ParkMan

@Mom2Scout My last post was getting long and this is a different point, so please pardon the double post. In your specific situation, I would encourage you to start participating in the committee meetings. Something that I took away from @ianwilkins great post is that it's not necessarily the decision to start a troop for girls that is the issue. It's how the interaction works between the troop for boys and the troop for girls that is the area of focus. A great place for you to be able to impact how this all works out is from the troop committee. You're already quite active in the troop - so why not start working with the troop committee to help this all progress smoothly. The other benefit to being active on the troop committee is that you often develop a stronger working relationship with the Scoutmaster. You become part of the group of adults who discuss things like "should we have a troop for girls" and "when should we announce the troop for girls?" This is a great position to say "excuse me, we probably ought to tell people about this before recharter." The Scouts tend to notice the actions of the SM & ASMs. But, often when the parents start seeing things like how decisions are made and communicated, that's really a big part of why troop committees are important.

@Mom2Scout I completely agree with you that the troop leadership could have handled the timing of this better. Waiting until after recharter is done suggests that the leadership feared that Scouts would leave and they wanted to avoid that. It may be untrue and unfair, but that's what it suggests. The leadership team should have avoided that perception and announced it earlier in the process. Perhaps just before recharter. In my experience, Troops are essentially small communities. For most Scouts, their involvement in the troop is a significant part of their lives. So, their families tend to invest lots of energy to support the troop. Making abrupt changes like this tends to alienate many families - and as such should be avoided. It's generally a good idea to give the families enough heads up so that they are aware something like this is coming. It's true that the Chartered Organization owns the troop and could unilaterally decide this - but I think it will be rare. In the BSA structure, the troop committee is tasked with serving as a board of directors for the troop. One of the troop committee's roles is to make strategic decisions affecting the troop. If the troop committee believes that developing a troop for girls, whether linked or separate, is the right thing to do, then it's wholly appropriate for them to start the process. The Troop Committee may decide to solicit opinions and input - but ultimately they should only ask for input if they are prepared to make decisions based off it. It would do the troop community no good if the Troop Committee asks the Scouts and then does the opposite. Better to have not asked in the first place. But, if the Troop Committee is willing to follow the decision of the Scouts, then by all means - ask the Scouts. Once the decision to start a troop for girls is made, they should work to start it in a way the will lead to success for both troops. If that means two tightly linked troops, then so be it. if that means the troops should be linked only at the highest levels, then so be it. Surprising families at the last minute is not the best way to do that. This is where I go back to my original point of community.

It feels like advancement often gets a disproportionate amount of attention. As I see it, advancement is just one of eight methods of Scouting. It's not the most important nor the least important. It's just one of the eight. Our troop provides lots of opportunities for Scouts to work on advancement. Often it's in the form on a PLC organized event, skills instruction, or adult organized time to work on something. We make sure the opportunities are easily and readily available for a motivated Scout who wants to advance. We don't force advancement on anyone, but nor do we try to slow it down. In our troop, if you participate actively and want to, you can get to first class in about a year and you can be Eagle at 14 or 15. Or you can come to every meeting and event and be Tenderfoot until your 18. It's the Scout's choice. On the whole, our scouts tend to move along. Most get to Life by about 14. Some power on to Eagle, others stay at Life for years. Our older scouts don't really focus on advancing - they focus on doing things that they think are fun and it keeps them engaged. This feels about right to me. Again - advancement is just one of eight methods. We make it possible to advance if you want, we make it possible to do other things if you want. Scouts who want advancement advance. Scout who want to camp camp. Scouts who want to be leaders lead. etc. My takeaway from @FireStone's post is that it's not about whether you advance too fast or too slow. It's about whether the Scouts are advancing at a pace that's rewarding to them and keeps them motivated. Make sure the opportunities are there and let the Scouts decide. I do like this description on the advancement method from the BSA:

Guess I need to go back and work on my math skills. Oops! Still - seems pretty impressive to me.

That's about 30 new troops per state. Not too shabby!

Fully agree and very good point. I'm just going out on a limb here - but as these girls all registered the first day they probably had a plan to do this. But, even if there was a little exuberance and a few "close enough" so they could achieve this on day one, I wouldn't sweat it. Honestly - my feedback to the "new" unit commissioner would be to not worry about checking up on the Scoutmaster and instead work to become a trusted adviser instead. A Scoutmaster needs a friend and adviser way more than someone to check up on them. When I was troop committee chair our unit commissioner was such a trusted adviser, I took to calling it the "Key Four" meeting. A unit commissioner focused on adding that kind of value is worth his/her weight in gold.

