Cburkhardt

What Keeps Sea Scouts and Law Enforcement Exploring Running So Well? COVID, the bankruptcy, and other operational and program deformations have severely impacted Venturing, but Sea Scouts and Law Enforcement Exploring seem to just continue on with sufficient numbers of young adult and adult members. There is not much in the way of needed BSA professional time or financial investment. What are the factors about these teen-focused programs that have quietly kept them operating for decades?

If I was council president again and based my views on the membership implosion, non-interest shown in this post and few suggestions offered, I would conclude that outdoor adventure “green shirt” Venturing is not going to work anymore as a “stand alone” program. A national program lacking broad internal interest and support cannot be rebooted by resource-lacking 18-to-21 year-olds or adults (such as parents) who are not already deeply engaged with Scouting. If it has a future as a "stand alone" program, Venturing might need to become a council-optional program dependent entirely on volunteer management. I am open to being convinced otherwise.

I meant “not necessarily my preference.”

If you think parents of potential youth members are unlikely to serve or are otherwise inappropriate to be a Venturing crew Advisor or Committee member, then where are these people going to come from to reboot an entire program? I might prefer others, but of the many units like this I formed over the years, there were always at least a few parents among the most effective Advisors. That is my observation and experience, not necessarily my experience.

Are there sufficient numbers of capable adult volunteers to save Venturing? Commenters are sharing that a principal challenge for continuing a stand-alone Venturing program is recruiting a sufficient number of adults to vigorously support Venturing Crews. The reality is that Venturing youth and adult membership has shrunk so much that a stand-alone Venturing program probably would need to be fundamentally re-established in many localities. My observation is that the professional and volunteer structures above the unit level will continue to focus on re-establishing Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA -- putting the future of Venturing in the hands of interested adult volunteers. Nobody has posted any numbers or other evidence to counter the impression that Venturing adult volunteers are vanishing and not being replaced in in numbers to retain fundamental "stand alone" program viability. Absence of sufficient Venturing membership will cause the discussions about Venturing advancement and youth age ranges to become irrelevant. My experience is that the indispensable and most-effective adult volunteer leaders for Venturing (and previous outdoor adventure Exploring) are parents of youth who matriculated from Scout Troops. If these parents are no longer volunteering in sufficient numbers, this may determine the future of "stand alone" Venturing.

Fred8033: I am similarly sad to read the documents revealing the actions GSUSA was taking at the time of our most-extreme peril. I recall the ferocious things their national leadership said publically about volunteers in the BSA (like the posters on this site). Most regretfully, I am troubled by how these attitudes were directly transmitted to their professionals and volunteers at the local level. Despite the bad behavior displayed and harshest words spoken to us nationally and locally, I have not heard one anti-GSUSA peep from anyone on this site, on my Scoutmaster Staff or around our local council. One important thing has changed though. Our Scouts BSA Troop for Girls was once thought to be an "alternate" program for young women. Parents and their daughters would visit our open houses and directly contemplate whether they would join GUSUA or Scouts BSA for Girls. No longer. Three years on Scouts BSA for Girls is now a very normal and broadly-accepted activity for girls in the District of Columbia metropolitan area. They now come to us and gladly join without any mention of other youth services programs. This is only a limited observation of one Scoutmaster in one Troop, but I'll note the difference is significant.

Qwazse: Please be very direct. Which ages are you in favor of being in a continuing "stand alone" program? There have been several age-range ideas floating around and I'd like to know the format you favor and why. Thanks, Cburkhardt.

Other than getting Bankruptcy Court permission to pursue their trademark case, I think the only connection to the bankruptcy was that they filed a claim.

I will start with broad observations and policy views on Venturing. I was not part of the “Churchill” effort, so these thoughts are my own. A scouting-type program for older youth has existed in in the BSA in some form for many decades. I believe the BSA should serve these older youth as a matter of fulfilling its organization-wide purpose if it can do so without undermining its ability to strongly re-establish and support Cub Scouts and Scouts BSA. With the exception of Sea Scouts, older youth programming has been inconsistent and dramatically overhauled every twenty years or so. This relatively frequent overhauling is a principal reason the programs do not have a robust base of supportive adult volunteers and alumni. If Venturing continues as an independent BSA program, it might become a council-optional program to be managed and serviced exclusively by volunteers on a council or territory basis. I believe professional resources need to be focused on re-establishing and servicing lost Cub Scout and Scouts BSA units for the foreseeable future. Girls who once joined Venturing for the purpose of accessing a BSA advancement system can now advance through an all-girl Scouts BSA Troop. For this reason, the Venturing advancement system should be evaluated to determine whether this has diminished overall demand for Venturing advancement below viability. If continued as a stand-alone program, Venturing must be supremely inexpensive and easy to form and operate.

