Treflienne

Definitely not. If BSA wants to accommodate families who are very conservative about girls' clothing, that can be easily solved. Just make the pants material available by the yard, and those girls could make their own skirts, of suitably long length. Skirts are not hard to make, and families who don't approve of modern styling almost certainly have sewing skills. Those skorts are just so wrong. As a field uniform, light-weight nylon zip-offs seem much more practical. Easy to cover the legs when needed when dealing with ticks, mosquitoes, and poison ivy. And even though

In my area, there are a half-dozen towns that have a Boy Scout Troop 1. At least three of these are in the same district of the same council. So, I am confused. Do boy scout troops get to pick their own number? Will the new Scouts BSA girls' troops get to pick their own troop numbers? What criteria are there? (In GSUSA the numbers are assigned. In my area they are assigned 5-digit numbers which are very very hard to remember.)

What ideas do y'all have for co-ed/linked troops, to keep things as good as possible for the boys while still letting the girls in? What about a strong emphasis on doing as much as possible by patrol, with each patrol having its own identity and camaraderie. Let the patrols camp some distance apart. Encourage the patrols to go on occasional patrol outings and overnights. The linked girls troop would essentially be a girls' patrol. And the boys would have their boy-only space within their patrols.

'fraid so. My personal preference would be for my daughter to join a thriving all-girls BSA troop which has a range of ages and experience levels in the girls, from tenderfoot to Eagle, and has an experienced scoutmaster and ASMs, and plenty of adult volunteers, a good alumni network, a good supply of equipment, and a decent bank balance. And uses the patrol system well. Such a troop does not exist. So do I want: a) a brand-new all-girls troop: inexperienced young girls, inexperienced scouters, no money, no equipment, no oldtimers to mentor the newcomers or

But not all of them. Especially not all of the old-timers. Some of the vocal groups have been "GSUSA are you listening?", "The Outdoor Journey Project", . . . And if you want to see some internal GSUSA complaints, there are some here: http://girlscoutwithacause.dawgtoons.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/gs-ceowhite_paper_2015.pdf With commentary here: http://girlscoutwithacause.dawgtoons.com/2015/10/white-paper-hub-bub/ And if the outdoors-interested old-timers cannot get GSUSA to listen, . . . .

I missed reading this before I wrote my not-quite-simultaneous post. A custom design sounds great! Much better than just picking something someone else has made. GSUSA does troop crests rather than patrol patches. For years they used to make available blank troop crests, so that troops could embroider their own if they didn't like any of the available styles. But they discontinued this when they changed the shape of the troop crest and reduced the number of options to sixteen. My daughter's troop didn't like any of them and so skipped the troop crest entirely.

Why do you think that the girls will want "girl-centric" or "girl-oriented" patches? Their interests (especially for girls willing to join an organization called "Boy Scouts") are much broader than that. By the way, I am also horrified by pink tools for girls and pastel building-block sets. If you give girls primarily that kind of stuff you are essentially saying that everything else is not for them.

"Take therefore no thought for the morrow" is archaic (early 1600's) phraseology. A more modern translation might be clearer: "Therefore do not be anxious about tomorrow". I never saw this as being in opposition to "be prepared".

I agree. In particular the GSUSA national organization being bitter. It will be interested to see what happens to both organizations when the girls vote with their feet.

Cancel it just for the girls. That will give the incentive for one of the girls' moms to step up and volunteer. Doing otherwise (cancelling for the boys too) would just make everyone mad at the girls. Cancelling for just the girls would only upset the girls, and then they can badger their moms to volunteer.

You were right. It was time for me to follow up. The word is that the registrar needs to process it through the system. But I now at least have a receipt for my check. (And I did send the YPT certificate, etc.) Thanks for the advice. My previous experience with BSA? None to speak of. Previous experience with scouting: GSUSA, including TOFS troops, and opportunities to interact with Girl Guides from other countries. This left me with the sense that scouting/guiding is not an activity you go and do once in a while, instead, being a scout/guide is something you are. And it is

No course fees for the courses on my.scouting.com. Free.

