GS-CS_leader

I'm wondering if anyone out can tell me about whether the "badge magic" product really works. I wonder if the adhesive really holds up through machine washing. Also I'm skeptical that it can hold CS segments onto the felt of a brag vest. It seems like a layer of felt would just pull off with the adhesive. But I think that it would be useful for the girls in my GS troop if it works. I devoted a couple of meetings to teaching the girls in my GS troop how to sew on their own badges (showing them the trick of simply sewing through the binding edge of a lot of patches, rather than through the patch). But a lot of badges and patches still seem to get lost because they don't get sewed on. Other no-sew alternatives have their problems: My previous GS co-leader tried the "patch attach" that came in a spray bottle and seemed was a lot like silicone tub caulk. It had unpleasant fumes, was messy, stained if the stuff got somewhere besides under the badge, and took 24 hours to dry under a weight. One of the parents of a scout in my troop insisted on using a hot glue gun saying that it worked fine when that was done for costumes when she worked in theater. Of course, the badges fell off. I never even tried the iron-on mesh that GSUSA was selling for awhile. I didn't believe that it would work well on the plastic-backed patches. The "badge magic" sounds promising, but before I buy a bunch of this stuff, I'd like to hear from people who have tried it.

I'm probably going to raise some hackles, but I think that the reason that people want a co-ed BS, but don't push for a co-ed GS (as noted by fgoodwin), is that people want to extend the benefits of BS to girls, more than they feel that adding girls would create a better program for the boys. My knowledge of the two programs comes from 7 years as a GS leader (quite active at the Service Unit level) and from what my husband has told me about superb BS troop that he was in as a scout. Here are my comments: I find it fascinating that BS involvement seems to peak in the early to mid teen years, whereas I think there may be more Brownies (grades 1-3) than Juniors (grades 3-6) and I know that the numbers drop off dramatically when the girls get to junior high. I believe that one reason is that (as pointed out in other forums) many (most?) GS leaders are unable to make the transition from adult leader to adult advisor. Many DLs and CMs also find it difficult to transition to SM or ASM, but usually they can join an established troop where they can learn how boy-led troops work and the role of the SM and ASM rather than struggling to do it on their own. There are very few GS troops run like the BS model where the troop is a multi-age-group unit with new members joining and older members leaving, but having continuity because it is more than a single cohort. I'm guessing that where there are established regional Cadette/Senior troops that Junior GS can join (I've heard of a few of these), that more girls stay in GS in their teens. In my area, where GS is not strong even for the younger age groups, there is a new enormous "Studio 2B" troop (the new GS program for teens) set up by a man who is a former Eagle scout. I think his BS experience allowed him to understand how to set up a successful teen program even though his own daughters are only in elementary school. We'll have to see if the Studio 2B troop is able to continue past the first year or so. But besides there being few GS troops for girls older than 11, I think that the BS is a better program than GS. Kudu, if you think the current BSA requirements are watered down, you would be truly horrified by the current GS requirements. With the latest change in edition for the Junior badge book that happened several years ago, I found it surprising how much easier they made the "Sign of..." badges to earn. The "Sign of the Rainbow" requirements went from earning 7 badges in all different areas to earning only ONE complete badge plus doing several scattered activities from a few other badges. While it is true that the Junior GS in my troop could never have earned any of the Signs with the old requirements, I don't approve of the watering down of the program. I have come to accept that none of the girls in my troop is very achievement-oriented with respect to GS. It's OK because they don't seem to care that they don't earn a lot of badges, and they still learn a lot in terms of the traditional scouting values. I do think that GSUSA mistakenly thought that it could attract more girls to the program by making it easier to earn awards. I think that in order to implement Kudu's youth group program such that a reasonable number of girls would indeed have a chance to join, you would need to allow co-ed troops because in most places there simply aren't enough girls who would be interested in a program that involved requirements such as backpacking to form all-girl troops. I know that there are all-boy, co-ed, and all-girl Venturing crews, but I don't know the percentages of the various types. I'd be very surprised if there are as many all-girl as all-boy crews and I'd expect that in most of the co-ed crews there are more boys than girls as well. I like the fact that the crews can have whatever gender make-up they want. There are some who have pointed out that there are a limited number of truly dedicated adults to help with youth groups, so adding girls may decrease the opportunities for boys. But I would like to point out that many of the girls who would join the program have parents who would be involved who are not currently involved in BSA. Also, it's a little bit like arguing that most medical schools should have stayed all-male because now there are fewer spots for men since half the spots go to women. And honestly, even though I might have been a BS if it was available to me 30 years ago, and my daughter might be a BS now if she could, I don't think that BSA would be over-run with girls if it allowed co-ed dens and troops.

