CrewMomma

The age requirements are:

Youth : 14 to 21 yo AND have completed 8th grade

adults: Anyone over 21yo.

Here we go!!!!!

Whoooo??

I used to be an OWL, and a Good Old Owl too,

But now I've finished OWLing and I don't know what to do.

I'm growing old and feeble, and I can OWL no more!

So I'm going to work my ticket if I can!

Back to Gilwell, Happy Land, I'm going to work my ticket if I can!

Makes me VERY Proud!

Vicki

Thanks for picking up on the reverse discrimination thing. I have to admit, I threw the comment out there about "who would stay home to take care of the kids" just to see what comments would come back and to make the point of reverse sexism.

Both my husband and I are avid campers, he is a scoutmaster and I am an Associate Adviser, our kids have been camping since they were little.

"however the common comment that I hear from moms (about 75% of them)is "my idea of camping out is the Hilton." I am not deriding women, I just think that this perception of camping is why you do not see more women on Cub camp outs."

Well another reason that they may not be out on camp outs over the weekend is who will take care of their other kids while they are gone?

Fscouter

I agree and disagree with you. Boys should learn how to respect other people by the example that they are given by their leaders. Regardless if the leader if male or female.

Respect also comes from understanding that the person that is leading you knows what they are doing. I don''t expect my youth to respect me out of obligation, but to respect me as someone that they can trust to steer them in the right direction.

How their role models treat other people, is how they will treat other people - regardless of their gender.

As a reference:

" "I''''''''ve seen similar issues come up with some of the LDS troops -- some stake presidents and bishops don''''''''t want women involved in Scouting except in a cooking/cleaning type role, while other stakes don''''''''t seem to have a problem with them serving as CC''''''''s, ASM''''''''s, etc. "

Well, not to justify it, but you need to understand that how the LDS uses Scouting is a little different. The LDS very much segregates their youth by gender. Thus they only want male leaders for their scout troop, their Venturing Crews are male-only, etc. I''''ve heard that they seem to have issues with bringing their scout troop to events were there will be female leaders (this may vary from stake to stake, I assume), and its near impossible to get them to allow their Venturing Crews to associate with other crews in a council (due to the co-ed issue).

Now, if you''''re dealing with a non-LDS troop, that''''s a different matter. "

I was at a ROundtable this week where I was the only female Venturing Crew leader participating and the other 6 people in the breakout room were LDS leaders wondering how to get a Crew started. The conversation turned to how different the programs were for LDS groups VS community groups. I have to give kudo''s to the district trainer who was sitting in our meeting that night, he made the following statement:

"There isn''t two different programs, Venturing is one program."

In that statement, he completely brought the group back to center and acknowledging that regardless of the CO, Venturing is the same program through out.

But this post is off of the original topic.. back on track now guys..

acco40

I actually agree with you. We do not have enough male role models in our society for the boys to look up to. It is very important to have male models so that these boys can learn how to be good fathers.

One of the things I have mentioned (in other conversations about this topic) is that how these men treat women in the various leadership positions,is what the boys are going to see and model their attitudes after. With this particular troop, the majority of the volunteer dads (and committee members) are not to hot on there being female leaders in their troop - even if the scoutmaster is. It is hard to lead and be an example to the boys with one mindset when the other adults in the boys life are modeling a completely different mindset.

Just as a background, this is a very active community troop with the majority of the families being home schooled kids. Just a very elitist group.

Anywho, being a female leader in scouting myself, I see the need for both male and female leaders in troops. In terms of diversity issues (yes I just returned from being on staff at Woodbadge), it makes for a more well rounded educational process for the youth.

Everyone has something to offer.

PTO and Overtime in Scouting???? I WISH!!!!! I would be a rich woman by now!!!!

The process is that the Scout master submits his choices for ASM''s and the committee goes through an approval process.

Hello Slouchhat!!!

In the states here we do not have co-ed Boyscout Troops. The closest thing we have to a co-ed boyscout troop is our Venturing Crew Program.

This troop would not vote in a female ASM. They would rather leave the troop then see that.

Lots of Troops in the area that would welcome the help.

The problem is that the little boy really likes the kids in his troop and his mom doesn''t want to pull him out and have to have him start making new friends all over again.

The SM is actually with her on this point, it''s the committee that is voting and changing the bylaws on this one.

It was put to a vote and decided that Moms were too much of a distraction to the boys and it changed the dynamic of the camp outs too much. I believe it was the original intent was to stop the "hovering Mom" syndrome but in this case, there is no "hovering mom", just a highly motivated and highly skilled parent wanting to take part in their son''s life. Being a Venturing Crew Associate Adviser, I am just floored by the reasoning considering that all of the camp outs my crew goes on has split male-female leadership without the youth suffering!!!

