Treflienne

I've got a request for the moderators: How about a subforum on "Practical advice for launching a girls Scouts BSA troop" under the "Open Discussion - Program" forum. We've currently got a couple of good discussions going: this one ("Linked Troop Mission Statement") and also "New Scout Troop" that would fit there already. And I imagine there will be more in the upcoming months. And it would help people looking for advice be able to find this good advice more easily.

A tangential question from an outsider, here: How much does the CO influence the understanding of "morally straight" and "clean"? How much does the CO set the tone for helping the scouts learn how to make ethical choices? (Side question: is the 11th point of BSA's law, "clean", understood as being similar in meaning to the "clean" in Baden-Powell's tenth law (which was never adopted by BSA) "A Scout is clean in thought, word and deed."?) Back to the orginial questions, would a CO with clearly-defined moral standards (such as a Catholic church) influence the troop's understa

And for some types of social media there is the age issue. You either have to be at least 13 years old, or lie about your age and claim to be 13 years old to use them. This is awkward for things that should not be excluding the younger kids, since we don't want to encourage them to lie about their ages. (Haven't seen this issue in BSA yet, since I'm not associated with a BSA troop yet. But the issue came up with the church youth group.)

Maybe my tone wasn't clear. I wasn't complaining. I was trying to say that I was appreciative of the helpfulness of the local boy scout troops. (And since they are willing to be helpful, we need to be willing to be patient and go at their pace.) I was also trying to hold them up as an example of how existing scout troops can be helpful to the new girls troops -- even if they don't want to become linked with girls troops. And it might even take pressure off the boys troops to be linked with a girls troop -- if there is a girls troop already getting started in the area. We li

And if the girl has already talked to every girl at her school and every girl at her church and hasn't found five? If she cannot talk to the sisters of the boy scouts because she does not know who they are? I think that in our locale we may need to combine beyond a single school or town to find enough interested girls. Helpfully, the four boy scout troops in our school district have said that they will inquire of the families of their boys (and also ask the cub scout packs to enquire of the families of their cubs) about interested girls that they know about. The troops have t

I don't understand the connection you are making to the patrol method. Could you explain a little more please?

Scouts has the advantage over public schools, in that it is an activity that the family has chosen of their own free will. In Girl Scouts, at least, anyone registering has to agree to abide by the girl scout law -- for the girls being registered by their parents, the parent agrees on their behalf. (Really -- there is a checkbox on the registration website that you have to check off, or you cannot register. ) That is one of the beauties of refering the kid back to the scout law . The adults' whims are not the standard of behaviour; the scout law is the standard of behaviour. And

I would do exactly this with my Brownie and Junior girl scouts. (Same age as cubs.) I'd pull the girl aside for a quiet conversation. I'd have the girl start reciting the scout law and then I'd stop her once she got to a relevant point, and ask her whether what she had been doing was living up to the scout law. (We never got past "honest and fair, friendly and helpful, considerate and caring" before finding something relevant.) Ususally the response was a realization of why what she had been doing was wrong, a fervant determination to do better, and improved behaviour. (At least until

While you might simultaneously pursue other options, trying to recruit a mom of a scout in your troop is worth trying. But advertise it as an opportunity, not a chore: Moms of scouts: We have a unique opportunity this year. Do you want to get a glimpse of what your son and his buddies do at scouts -- without giving them the impression that you are hovering or interfering? And without signing up for a major job in the troop? This year, as every year, webelos will be camping with our troop at the Camporee, to get a taste of what scouting is like. The difference this year is th

Well, some of the girl scouts were singing "greasy grimy gofer guts" back in the 1970s. I haven't heard it recently, though.

Not so modern. Girl Scouts were using this term at girl scout camp, back when I was a kid.