Thanks, funscout for your thoughts. The Christian pack wasn't "offensive". It's just that the pack prayer mentioning Jesus and the Christmas ornaments they were making made my friend (who happens to be the AL of my GS troop) uncomfortable. Since the pack is chartered by a church, it is not unreasonable that they would have a religious component to their program. I'm not criticizing them; I'm just saying that they are not right for us. Actually, it's our council that I think could do a better job of being sensitive to Jewish scouts. They schedule trainings on major Jewish holidays (e.g. the only fall CPR class ends right before when most Jews would be trying to eat an early dinner before services for Yom Kippur start). Their popcorn for fundraising is not certified kosher, so I can't even sell it to half of my neighbors. Luckily, many of the Orthodox Jews around here are really nice so they just gave our pack a donation when they couldn't buy our popcorn that we were trying to sell in front of a local grocery store. In contrast, our GS council's explicit policy is that no GS one-time event including those at the service unit or even troop level should be held on any religious holiday that is significant enough that the local public schools do not meet (the case with Yom Kippur and Rosh Hashanah in my town) and all GS cookies are certified kosher. A few years ago, it was pointed out to the GS council that they only had their outdoor ed trainings on Saturdays (which is the Jewish sabbath when observant Jews are prohibited from lighting fires and by extension that is why they don't drive, cook, or even turn on/off lights). They responded by having a special non-Saturday training in which they even used new pots and all kosher food. (In fact, I think that the GSUSA has reacted directly to the recent policies of the BSA by being as inclusive as possible such as by not excluding either atheists or homosexuals. But that's a topic for a different forum.) On the other hand, as I said, we wouldn't be comfortable in the Orthodox Jewish troop either. And I wouldn't want to be in that pack because then we'd miss out on most of the council events: they cannot participate due to dietary restrictions and Sabbath observance. Since I've been reassured that it is OK to join a pack in a different council, I'm looking into some packs in neighboring towns. Thanks again to all for the encouragement and words of wisdom.

In response to meredelaire's post mentioning caravaning and tour permits: I've been involved in BSA for less than two years, so I'm certainly no authority, but I've seen other posts in other scouter.com forums about "caravaning". There seems to be some kind of prohibition on that practice by the company that provides insurance to BSA. I guess they think it will increase the chance of rear-end collisions or accidents from people trying to get through lights that change. Anyway, one forum had a story of an accident happening during a BS outing and the insurance company refusing to pay because they claimed the participants were "caravaning". In fact, if I remember correctly, they merely met somewhere before going separately to meet up at their trip site and then had a fender-bender at the parking lot of the trip site. And I believe that for most councils, it is the distance from your usual meeting place that determines the need for a tour permit. Even if each family goes on its own in their own vehicle and independently chaperones their child, if you call it a scout event and it's over some distance (25 miles each way for my council, for example), then you still need to file a tour permit. The way I see it, you might be glad you did the paperwork if there is an accident and the car repair or hospital bills could be paid by BSA. I'm assuming that BSA accident coverage works like that of GSUSA: they will pay your deductible. Even if people have their own car and health insurance, the deductibles and out-of-pocket expenses can be considerable.

