Eagle1993

Update on fall recruiting...note that this is from Nationals and is consistent with what I have seen so far in my unit and District. I think it will be interesting to see the September numbers. BSA has seen a 16% increase in new Cub Scouts in August over August of 2018. They also indicate that many councils report the vast majority of Packs are family Packs welcoming girls.

I only know my council, but they support us with flyers, posters, etc but the boots on the ground are from the units. Our unit ensures we are present for registration. Our unit puts out yard signs and schedule join scouts night. Our unit pays Facebook to post advertising posts and sends out Tweets. Our unit obtains a Google business account and advertisers there. Through this we get to our parents. What I have heard from the GSUSA leaders who joined our pack is that we are much more grass roots and “local” than Girl Scouts. I think the personal touch of units takes more work but i

To be fair there have been some reports of BSA leaders claiming BSA is replacing GSUSA. I’m not sure if that’s true but it did lead to our CSE to put out a response that must be careful not to cause confusion. CSE Letter on Infringements.pdf

How Packs run probably vary more than Troops. With that said, we have been encouraged (by DE) to have parents attend all den meetings. It is required for Lion and Tiger. I push back after Tiger as it’s time to cut the cord. We have monthly Pack meetings or outings. We we were told the 72 hour rule primarily impacts Troops at summer camp (when parents attend) as Cub Scout events rarely last 72 straight hours. But who knows. Note that I have no plan tracking hours for each parent across the year... I don’t believe that was the intent.

Girls can be AOL this year. Many of the Webelos 1 completed 4th grade in May so 6 months would put them at Nov/Dec for earning AOL. There are others that could have been 10 even earlier. Girls in Troops start February.

I compare the the BSA updates similar to how we handled adding girls. As the change occurs, I expect over communication and focus. As a Pack we wanted to ensure the girls that joined understood we fully welcomed them, regardless of what noise they may hear from outside. So, we sent emails to parents, included the girls as a focus during various events and ensured we fully welcomed them. Now that they are fully on board we are moving to business as usual. We still need to add some reminders that we accept both boys and girls in our Pack as MANY are unaware of the change. I would expec

There are a lot of people willing to spend countless hours complaining on Internet forums but when asked to actually help they disappear. However, there are also Districts who have internal politics (as @cocomax describes) and don’t do a great job of identifying talent to help.

Who cares. There is nothing wrong being LGBTQ or staight. If a male is interested in males in high school but discovers they are interested in women in their 20’s what harm is caused? The only way this is “bad” is if you think being LGBTQ is sub optimal. I could care less. I don’t believe it is a sin, an affront to God or bad for society.

I see no violation if you coordinate den meetings... see the FAQ below. The only ask by my council when I followed up is that the girls and boys should have some aspect of the meeting separate (for example if there are subgroups or teams the girls are on one). https://www.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/FAQ-Family-Program-061218-FINAL.pdf Q: Should dens for girls and dens for boys meet at the same time and place? It is up to the chartered organization and the pack or the den to decide meeting times and places. Q: Can separate boy and girl dens work on the same activi

Exact opposite in my area. Most are against National’s half baked solution and are working to find legitimate ways to fully integrate.

What policy are they violating? National FAQs state boy and girl dens can meet together. I do agree the must follow YPT. It will be easier to follow with combined den meetings.

I think he wrote “separation” not “segregation”... reminds me of the SNL skit of too much violins on TV...😀

Welcome! This is a great group with a diversity of opinions and a ton of experience. I know it’s a few years out for her, but if you know the Troop she would likely feed into (if it exists) I would recommend checking to see how they plan to run. If they plan on keeping the Troop meetings completely single gender then I would go with @qwazse‘s option B above. If they will have coed meetings and outings (as linked Troops) I would consider option A a bit more. I’m CC of an early adopter Pack with 10 girls. We had 1 girls den and while it was functional it didn’t work as well for

I agree there have been a lot of changes and I have a lot of issues with with how they have rolled this program out. They made promises they never intended or could keep. 100% with you there. The YPT change is major and seems to be clearly impacted by adding girls. I think the membership fee increase is simply them trying to fill a budget hole But I just think sometimes a book is just a book. As long as the requirements stay the same I have no issues, in fact I support two different books. If they start reducing requirements for girls I’ll have a problem and I’ll jump on board tha

No. Nope. Sorry, wrong. The book is filled with gender pronouns and pictures of boys. Having a book in a different language or pictures of girls doesn’t change the program. If you show me that the girl book or the Spanish book has different requirements then you can make this point.