Looks like a nice tool. But the kids also need to learn how to open and close a pocket knife without cutting their fingers. At least my Brownies and Juniors took some practise to be able to do it safely. And don't knock popsicle sticks as a possible learning tool to be used for a few minutes very early in the learning process. My girls had to demonstrate that they could listen, pay attention, and follow directions well enough in opening and closing a fake popsicle-stick mock-knife, before I handed them a real pocket knife. This allowed me to identify which kids were going

Hi qwazse, Thanks. That was an interesting article. Coming into BSA from a different scouting organization, the BSA take on the relation between the scout sign and the scout oath/promise takes a little getting used to. WAGGGS and other parts of WOSM have a three-part promise/oath for guides/scouts: 1) duty to God and king (or country) 2) to help other people, at all times. 3) obeying the scout law And the scout sign with its three fingers reflects those three parts. (Brownies originally had only a two-part promise and a two-finger sign --- they did not yet promise t

I agree with ItsBrian. It doesn't need to be a perfect match. But if you really don't have anything close enough, then take the item with you, go to JoAnnFabrics or whatever your local sewing-notion store is. (Walmart?) You'll be able to hold the spools of thread right up to the patch to find something quite close. And if you need to pick between slightly-too-dark and slighty-too-light, pick the darker color thread. It will show less.

And from the YPT2 thread: So, where is the right place to fill in the missing scout skills? I went to IOLS and it seemed more like a very-fast-overview of what you should know, than a way to actually learn it. Some stuff I am fine on: knots, lashing, pocket knives, camp saws, cooking over a campfire, etc. Other stuff I don't know yet: axes, water purification, bear canisters, etc.

Yup. That is a danger for new volunteers. Thanks for the warning in advance.

Hi Barry, I really appreciate your thoughtful answer. And that is where I'd like to go with a new girls' troop. To quote Baden-Powell "There is hardly one of the Guide Laws that is not better carried out after you have been living and practising it in camp." (from the 1929 Scouting for Girls handbook) I also really appreciate your willingness to give advice, despite your concern that introducing girls into BSA will mess things up for the boys. I certainly don't want to detract from the boys's program. I just want a more traditional scouting experience for girls than the vas

I have read a lot of really thoughtful, helpful, insightful posts that you have written on various topics. You obviously have a lot of valuable experience. And since "A Scout is cheerful" and "A Scout is helpful", I'm hoping you can put aside the gloom long enough to consider a question: What do you think is most important for the new-to-BSA volunteers to learn? How would you recommend they learn it? I'm asking because I will in all likelihood be one of those new-to-BSA volunteers with a new Scouts BSA troop for girls (but only if we get enough girls and enough volunteers to get

That Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts are part of the same organization, not two different organizations. (I've been hearing that for years.)

She may simply be trying to sidestep the phenomenon in which women (in some areas/fields) are not assumed to be competent until they have demonstrated that they are. Do I guess correctly that she works in a male-majority field? (If she were in a heavily female profession, such as elementary school teaching, people would not assume that "Chris" was a man.)

I think the organizations are just too different. One or the other or both would have had to have changed a lot for the two to have coordinated their programs together. I think that coordinating the two together, even if the attempt were to meet halfway, would have required a lot more change from BSA than simply adding its own girl program. And I doubt if GSUSA would have wanted to meet halfway, either.

I don't think that combine with GSUSA was an option. Can't do that unless GSUSA also wants it.

But the boys are not falling behind the girls in math. See this recent article https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/06/13/upshot/boys-girls-math-reading-tests.html And math competency is the absolutely required background for doing well in science or engineering.

For one of the younger groups, if you want to stay with Kipling and have a nice theme story: Mongeese. (from Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.) Motto "Go and Find Out" (Instead of Mowgli and the wolf cubs.) Or switch from wolf cubs to foxes: Cubs --> Foxes and Beavers --> Kits . (Lots of clever fox stories out there, though the foxes are not always as helpful as Rikki-Tikki-Tavi.)

It varies by age-group, and it varies by council, and more are required for field trips. One year my fourth-graders invited the first-graders to go on a cookout with them. The Daisy troop had to come up with *four* adults to accompany their nine girls, which was tough to get on a Thursday afternoon, when the schools had a half-day. By juniors (grade 4) the total number of girls per adult, even for field trips, is more than one mini-van can hold, so if you get enough adults to drive, then you have enough to for the adult-to-youth ratio. (And , at least in my council, parents must be re