Cburkhardt

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.

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.

New girl troops require the minimum of 5 girl members, just like new boy troops.  It takes time and effort just like anything else, but especially for Troops.  We had 2 public meetings and 2 open houses to recruit our 16 adults and 24 Scouts.  That was over 6 months.  There is plenty of demand out there, but it does not happen with our effort.

We had a great turnout for our new Scouts BSA Troop for Girls in the District of Columbia.  We are a non-linked Troop and start with 24 girls and a 15-person Troop Committee.  I believe District Committees should consider forming at least one non-linked Troop in the District.  These will be larger and more robust by nature.