Eagle1993

On 12/14/2017 at 6:48 PM, ParkMan said:

I'll be interested to see how single sex dens end up working out in practice in these early adopters.  I'm assuming it will be a royal pain and we'll end up with coed dens all over the place.

I think it depends on Pack size.  Let’s say I have a 40 Bear Scouts, 30 boys and 10 girls.  I expect limited issues finding appropriate leadership.  Now, in my Pack, I expect ~12-15 boy Bear Scouts and 2-3 girls.   One of the girls has already been attending all of the Bear den meetings and outings as she is the twin sister of a current member and her mom is one of the den leaders.   We already talked as a Pack and we do no plan on splitting that group.  We already have a male and female den leader for the existing Bear den.  

When they move to Webelos we plan on making those two the same den leaders for the Girl Webelos den and they’ll meet at the same time and place.  I haven’t seen anything that shows this would violate policy (officially they are still two dens both with appropriate leadership).  I also brought this up during  a district meeting and they saw no issue as well.  I’ve talked with several Troops and they also plan a similar style (same leadership, Boy/Girl Troops, same meeting time/place).  

Our Pack leadership has decided to take this on a case by case basis, but I do expect several functionally coed dens  

I think their plan is the min wait periods so you are correct it would be longer than 1 year.  I guess my question would be regarding girls who completed the requirements for merit badges prior to official membership during the EBOR.  For example, if their record shows they earned 10-15 merit badges within 1 month of joining BSA.  Technically they performed the requirements, but before officially becoming a member.  I imagine this will be occurring across the US as Troops race to have the first female Eagle Scouts, and I’m curious how EBORs will handle it.  I think this will be a much more common situation than the Ireland one.

I do not see the BSA offering (nor should they) Ireland Eagle (given the number of other girls that could also claim the same circumstances).   

I have heard of at least one Troop in Illinois who currently has unofficial girl members   They are filling out blue cards, keeping track of activities, etc.  Their plan is to create Troop 123B with identical leadership as their current Troop   That Troop will have girls and would meet the same time and place as Troop 123.   As soon as girls are allowed in, they plan to sign off on all the blue cards and provide merit badges and the appropriate rank.  That could mean they will have a girl earn Eagle in less than a year after joining.  I do wonder how the EBOR would handle these situations.   I could see this as the real transition challenge vs the Ireland situation.

My focus is on the grade school age portion (primarily Cub scouts).  If you read the guides you’ll see that GSUSA offers similar activities as Cub Scouts .... they just offer many more options.  This isn’t just Camp Beverly Hills... though that option probably exists. 

I’m in Southeastern Wisconsin.  I’ll ask about paid staff at our district meeting.  Both Cub Scout and Girl Scout camps are in the range of $175 per week.  Some of the Girl Scout camps charge extra for bussing (the bus stop is two blocks from my house).  The Cub Scout camps do not offer bussing.  

One example... Cub scouts have In-town day camp which is similar to the Girl Scouts community Day Camp.  The Cub Scout in town day camp is led by adults (with some Boy Scout volunteers.  The Girl Scout community day camp is lead by their teen Girl Scouts.  I think that helps immensely as the adults can then focus on the other day camps that are offered.

i know of a parent who signed their son up for the standard day camp only to learn later the Pack (or parent) would have to provide the two-deep leadership coverage ... so he dropped out of the camp.

This is the Girl Scout camp guide that just arrived:

http://issuu.com/girlscoutswise/docs/summer_camp_and_events_book_17-18?e=4549039/56597642

This is the website for our Cub Scout Summer Camps

http://www.threeharborsscouting.org/camping/cub-scout-summer-camp/61330

Website for our Boy Scout Camps

http://www.threeharborsscouting.org/camping/boy-scout-summer-camp/64289

I do think we will eventually get a Cub Scout camp packet... but it is no where close to what the GSUSA generated.

This is my first year as a parent of a Girl Scout, my daughter is a daisy. We just received the Girl Scout summer camp guide and to be perfectly honest it blows away the BSA. The Girl Scouts have weekly camps from early June through MID August.  They have a great collection of both day camps and overnights.  They have various speciality camps. They don’t require parents or leaders of local units to attend. If adult partners do attend, they are not charged and their daughter receives a discount.  The Girl Scouts offer bussing  to all their day camps.  Their guide is in color with pictures and have several corporate sponsor pages. 