Ochoa's main point is that the court did not hold National BSA vicariously liable for instances when local units or councils errantly used the term "girl scout" during the early weeks implementing the new program. He thinks that is a potentially appealable legal issue. GSUSA would have to prove that the local actors were acting as employees of National when they took the actions, that the actions were a requirement of employment and that a tort occurred. I think it is fairly weak, in that the employment link is very distant, the action was not a condition of any employment and the facts alleged, if true, did not give rise to a tortious injury or harm (because GSUSA was not able to prove harm -- consumer confusion). The offered "proof" of confusion turned out to be inadmissible hearsay.

Venturing enrollment has decreased significantly during the course of recent BSA challenges. This thread will focus on: What could or should be done now to increase the membership and prospects of the Venturing program as in independent BSA program unit? Feel free to comment on both administrative and programmatic elements of Venturing, including its advancement program. Please focus only on Venturing and not Sea Scouts or Exploring. Next week I will post a thread asking for suggestions on how Venturing might be structured as part of Scouts BSA – so please defer that discussion until then.

Few lawyers would “bank on” winning a fee petition. That said, I like the BSA’s chances in this case. I read the Complaint when it was first filed, the Dismissal Order and Fee Petition and a few things stick out. There was an overall lack of evidence of consumer confusion. Only a few copies of mixed-up local church bulletins or unit-produced fliers and some conclusory allegations that misuse of the GSUSA trademark had been encouraged. In the dismissal order the judge found that after many GSUSA witnesses, no single instance of confusion or brand tarnishment was proven. Not good. The judge found that not a single Polaroid factor favored the GSUSA case. My read is that the judge’s calls on these legal factors are well-reasoned. I can sense no apparent misjudgment on legal or fact issues. There is no apparent abuse of discretion. If anything, the judge appears to have gone to near-unreasonable lengths to allow GSUSA to prove a case. So, I sense there is not a strong basis for the appeal. Going back to the Fee Petition, it cites internal GSUSA communications produced during discovery (after an attempt to hide them) to the affect that the case was knowingly filed as an anti-competitive move in coordination with a PR effort to smear the BSA program effort. If the documents are sufficiently supportive on these issues, the case law will favor the fee award – the size of which will only continue to grow during the appeal. I am not experienced with trademark law and do not know the procedural behavior of the litigants, so I can only wonder of sanctions against the Plaintiff attorneys might apply here as well. Litigation is a tough game. When the trademark case was filed, uninformed parties thought the BSA’s future was a bit in doubt. If the trademark case is proved to have lacked legal and factual merit, it might be characterized as a calculated effort to insert meritless and expensive litigation to lessen chances of a successful reorganization. This trademark case interfered with efforts to form our all-girl program units – that was my personal experience during formation of our girl Cub Den and Scouts BSA Troop for Girls. That might have been a “rational” (but certainly unethical) business wager back then, but it failed because the BSA will be emerging from bankruptcy in reasonable shape. Unless I am missing something significant, it is time for the GSUSA to settle on the fees and move beyond this bitter fight. I do not see how it benefits them to continue.