I really wouldn't read too much into it either. Arguments about the right way to speak up for those who are disadvantaged are as old as our country itself. I think the fact that the Scout was out of uniform when leading the pledge at a City Council meeting bothers me more. You can argue about the point he was making by kneeling. Frankly I think it's blatantly disrespectful that he shows up to such a ceremony out of uniform. If leading the Pledge of Allegiance at your City Council meeting isn't a uniformed occasion then I can't imagine what one is.

For what it's worth, if I were a pack leader in this position my first step would be to decide if the pack is invested in admiting girls. I assume the answer is yes from your question - but I wanted to confirm. if the pack is in, I'd do: Go ahead and sign her up. If the bear den agrees - let her work with them. Be upfront with the father that BSA rules prevent her from meeting without a female present. Don't put yourself in that position for more than a few weeks up front. i.e. - I'll do it now, but someone needs to volunteer by March 15. Perhaps a mother of one of the other bear Scouts. Put on a concerted push between the girls father, pack leadership, bear den families, and pack as a whole to recruit 7 more girls and one or two leaders. Rally around starting with a fully formed Webelos den by the summer. Perhaps set a compelling event like a Join Scouting event in April. They have a way of generating some activity. I guess I'm just of the opinion that you've got to start somewhere. Yes, it's not perfect, but it seems like a very good opportunity to start.

That's what I get for not reading the tags. Bummer! Thank you very much for correcting my misunderstanding.

I've looked at these a couple of times. The folks at the Scout Shop told me that they do require dry cleaning. That was a deal breaker for me and I opted for the poly-cotton. If someone has a different experience - I'd be interested to hear.

Thanks. Good to hear. Hopefully as we assemble something this will come through. My belief is that the packs ultimately want to be successful. They don't enjoy dens of one or two scouts. They don't enjoy scraping to find leaders. They don't enjoy overloaded Cubmasters. As a result, if we are successful in helping them they will ultimately have stronger packs and more scouts and more leaders. Net result is stronger programs. There's a lot of wishful thinking here - but I figure we've got to start somewhere.

Nice - I like that idea. One of the challenges I'm realizing now as I think about how to tackle these kind of problems at a district level is to find the best way to engage with the packs. I'd love to visit each pack personally - but realize that with 15-20 packs in the district that it will take time to get to them all. I fear that the packs will interpret it as the district preaching and tune out - but I'm not sure how else to do this in a timely way.

100% agree - very good point. Just curious - when you taught adult leader recruiting how did you do it? A class, roundtable, visit the units, something else?

I think this is the challenge of our time - adult participation. I've noticed that some units are good at this and some not so good. I recently was talking with a Cubmaster who told me that recent 2 deep rule changes were good because it challenged them to get more adults registered. It was a challenge for a few months, but they got there and today have a lot more registered leaders. I've seen that in our troop and in our district too. Many adults are just not comfortable in how to ask people to help. I know one group who will spend months discussing that they don't have enough adults. When I talked with them about it they say "well, we send email after email and no one shows up." Then, I go talk to another group and their adding new volunteers right and left. I asked what they did and the leader said - I just asked people to help and they said yes. I'm not suggesting it's that easy - but I've certainly seen example after example in Scouting where adult recruiting amounts to making an announcement or sending an email. I think there are skills and traits that adults can learn here. I think this would be a fantastic area for the BSA to focus on developing skills for leaders.

I would encourage us all to look for ways to make this work. The first troop for girls in our district is off to a fantastic start. In fact, I've see a number of very experienced Scouters from around our community jumping in to help them get off to a great start. I envision a strong patrol method troop that will be growing rapidly. It's really easy to look at anything in Scouting and just see the obstacles. I think that's just human nature. We focus on the obstacles because they are painful and no fun. I just figure that the challenge to me is to figure out how to address them and move on. That's what I'd propose here too. If your a parent and find that your son is now going to be in a co-ed unit of some form (even though they are not supposed to exist), instead of fearing that girls are going to ruin what you have, find a way to make sure they girls have the same experience as the boys and that a great culture continues.

If you haven't yet, I'd give it a shot to see if you could purchase them legitimately. I expect that it's the Scout Shop managers discretion to sell them or not. I'd call them up and explain the situation and ask. If they say no - then ask if they have a process to accomplish something like this. Maybe they"d let a district advancement chair ok it for example. If they say no - then I would push a little, but not too much. Next call would be to that district advancement chair. Then council advancement chair. Then DE, then SE. Someone must have the pull to officially do what we all do unofficially. I just would be nice in dealing with the Scout Shop managers so that no one gets backed into a corner. Good luck!