The BSA guide looks like a joke in comparison. Camps are only offered from late June through July.  They give a very high overview and no specialized camps. No bussing. Parents or leaders must attend.. and no discount. No corporate advertising... so do businesses still value BSa experience?

If I were a busy parent that was not involved in the BSA I would think the GSAUSA is providing the far superior experience.  Perhaps in terms of summer camps.. they may be.   While I have been underwhelmed with their program to date, the BSA could learn a lot about improving their camp offerings from the GSUSA especially for the grade school age kids.  

I’m not sure if this is just my area or national but I was surprised.

7 hours ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

I notice there is still no date on any BSA publication except 'Fall 2018"  But the National Catholic Committee on Scouting gives a date of January 1, 2018.

In the last district committee meeting I attended I asked if girls could attend the Cub Scout camps the summer of 2018. The individual responsible for the camp stated she asked and it was made clear that girls in Cub Scouts would start in September of 2018.  The only official documents I have seen is fall of 2018 so September seems reasonable as the start. 

The whole charter argument came up before with the boys club. The Boys Club allowed girls to join since the 1800s but only updated their charter in 1990 when they asked congress to officially update their name and extend the club to girls.    

Interesting that there was already a Girls Club and they sued to stop the Boys club name change in 1988. After the injunction they Boys Club paid the Girls Club to change their name to Girls Inc

http://www.nytimes.com/1990/10/25/garden/when-boys-clubs-meet-girls-clubs.html

I wonder if in 5 years we will update our name to The Boy and Girl Scouts of America and pay off the Girl Scouts to rename themselves Girl Guides... history would repeat....

Several years ago our Pack leaders silently went about ensuring only male leadership. We didn’t have an ACM, Treasurer or two deep leadership in all but one den. Our Pack dropped its enrollment by nearly 70% and went from a $3k surplus to a $500 deficit. Last year we only crossed over 5 and most of them have already dropped out.

When I and a few other leaders took over we quickly identified the gaps in leadership and sent out requests to parents. A couple of moms asked me if I was open to having female leaders and I answered yes. It only took 3 moms added to the leadership ranks (all den leaders) to turn around our Pack. Our meetings are more effective, we are recruiting better than ever and our retention is up. Oh, and the pack ended up in the black.

I absolutely agree that some moms (perhaps many) could hurt the program with the main risk of being too protective of the youth. Adding girls could make this worse. However, blindly lumping all women into this group is a mistake. The three moms in our Pack are more into camping than most of the male leaders. This isn’t saying every mom is a great fit and I agree Boy Scouts is a different beast than Cub Scouts, but the female leaders helped save our Pack, uphold the scout law and oath and haven’t changed the nature of our outdoor outings.

Times have changed since 1916 and there are some great female leaders that help ensure our scouting program is successful. I’ve seen this at both the unit and district level. We should thank them instead of blaming them for undermining the ability to have male role models.

I’m working our Cub Scout Pack recharter right now (for January 1). “Moose/Rocco ... help the parents find their wallets.†But I digress.

No mention of designating Boy, Girl or Coed. Just your standard process, but now required to be online. It was made clear to me that girls won’t start until September.

I’m also concerned a bit about having AoL girl(s) with no Troop to partner with. Our AOL typical does one overnight (minimum) and a few other activities with the Troop. If we have any AOL girls they will be left out of these activities.

Brian ... it’s your call. That said a few quick things I think back to in high school:

1) I have more regrets on opportunities I passed on vs took. The girl I didn’t ask out because I was afraid she would say no (it happens, who cares and move on) or the time I could have been on the field during a World Cup match and passed (once in a life time opportunity).

2) Everybody thinks that their actions are the center of all gossip at school. Yep, you may get a hard time for a week. But the half life on high school gossip is much shorter than you think. They’ll find something else soon enough.

Embarrassment passes, but I think you would look back and be proud of honoring them. You may even be surprised by some reactions.

