walk in the woods

I'll be the curmudgeon. You mentioned you want to give the Crew its own identity but have it meet with the Troop. You can't do both. If the Crew is meeting with the Troop it'll just be older scouts in dark green uniforms. If you're going to start a Crew then start one, give it an identity and let it thrive. Don't pretend it's going to be troop+. If you want troop+ then work with one of the Leadership Corp style concepts or Venture patrol concepts suggested above. Next, you can't avoid the scenario of older boys going over to the Crew at the expense of the Troop. It is going to happen. I repeat, it is going to happen. Both sides of the equation need to prepare for that reality. If there is any adult resistance to the idea it will create drama when it happens. The simple truth is if your Crew is active (say once a month activity) and the Troop is active (once a month activity), most/some/many boys aren't going to want or be able to do both. You have to decide up front how you're handling the logistics of calendaring and equipment. If you defer to the Troop calendar when setting the Crew agenda, the Crew will be slighted (e.g. we can't go to this cool regional Venturing event because it's camporee weekend). The opposite also applies. Independent units have independent calendars and sometimes they will conflict. Any scouts who were trying to work in both units will have to make a decision of which to support. You don't want to put scouts in that position.

@qwazse, Prayers for your peace brother.

I like the project idea. Coordinating the work day to disassemble the sets, log the individual pieces present and missing, stowing the pieces, and following up would be fine. He'd need to talk about how he'd coordinate that work with his troop, youth group, or whomever is going to do the work. What supplies would be required for the cataloging and how he'd keep it all straight to get the replacement pieces involved. I'd stop thinking in terms of purchasing containers or purchasing extra bricks. Your scout should consider talking to his local lego store or writing the company directly to ask for donations for the missing pieces. He should consider what kind of fundraiser he might do with the school to raise the funds if he can't get the donation (extra funds raised go to the sponsoring organizaiton anyway so maybe they could purchase a cabinet, other kits, etc.). If there is a video in the works he should think about it not as a presenter but as the director. Who writes the script, who is presenter, is it interview based, who can he coordinate to do the editing/post production, etc.

Yep, it was still a rule in 2012. We had to get WFA for our BWCAW trip. It was also a question for the scout camp we attended because it was questionable that an ambulance could get there in 30 minutes as the local service was volunteer and not all parts of camp were accessible by road. There's an oblique reference to the 30-minute rule in this document as well, http://www.atlantabsa.org/document/caab-solo-wilderness-first-aid/135060.

Maybe where you live. Where I live abandoning the NRA will have the same effect. It would be just one more step in turning the BSA from a national program into a big blue bubble suburban day care program.

Yeah, just for the debate, I'd say separate sites. Linked troops are separate troops and should be encouraged to create their own identity. If you're going to have websites for the units then you should have youth webmasters. While you could have a webmaster from each unit managing the same site, I think that model would take away autonomy from the new webmaster. Consider this question. If your CO was spinning up a new boys unit in parallel with the existing unit, would you want them sharing the same website? Linked troops are only linked at the adult level and that's where it should stay. You should give all the same rights, privileges, and responsibilities to the girls unit youth as the boys currently exercise.

You are a bad man @JoeBob 😉. Going for my popcorn now.

Our Council Scout Exec.

For our council roundup night we were told, regardless of whether your pack is accepting girls or not, regardless of whether you have the 5 minimum or not, register all girls and take their parent's money. District/Council will find them a place. I have no idea how many might have been affected as we had 0 girls show up.

If you did this in my neighborhood, the next meeting would have 0 parents and 0 participants. I spent a year and a half shielding my pack from a DE who was just like this. The Pack's survival was in question for the better part of 8 months.

If you look closely, you'll see the Journal date is 2015 but the published date is 2013. Not uncommon for a journal article to publish online long before it makes a print edition. the title given in the Telegraph article is exactly the same, with the same authors, of the second link I provided. I suppose the authors could be biased, along with the folks who did the peer review, and the editors/reviewers at the journal (published by OUP). It happens to the best journals. This particular article has been cited over 20 times according to NIH (https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4428296/citedby/). So, the argument made was there is no difference in the development of boys and girls. A scholarly article, published in a peer reviewed journal, and cited over 20 times, suggests that's not the case. It's now the person who made the original claim to do the research to refute my response, you know, with actual data and studies and such.

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/science-news/10529134/Girls-really-do-mature-quicker-than-boys-scientists-find.html, with the published study, https://academic.oup.com/cercor/article/25/6/1477/299218?searchresult=1

Nah, just about having a 6 year old at a scout encampment.

Talk to your CO about making a startup donation. Also talk with them about service opportunities your young scouts could take on right away.