The problem I have with the "women can''t teach boys to be men" is that there are some men out there that have no business being a role model to these boys just because they have the necessary "equipment".

I have one single mom that really wants to support her son and be active in his scouting career. She has the necessary skills to contribute to any camp out and activity. I have one father who 1) cusses around the kids all the time 2) hassles them constantly and gives them a hard time and guilt trip when he doesn''t think they are "working hard enough". They worst part is, he is allowed to go on camp outs and she is not.

When do we start looking at leaders actual qualifications to guide these boys and leave behind the attitude of "only men can teach boys how to be a man" ?

I just got back from Woodbadge where our Course Director was the first female course director in our council. I don''t think anyone suffered on the course because of it.

I just finished my first weekend at Woodbadge as a Troop guide, this morning when I came into work I giggled because 6 of my 10 new email messages were from Woodbadgers....

The highlight for today''s Wikipedia is about..Woodbadge!

Enjoy!

~Trish

I used to be an Owl....

My Son''s troop went on a week long river rafting trip where they pre-cooked and packaged food. For breakfasts they has sausage and eggs mixed together in a baggy that just needed to be warmed up. They had bagels and breads but by the end of the week the moisture content got to them and they started to turn green.

For dinners they had pre-cooked pastas and a meat sauce mixed together, again packaged in individual baggies for each of the boys. There were 32 boys that went.

Our Crew adviser does a new mess cooking class at the University of Scouting which includes an egg sandwich breakfast. She assembles the sandwiches then freezes them. At that point she will use a plastic shrink wrap machine to wrap the frozen sandwiches so that they don''t get wet when reheating in a pot of water.

I will see if she has any other good ideas!

Hey there Lugnuts Dad,

I have always seen Varsity as being Orange.

I just got back from WB this last weekend as well, as a Troop Guide though!

I had a great time and can''t wait to get back there!

MMMMMMMM

Ham roasted in a watermelon......

Heading up the Mountain tonight! Woodbadge starts on Thursday! Woohoo!!

This year we elected not to have Venturers model a LNT campsite. The staffers campsite is going to be the model LNT campsite this year.

Two days until our course starts, I''ll let you know how it goes!!!

~CrewMomma

(Humming "Back to Gilwell" all day today...)

Writer:

Sounds like a great project to write a book about all the positive aspects of the BSA program. You can mention that there is controversy within the BSA Program but you don't have to dig into the nitty gritty of the details.

Not to stir up any controversy here but:

"...how woman Scoutmaster is destroying manhood of the boy..."

is just plain ignorant.

Catherine Pollard was the first "legal" female scoutmaster. After being the scoutmaster of her troop for years because no male had stepped up, she was finally legally recognized in 1988. This was after her application was turned down in 1974 and 1976.

(One of my woodbadge tickets was to do a report on Woman in the Scout leadership positions, very educational!)

Last year my husband and I attended a funeral for a lady who was very active in scouting. She was diagnosed with cancer and had passed very quickly. She was my husbands troop guide for Woodbadge the session prior to her passing, both her husband and children were active in scouting.

At her memorial service it was rare to see someone there that was just in a suit and tie. We sang Vespers and "Gilwell", just the staffer verse. it was quite emotional, she was one of those sunny people that made a difference in everyone's life.

Ok, I am going to go with Decision Design but I still need to register our domain name, I am kind of lost on this one! Can anyone clue me in on this process or any good register plans?

Those are both good pranks!!!!

Thanks Avid! This weekend is a Staff Development weekend, I am looking to see what pranks are going to turn up there...

WOW Gunny2862, your post really threw me off!

I participated in a WB course last year and at the time I have been an adviser with my crew for only about 2 years. During my time on course I viewed Woodbadge as a great starting point for any adult leader that works with kids. It's a training course that teaches you principles on how to be a leader with both kids AND adults, they work with both groups! I would encourage any new leader to go through the training, not wait until they become an "old salt" in the program.

I'm training as a troop guide for this years program in our council, we are about 6 people short of having a full course for our September training session. We only hold one training session a year. We also work with another council whose course was too full, we took in their overflow!

Hi ItsMe

The Woodbadge of 20 years ago is not the same Woodbadge that is presented today. I cant speak to what WoodLore is, I have no experience with it.

I can only speak to what Woodbadge is today, a great training opportunity for adult leaders in the program. There is a lot of good information that you can take back and apply to your troop. I believe that missing this opportunity to go to Woodbadge would be doing your troop a disservice. Especially when the only reason for not attending is a preconceived notion of "Been there, done that, don't need to know anymore..."