We had a discussion regarding girls in Packs and Troops during our District Meeting. I brought up concerns of possible small den sizes and lack of volunteers. It was made clear that how we run the Pack will be up to the CO and Committee. If we want to have both boy and girl dens meet at the same time/place with two separate leaders that would be allowed. We also talked about Boy Scouts and the expectation based upon early CO and Troop feedback is that there will be some that run it as Troop XXXA (all boys) and Troop XXXB (all girls) that would have the same leadership. Clearly this won’t be all cases but as of now it sounds like they will be allowing us some flexibility. I think the Troop statements were pure speculation but the Pack side sounded a bit more baked.

Not sure yet how we will run or interest level (based on sibling interest alone we are thinking 10-15% of our Pack will be girls). Our recent Pack meeting had 8 girls (siblings) attend and some were in GSUSA. One of the GSUSA leaders were also at our meeting (she is also a den leader) and they all remarked how different Cub Scouts was vs GSUSA (a lot more energy and excitement). No recruiting plans yet...

Do you have two strong den leaders? You may be better with a larger den under one good leader than 2 dens with one weak leader. We used to always split larger dens but we found the group that gets stuck with the weaker leader has higher attrition. We now have a den of 24 Tigers with four dens leaders. One is a great leader and the other three help with the breakout groups.

@@backpack. I think he used “ ...did just..†which is a bit different than “just didâ€. I believe 47 years is a long time even for the old guys on this forum (I’m not sure if I’m counting myself as an old guy just yet).

As far as the great survey debate... I am 100% sure the organization that spent $400m+ to clear a mountain top to make a camp could have figured out how to survey all of its members (youth and or adult). They didn’t want to. They said so in the various videos that they only wanted input from those that attended their meetings.

I’m generally in favor of this change but I don’t believe the BSA really wanted its members input. Their final proposal was nearly identical to what they had before the sessions began. I just wish they came out and said... “we are broke, girls have been asking to get in for 83 years so if your Pack/Troop is interested go ahead, if not don’t.†I’m not a fan of groups stating they are taking input but then clearly ignoring it.

I’m rooting for this to work (for all units, both boy only and coed/girl) as I’d like BSA to be around for the future, but their role out of this was poor.

@@Gwaihir.... Years ago nearly all interstate highways had a speed limit of 55 mph. It was set during the gas crisis to save fuel. Nearly everyone ignored the speed limit where it seemed ridiculous. Sure, that meant breaking the law but when a law is created that is completely inconsistent with what the constituents desire it won’t be followed without strict and heavy enforcement. Eventually that law was changed and speed limits increased.

If large numbers of scouts are jumping through hoops to get around some of the really questionable rules shouldn’t nationals reconsider them?

That isn’t saying all rules are wrong. Just like the 55 mph case that doesn’t mean throw all laws out the window. Going 70 in a work zone or around a school are clearly not appropriate and you don’t see mass noncompliance. It simply means the reasoning for the rule should be questioned when there is mass noncompliance (or workarounds).

For the most part I think Nationals has a pretty good set of rules but some seem excessive; I’m sure lawyers and insurance companies help set them. So perhaps they won’t change any and scouts will work around them.

 

Oh, and by the way, a moonlight cruise in a canoe is illegal in my state without the proper lights on the water craft.

Head to a state where it is legal (or add the green/red and white lights). Find a non motorized small lake. Pick an evening with a full moon and no wind. Cast away with a few friends. Stay sober. I tell you there are few memories as great as canoeing at night under a full moon.

I believe the Boys club had their charter modified by congress when they added girls.

“To recognize the fact that girls are a part of our cause, the national organization's name was changed to Boys & Girls Clubs of America in 1990. Accordingly, Congress amended and renewed our charter.â€

@@David CO ... or they are more aware of the financial situation we are in which could trump their concern on the social issue. As they did not launch coed Troops I’m not so sure they are fully in the Democratic camp. Even on the gay and transgender issue they only moved when they started loosing $$$ (that was under Gates... a Republican). GSUSA was way ahead of them on that change. Last time I checked Randall Stephenson donated heavily to Republicans and nothing to Democrats.

Given this survey, does that mean 77% of Republicans would want girls kicked out of Venturing? It would be interesting to get the questions asked and I wonder if it was clear what the proposal was and the current status that girls are already in the BSA. if it is simply should girls be in Boy Scouts (that is not the proposal and girls are already in the BSA).

@Col Flag ... to be clear “good†isn’t necessarily great and the BSA has a lot of work on their left, their announcement and roll out was terrible. Note that the margin of error on the cross tabs would be even greater than the overall number, so you are correct that it could still be negative across the board.