BSA Seeking $16+ Million from GSUSA regarding dismissed Trademark Suit Below is introductory text of a BSA Motion to recover $16+ Million of attorneys fees and costs incurred by the BSA during the recently-dismissed trademark suit filed by the GSUSA against the BSA. The link to the full motion document, which provides granular information of what organizational moves GSUA was making proximate to the Scouts BSA announcement, is pasted below. It is worth the read. “Preliminary Statement By any measure, this trademark case is “exceptional” under the fee award provision of the Lanham Act. That is, it “stands out from others.” As the summary judgment evidence showed, Girl Scouts of the United States of America (“GSUSA”) filed this lawsuit for an improper, anticompetitive purpose, with the Court finding that “[i]n truth, Girl Scouts’ complaint is based, not on concern for trademark confusion, but on fear for their competitive position in a market with gender neutral options for scouting.” SJ Order at 21. Under binding Second Circuit precedent, GSUSA’s decision to initiate litigation against the BSA as a competitive ploy satisfies the exceptional case standard under the Lanham Act without more. But there is more. GSUSA’s claims were substantively meritless, which also makes this an exceptional case. Lacking any evidence of actual confusion, GSUSA nonetheless pressed the absurd argument that the BSA should not be permitted to use its long-standing SCOUT-formative trademarks for programs that included both male and female members, despite having already done so for 50 years. Indeed, on summary judgment, GSUSA failed to persuade the Court that even a single factor weighed in GSUSA’s favor to support a likelihood of confusion finding under the Polaroid test. After improvidently filing this case for an improper purpose and with baseless claims, GSUSA then pursued it for years in an excessively costly and contentious manner. Examples include the following: GSUSA designated twenty witnesses to provide 30(b)(6) testimony on two topics concerning instances of alleged consumer confusion, for which none of those witnesses had actual, first-hand knowledge. GSUSA resisted producing documents until ordered by the Court, as reflected by the parties’ discovery motion practice. GSUSA improperly redacted hundreds of produced documents on grounds of purported “non-responsiveness” in an attempt to conceal highly relevant information evidencing the meritless nature of GSUSA’s claims. GSUSA concealed its communications with its PR agency on highly relevant subjects such as GSUSA’s attempts to undermine the BSA’s reputation through an orchestrated smear campaign in the run-up to the filing of this lawsuit, resulting in the BSA’s service of a Rule 11 motion and GSUSA’s voluntary dismissal of its tarnishment claims. GSUSA submitted a massive 151-page response and counterstatement to the BSA’s 17-page statement of undisputed facts on summary judgment, which failed to comply with the Local Rules and reflected a transparent attempt to manufacture disputed facts where none existed. Abuse of the legal system for anti-competitive ends – especially against a non-profit entity devoted to youth programs – should not be countenanced. The BSA respectfully requests that the Court find that the BSA is entitled to its reasonable attorneys’ fees and related nontaxable expenses for this exceptional case. Upon the granting of this motion, the BSA will submit a fee application setting forth and supporting its calculations of those fees and expenses and their reasonableness.” Here is the full Motion: https://www.law360.com/articles/1486390/attachments/0

Correction: My final paragraph about Lone Scouts was directed to "Scoutmaster Fred" cited in RememberSchiff's post.

I find some of the above postings about girls in Scouts BSA to be rather speculative and uninformed. As founding Scoutmaster of a now-50+ member Scouts BSA Troop for Girls, my experience and direct observation is that our girls are attracted to the program for the identical reasons as boys are. My experience is also that our Scouts successfully organize and lead our troop in ways that are different – playing to the things girls emphasize and strengths they have at the Scouts BSA ages. Our operation works supremely well as a single-gender organization. for reasons I do not need to fully understand. There is no way our chartered organization, parents, adult leaders or youth would consider making our Troop co-ed. The fact that government schools and many churches have fully co-ed youth activities is fine, but irrelevant in deciding whether an outdoor-oriented Scouts BSA Troop is better or worse off being co-ed. Our Troop is not a French club or bible study organization. We conduct an aggressive outdoor program that matches the best I have come to know in my Scouting years. My “opinion” is a strong one: we would not have arrived where we are if we were not an all-girl Troop and many of the good things our young people benefit from would melt-away in a co-ed environment. This would include the idea of all-girl and all-boy patrols in the same troop. I have come to observe a few partnered Troops in our area that have a “girl patrol” integrated into what is effectively a single troop. This is not in keeping with the letter or spirit of our BSA regulations. The successes of these organizations are limited. If and when troops are provided the option to have a co-ed presence within a single troop, you should not expect a rush from the many quite successful Scouts BSA Troops for Girls to participate. To the original poster: I suggest that a Scouts BSA Troop for Girls be formed on the basis of serving a wider geographic area and that it be located at a chartered organization without any other Scouting program. I find Scouter leadership affiliated with some long-standing Scouts BSA Troops for Boys don’t prefer introducing girl programming anywhere in proximity to their successful units. Sometimes these folks unwittingly restrain the growth of an all-girl Troop located at the same chartered organization. The girls in your community need and deserve a strong, large Scouts BSA Troop that stands alone. With prioritization and strong drive, Scouters with a singular focus on that project can pull it together fairly easily – certainly by this fall. This is just now hard to do. My view is that the Lone Scout approach is a work-around that is only appropriate in the limited circumstances that program was designed to address. I regret your Lone Scout Eagle was not able to experience the unobstructed joy our first five Eagles have lived in our Scouts BSA Troop for Girls.