Last night as I was getting together materials for a recruitment "rally night" (a bust, but that's another story), I was realized that I should let you know about the really great FREE program at the Evanston Home Depot (and I think the program is national, so it's probably available at other Home Depots around the country). Home Depot supplies all the materials and needed tools to make any of several projects---we made a tool/craft supply box. They even give each kid a kid-sized orange apron to keep! And they were accomodating enough to allow us to schedule the workshop for our normal Wednesday night meeting time. It's best if the boys do this workshop next year when they are Wolf cubs and they will be able to complete all of Wolf Achievement 5 ("Tools for Fixing and Building") if they do a few other activities that are easily done at the store. Other advice for the workshop: go to the dollar store at Dempster and Dodge in Evanston and pick up an inexpensive protective goggle for each boy. Also, even though Wolf cubs aren't required to be accompanied by a parent, it is best if each boy has an adult to help them. Most boys will need an adult to help piece the project together correctly and hold it while the boy nails, start the nails, and pull out the nails that get put in crooked.

Since other Chicagoland scouters have joined this forum, I decided to go ahead and post these tips for Notebaert overnights: If you find as we did that the machine for parking payment in the lot across Cannon Dr is broken, just go ahead and park there and tell the Notebaert who will make sure you aren't ticketed. We didn't want to risk a ticket or tow so we parked on the street intending to move after 9pm. Warning about the "snack": it's just goldfish crackers and a granola bar plus juice (compared to pizza at other overnighters) and is served mid-evening (8:30 compared to 10:30pm at other overnighters). They have a microwave in the snack room and you can buy microwave popcorn for a late night snack from the vending machine for $.90 (or rather $1 since the machine didn't give me change) and I'd bring extra drinks since the boys are likely to get thirsty after the salty snacks. But if you have your own microwave popcorn (from CS sales, for example!), I'm sure it's cheaper and you could choose something other than the greasy butter flavor. One of the other troops there brought fixings for nachos (chips, salsa, and cheese whiz). Also note that there are vending machines that sell snacks and drinks that you might prefer that the boys did not consume. I would suggest that you talk to both the boys and any chaperones about buying their own snacks from the machines or else you might have kids buying Mt. Dew (caffeinated!) or candy (to make them hyper from sugar) like some of the girls from other troops did (probably the hyper ones who couldn't calm down until well after midnight). Perhaps I'm too much of a control freak, but I recommend setting a den policy on snacks. Otherwise, you might have some ultra-permissive parent buying his kid Mt. Dew and candy and forcing the other parents to put-up with his hyper kid and their own kids whining "but Joey gets to drink Mt. Dew!" I've experienced problems like that before.

I've been a Girl Scout leader for almost 7 years now, but I was a Camp Fire Girl as a child. That organization was actually started a year or two before GSUSA, and at least in the 70's, it was more similar in its outdoor emphasis to the BSA than GS even if the name was less the same. Now "Camp Fire" has gone fully co-ed and has dropped the "Girl" from its name. I don't know much about the current program since I'm not involved in it anymore, but from the national website, it looked a lot less outdoor-oriented than it used to be. As a girl, I had wished that I could be a BS and do "real" camping. But I was glad that at least my CFG troop did car camping and we got to do cool stuff like fry eggs on our own coffee can stoves. In contrast, the GS at my school just went on lots of field trips and did domestic things like sewing. I had to wait until I met my husband, a former BS, in college to do the backpacking that I had always longed to do. And I loved it just like I knew I would. I had dreamed of leading a GS troop on backpacking trips, and sure enough, my daughter who is almost 12 is anxious to do more than the walk-in camping we've done so far as a family while waiting for my son to get a little bigger and stronger. However, my troop AL and the rest of the girls are reluctant to give up hot showers and flush toilets. I talked them into sleeping in a teepee for our camping trip last year, and I think everyone had fun, but this year we're doing it my AL's way: hiking at a state park in the day, and doing outdoor cooking for dinner, but staying at a hotel at night. My AL was a GS from grades 2-12 and a GS leader of a Junior troop as a college student. She likes the outdoors and hiking, but not "roughing it". So I'm sending my daughter to a GS camp in Wisconsin this summer where they do a 4-6 day backpacking trip in Upper Michigan. Perhaps she'll be able to join a Venturing crew when she gets to high school. The point of this is that far fewer girls like typical BS activities than boys. When I was a girl in the 60's and 70's, and women were really starting to do more non-traditional things, I wondered if it would change when I grew up. The answer is that there are still big differences in what girls and boys like to do. I also went into the field of mechanical engineering which has fewer women than almost any other field. There are a lot more women physicians now than 40 years ago, but some fields still have few women. In addition to the fact that girls and boys tend to have somewhat different preferences for activities (*on average* that is, some individuals will be different, like myself and my daughter), I also support having single gender youth groups for another reason: when in mixed groups, many girls will be more passive and will let boys take all the leadership roles. And a lot of boys will feel the need to compete with and "beat" the girls at everything.

