t discussed with anyone in the Pack... just feeling out the idea.

Agreed. To me this should be the policy going forward for Cub Scouts. I understand there may Be impacts to some dens, but we should encourage dads to volunteer. I honestly have no problem with requiring an adult female present with girls... but the requirement of having an adult male present with boys should also apply.

We are the only Pack in our district running the early adopter program. There are others in the council, not sure how many.

I’ll ask my DE tomorrow. I think the number is pretty low.

We already have a thread debating this (I agree with you and at the same time do admire her work). The question was if she understands that her ranks are not official. It appears she understands that. I probably shouldn’t have mentioned the podcast as it took this thread sideways. We should probably just start a thread titled Gary Ireland’s Twitter feed...

I think she consistently states that her ranks are unofficial. However, she is looking for official recognition.

What is the Venturing YPT rules for Boy, coed and Girl only units? I would think the den leader rules should be consistent with those.

Found this video... Webelos uniforms are changing. New patches. More info on girls. https://vimeo.com/249824630 F@mily4UnitLeaders

True... but I’m thinking more about the widespread rollout from Packs. There will definitely be some need late this year.

Correct, I didn’t mean to put this on Ireland or start another Ireland debate. It was a lead in prior to even talking with Ireland.

Let me know what you hear.

Just listened to the “pantsuit nation” podcast with Sydney Ireland as the guest. The striking inconsistency of the argument presented that BSA must tear down this patriarchal program while maintaining Girl Scout are great for girls is blatant. I warn you not to go searching for the podcast.... That said, it is the reality for COs and Packs that choose to include girls. After starting the process of adding girls I believe it is clear the BSA MUST release and start the pilot program of the girl Boy Scout program this summer. The startup issues of just adding dens and girls to the Pack have been tough enough. Adding a new girls program will be massive and they will need some groups to work out the bugs to be ready for 2019 Feb/March crossover. Given the what is in this article I think they realize this and may be feeling the pressure of simply adding girl Patrols to Troops. Whatever solution, they need to have a kickoff in the spring for training and begin pilot Troops or patrols this summer/fall. Waiting until next year will be a disaster.

Plain bold italic underline entered on iPhone. What iOS version are you using? I’m on 11.2.1 with a 7.

We will see. All of our professionals have been in meetings all week and my COR is also my DE. He has emailed me updates at 12:30 am so I know they are busy at work. Hopefully when they are out of their planning meeting the council will have a bit more time to figure it out.

Week 2 Update Pinewood Derby is tomorrow so most of our focus has been on that this week. We have 10 girls that are joining our Pack, 4 Lions, 1 Tiger and 5 Bears. There are a few more that are considering. We also added one boy who was an older brother of one of the girls that joined... the parents thought it would be great to have both involved. IT issues... we have still not been able to accept applications online which is required. While we are officially chartered the online application only allows males to apply. Talking with council we think it is due to a new field in the organization Manager callled Family Scouting (ours indicates we are not participating). Council is working to see how this can be updated. Impact on Boys. I think the separate dens help.. even if in 3-4 years they fade away. At least at first In minimizes the impact on the boys. No one has quit yet but I heard one boy indicate he didn’t want girls... his dad told him to be quiet. My son indicated another boy said it is “Boy Scouts” and therefore only boys should join. My son said “Actually it is Cub Scouts and so only young bears should be able to join and so we should be kicked out.” They both laughed. I asked my son his opinion and he was fine with the change (he said he didn’t know any who are against it). That said he told me... dad, I don’t think we can continue with wenius jokes. So, they may lose out on that... Next up is PWD (1 girl racing). New parent meeting next week and girls den meeting in 1.5 weeks.