A different take. To the original post: I hope Scoutmasters come to experience that OA provides a means through which Scouts who have demonstrated skill in managing a Troop can experience managing larger projects and organizations with more-diverse personalities. This is not the express purpose of OA, but OA friends who have been with Scouting for 50+ years uniformly point to their OA experience as the first time when they stepped out of their early lives to manage larger challenges. I have always understood the cheerful service and Native American culture aspects of OA, but to me OA demonstrates value when Scouts put on a large event or organize a contingent to attend an above-council event at some distant location. These are complicated challenges for a 14 or 15 year-old, and the ones who prevail become early-stage candidates to lead larger organizations achieving important objectives. I don’t know many former lodge chiefs who became failures in their life endeavors. I urge Scoutmasters to allow these elections – but only if there is reasonable assurance of compliance with YPT. Adult advisors of OA organizations are a varied group. Some are successful former unit leaders and genuine leaders of their districts, councils, businesses or communities. Unfortunately, others are people who have not been able to rise to a respected level of leadership among adults. For these, OA adult roles can easily become an outlet to press less-than-successful leadership tactics and model questionable character traits to younger persons who are easily impressed. In today’s vigilant environment, a unit leader who behaves in this manner is quickly identified and dealt with. Because our unit does not influence selection of adults advising of OA youth, I made it my business as Scoutmaster to understand the character of adults advising our local OA before authorizing unit elections. I’m happy I did so. The first Eagle of our fledgling three-year-old Scouts BSA Troop was just elected Lodge Chief of our large metropolitan-scale Lodge. I could not possibly provide her the challenge and coaching she is now ready for and continue to operate our 54-Scout Troop. If I had prevented OA elections, I would have held her back from what will be a great chance for this Scout to learn and shine. She is ready, and my role as a unit leader is not to hold her back -- it is to help develop the leadership capabilities of newer Scouts who view her as a model to follow. This is where I come down: Personally evaluate the character of the adults involved in your local OA group. If things check-out, allow the elections. A more-challenging leadership opportunity should not be denied to your young adult members. If you sense questionable behavior, take appropriate action to prevent harm to our young people.

Reconciling vile acts and tragic impacts with the potential beauty of experiencing life seems so unlikely – so impossible. And, questions which seem so distant to the bystander or uninvolved. The Holocaust was “long ago”; South African apartheid was “far away”; and child sex abuse happened “somewhere else”. As abused individuals turn to the aftermath of the bankruptcy I wish them comfort in however they continue processing their thoughts.

To focus the discussion, may I ask what your interests (if any) are for personal future BSA involvement? Would there be any particular focus to that activity and is there anything you would wish to accomplish?

Dear Friend: Because of professional obligations toward a client, I have not been able to comment on the bankruptcy proceedings and have largely been absent from the site since the filing. I posted these questions because I hope as a human being there is some potential for reconciliation as these matters continue to be processed by individuals. Everyone is welcome to comment. Here's to a splendid Easter weekend for everyone, Cburkhardt

Involvement of Abused Alumni Post-Bankruptcy? Other than persons appointed to serve on governance committees as a result of the bankruptcy settlement, do you think BSA alumni who were abused will return to serve youth in the BSA? If so, what do you think they should or will do as BSA volunteers? Is a sense of reconciliation or forgiveness likely or even possible? Will BSA volunteer parents of today’s daughters and sons and those who step forward to lead the BSA in the future be perpetually held to account for the negligent oversight and evil acts of the past? I ask commenters to be honest but also charitable in their views. This is springtime and Easter – a time of potential renewal in all of us and the organizations to which we belong.