To wrap up my previous post (and finally take my problems to a more appropriate forum): The "rally night" was a bust: Only a single kindergartener and his family showed up. And the final "nail in the coffin" of our pack was that the CC told me that since at this point the pack will have no CC or CM next year, he's going to start looking for another pack for the remains of our den to join. He is swamped at work this year and only continued as CC because no one else would take the position. The den will have only 4 boys after two boys move this summer. The CC's wife is the den leader and I'm the ADL. The other two boys often miss meetings, so I wonder if they will just drop CS if we leave the pack. I had already discussed this idea breifly with the DL, so it wasn't a complete shock to me. But I have to admit that I still hoped that miraculously, we'd get a new crop of scouts and parents. Anyway, I'm joining the Cub Scout forum, "So many problems, where to start" opened by a DL with a similar situation. Thanks, Lisabob, for lending a sympathetic ear.

Wow, and I thought MY pack was in sorry shape. They say that "misery loves company" so at least I can commiserate with you and let you know that you're not the only one in this kind of uneviable position. I'm going to join this forum to see if we can both get some advice since we have related problems. I have to say that it doesn't sound like your pack has much going for it and your son is not getting the best CS experience. At a certain point I think you have to do what's best for yourself and your son, especially if you try but find that you can't fix the problems of your pack. Here's a description of my pack: We have 13 boys: 7 Wolfs, 6 Bears, plus 2 nominal Tigers without a den (they just show up for Pack meetings). The pack is only in its second year and it is probably now clear to those who didn't see it before why the school and the other 2 elementary schools in the district went for at least 10 years without any CS. As the leader for 7 years of one of the few Girl Scout troops in the district, I knew it was going to an uphill battle to keep a pack going at our school. Even our PTA meetings get only about a dozen people from well over 200 families. There are many reasons for this including a high number of new immigrants with limited English ability and simply an unwillingness on the part of many parents to give of themselves and their time. And I don't believe that anything can significantly change that. My pack does have a Committee Chair who has worked really hard, but he has not only burned out, but this year he has work demands year that have him working long hours and making many business trips. He wanted to step down this year, but continued when no one else would take the job. Last year he also organized both the popcorn sale and the pinewood derby. This year he did the popcorn sale again, but (with my encouragement) announced firmly that he could not do the pinewood derby, so finally with only a month before it was scheduled, a team of 3 Wolf dads stepped in and shared the job, doing it quite well too. The CC's wife is the den leader of the Bear den where I am the ADL. She's also a bit burned out, and told me that she is not willing to do Webelo leader training, so I volunteered to switch roles with her next year if we continue. Last year's CM was the mom of the sole Webelo who either dropped out or aged out. I don't know if he found a BS troop to join or not. This year's CM was not really the right person for the job IMO. He doesn't believe in the concepts of discipline, authority, or leadership, equating them all with coersion. So he announces that scouts that don't have to wear their uniforms or tuck their shirts in "if they don't want to", assumes that people will just volunteer when something needs doing (and lets things "drop on the floor" if people don't step forward), and is always polling the adults so that he can say that "the pack made the decision" instead of soliciting opinions, but then taking responsibility to make the final decision. But he's moving away this summer anyway. The CC's son is one of the Bears in our den and another Bear is also moving this summer. So if we don't get any new members, our den will have only 4 members next year. In fact, it could well be even fewer since the boys who are not the DL's and ADL's sons do not have very regular attendance. Anyway, we tried to recruit more scouts and parents, but only a single kindergartner and his family to showed any interest. I had briefly discussed the possiblity with the Bear DL of trying to find another pack to join. Tonight, the CC (DL's husband) told me flat out that he was going to start looking for another pack for our den. But even finding another pack could be difficult. There are only two other packs in our town. One of them is chartered through an Orthodox Jewish day school. (My son is Jewish, but we're not Orthodox and would probably not feel comfortable with that pack. The DL's family is non-affiliated Christian.) The other one is chartered with a church and I heard from a Jewish parent who visited that it was quite blatantly Christian. Also, its pack meetings are on a night that doesn't work for the DL's family or mine, plus it is the pack that the district commisioner is affiliated with and our CC and DL do not want to have anything to do with him since they are mad that he didn't give our pack more help. There are several packs in the town next to ours, but that town is actually in a different council. In fact, some people who live only a half mile from us and are technically in our town, go to schools in the neighboring town's school district and are thus in that other council. One of my questions is: will we "get in trouble" if we try to join a pack in another council from the one that our school is in? I am hoping that some of the wise and experienced scouters who frequent theses forums will be able to offer some advice.