The only good aspect of this poll is that the next generation of BSA parents are in favor (if you believe the cross tabs). I think the BSA should reconsider their decision on branding and will need to work on an ad campaign. While the 18-34 are the next parents the 65+ probably donate the most $.

Looking at the 2016 annual report it seems clear the BSA is in some financial trouble. The Summit continues to suck cash, our net insurance is costing $70m a year (vs $40m in 2015), we lost $28m in net cash from operations (vs $6m loss in 2015) and then read Note 9.... the lawsuits being filed could cause “ ...operational impact on our program.†Just 1 lawsuit filed in Oregon is suing BSA for $21m.

It appears we are selling assets and continuing to bond with the hope that Summit will take off and the we won’t lose these upcoming massive lawsuits. Our assets (think selling camps) will keep us afloat for a while until we sell too many and kill the program.

The discussion around girls joining has been around for decades. While I think it can be done with a positive impact and will do my best to recruit those interested while maintaining our Pack, I think the BSA chose to include them to boost membership and save the overall program. I highly doubt this was done altruistically. Either way, what’s done is done and I hope that we find some new energetic volunteers and scouts with this change. I’d like to see us adding camps, facilities and programs while being at a loss of how to handle all of these extra volunteers. Perhaps this change will lead us there. Hope springs eternal...

The few times I came close to death was on an Snowmobiles, ATV and Jet Ski. Each time I yelled something along the line of “watch this...â€. Rule #1 in G2SS should be to stop any activity as soon as that phase is mentioned.

Overall, I tend to agree with TAHAWK that there are plenty of fun activities available that can be conducted within the confines of G2SS. My nephews’ Webelos friend died at a Boy Scout outing as the kids were climbing rocks near a waterfall (he slipped and hit his head during the fall). Rules are in place for more than just lawyers.

That said, I don’t agree with all of the rules and several (paint ball, laser tag) seem a stretch to be considered a safety requirement.

I know some units do that and some adults in our troop (at least in the past) have voluntarily paid their own fees, but I guess our attitude is that volunteers should not have to pay any more for the privilege of volunteering than we already do.

Absolutely agree. Note that volunteers already pay for uniforms, training and their time. As a show of appreciation of their time and guidance, we include adult fees as part of our pack fees charged to every scout (about $5). I have volunteered for many other youth programs/sports and BSA is one of the only that charges me to volunteer. $33 is not that much money and most adults would pay without objection, our Pack just thinks it sends the wrong message.

It was definitely for canoeing at night. It was a Troop (not Pack) during summer camp. The canoes were open to use outside of the merit badge times (at least that is how they were used during the day). The lake was small, you could easily paddle back in 5 mins from any point so no need to check them out. Plus, the waterfront director was yelling as we paddled in... that we are not allowed to canoe at night because "it is dark and unsafe!" I have no idea if the waterfront director made up the rule, if was a BSA rule at summer camps or if it is still in place there. That was the only year I remember him at our council summer camp. Just pointing out a case where I have seen a leader go overboard (in my opinion) with rules regarding safety.

I still remember getting blasted at summer camp when a few members of my pack and our leaders went out to canoe at night. Full moon, no wind, we were all in life jackets and all passed the swim test. It was an awesome experience and when we canoed in the waterfront director wanted to kick us out of camp and worse for our leaders.

At the same time, I know a Webelos scout who was a friend of my nephews who died on a scout outing because all the scouts were climbing up rocks that were wet from a waterfall. Accidents happen but if the Scouts obeyed the sign that said do not climb that Webelos scout would be alive today.

In general I agree that we have gotten too soft but at the same time we do need to make sure we don't put lives at risk. Perhaps putting in too many rules that soften the program may actually lead to more accidents as leaders get rule fatigue and start ignoring the real important ones.

Finally, I also believe there is the legal factor one must consider. Could you imagine the lawyers and lawsuits that would level the BSA financially if they allowed a completely secret society that resulted in injury? Class action all the way. Emotional trauma. Perhaps even criminal prosecution. We aren't in the 1950s anymore and I don't think the 1950s BSA is achievable in today's legal climate.

I do think we can get a bit more rugged...perhaps we can canoe at night, get kids swimming and even fillet and grill fish for breakfast.