YPT “Business as Usual” these days is “Hyper Vigilance” A principal reason the BSA will continue is that YPT is taken very seriously by today’s unit leaders. My personal YPT experience as leader of two units (Scoutmaster of Troop with 51, Skipper of Ship with 28), is that there is a highest-level of vigilance and enforcement in the YPT program currently in place. Everyone is watching everyone. The parents watch the unit volunteers. The unit leaders watch each other, the parents and anyone who walks near a meeting or campsite. The youth watch the adults and each other. National is watching the councils and the councils are all over the volunteers and chartered organizations. The chartered organization executive leadership regularly inquires about … just about everything. The same takes place at summer camp and with council programs, such the Order of the Arrow. Nobody is exempt from strict application of the YPT rules and parents freely make suggestions and report failure to comply with YPT in the strictest manner possible. Non-complying people are excluded from the program the moment a risk is identified. Evil exists in this world, so our two units will always be vigilant to protect our young people from evil individuals who would do them harm. Our unit volunteers and I look forward to each upgrade to YPT and enhancement of training materials. Enhancements to registration, camping and other key practices to choke-off remaining risk points will be welcomed. That said, I have a hard time imagining how an evildoer could slip through the barriers our units currently maintain -- but I always assume there is someone out there who would try. Perpetrators who might seek to do harm to our involved young people would pay, and very dearly. I can say with pride that our youth participants are safer with us than they are at school, church, sports activities and maybe even at home. We spend at least 25% of our time making sure this is working. I would hope that even abused commenters on this site would be proud and supportive of our unit volunteers and, after visiting us, might even be comfortable allowing their children to join us – or even become leaders themselves. The above is just my personal experience and that of the relatively large number of youth, leaders, parents and chartered organization folks involved with our two units. Because I am a very experienced scouter, some might think the above is an exception to a “looser” norm. That is not my view, because this is what I observe of other units at our camporees and during summer camp. Is vigilance encouraged by the bankruptcy and related proceedings? Absolutely -- and I believe Scouting and society are favorably changed as a result. What will not change is the need for vigilance and the wisdom of quality unit leaders. The BSA will continue. I look forward to the coming changes and the additional helpful YPT vigilance and enhanced protocols. I look forward to a BSA that is worthy of everyone. Even to those who experienced the unforgivable.

I have “done it all” at every level and in every program in Scouting, but these past four years I focused only on forming two units and being a unit leader (Scoutmaster of a 51-member all-girl Troop and Skipper of a 28-member Ship). These are new units formed and grown amid the challenges of the BSA’s membership policy changes, bankruptcy and COVID. Because my focus has been only on the go-forward program, experience informs me the BSA and its programs will indeed be moving forward. You can view these units as two unscientific “focus groups”. When the youth, registered adult, parent and one-off program contributor individuals are added-up, well over 150 humans have been involved. The experience of those currently involved in our two units – including chartered organization leaders -- has been uniformly rewarding. Council services have been excellent and the national organization has persevered in the face of what can only be described as impossible change-management circumstances. The bankruptcy is talked of by our parents and adult leaders as a good process to compensate victims without destroying the good things about Scouting. There is deep hope among these people that our local council and national organization will continue. It is the interest and confidence of youth members, parents and unit volunteers who will determine the future and strength of the program and its various organizational entities. These people have demonstrated their support for continuation of this valued program with their behavior and participation. A few thoughts from the "front lines".

There are three purple national committee-oriented patches. The National Executive Board (a huge group) has its purple patch worn by its members. Just under them is the equally large National Advisory Council, which has its own patch. It is mainly comprised of either former National Executive Board members who no longer want to fulfill executive board responsibilities or people who are being considered for National Executive Board membership or are being honored for distinguished service or financial contributions. Finally, if a Scouter is formally appointed to the national committee system but not a member of the Executive Board or Advisory Council, that person wears a National Committee patch. Members of small temporary committees to study and advise on a narrow topic are not formally part of the national committee system and are not provided a purple patch. Perhaps that is what you mean by "sub-committee". The national commissioner organization has its own patches, which are easily purchased and specialized for just about every function. Of these patches, the Advisory Council patches are almost never seen, because it meets so infrequently and its members never wear uniforms (and therefore do not request them). All of this information is likely outdated due to the bankruptcy and the inevitable sweeping-away of the previous and complex national BSA governance system.