Thank you Eagledad for some really good info on troop size issues. To answer Lisabob's questions about my GS troop (BS members can ignore this post): Yes, my GS troop is still going. It's not the outdoors-oriented GS troop that I had hoped to lead to fulfill my childhood dreams of a troop for girls that did "real" camping like the BS (not just car camping like my Camp Fire Girl troop). (I'm sending my like-minded daughter to a Wisconsin GS camp for backpacking this summer.) But I'm expecting the 3 5th graders, 4 6th graders, and 1 8th grader to all continue next year (most have been in the troop for 5-6 years). In fact, I came back from a recent overnight at a science museum re-enthused after seeing how well the girls worked together. And I think the new format for the IP's is going to make the program much more accessible to my troop. I worked really hard to get a Brownie troop at our school going a few years ago. I matched up two moms of girls in two different grades from two different schools in the district. The year before I put them in touch, Mom J from school J, had taken the 2 hour orientation class for new leaders that I used to give to new leaders in my Service Unit, and I flyered both her school and mine and held and an informational session that only got a few moms, two of which didn't speak enough English to really understand what GS was. So no troop formed. Then Mom K from my school D, with a daughter a year younger than J's asked me about starting a Brownie troop. So I put them together and they started with a mini-troop of 4 girls. The troop lasted only two years although after the first year, Mom K even recruited a whole new group from the grade below giving them a 3 grade range, but a more reasonable number of girls. But she never got much parental support, and Mom J was pretty much only a co-leader in title. So Mom K finally gave up and this year her 3rd grade daughter joined a Junior troop in the 3rd elementary school in our district. So we're back to just my troop at the school and next year the younger girls in my troop will move on to the middle school, so there probably won't be any GS at the school anymore. Over the years, I've flyered and put notes in the PTA newsletter about GS, but K was the only mom to ever express interest in being a leader. It's tough to get parents to do stuff for their kids at our school. With about 300 students, typical PTA meetings get fewer than 20 parents. As the current editor of the PTA newsletter, I'll probably continue to put in a note about GS just in case there is finally an interested parent. If I find one, I'd be happy to recruit and help get the new troop going, including giving the new leader all my old Brownie meeting notes and a lot of craft leftovers as I did for the failed troop. But I'm not holding my breath.... A related issue is that I'm giving our fledgeling CS Pack only a 50% chance of continuing next year. This is only the pack's 2nd year after at least 10 years of no CS at the school. But this year's CM (who isn't great anyway) is moving this summer and the CC is stepping down after two years of doing way more than his fair share for the pack plus not having the time due to work demands (and his wife is the DL for our den---I'm the ADL, but will be the DL next year if we continue). Perhaps we'll get new parents at our recruitment "rally night" tomorrow night (no one showed up for an earlier rally night in Dec, but that may have been due to the snow that night). I think our best hope is that 2 of the 3 Wolf den dads who co-chaired the pinewood derby (and did a great job) will step up to be the CM and CC. They took on the pinewood derby only a month before it was held once they believed that the event could be cancelled since the CC really wouldn't be organizing the event again this year. So it may take the threat of having the pack collapse to get people to volunteer for needed positions. The pack has only two dens: wolf and bear. A potential Tiger den leader backed out after watching a training video, so we have two pseudo Tiger cubs who just come to pack meetings (one is a younger brother of a Bear cub and son of current CM). As far as I know there are only two other CS packs in our town, one at public school (which doesn't have a den for my den's grade level so we used to have a scout who came from that pack to ours), and one at an Orthodox Jewish day school. There are a few packs in the town to the east of us, but they are actually in a different council. Oh well, we'll see what happens at the rally night.