It's not just a BSA problem, it's a societal problem. Our over arching desire to protect children is actually damaging them, mentally and physically. Lukianoff and Haidt talk about it in their article, and now book, "The Coddling of the American Mind." It's the basis of Leonore Skenazy's Free Range Kids movement. You're right, the BSA should absolutely be fighting against the trend. But, it's risky business to say "Let your kid join our movement! They're going to be challenged emotionally and physically. They'll hear things they disagree with. They'll get into arguments. They'll take risks and they might get hurt. One weekend a month you'll say goodbye on Friday night and not hear from your child again until Sunday morning!" It's a lot easier to say Family Scouting and give in to the zeitgeist.

I'm guessing this will be updated:

Question for the OP. Are the boys getting their work done? Is the troop running well? Have you had any actual reports of wrong doing? For 100 years our goal has been to get boys to work together to run their troops. Train them, trust them, let them lead is the catch phrase. Now we're being told adults have to intervene. There's no faster way to crush the spirit of a group of boys who have bought into the actual vision! The policy quoted above is technocentric and technophobic. Would we demand to see hand written letters between the scouts? What if they decided to use an encryption technique? Would policy dictate a key escrow service? If they all sit together at lunch should a scout leader demand to be invited or will we recruit teachers to spy for us? These are the policies that will change the BSA from a character development program into a adult driven camping club. BSA National needs to come down out of their ivory tower, fire all the professors and experts they've brought into their little echo chamber, and get back into the field actually working with boys.

Then she'd have the same disappointment as any boy living in small town America when it comes to starting a scout troop. It's not a new problem.

So lots of questions. How many girls? Will you have your own equipment or share with the boys unit? Will you be meeting at the same time/place or separately? Take this for what it's worth, I restarted a troop with 6 boys. It was winter so I spent the first month or two working with the boys on simple scout skills, setting up tents, setting up tents in the dark, setting up the kitchen (we mostly plop camped at that point), hooking up the stove, cooking, fire starting, woods tools, shopping lists, menu planning, etc. Plus a lot of team building games and working on patrol identify. It was adult directed at the beginning but started to work towards the boys working on their own. It was imperfect but what we had access to use. Certainly it helped us get ready for that first camping trip and for our first summer camp. Assuming you have good relationships with the boys unit, I would suggest not using the boys troop ASMs to teach scout skills, rather get the boys unit Instructors and/or older scouts to do so. That will help set the youth leadership direction. Maybe ask if your PL(s) can observe the boy unit's PLC meetings. Unless you have 15 - 20 girls joining your new unit, skip the SPLs and ASPLs. Maybe even if you have that many skip those positions. A patrol needs a Patrol Leader, but not an SPL. I'd argue two or three patrols probably don't need an SPL. As they get familiar with the equipment and structuring outings some of that will shake out. Introduce other leadership positions as the unit needs them. Dig out the Troop Program Resources for your first few months. It will build a framework around meetings for your new PL(s).

From the stack of wax at the back of the rack! https://www.scoutsongs.com/lyrics/imetabear.html

Well, let's start from the bottom up. The BSA didn't create a unified program at the Scout BSA level, they created a gender-segregated program. It's no secret I don't agree with the decision to bring girls into scouting, but, anybody with a brain saw the gender-segregated solution was going to cause more problems than solutions. As for the Cub Scouts, we don't have the discussion because the packs are co-ed but the Dens are segregated. Mostly a cosmetic difference but a difference non-the-less. Working around family vacations, grandparents, custody, summer jobs, summer school, and work schedules is just the way summer camp scheduling works. While I am sympathetic to the argument about provisional camping, I'm less sympathetic to the "any week they want" arguments. Why are you limiting yourself to just your Council's summer camp? If they are setting a schedule that doesn't work for your unit, vote with your feet and dollars. Troops do this all the time over program and for any number of other issues. I guarantee if your girls troop goes somewhere other than your council camp next summer you'll get asked why plenty of times next fall. Finally, there's only harm if one decides there is. Take deep breaths and find solutions you and your girls are happy with. "People are not disturbed by things, but by the views they take of them." -Epictetus

Near the top of my newsfeed today, a website, designed to allow for anonymous accusations against young men.

Do you have evidence this is really happening or are you just catastrophizing? I agree that scouts are scouts and should have all the same access to services regardless of gender. Any council that actually does otherwise should be called out. But creating a worst case scenario and then demanding everybody get in line is unhelpful. I don't agree that anybody is diminished if a particular camp runs boy-only, girls-only, and mixed sessions. In fact I celebrate it. The more camps we have offering options for all scouts the better off we'll be.

No apology required @Momleader, and no offense taken, I was just sharing how the terms are used in my community. I had no idea it was still in general use elsewhere. My boy falls under the umbrella of IEP as well.

The short answer is the parents of the girls need to step up. February is going to be messy, but, the BSA will cave by summer once NBC picks up the second or third story like this.