Cburkhardt

Dear Friends, including Moderators: I agree with those who think we should mainstream discussion of Scouts BSA all-girl troops. Pigeon-holing us into a politics chapter continues a negative cast on a decision that, while not supported by all of our members, is actually working out quite well. We should not have to defend against negativism when what we really want to do is discuss how the program is best working in the new units. Please make the change. I've been the senior volunteer at the Unit, District, Council (major metropolitan) and Area levels, and served on national and council committees for over 30 years. I've formed over 20 units in my time. I "retired" from all of that and am now a Scoutmaster of a 25-member all-girl troop in an urban area with a committee of 15. I thought I had seen it all until we added these all-girl Scouts BSA units. In my opinion this is the best enhancement to our ability to serve young people over the last 20 years. I was on camp staff for a few years in my youth, and the kind of cutting and unrelenting negativism from those who do not appear to be on the front lines of this development sound like a Scoutmaster named Igor we saw during first period each year. He could never be satisfied with anything the camp staff did because "national" and the "council" had "ruined" the Scouting program of his 1940/50's youth. We had - gasp - propane in the patrol kitchens, were shifting to "ugly" tan shirts, and somewhere at some other chartered organization there were now girls doing things in Exploring. Yes, even though he had no obligation to involve himself with a female Explorer Post, the knowledge that a BSA group out there included young women had indeed ruined his experience of operating his all-boy Troop. Folks, there are always changes to our program and there will always be people who claim that those changes have ruined what was better or perfect before. In the 50's it was the - gasp - welcoming of African-American Scouts into Troops. Imagine that -- Scouting "ruined" way back then. These people will always be with us and there is nothing we can do about that. But there is one thing I have learned about this through my years as a Scout and my 30 years as a unit/council/national Scouter. It is the optimists and cheerleaders who make Scouting happen and will always be the future and leaders of our movement. I urge the moderators to begin a program thread on Scouts BSA implementation for girl troops and prohibit political discussions on that thread. Let's get on with helping the 1,800 new Scoutmasters, Troop Committee Chairs and Troop Committees out there. When was the last time we actually had 1,800 new Troops in this movement? Yes, it was back in Igor's youth -- in the 40s and 50s. I believe the good times are returning because now everyone is welcome..

I am getting ready to pass out Scout rank pins and cards tomorrow during our regular Saturday meeting. 13 of our 25 girls have earned them, and I expect the balance to so so in a week or two. We might have some Tenderfoot ranks to award before our COH in early June. Our Scouts BSA girl members are taking to the program as-is, and having a lot of fun along the way. We are having so many sign-offs from our 6 ASMs that I needed to have help to get the Scoutmaster conferences done. There will be a lot of happy girls around DC tomorrow. On the issue of tents, we have decided to go with 2-person tents for our group to better-manage the YPT issues. We are borrowing tents for the moment from a very helpful all-boy troop, so we will not actually buy our tents until we camp in Shenandoah National Park this September. Things are indeed going very well.

David: Do you anticipate personal continued engagement with Scouting after the termination? If so, what would motivate you and similarly situated church members to do so? One would expect all of you to get conflicting callings from your church to open your new program.

The horsemanship merit badge idea is really a great example of something that will particularly appeal to girl troops. Some council camps have horse programs. We are going to arrange a special week of horse activities at a council camp, and expect it will be quite popular.

Our 25-girl Troop had an enjoyable Saturday hiking in Rock Creek Park in DC. The three patrols split up and practiced their map reading and compass skills, at trail lunches together and finished their fire building advancement requirements is a patrol competition. Our advancement co-chairs are enjoying our unusual “all-beginner” Scout membership by assuring our meeting and events are getting the girls through Scout and Tenderfoot requirements before summer camp. Please share simple things working with girl units you are aware of.

I want to cheer on those who are operating girl dens and troops. You are very very welcome and have a valued and respected role in our organization. I am just not seeing the events and behavior so vigorously argued and speculated upon here, and have been an early and regular participant in family scouting from the very start. Our council has over 40 girl troops and probably 90 girl dens. This is indeed the success for youth we wanted. Everyone is now welcome in the BSA — join us with a helpful, scoutlike spirit.

I hope you take it up with your district committee. That had nothing to do with those girls.

Barry: I am just looking forward to a time when those of us who are on the front lines of actually forming and operating these units are going to experience less questioning of our motives and operating decisions. But this will all normalize, and that is the point of my brief note. It took us a year to get where we are, with formation of a Webelos den to get a core of girls going. With a preponderance of 11-13 year olds, the SM staffs are of course needing to do more than normal. After all, the girls and their parents need to have an essentially quality experience over the first six months or so. You can’t expect an inexperienced 12 year old SPL who is not even Scout rank to figure it all out. So is it likely there was over-coaching in this instance? Perhaps. A note on uniforms. Our girls take unusual pride in proper uniforming. They just naturally love the whole concept. I think that will be common in girl troops. For those of you looking for a read on how this is all coming along, I suggest that this is going to be an over-the-top success nationally. Our group is just doing the normal program, and it is just taking off. And, we are in the center of a big city and have under-resourced kids. Let’s cheer-lead these (mostly new) leaders who are stepping forward to do this. This is, finally, the good membership news we have been wanting. Craig

As a 30-year scouter who is now SM of a new 25-member all-girl Troop, this discussion puts me on notice of some reactions I can expect when I take them to our April camporee. In a year or two this will all seem normal.

