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Well.   Scouting will soon be all-inclusive,  open to any adventure seeking youth, male or female, regardless of gender, faith,  or skin tone.  It s about time.  But wait....

What to call our organization?   To what will we belong?

Any new name should recognize the all encompassing quality now inherent.  Horrors, does that mean we must give up all the historic monograms? Re-sew our shirts?  New buttons?    BS of A?   What to insert in the "B" slot???   Merely erase the "B" ?   Oh, say not so.....

Brave,  Bountiful,   Bi-Gender,  Beautiful, Beleaguered,   Bygolly,  Benign, Binary,  Bairn, Bambino, ,,,

 

Scouts America...   What ever happened to   Vespucciland?

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They changed the uniform strip to just " Scouts" back in '72.  Probably what they will do again.  

I don't care  what they change it to so long as they change it.  I don't want any confusion between the organization I once proudly belonged to, and what it is morphing into in its declining years.

I'm exactly one year I plan to set up my old canvas tent, light a huge bonfire, uncork a bottle of old Irish whisky,  and toast my old scouting friends, some dead some living.  

It's called a wake

Edited by Oldscout448
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YWCA??  isn't that just for Girls?   How in the world can you have a club just for Girls? Isn't that a bit sexist? Won't someone get offended?

Isn't GSUSA still just for Girls? How can such a thing exist? It is the current year! 

Oh wait. . .   Girls can have their own clubs, but boys can't.  Got it.

It is sad to see the greatest boys club ever die like this. . . 

A death by a million helicopters and power point slides. . . 

From an outdoor game  ---->>>>   to a boring indoor classroom of advancement.

 

Edited by cocomax
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Until the late 1300's, the equivalent term for Girl referred to any child of any gender - girl or boy.  If you were a "boy" in 1320, you were publicly called a girl.

So how about we just keep the name as Boy to make up for all those years boys were once known as girls?

Or keep it as Boy since I suspect most girls that will want to join the Boy Scouts will be those girls stereo-typically called Tomboys anyway.

Or how about we just call it the BSA, or take a page from the US YMCA, that since 2010 has called themselves the Y, and call the BSA the B?

No one told the YMCA or the BSA that they had to start serving girls.  It is their choice to do so.  No one is going to tell the Girl Scouts or the YWCA that they have to start serving boys - it will be there choice.

But - the YMCA, at least in the US, is now open to men, women, boys, girls - heck, it's barely even nominally Christian these days - and they serve about 21 million people a year.  The YWCA?  About 2 million.   Opening themselves up to females certainly hasn't hurt the YMCA none.

But that's ok - change is hard to take - go ahead and have your wakes and go ahead and blame the decline of the BSA on girls if you want but know this - you should have had the wake ten or more years ago.  This organization has been declining for years - and it hasn't had anything to do with gays, or girls, or God.  It's become increasingly irrelevant in the urban-centric country we've become.  The hey-day of the BSA is 1972 - they had 6,524,640 members then - the most they ever had.  It went down to around 4 million through he 70's, then increased up to the 5 million range in the 80's, and has been steadily declining ever since so that membership is now around 2.7 million.

To put that in to perspective, the population in 1972 was 209.9 Million people.  In 2017, it is approximately 325 million people - that's a 55% increase in population since 1972.  It seems natural that it would follow that the BSA's membership numbers would have increased by that same 55% to a little over 10 Million members during that time - but it hasn't - its declined quite a bit.  

Change is hard to take, but something has to be done to shake up this moribund institution if it's to continue to exist.  If accepting girls in to the organization helps, then I'm all for it - and I think its a shame that the naysayers would prefer to take their tents and stay home rather than doing everything that can to keep the BSA going.

Someone mentioned that their Scout Executive used the term "Conditional Scouters" - I have to agree - the naysayers are all conditional scouters - they love the organization as long as its under the condition that it always be the organization they think it should be.

Edited by CalicoPenn
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22 hours ago, cocomax said:

YWCA??  isn't that just for Girls?   ...

For the last couple years before retirement, Every morning before work, my brother went swimming at the YWCA in town. He had transferred and was staying at my house, and their pool was on the bus line. If the ladies were of such service to my brother, I don't mind being of such service to someone's sister/daughter.

I wouldn't ask them to drop their "W" and I don't see young women asking this organization to drop its "B."

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On 12/31/2017 at 1:26 PM, CalicoPenn said:

To put that in to perspective, the population in 1972 was 209.9 Million people.  In 2017, it is approximately 325 million people - that's a 55% increase in population since 1972.  It seems natural that it would follow that the BSA's membership numbers would have increased by that same 55% to a little over 10 Million members during that time - but it hasn't - its declined quite a bit.  

Well, according to this government agency, https://www.childstats.gov/americaschildren/tables/pop1.asp, the number of scout-age children has been relatively constant since 1972 so the comparison to the general population doesn't hold.  To be fair, having membership drop by 50% with a constant membership base potential isn't good but suggesting it should have doubled is unrealistic.

On 12/31/2017 at 1:26 PM, CalicoPenn said:

Change is hard to take, but something has to be done to shake up this moribund institution if it's to continue to exist.  If accepting girls in to the organization helps, then I'm all for it - and I think its a shame that the naysayers would prefer to take their tents and stay home rather than doing everything that can to keep the BSA going.

Change is hard but maybe the hardest part is getting the supporters of change to pick up the slack.  If there is indeed a groundswell of support for this change, then there should also be a groundswell of new volunteers to take over for those that choose to move on, no?  

On 12/31/2017 at 1:26 PM, CalicoPenn said:

Someone mentioned that their Scout Executive used the term "Conditional Scouters" - I have to agree - the naysayers are all conditional scouters - they love the organization as long as its under the condition that it always be the organization they think it should be.

It's always curious to me why folks who push, accept or agree with a change seem to always feel a need to denigrate the people who disagree with them.  My old grandmother used to say "you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar."  Just saying if you really believe it's a shame some folks are leaving, then why wouldn't you want to try to educate them rather than insult them?

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Let's please refrain from characterizing other people (or groups) or their reasons for doing things, particularly because this thread is not in Issues and Politics.  Up until the last few posts I have seen no reason why it necessarily should be.  (And I guess I should be clear, I am talking about the "conditional Scouter" thing.)  I would like to be able to leave it here.

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Change nothing about the name.

The girls that are Brave will join without any concerns over the name and those that don't because of the name -- then maybe BSA isn't for them after all.

My daughter wants to be, and I want her to be, a Boy Scout.

 

Hawkwin

Who is trying to raise a future girl Ranger, or future girl POTUS, or a future girl CEO, or a future girl fighter pilot, or a girl scientist, or a future girl astronaut...

And a future Boy Scout.

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1 hour ago, Hawkwin said:

Change nothing about the name.

The girls that are Brave will join without any concerns over the name and those that don't because of the name -- then maybe BSA isn't for them after all.

My daughter wants to be, and I want her to be, a Boy Scout.

 

Hawkwin

Who is trying to raise a future girl Ranger, or future girl POTUS, or a future girl CEO, or a future girl fighter pilot, or a girl scientist, or a future girl astronaut...

And a future Boy Scout.

Your daughter will be able to be a member of the Boy Scouts of America.  It seems unlikely that she will be a "Boy Scout."  The BSA is creating a new, separate program for girls 11 through 17.   Presumably it is going to have its own name, and there already is a "Boy Scouts."  It would probably be reasonable to expect that the name will be "______________ Scouts."  I think I heard the CSE actually call it "Something Scouts" in one of the videos. The most obvious word to fill in the blank is already taken as well.  It will be interesting to see what they choose.

Edited by NJCubScouter
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