I just realized that in my previous reply, I got side-tracked on the whole adult help issue. Back to whether or not to limit troop size: I like the Lincoln quote. Seems reasonable to me that the SM and ASMs are the ones who should get the final say on what size troop they are comfortable with since they are the ones who will probably have more work if the troop grows considerably. Parents who object to limiting the size of the troop had either better already be doing a whole lot of work for the troop, or should be asked if they are willing to take up the slack by doing specific tasks (write up a list: chaperoning, filing paperwork,... whatever you can think of) so that your troop is able to function well when enlarged. One problem with limiting troop size is that if you don't take in any new scouts for awhile, your troop is likely to shrink even if only because boys eventually are to old to continue as scouts, but also because of families moving, boys not having time due to more serious sports involvement, etc. As long as you don't take in ANY new boys, you can be "fair" about it. But how do you take in the few that you need just to keep your numbers from shrinking? As tempting as it is, you shouldn't just take the boys and parents that you personally know. You'll create a lot of ill will among the others you exclude. It would indeed be favoritism and discrimination. Since your troop fills its adult leadership positions carefully, rather than with anyone who volunteers, it would not be nice to use a requirement for adult help to weed down the list of possible new scouts from the old troops. If you do that, then to reject the help of an adult who you feel is not able to do a good job would also have the effect of keeping the parent's child out of BS. Overall, I'm still on the side of limiting the size of the troop to what the SM and ASMs are comfortable with, but you should consider some of the drawbacks of that policy. If you want to understand where my opinions come from, the following is my experience in keeping a Girl Scout troop "closed." (If you think that the differences between Girl Scout troops and Boy Scout troops mean that my opinions are worthless, you can skip the following and ignore all my opinions above.) My GS AL and I have had a "closed" GS troop for about half of the 7 years that I've been a leader. If we had not, I don't think either of us would still be leaders and our troop would have disbanded. I came close to burning out in the first few years when the original troop founder could never say no, so we had girls from kindergarten through 6th grade. That kind of age spread may work with the older boys in a BS troop, but it is really hard with kids that young (Imagine having a "den" with 17 Tigers through Webelos with only two leaders and usually no parents' help at meetings!). When the troop founder moved away and I took over troop leadership, my new AL agreed to help me with the stipulation that we limit new girls to those the ages of our girls (who were towards the younger end of the range) and that we aim the program at their age group and not try so hard to accommodate the older girls. I had tried to do monthly sub-group meetings with just the older girls in addition to other troop meetings and it was stretching me too thin. I was able to place the oldest girl in a junior high Cadette troop and the other older girls eventually dropped out for various reasons, except for one who is just a couple years older than the others and is still with us. We also got a few new girls while we were "closed" since we always took in any girl who moved to the school and was a GS previously. And we almost took in the few remaining girls of a failing troop of another school---sound familiar?---but only one girl joined our troop (and she's still a member) in part because of personality conflict and loyalty issues of the 3 other girls. A couple of years ago, we worried that our troop might get "too small", but it has stabilized into a nice small, but cohesive unit of 8 girls. Looking back, I realize that my AL actually saved the troop by her demands to focus our energies. One difference between my experiences with a GS troop and a BS troop is that my co-leader and I could make our own decisions about troop size without pressure from anyone except the parents of the girls who wanted to join. There is no "committee" in GS and our Service Unit (run by troop leaders) has a "hands-off" attitude toward managing troops. Luckily, our GS council usually does not attend to the affairs of individual troops since their official stance is that troops should take scouts up to the legal chaperone limits---meaning a troop of 20 1st-3rd grade Brownies or 25 3rd-6th grade Juniors with only two leaders. I've always worried that parents of girls we turned away would get mad and contact the council office. If the council had ever tried to force my troop to take in too many scouts, I think my AL and I would have quit.