The NPR program “A1” broadcast today was a generally balanced one hour discussion. The BSA National executive who appeared shared that we now have 1,800 all girl troops, which sounds good to me. This is definite evidence of 2 things: we have a program that is clearly relevant to and demanded by girls and we still have a splendid National organization that can execute on important priorities in an effective manner. Things to be very proud of.

Any CO can impose its preferences on its units. If a group of LDS members wish to form a "community-owned" unit and generally follow the previous practices of formerly-LDS units, they certainly can do so.

One does not have to read between the lines of the precisely-worded announcement. They are severing Scouting from their faith in every meaningful manner and that is their right. They want their youth to participate in their program, and will not overtly encourage Scouting. With that will be a discontinuation of support and the faith’s dominant presence in the operational and policy-making committees of our organization. We will no longer need to be concerned that our decisions will run afoul of the preferences of the faith’s leadership. I thank them for their past interest in the BSA and wish them well. We will be fine as an organization

What an individual unit does is within the control of the CO. COs that prefer specific program operations will ultimately drop the unit if it is inconsistent with their fundamental values. It s a "bottom up" practice none of us disagree with -- and has been a fundamental part of our business model since our beginning. My comment is centered on no longer using the national organization to force particular religious or political views from the "top down". It is a relief for many Scouters to no longer be in the middle of that.

My comment goes to the BSA organization broadly. Individual COs and the COR continue to be able to assure unit operations are expressive of the particular faith values of the CO.

I have not had much contact with LDS Scouting as a program in my 30+ years as a Scouter, as it had often been conducted in a somewhat separated manner -- such as LDS-only weeks at camp when non-LDS units were not present. I have had many pleasant interactions with LDS adult leaders in activities above the unit level. I have nothing but gratefulness for the many years of LDS support for Scouting and wish them the very finest as they go a different way to serve their own membership. For all sorts of reasons, they have established a firm cut-off, and that is appropriate from a legal and program standpoint. Businesslike action and language used sever Scouting from their church is unambiguous and fine with me. Those of us who are religious and belong to other faiths know the unstated reasons why they are departing us, because LDS Scouters with informed leadership roles in their church have been expressly telling us for many years. The contest of wills regarding whether the BSA should embody the views of particular faiths (not just LDS) is now over. No longer will Scouters be discomforted by seeing those arguments play out within an organization that respects and requires faith among its members -- but is neither a church nor the arbitrator of particular beliefs. For those LDS folks who remain with us, you have our continued and fast friendship. You will love our program just as much as you always have -- and maybe a bit more. For anyone still trying to conform the BSA generally to a particular religious, political or "cultural war" view, you will be unsuccessful, disappointed and should probably reevaluate your personal rationale for continued membership. We have decided to welcome everyone.

The existing Webelos program works perfectly. My spouse was the den leader for the 8 girls who gradusted into our troop and they loved it. My motivation is that we can easily have den meetings in a different room and this becomes a feeder organization for the troop. We meet on Saturday mornings, which was the same time we had our Webelos meetings. We would operate it as a pure Webelos troop and not a “young patrol”

We are giving consideration to that very idea with a twist under current rules. We are considering a Webelos-only cub pack for girls to link with our all-girl Troop. Same meeting times, girl den chiefs, participation in Troop activities when it makes sense under the current structure. Maybe this fall, but the following year if not then.

I am Scoutmaster for a 22-member all-girl Troop that is "stand-alone" and not linked to an existing unit. In fact, we are the only youth program at the church that serves as our CO. I'm a 30-year Scouter and have done it all. I will observe that the girls attracted to our group represent a normal cross-section of girls in our city in terms of income, race and interests. 8 crossed-over from an all-girl Webelos den at anther CO, which they just loved. 5 came over from GSUSA for a variety of reasons. Two remain dual-registered. We have had four troop meetings, one day hike and go on our first camp out this weekend. We have a very full program outlined for the next 20 months. We have attracted a 15-person Troop committee and have a Scoutmaster staff of 7. I am here to tell you that even at this early stage I sense this is going to be a very successful move for the BSA. First, the Boy Scout program is working perfectly with the girls. They love it and as an earlier commenter forecast, they really like to "do stuff". Second, the parents are thrilled with BSA-style organization and program implementation for an all-girl program. The welcome from our community has been crazy-approving. Third, our district volunteer Scouters and fellow Scoutmasters of nearby all-boy Troops are thrilled to the point where they went out of their way to entirely outfit five of our girls from under-resourced families with gently-used uniforms, sleeping bags, packpacks, the works. The naysayers with the nasty blog comments have not in any manner impacted popular and supportive opinion in our local Scouting movement or city. The folks who departed after the membership policy changes are not taking people away because of the move to include girls. My experience is so counter to the things those folks have been writing over the past year that I am starting to conclude many must not be actual active Scouters -- I just have not experienced negativity and I would have noticed it. I believe that as long as the generally-smaller linked girl troops scale up quickly and the BSA does a better PR job when the financial restructuring is announced, we will be looking at significant growth that can reverse our recent membership losses. These conclusions are based on my experience in planning, organizing and now operating a best-practices Scouts BSA Troop for girls. We should do at least as good as the girl Cub Scout numbers.