It strikes me that in two days, we'll have female Scouts BSA for the first time in our history. If the uniforms were available, that would be one thing. But, since they are not - I think you should feel absolutely free to improvise in whatever way makes it exciting and special for those new scouts. I definitly think this is one of those "big picture" times where doing what makes sense is a great way to go.

I'd suggest that this is where a good CC & committee comes in. They can be working with the adults to find the teachable folks and encourage them to help, finding the unteachables ones and discouraging them or finding them a nice side project.

Thank you for the very thought out reply @Eagledad. A few replies. Of course it is without question that prior Scouting experience is helpful. I come from a large pack & troop experience with a deep history. Our troop leadership team include 20+ active people - those include all kinds of Scouting experience and accomplishments. When a new Scouter shows up fresh to the troop, he or she has a lot of experience to draw upon. As a large troop, it is all but unhread of for us to simply take a new leader and say "you're on your own". We have all kinds of formal knowledge transfer & informal mentoring that goes on. If a person doesn't have the background to understand "why", we sit with them and help them to understand. Of course those with experience get there faster, but those without get there as well. We treat our new leaders less like "general contractors" and more like skilled apprentices. My proscriptive recommendation here is that units need to do this. If you are a troop that takes a new ASM and doesn't mentor them, then you need to start doing that. If you are a troop that doesn't have an established culture for a new leader to embrace - again, you need to build that. In my work, we rely on facts & figures too. We also analyze trends and look for how to deal with them. If a problem is coming, we note it and start working on a solution. I'm not offended at all. I do simply think that as unit leaders we need to embrace an approach to developing new leaders that deals with the fact that leaders may have little Scouting background. We need to know how to push back when leaders show up who challenge how we think things "ought" to work. And as for the comment about respect. I'm sorry if you don't respect my comments. Perhaps I go about it the wrong way - but I just think that as Scouters we have to look for ways to solve these problems in front of us. In fact, much of what you wrote today I do agree with - so I don't think we're nearly as far off it may seem.

Having youth Scouting experience does not make someone any more likely to be a better leader. Being a good leader in Scouting is more about a willingness to learn and embrace what the program is trying to accomplish. Being a great leader in Scouting is happens in people who are willing to be self-reflective and humble and strive to learn more. So the fact that 99.99 percent of women don't have youth both scout experience is a red herring. Just as we should encourage female Scouters to not look for cliques where they don't exist, so too should we challenge the way we discuss these things. We are a Scout led troop and have had female ASMs in our troop for 20+ years. In our troop it would be absurd to ever make a statements like "teachable female ASM" of "suppress their fears enough to let their daughters set up camp 100 yards away." . I'm not picking on the earlier comment, but it's simply one that doesn't reflect any real gender difference. I read comments like this and they jump out at me for how unnecessary that they are. As we discussed this one, look how it turned to a discussion about youth BSA experience. My interpretation is that some leaders have problems training leaders without BSA experience as a youth. They conclude that since 99.9% of women could not have had youth BSA experience, it will be very difficult to teach a female ASM. But - at it's core, it has nothing to do with being a female - so why trying to equate the two? Instead, we ought to be dealing with how to develop leaders who do not have youth BSA experience. Just my .02

I think this is a big part of it. Related to this is the lack of a SM and CC who is willing to tell someone to "sit down and stop talking." I've come to appreciate that the phrase "lead the ..." in those role descriptions is all about setting the tone and communicating the kind of pack or troop it is. I've found that when you've got a strong program that youth BSA experience is a bonus- but certainly not necessary. Just as two troops down the road are very different so too is most people's youth troops. Since our troop has a very strong sense of who we are, people adjust to how we do things. Sure, they bring their own twist from their youth, but it doesn't make them any more successful. Our leaders without BSA youth experience do just fine. So yes, I'd definitely encourage your friend to go for it!

I largely agree with @sst3rd. My letter would be something like: Best of luck!

Just curious - what's their reason?

Yes - count me in. Training is a blast and helping to make training successful across the council is a great opportunity. Just tell me when the meeting is.

And I just finished the last patch to sew on too. Knew I should have waited. BTW - really I mean thanks for catching that and letting me know. Guess I'll have a vintage shirt now