Cburkhardt

At Owasippe the practice during the main season has now spanned many Scouting generations and absolutely has a vibrant life of its own. I think if there are usable facilities available, councils are crazy not to allow people use them during the main season. I go so far as supporting the idea of establishing carefully-managed trailer use in segregated parts of camps. The Memorial-Labor Day approach is a good introduction to our properties for families, but does not let families and younger siblings experience the wonder of a huge closing camp fire, for instance.

Another approach being suggested is to go ultra-minimalist. Obtain only backpacking-sized stoves and similar lightweight and compact equipment and entirely forgo the “heavy camping” approach of my youth (patrol boxes, Dutch ovens, trailers, etc.). Sounds interesting, but I am not sure it would work with the youngest scouts.

Family camping at our properties is a great idea. A few camps like the iconic Owasippe Scout Reservation in Michigan (the Reservation that serves Scouting for the greater Chicagoland metropolitan area) have dedicated facilities that are run like this for the entire season. That council has been doing it successfully for 55 years. More of this kind of offering will further establish us as the full-family option and will cause Scouts to spend a week with their family in addition to their Troop’s week of traditional camp. At Owasippe the families of Scouters have been simultaneously staying in the family camp during the week a Troop camps with no ill effects. Let’s share these wonderful places with our own family members.

Gathering Equipment for New Girl Troops A principal challenge every new all-girl Troop has is to obtain its camping equipment, as well as the other things a troop needs for essential program operations. The list of items needed is extensive, including flags, an extensive first aid kit, tents, cooking equipment and simple materials like rope. For a new 30-girl troop, the equipment needed can easily get in the $7 - $10,000 range. Plus there are the issues of storage and transportation to deal with. And all of this is needed at a time when there are significant start-up expenses such as a website, uniforms and recruitment expenses. The expense load can be a barrier to launch of a successful troop, so what to do? In our district we have an all-girl Troop forming on a linked basis. For that group there is a built-in inventory of equipment available for immediate use, as the all-boy Troop it is linked to is actually over-equipped. The troop has built a significant savings account with a balance over $20,000 and will tap into it to make some supplemental purchases. The all-Girl troop plans to contribute its efforts to further build the account — so there seems to be smooth sailing for them. Another Troop in our district is starting from scratch and is not linked. That Troop is using a number of successful tactics in it start-up phase. 1. First, the troop calculated the actual cost of its annual operation on a per-Scout basis. This included everything. They charge and recover dues to recover that entire cost with the exception of camp outs and summer camp. The point here is to charge sufficient dues so your new Troop actually has sufficient funds to operate without nickel-and-dining parents every week. Or worse, forcing the most dedicated volunteers to pay the balances. 2. Second, the troop established a flat weekend camping fee for its 7 events during the school year to cover all food and program costs — plus a bit extra for the purchase of essential equipment. 3. Next, the Troop sought used camping equipment of every category except for Coleman stoves and tents—which they have decided to borrow from a helpful all-boy Troop and buy new after a fall fundraiser. The used equipment came primarily from a storage unit the BSA District rents to accumulate used equipment from the families of members. They are also going to circulate a list of desired used equipment in the church program of their Chartered Organization. The reason they will buy new tents is because they want the unit pride of having matching tents, and when purchased on sale and simultaneously, tents can be a relative bargain. There are many reasons why it is hard to form a new Troop and equipment acquisition, management and storage Can be a big hurdle. Key to achieving this requires some good planning and honesty with parents on camping and equipment costs. Scouts BSA is “dirt cheap” in comparison to things like sports travel teams, lesson-intensive pursuits and participation in school-sponsored travel activities. The new girl Troop calculated the total annual cost per Scout, including summer camp, weekend camping events and program expenses, to be just under $1,000. That is a bargain in comparison to these other activities. We have noting to apologize for when we are accurate with our expenses and dues. New girl Troops without existing resources and historic bank accounts should not shy away from pricing things accurately. It is the best way to motivate participation in a fundraiser to help acquire equipment as well. Incidentally, the new girl Troop has a few “angles” who subsidize the dues and camping costs of under-resourced families who cannot pay full-freight. What are other good ways new all-girl troops that are not linked can acquire equipment? Are some things best purchased new? Are there some legacy equipment practices that new troops should just avoid from the start? Please share your ideas.

Nothing is out there yet on a matter like this, and certainly nothing specific to the advancement start-up of all-girl troops. What I am going to do is post good examples of how an well run all-girl Troops are proceeding right now with their advancement. I have been talking to a lot of people over the last 1.5 years about family Scouting (including being involved at the granular level for an entire year with a Webelos II group) and have yet to come across a single person who exhibited any tendency to generally "go easy" on girls with individual advancement or encourage such a practice by others. If rushing and cutting corners is a general problem across Scouts BSA it needs to be addressed in a broadly-distributed article. That would be a prime topic for Bryan of Scouting or maybe even Scouting Magazine.