With all due respect to Eamonn, I think losing boys is not the worst case scenario. I think Firecrafter has a legitimate worry about leader burnout. If the leaders burn out, even if they don't go so far as to quit (but that can happen since they are after all *volunteers*), then the one currently healthy troop can go downhill and ALL the boys will lose out. I would also like to point out that communities vary widely, so what worked in one area might not in another. I think Scouters in communities with lots of adult interest, support, and ability, underestimate the problems that those in other areas face. I think those are the ones who tend to think that the "build it and they will come" method works for getting the adult volunteers needed to have a good scouting program. And although I agree with Beavah's comment distinguishing "frontline" volunteers from "warm bodies", I think that even the latter do not always come in the same proportions to the boys. For instance, scouting is not strong in my community. There are less than one tenth the number of Girl Scout troops proportionate to the girl population in my town than in a town less than 10 miles away, and I believe the same holds true for Boy Scout troops. However, I do not think that it is the fault of the people involved, it's just that the demographics are so different. Some examples of factors for adult participation: Are the parents former scouts themselves? Or are they new immigrants with limited or no English ability who not only know nothing about scouting, but cannot help much even as "warm bodies" because it is too difficult to communicate with them? (This is a factor in my community) Are many parents working shift work or more than one job so they aren't free on nights and weekends? Unfortunately, the fact that the other troops failed means that you are more likely to get worse than average adult help from the boys that might come from those troops. Do you know anything about the adults who used to have key roles in the now-defunct troops? Do any of them meet your "reliability" standards, or was that the cause of those troops' problems? If you really think you'll get only boys, but not quality adult volunteers from the ex-troops, I think Beavah's advice to try to help a new startup troop rather than take in all the other scouts is the best idea. That way, at least you can assuage your guilt feelings about not taking them all. Unfortunately, the guilt trip is a highly effective tool that parents who are not willing to put out for their own children use on the leaders who who are by definition the type of person who is willing to do things for others.

In both my GS troop and CS den, different scouts call me different things. But there are a number of complicating factors, especially in my GS troop. Here's where I come from: I grew up in the 60's and 70's addressing most non-relative adults as Mr./Mrs. Lastname, except that since I'm Chinese, we called my parents' Chinese friends Auntie/Uncle Firstname. I'm a traditionalist, so I'm personally more comfortable calling people at least 20 years older than I am Mr./Mrs. and have had to make a real effort to switch when asked to do so by people such as parents of friends. When I worked in a small software company, I always felt a bit funny using first names with much older co-workers even though that was the way things were done there. If not introduced differently, I refer to people, especially those senior to me in position, regardless of age as Mr./Mrs./Dr./Prof. I believe it is rude to call people by their first name without their permission. I called my grad school thesis advisor Prof. Maiden-name (she doesn't use her husband's last name at all) even though she is a year *younger* than I am, until she told me that one thing she hated in Germany where she lived for a couple of years is that they are so formal that they called her by a title that was ridiculously long and she'd prefer I called her by her first name. However, a thesis co-advisor who I think is also my age has never requested anything else, so I still call him Prof. Last-name. (I'm still working at the university as a post-doc.) I have taught my children to refer to adults by Mr./Mrs. Lastname and would prefer that my scouts do the same, but I don't insist on it. Two of my scouts who are sisters and call me by my first name even call their own MOTHER by her first name. But my co-leader seems to prefer to be called by her first name, but doesn't care too strongly either way. In fact, professionally she is Dr. Maiden-name (she's a pediatric opthamalogist), although she also uses Mrs. Married-name. I don't think any of the scouts even know that she has a different professional name. Her checks are printed with her married name, but she signs those same checks with her maiden name. Usually, I feel that people should be addressed as they wish, but Mrs. Married-name for me and First-name for her seems incorrect. So what the girls in my GS troop call me and my co-leader depends a lot on what their parents have taught them: some use Mrs. Married-name, and some use First-name. In fact, since we have the same first name, I really wish all the girls would use our last names since we always both turn around when our first name is called. When we visited a nursing home and had the girls interview some residents for a badge