Being the only Scouts BSA Troop for Girls in the District of Columbia, we received plenty of local and even some national coverage of our opening. I'm frankly happy to simply move out of organizing and into operations at this point. On Saturday we have our second meeting, form into three patrols, elect leaders and get to the program!

We are a best-practices all-girl Troop with 24 kids and 15 adults, so we do not need the help ourselves. Since best practices are being handled elsewhere, I will cease my postings.

I agree you need a specific forum ASAP on this. It needs to be carefully monitored to focus on best practices. Political commentary and obstructing negative comments need to be diverted.

All unit driven. I know what I am doing, having formed units before. The tendency will be for harried professionals to encourage their better boy troops to form linked units. Once committed, those girl units will probably start as single patrols reliant on the boy troop, with some growing into troops capable of functioning more independently. The better model is to form at least a few non-linked girl troops in each district, but that is infinitely harder. We are not trying to bring in numbers of girls to get Eagle on the fast track and have not advertised to do so. We might have one, and will certainly accommodate her. We have almost all 11 and 12 year-olds that we will bring through in the normal manner. Our 20 month program is just our normal program plan of events and activities. The District of Columbia is its own district in our Council. We have about 10 boy troops and we are the only girl troop. The tack being taken here is to scale up a large best-practice girl troop (us) that serves the entire city, rather than multiple weak groups. We hope to eventually spin-off additional units when that makes sense.

Promoted the adult community meetings with small display ads in neighborhood paper. Theme was “Your girl can be an Eagle Scout”. These were small gatherings of about 10 adults each. We had a 20 month program to share and asked what they thought their families wanted. The open house welcome parties were promoted in the same paper with a girl-appealing theme and on blogs — but particularly via word of mouth among the girls. The events were on consecutive Saturday mornings and consisted of a “fair” of tables with scoutcraft topics and summer camp information. We signed up a lot on the spot.

Things that did not work for us included posters, leafleting, talking to boy troop leaders, church bulletin notices and blogging. We engaged in a lot of that kind of activity to see what would work. I am sure relevant parts of the Washington, DC community now know about us, which will eventually benefit us — but these efforts did not generate our membership.

We formed a Webelos den for Girls last year and used that to build a core group of 6 girls. As the year went along, we picked up 4 additional girls who were actually over-age for cubs, yet participated with us. They all came into our new Troop. The rest came from a combination of getting them to bring in their friends and two open house welcome parties we had in January. The parties attracted about 40 girls total (plus parents). The totality of that got us to 24 girls, and we probably will have 5 more yet to join from that effort. Adult recruitment was a bit different. We have 16 adults. We advertised two open community meetings in August and September to openly discuss the new program with adults. We recruited 6 volunteers from those meetings, plus they registered their daughter’s. We attracted 3 experienced Troop Scouters from other units in the area who were for different reasons wanting to move. 3 parents of the Webelos girls, including 2 Eagle ASMs joined. The balance were people that ended up joining through our church CO or other means. Almost all adults were recruited before the girls. We got them through YPT and some additional training last fall. A good additional tactic was writing a web site specifically directed to girls and parents of girls. It allowed us to direct parents to easily-accessed and comprehensive information. We also have our pay page on it: www.ScoutsBsaDcGirls.com. This new program, while new at the moment, does not sell itself. Successful Troops will do it the hard way by recruiting adults first, then going to the market with something specific to sell. In our case this consisted of a 20-month calendar of meetings and events posted to our site. Not being linked to an existing unit helped us avoid the mistake of opening a troop with insufficient volunteer resources. a few additional thoughts. This fall we are going to have another round of welcome parties. We intend to double membership and get to 50-60. We will have a welcome party at the start of race future semester. We will not do product sales. Our parents dispose it and our urban location makes door to door sales inadvisable. Instead, we fully load dues and will have an annual October coffee reception where we will raise FOS and funds to subsidize under-resourced girls. We meet twice a month for 2 hours on Saturday mornings. These decisions were made partly in response the the adult community meetings we conducted, which doubled as focus groups.