Before we get to summer camp, we will have been on three weekend campouts, two significant day hikes and 4.5 months of Troop meetings. Ambitious girls who want to earn Tenderfoot by the beginning or end of summer camp in our Troop will have had a good opportunities to learn and prove themselves to that advancement level.

Will All-Girl Troops Advance Their Scouts Too Fast? Great thoughts, SWilliams. Our Troop is programming all of its activities to cover the Scout and Tenderfoot rank requirements, but of course not every girl can attend every meeting or event, so there is variance among the girls after just 2 months on advancement progress. We are following the program to the letter and are not trying to rush girls with their rank advancement. I'm thinking we will have all 28 Scouts at Scout Rank and maybe 6 or 7 at Tenderfoot by our Court of Honor during the first weekend of June. I'm certain the girls who attend summer camp will come home having completed Tenderfoot. I will observe that the girls in our Troop are -- on their own -- quite interested in advancement and their uniforms. They are getting signed-off on their requirements and confidently present themselves to members of our 7-person Scoutmaster Staff when they think they are ready. We are assuring full compliance with the requirements to set the right ground rules for the long run. I intended not to bring up merit badges until summer camp, but several of the girls read through their Scout Handbooks and figured it out on their own. So, we now have 12 girls with blue cards pursuing merit badges and 3 will attend a merit badge university this coming weekend. Because the all-girl Troops are starting simultaneously and the Scouts are starting at the same point (in terms of advancement achievements), we are going to structurally see a huge number of advancements for girls going through the system. Our 14 and 15 year old girls are indeed going to advance rapidly through the early ranks because those requirements will be age-easy for them. Our Troop is a model organization with two advancement co-chairs with years of experience in other Troops. I urge my Scoutmaster peers with all-girl Troops to be vigilant on advancement sign-offs because we do not want new and inexperienced Scouters to fail to require the fullest demonstration of skill mastery. That said and based on two months of observation, I reasonably speculate that all-girl Troops are going to have more and faster overall advancement at the earlier ages. This is going to lead to potential complaints from experienced Scouters that our Scouts are being evaluated at a lower standard. I read observations from some on other postings about whether a particular all-girl Troop should have won the top award at a recent camporee. I did not spend time parsing through the lengthy and detailed criticisms some Scouters had for that camporee committee and don't want to relitigate that incident on this string. The point here is that advancement in all-girl Troops will be under the microscope by experienced Scouters and those Troops need to openly exhibit precise compliance with advancement activity. Of course the most important reason for precise advancement compliance is that we want the Scouts to acquire these skills and absorb character-building lessons in the process.

We are having girls simply materialize at our Troop meetings and want to join on the spot based on what they have read about Scouts BSA and heard about our Troop. A 14 and a 15 year old just this week. So we are now at 28 without any specific recruiting activity since January. And, 19 are going to summer camp so far. As I have been at the granular level on this, for about 1.5 years, my intuition is that this is going to indeed be big. It is almost as though a dam is about to break and will flood us with new people — boys, girls and Scouters. This is going to happen in 2 or 3 years and not incrementally over a decade. Be part of this.

Would normally like to do that, but this comes from official reports as of the end of March, the details of which are not published. But, this is indeed the actual number. All-girl Troop unit formation has been incredibly strong — much better than expected for the off-cycle start in February. As a result, the big scale-up of these units will probably take place in the fall when the core girls who attend summer camp begin to really take charge of their troops and bring in their friends. That will also be a very natural time to reel-in additional Scouters specifically interested in staffing these units.

The number of Scouts BSA youth is 3.1% bigger compared to last year at the end of March. Hard to believe but true. When the girl-specific numbers come out I am certain it will provide more evidence of our developing organizational membership turn around. And, many girl troops are relatively small, having just started off-cycle. I will be really interested in the October and November figures, which will show us all the potential for stabilizing and re-setting us for long-term growth. But, this very early indicator is very encouraging.

I agree with Qwazse. The GSUSA effectively capitulated to the old ""green shirt" Exploring program of the 80's (which morphed into Venturing) because GSUSA was unable to hold those older youth. I'm going to make a reasoned estimate based on personal observation that about 15-20% of our Scouts BSA girl members are either dual-registrants in GSUSA or girls who have fully-migrated to the BSA. We might see the current GSUSA-to-Venturing tendency around age 14 convert to GSA-to-Scouts BSA. And because some girls prioritize making Eagle, the migration to Scouts BSA might take place earlier and become larger. I say this with the understanding that a girl can work on Eagle in Venturing -- but the advancement emphasis and support network to make Eagle will be better in Scouts BSA Troops.