activity, I made sure to remind the girls that they needed to call the people Mr/Mrs/Miss Last-name, unless explicitly told to do otherwise, because many people from earlier generations would think being addressed with their first name by children was disrespectful. Similar situation in the Cub Scout den in which I am an assistant den leader. The DL and I refer to each other as Mrs. Last-name, but if the boys call us by first name, we let it slide. I think that the boys who use our first names are doing so because when their parents are talking about other adults, they refer to them by first name, and they have not taught their children to use titles for adults other than their school teachers. But I guess the two of us den leaders have chosen not to "fight that battle" since there are other issues we feel more strongly about. And I don't remember ever seeing the requirement of particular modes of address for scout leaders in the BSA materials, otherwise I'd probably try harder to enforce the use of titles and last name. We are already insisting on following other rules more strictly than some of the parents think we should. For example, there is a parent who doesn't believe that anyone should "force" his child to do anything he doesn't want to, so the fact that we push the boys to wear their uniform shirts *tucked in* along with neckerchiefs is already something I think he doesn't believe in. His son often attends den meetings without his uniform. Rather than argue with him about it, we have chosen to implement a point count system and will reward boys who always wear their uniform properly with a "uniform inspection" patch for their brag vests at the end of the year. We've announced this system and so far the father hasn't objected. If he did, I think I would show him the uniform standards in the official BSA materials and point out that we are already relaxing the standards by not requiring official pants, belt, and socks.

Two years ago, I organized a group of 150 Girl Scouts and leaders from Skokie and Lincolnwood to attend an overnighter at the Adler Planetarium. I didn't realize until two weeks before that the evening events were not a "lock-in" but were rather part of the open-to-the-public "Far-Out Fridays" (held on the first Friday evening of every month). This meant that it was somewhat crowded since there were already almost 300 participants for the overnight and then there were a number of families and individuals who just attended the evening events. And it meant that I felt like I had to keep an especially close eye on my girls since there were more than just GS and leaders. They had quite a few hands-on activities and the observatory was opened which they said they would not have done for just an overnight. Nevertheless, I would have booked a different date if I had known that the event was not exclusive and I was upset that they never mentioned it and I had to find out for myself by noticing it on their website. Instead of the overnight, I would advise scout groups to just go to one of the "Far-Out Fridays". You get to do almost the same things, it's much cheaper (buy the "family pack" for best value), and you don't have to deal with someone else's undisciplined and out-of-control scouts runnning around noisily at 3am! I just came back from an overnight with my Girl Scout troop at the Notebaert Museum which I liked much better. Only 65 participants and a real "lock-in". A well-organized semi-structured program in which we were split into 4 groups of about 15 participants and rotated through several stations with various led activities (touching a live snake, playing a kind of game show, etc.) and guided explorations of the exhibits (kids were given specific questions they were supposed to find the answers to). There were two staff members at each of the stations. I felt like the program was something special and not just like a visit to the museum on our own. When my troop was annoyed because they couldn't sleep when the other troops were really noisy at midnight an hour after the supposed "lights out" (there was an activity room open until midnight), I complained to the staff and one of them came to our area to enforce the "quiet time". She spent another hour reminding people who started to talk or giggle too loudly to quiet down and slept the night sleeping in our area. I believe a staff member stayed overnight at each area where there were participants sleeping. The butterfly haven in the morning was a really special way to end the event. The butterflies are just waking up in the morning and they released some new butterflies that had just left their cocoons that morning. The Notebaert overnight is also less expensive than overnights at other Chicago museums: $40/child and $25/chaperone. Another overnight I have participated in was at Health World in Barrington. The Skokie/Lincolnwood Service Unit booked an exclusive overnight, so we had the place to ourselves (125-150 participants). I liked the security of a "lock-in" and it was nice that I knew most of the leaders there and knew they were from my area even if I didn't know them well. Unlike the other two overnights described above, Health World did not have any special stations or activities, so troops just did the exhibits as they liked. Health World is a museum best suited to younger children, say those ages 9 and under.