Venturing crews can be coed. There were complaints about the coed Cub Scout rank books were release that boy only packs now have books with girls. Now National releases a separate books and more griping. How much money on a book... hardly anything vs the dues of the girls coming in.

Really??!?!? Are you serious? If they changed the Boy Scout book to add some pictures of girls and changed some pronouns you would have went nuts claiming they “changed the program”. They are adding a girls book with picture of girls and adding “she” instead of “he”. They did this in a separate book so they don’t upset the existing boys and their leaders... and that is now an issue? WOW! Perhaps we need to add trigger warnings to any BSA announcements going forward so existing leaders can go to their safe spaces prior to hearing such things like there is a scouts BSA book with pic

Ok... at some point you’ll probably (hopefully) talk with the parents. One topic of discussion I would have is regarding YPT. I do think there are legitimate questions on how to handle YPT policy with non binary youth. If a scout identifies as a boy (regardless of birth gender) we are to treat him as a boy. Again, if a youth identifies as a girl the same policy applies. That then applies to tenting and bathroom policies. I do question how we should handle YPT for a non binary youth and would look to the parents for their input. I honestly don’t know how I would handle that situation

I don’t believe they would do this directly, but would pull in the appropriate YP resources. If a child is telling a scout leader that they are having gender identity issues AND are unwilling to have that discussed with parents you have several options. 1) Grant their wish and don’t tell their parents. 2) Ignore their request and talk directly with their parents. 3) Escalate to BSA professionals (SE/DE/SCOUTS First) who can have professionals investigate prior to telling parents. I recommend #3 based on what I saw when I was a youth. Feel free to chose your own path.

Im not saying ignore it, I said pull in your DE/SE or report it. I would expect the professionals would come in and review the situation to ensure the scout is not in danger or an abusive household. If it is determined that everything is ok at home after their investigation and professional review then no issue with telling the parents. Abuse at home is not always apparent and a scout who tells you they are having gender identity issues may be more likely to be abused. If they tell you not to tell their parents you should be seeking professional input.

If a scout does not want their parents to know of this situation then a leader should pull in a professional scouter. This could be evidence of a scout who is in an abusive relationship at home (or many other reasons) and I wouldn’t expect any volunteer to have to navigate the situation. Ignoring a scout who tells you not to tell their parents and simply going over their head is irresponsible and possibly dangerous.

There are definitely worse things than that and scouters should be careful to not self appoint themselves as Psychologists. No issue with discussions with the parents (if Scout is ok with that) and COR to ensure the unit can provide the scout a safe scouting experience.

I would emphasize @Cambridgeskip point.... talk with the scout FIRST before telling the parents. If the scout is comfortable with a discussion with the parents... great! My guess is that is probably the case but it is good to check. If they tell you to not tell their parents, then pull in your DE/SE for support. You will need professional support. Some parents are NOT understanding and can be physically and emotionally abusive. If a scout believes he is safe confiding something to his Troop, goes home to find out a parent was told, and they beat the crap out of him it could be psychol

In our pack 60% of the girls that are joining come from families that did not have sons in the pack. Just one data point. I do think sisters will account for a lot, but I also see former Boy Scouts who only had daughters start to come back to the program. I still concur that there will be a volunteer shortage and why many linked Troops will act as coed.

Will be hard to measure due to LDS exit. You’ll have to look at councils with little to no LDS to see real impact. Note that BSA has been losing boys for 30 years. The real question is if the rate of loss of boys increases in non LDS councils. I’m not sure if it will and if that rate of loss increase will exceed the rate of additional girls. I also wonder, as @Eagledad mentioned,if the girls/parents who initially join now may push through program issues while eventually everything settles back on the actual program performance. It may take several years to really see the impact of al