My use of "movement" was intended to mean Boy Scouts of America. That is the organization the4 girls are proud to be part of.

Quazse: Thanks for the suggestion. Being a newer poster to this website, I am not attuned to the informal practices of the community.

How to Lower the Cost of Summer Camp for Under-Resourced Scouts Right now is the time when most Councils are asking families of Scouts to pay their cost of a week at the Council-owned summer camp. The way this works in most councils is that the Troop volunteers collect these fees, deposit them in the Troop account, and then register the individual Scouts for your week of camp. The reasons why you should get as many of your Scouts to camp are many and beyond the scope of this posting -- but the benefits of summer camp are especially important for new Scouts from families that have not yet experienced BSA programming. So, most Scouts in all-girl troops will never have heard about BSA summer camp and how it works. If you have not yet selected a week of camp for your girls, contact your council service center immediately and get the basics. You will need to select a week, which typically begins on Sunday afternoon and ends on Saturday morning. The cost is usually between $300 and $400 for the entire week, including food. For families used to sending their girls to private "sleep-away" camps, this fee will be astoundingly less than what they are used to paying (usually no less than $1,000/week). And, a great advantage to BSA summer camp is that she gets to go with her friends from her Troop. private sleep-away camps and most of the camps run by other youth service organizations are usually attended on an individual basis -- meaning the girls have no idea who they will be attending with (at least the first time). In Scouts BSA, the Scoutmaster Staff of the Troop and others from the Troop Committee attend with the Scouts -- so your girls are nearly assured of a great time with friends and leaders who will watch over them. Now the big point of this posting: Your under-resourced Scout families can almost always apply for what is called a "campership". This a play on words (scholarship-campership, get it?). What it usually means is half-off for a needy Scout. In our Troop of 26 girls, five have received these generous camperships from our Council. It is just another wonderful advantage to having a good Council -- because the staff there finds the "angels" to pay those fee reductions. So, our girls get a whopping $200 discount off summer camp. After that, I quietly assure as Scoutmaster that there are sufficient family resources to pay the balance. If not I arrange with our stellar Episcopal Church CO to make up the necessary difference. However, we never make it entirely free, because to do so cheapens the dignity of the family involved.

How to Obtain Free Uniforms and Equipment for you Girl Troop Because we have 1,800 new Troops nationally and therefore a big number of new volunteer leaders, I'll post an occasional operating suggestion directed at how to quickly stand-up a quality girl troop. The first suggestion is that you help your girls take advantage of the many complimentary services that provide used BSA uniforms and equipment to youth from under-resourced families. It is critical that you get these girls into uniforms as soon a possible and that they have the basic equipment to participate outdoors. In our Council we have two groups of volunteers who operate an informal warehouse of materials that they gather, organize and dispense to deserving Scouts. Our urban-located troop is new and has a cohort of Scouts from families who need some help. I think it is an indicator of a good, strong troop to have under-resourced families involved. These are the children who can most-benefit from the examples of volunteers and the program we offer. We took five of our Scouts down to the "warehouse" of materials and they each received a uniform, backpack, sleeping bag and even hiking boots. Where before there was sheepishness because of not having what the other girls had, there is now hard-to-describe pride. You should have seen the smiles on them as they got out of their parents' automobiles at our first campout. They show to meetings in full, precise uniform and say they receive over-the-top compliments from the public as they make their way to our meetings on public transportation. To secure this type of assistance for your Scouts, your first inquiry is to your Unit or District Commissioner. That is the volunteer who occasionally touches base with you to see how things are going and assure the Troop is aware of training and program opportunities. Another person to ask is you "District Executive" who is the paid professional executive who works for the volunteers who govern the Council. I also know there are individual community supporter "angels" who will gladly purchase uniforms for Scouts needing them. Finally, be certain the Scouts hand write a personal note of thanks to the volunteers who run your use uniform/equipment exchange. I guarantee they are rarely thanked.

Dear SSF: This thread is focused on examples of positive program activities and outcomes of girl troops. There are plenty of other threads where you can engage in advocacy against girl troops. Because you have decided to leave the BSA, I wish you good luck in finding different civic activities and organizations better calculated to your preferences. The rules of this blog are to allow OPs to focus content and your posts are destructive to that rule.