That's right. I'm not already connected to any of the local boy scout troops, because I don't have a son already in boy scouts. And it is not yet clear which of the local troops might be interested in being linked with a BSA4G troop next year. (My daughter wants to join, and with a new troop it seems to me that there is a high probability that more volunteers will be wanted.)

I was able to register for IOLS through the council website without begining registered with BSA. (At least the online system took my money and sent me out an automated email.) But, I was concerned that I would be thrown off the attendee list not being registered with BSA, so I set about doing that. That, it turns out, was much harder to do, since I am not part of a unit yet (no BSA4G units yet exist). Eventually the advice from the local Family Scouting Committee was to register as a "District Reserve Scouter" which required a paper form sent snail mail. I've gotten confirmation

So . . . I am one of the newbies interested in BSA4G. Why? Because my daughter has compared the Boy Scout handbook with the various "Girls Guides to Girl Scouting" and GSUSA "Journeys" and she wants to switch. (And I agree with her opinion.) While I want the girls to have a better program than they do now, I certainly don't want to diminish the boys' experience. I see the place for a single-gender male environment (and one for a single gender female environment also). And it's not like the sixth grade girls actually want to have anything to do with the sixth grade boys, they'd rather

Having just gone through all 17 modules, and the YPT, that wasn't too burdensome. It helps that you can do it in 10 minutes here and 15 minutes there. I thought that they were quite informative for a newbie like me.

I realize that this is an old thread, and the "another girl scout makeover" of the title happened a few years ago, and we got "Journeys" which do seem like "an attempt to attract girls who won't be interested in being in Girl Scouts". It will be interesting to see how many of the "girls who DID want to be in Girl Scouts" end up deciding to join the BSA now that that is becoming an option for them.

Lack of modernizing their documentation is not, in my experience, GSUSA's problem. In generally, too much modernization. Throwing out the old and in with the new.

Not everyone gets the survey. This is the first year I recall getting one. My email said:

ItsBrian has a good point here. It might be worth making sure she has a coat, hat, and mittens that she likes. At this age, maybe she wants the pretty pink winter mittens and not the black battered hand-downs from the older brother. Depending on your budget, it might be worth getting her something she likes if it makes life more peaceful for the family.

Hi @ScottishNamoi, I am going to break my advice into two parts 1) to you as Mom and 2) to you as Brownie Assistant Leader 1) First, as a mom: we want to help our kids grow up and take or more and more responsibility for themselves in an age-appropriate way. Choosing one's own outdoor wraps is a great way to work on this for younger children. In general I think that age six is not too young to begin working towards the goal of the child independently and appropriately selecting her outerwear, and living uncomplainingly with the results. In a non-camp setting, for example if you

That is actually my impression in general of the materials that came out with the wholesale revamp around the time of the 100th anniversary. I think they tried to change too much all at once, and had trouble doing it well. A few badges seem coherent and well thought out. Other badges seem really scattered. And the Daisy Petal characters and the Dez spider were bizarre.

I found your scenario a bit confusing, possibly because of the difference between the Girl Scouts and the Girl Guides on the two sides of the Atlantic. If I understand right: You live in Scotland. Your daughter, age 6 is a Brownie in Scotland, and you are an assistant in her group. Your daughter camps with the Guides. You are along on these camping trips, and you tuck her into bed at night after the campfire. Here are my questions: 1) If she is age 6, isn't she the age to be a Rainbow, not a Brownie? 2) If she is a Brownie (or a Rainbow) why is she camp

Given how limited the number of badge choices is for the girls, I was interested in the new STEM badges available. So last summer I shelled out money and bought the pamphlets for the new Daisy, Brownie, and Junior robotics badges. I was really disappointed in them. Here is an example from one of them: Junior Robotics. (for 4th-5th graders) Badge 2 Designing Robots. (This badge has 5 steps) Step 3 Plan your robot. "Engineers look for needs in our world and build robots that solve problems both big and small. If you could build a robot that solves a global problem, what

Really? No pockets in the skort?! Didn't they realize that girls would want pockets, just like the boys? I hope they don't feminize other aspects of the program to "accommodate" the girls. Just last week I heard a group of 6th-8th girls complaining that it was no good that girls' pants (unlike boys' pants) don't have pockets. And really, at the cub age, the girls can wear exactly the same clothes as the boys, anyway.