From your explanation, it seems clear that Bob is not adding value in delivering resources and constructive oversight from the CO. My prescription would be to have a senior Council volunteer officer meet with the executive officer of the CO (one is always identified on the Charter) and make a change. The unavoidable solutions are that either the CO steps-up and replaces Bob with one of the CO’s real members, or the Troop volunteers and CO sever the relationship and the Troop moves to a different CO. Trying to baby-around with the situation by working with Bob to accommodate his desires is going to fail. Cut directly to a solution by involving authority. As for Dave's attitude toward COs, I think COs are a great resource when properly engaged and the unit leader understands and cooperates. I base this on being a unit leader of both a stand-alone all-girl Troop and a Ship. The Troop CO is a modest Episcopal Church where the COR and Committee Chair are on the Vestry (the Episcopal Church term for the volunteer “church council”). They deliver scads of resources and solid advice. They get the members of the Parish involved in supporting us. Regarding the few incidents when I had a parent or outsider causing unusual trouble, they handled it so I could continue to be productive. The troublesome “Bobs” of Scouting are easily dealt with when the Troop CO relationship is productive. The executive officer and COR handle it and the “Bobs” either become cooperative or their relationship with the unit is terminated. The Ship CO is our metropolitan-wide Coast Guard Auxiliary Division. They get our young people access to everything and help provide the program instruction. They stand behind our Skippers Staff and me in a visible way. The Division Commander is the Committee Chair and one of his subcomponent Flotilla Commanders is the COR. The Coast Guard is well represented on our committee. They regard the Ship as truly a part of their mission. This CO would immediately sense a “Bob” personality and prevent trouble from the start. Having an effective CO and obtaining meaningful benefits from the relationship is not difficult. The volunteers running the unit just need to make sure the COR is someone respected within the CO and then actually involve the person and the executive officer in the unit. I invited the Church Rector (who serves as the CO executive officer) to visit our Troop at summer camp. The Coast Guard Division Commander is a radio expert, so I had him teach the Sea Scouts a seminar on marine radio use. Give them a chance to feel included and valued and you will have CO support. Another benefit is that a good CO is a real help in providing a layer of YPT oversight. Our COR really understands YPT and is very helpful in our avoiding inadvertent mistakes. Some might fear a CO will bring in unknowledgeable meddlers into the troop environment. While that is possible, it is not likely if the right people are involved. The typical CO is loaded with Scouting alumni who can be effective volunteers. For all these reasons, I hope the option of having a CO relationship will continue into the future. Our two units would lose a lot if we were just tenants “using a room”. The Sea Scout Ship would not be able to continue without the involvement of its CO.

Family Scouting: As I have understood the BSA's use of the term "Family Scouting", it means operating a linked-Troop concept and not the idea of having non-Scouter family members going along on monthly campouts. Our all-girl Troop is a stand-alone unit and is therefore not "Family Scouting". I do not support non-Scouter family members attending monthly campouts and offer the following experience as support. For the last two years we experimented by celebrating the end of the program year with a combined May campout and Court of Honor at a nearby location. The families were invited to drive out for a mid-day COH on Saturday -- and that worked perfectly. We also invited families to camp overnight if they wished (there are special YPT rules for doing this, which we followed). I will not be advising we allow them to camp with us next May, as some family members became meddlesome and disrupted the campout (and their own girl's participation and enjoyment). Unlike Scouts, adult family members arrive with precise expectations of what their Scout and family should be experiencing, and this often differs from a traditional Scout weekend campout. We actually lost a youth member over this, when a parent camping overnight declared that the Troop did not "measure up" to his childhood Troop memories because we did not require Scouts to participate in continuous advancement "classes" throughout the weekend. A few others adults complained about the weather, food quality and similar matters -- on what anyone on this blog would regard as a "near-perfect" campout. It would be impossible to provide a traditional outdoor Scouting program to Scouts if such family members and their disruptions were present on monthly campouts. No Scoutmaster staff would be willing to deal with the accompanying disruptions. "Family Scouting" in its strict implementation is the sharing of a Chartered Organization and Troop Committee. Problems arise when Troop Committees and Scoutmasters break the rules and start "combining" things. I urge you avoid such things. Shortage of Female Scouters with Outdoor Experience: We are starting our third September as an all-girl Troop, and for the first time I believe we have a sufficient number of female Assistant Scoutmasters who are genuinely experienced and enthused about the outdoor program. Our large all-girl Troop has ten ASM's and now four of them are experienced female campers who present great role models. We have others who are willing to camp, but prefer to provide other needed service to the Troop. I think this is going to be a significant positive change for us. These people are necessary and exist -- but it takes extra work to find and involve them.