Hello 94-A1: I wouldn't worry too much about occasionally using the term "Boy Scouts". While the top volunteers and pros would prefer use of the new term, the 26 Scouts in our all-girl troop often refer to themselves as being part of "Boy Scouts". They take not the slightest offense at the use of that term -- which will informally be with us forever. Our girls positively cheerlead being part of the movement, wear their uniforms (mostly older ones with the full BSA strip) with particular care and pride. They would be very happy for you to call them "Boy Scouts".

Firestone, Your thoughts are spot-on. The girls are pretty focused on advancement, so I am anticipating most at Scout Rank and a few Tenderfoot ranks before we get to summer camp. I join you in strongly encouraging use of the “new camper” programs at council camps to help kick-start things.

Barry: My effort is to create a positive, encouraging thread that highlights positive program activities about all-girl troops. Under the rules of this blog it is proper that off-topic postings are removed from a focused thread, and that is what happened here (and not at my request). Nothing aggressive about that. I look for the better side of people, like the overwhelming majority of bloggers here. My scouting bio includes AOL, Eagle, sea Scout QM, camp staff, vigil, unit leader, district Chair, Council President and Area President. Now I am focusing only on being a Scoutmaster. I have a child in our program, as do my three Eagle brothers. i fully support that the BSA is fully welcoming and my personal engagement has shown me that the decision on girls was the right one.

Dear SSF: This thread is focused on examples of positive activities and outcomes of girl troops. There are plenty of other threads where you can engage in advocacy against girl troops. Because you have decided to leave the BSA, I wish you good luck in finding different civic activities and organizations better calculated to your preferences.

We conducted a parent meeting yesterday for our girl troop regarding going to our council summer camp. I needed to spend time explaining the basics because girl parents are used to the standard “sleep away” and GSUSA camps that operate differently. They were thrilled with the focus on skills acquisition and merit badge advancement. And, the concept of the entire troop attending together was fresh to them, as they were used to sending their girls as individuals to camp. Our council has done a great job by including girls in the camp promotional materials. We have just begun our sign-ups and have 8 of 25 members after just a week.

Youth in our country deserve thoughtful and positive leaders as role models. The culture grows coarse when we rip at each other. Every girl we have attracted to our all-girl scouts BSA Troop would not likely have joined other organizations for a variety of reasons. Our 25 girls are learning about our wonderful country, it’s citizens and yes, it’s multitude of religious organizations. All should seek to serve young people and avoid the urge to conflict. Our organization chooses to accent the positive and recruit unserved families. I urge the same approach on the part of other organizations.

The express marketing activity of the newer organization is to tear away at our organization with searing press releases, web site postings, media appearances and similar advertising. This naturally causes BSA folks to avoid interactions with them. Our organization has not responded in kind. I have no quibble with organizations embracing the dogma of specific religious faiths and limiting membership and activities in accord with the selected religious principals. I have only best wishes to organizations that do so.

I disagree with every one of you who allege Scouting is less than it was before girl troops were allowed. You offer nothing other than unsupported speculation, such as “men are not staying in Scouting”. There are no “issues to sort out”. There is just a refusal on the part of a few to embrace our organization’s welcome of everyone and perhaps disappointment that we are seeing such enthusiasm and new membership. Yes, 1,800 new troops in 45 days. When was the last time we saw that? I am seeing a natural embrace of our program and organization by these girls and their families in our Troop. There are folks who genuinely believe they add great value by pointing out each and every potential problem or defect in a plan without offering a helpful suggestion. They generally add very little. We need optimism and cheerleading, not attempts torelitigate the decisions already made.

Whether the committee is a big single committee using the linked format or effectively separate, the object is the same — to manage the incoming number of Scouts caused by this enhanced program. The program is identical, but the implementation has some differences. One thing we are experiencing is a greater tendency for girls to bring in their “best friends” into the troop. Girls are also crazy-proud of their uniforms beyond what I have experienced in Boy troops. We are making sure to emphasize those things. I just would not get hung up on the structure behind the troop operation. Here is a nice program we will do. In June we are going to have a big family campout for our girls and their families at our council camp. We will have a Court of Honor for achievements since Feb. 1. I expect several tenderfoot awards — and this is simply natural interest on the part of the girls. They are going to have a massive cookout on Saturday night they will prepare for the parents. Another surprising result is that we are getting a number of 14-year-olds expressing interest in joining what their younger sisters and friends have already joined. We have decided for now to place them into our three existing patrols, but we will probably need an older girl patrol this fall. We are going to adopt the urban neighborhood around our church CO, and The City will erect signs with our troop name and CO. We will do some spring cleaning in the neighborhood in uniform to let people know we are here. Showing service to our CO and City will set the right tone.