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I find this funny because, if I were to match your alter-egos among my youth, I imagine Latin Scot's would my Venturer who recently returned to her Boy Scout Italia troop ... all enthused about Baden Powell, sharp in a uniform, knows her knots, super friendly. Still as full-powered woman as any gal I know. Maybe that's where my religion trips me up in the opposite direction. If a messiah could be fully-God and fully-man whilst among his disciples, it's not a stretch to think a youth could be fully girl and totally Boy Scout. It's also amusing that people feel okay with other troops mixing ages in patrols in whatever way works for their community, but spit nails over the thought of some other troops and packs mixing sexes as they see fit.

Let's be clear ... I think this program would be mutually great for girls as well the boys who would grow up with them in their units. But, I fear that may be biased speculation because, although I've met scouts and scouters from other countries who felt pure joy being in a program with both sexes (in all cases, the SM was male, for what it's worth), I have not visited them in their countries and camped and hiked with them enough to see if that also applies to youth who never travel abroad. Shame on me for not taking up the challenge from a college student to help her start a troop when I was living in Italy decades ago.I can talk about scouters who've told me they have gone renegade. But again, I haven't spent time camping with their "unit" to sift through their bluster. I'm not going to ask you all to hike a mile in boots if I haven't broken broken my set in. Unlike others, I don't use "special interests" disparagingly, and I may in fact agree with them on principle. I use it to refer to folks who want change for the sake of a few with no regard for the many. Tell me that you're worried about some class, but only list one or two people from that class who are actually interested in whatever you're worried about ... well repeating your echo-chamber is not enough. I've told you about my daughter who resented the boys going off camping without her, I could tell you that again and again and again. But, as wonderful as she is, it is pure speculation that spending those junior high years in the boys' troop would do much to make her more strong and good than she already is. So, I'm not about to let that sentiment of hers reverberate in my little bubble and motivate me to petition for change, as others may. I can tell you that for every young woman who signs on to the BSA, I've talked to dozens (maybe now its hundreds) of highly motivated young women who would not touch it with a ten foot pole. That includes talking to middle school girls about Seabase and bear country. They love their GS/USA. They ain't leaving it. So I'm putting the odds at far less than 100 to 1 that any randomly selected girl will want whatever BSA offers and her family will commit to keeping her involved. I'm putting the odds at higher than that current scouts and scouters, given the data that they have, will go elsewhere. Thus the term special interest. Show me tens of thousands of parents of American daughters willing to put real money and real time into this program, bringing their otherwise non-participating brothers as well, and I'll pick a different label.

Some of this is: video games being more interesting than everyday life, COs who don't give permanent space (a room) for each patrol, adults who don't believe in physical distance, patrols that don't compete, boys who don't sing anymore because their devices sound better. As much as we loved scouting and venturing, we also loved family weekends in the woods. (Well, Mrs. Q hated the tents, or maybe she was jealous of my rain cloud fan base. ) Whatever the kids learned in scouting, they could apply at a state parks or doing chores at their grandparents. Your family is your first patrol. If they don't reap the benefits of your scouting, you will soon loose track of why you're whiling the time away in even the best troop. But even then, the instant gratification culture invades. My family is gearing up for an extended fall weekend around a wedding in WV and a spring break trip sailing. Sunday dinner conversations just got a little boring. Everyone's looking up the best deals for whatever. There's just a different feel compared to when you'd grab a dozen brochures from the travel agent and the tour books from AAA and spread them out between the dessert being served.

Unless it's fewer and fewer boys. Then it's no scouts. Now, I'm fairly convinced that the folks arguing for inclusion are special interests. They have not offered any proof that they represent more than a hundred constituents chomping at the bit to work the program. They also haven't argued that girls are also in need of male role models, so their intent strikes me as out of touch with the parents who I know might be interested in what we could offer their girls. I've said before that 10,000 girls wanting to enroll would be someone to heed. Not because of the numbers (although an influx that large would impress), but for the possibility that they might bring 5000 boys who would otherwise not join. We can speculate that unisex is better than coed. But all of that speculation is without clear benchmarks. (Like, say, Johnny will take a year longer to master first class skills in a coed patrol.) All of that could be managed by a mixed unit by providing them reliable data on norms and exceptions and allowing them to make informed decisions on how they segregate the sexes in their unit. So such rants, to me, are only of consequence so long as parents nationwide prefer their boys to be in unisex packs and troops. When that changes, and I don't think it has, coed starts to sound better than no-Ed.

With new SMs come new ASMs. By example and encouragement, you need to teach them that their job is *assist* the SM.

I think the female leadership thing is confounded by boy-scout rank advancement being open to male venturers. Their leadership need not be in the crew, so most of the boys may exercise positions of responsibility in a patrol, troop, or lodge, on top of that they are developing leadership skills in their Eagle project. That naturally frees up more venturing females (especially those disenchanted with GS/USA) to invest in crew leadership. Although, in my crew, it's been pretty even: some years, all male, some years, all female, some years mixed. I think our council has been its most vibrant and active when we've had a strong lodge chief and a strong female VOA president.

Which one? World or National? (Or the GS/USA Jambo?)

FWIW, I will tell my scouts about what it was like to sit at the lunch table in high school with Klansmen across from me, knowing full well their granddads probably were the ones who lit the cross on the hill opposite my dad's (one of his childhood memories that he shared with us). But that's a campfire or water-stop story. Not an SM minute. Most of us don't have to walk to far to find someone who is an example of overcoming such things.

Nice list! Not a fan of pop-ups. If you can dampen the "noise," let us know, and I'll gladly share it. If you can't, got a plain-text with a link to your site as a by-line that we may cut-and-paste?

@@Bloop, far be it from me to pick apart what you think might work for your boys. But in general, boys are very concrete and will get distracted by something unfamiliar and miss your message. "Respectful" is not a point of the scout law (although the combination of other points certainly implies it). I would suggest you have your opening reference "Reverent and Brave". That's because included in a scout's definition of "reverent" is "respects the beliefs of others". Not everyone thinks that respect of others is a duty to God, but that's okay. You're just trying to make sure everyone starts from the same point before you get into the meat of the minute. Otherwise, you've packed a lot of good stuff in one minute. Let us know if the boys give you any feedback.

Funny thing about psychologists ... they love showing differences in means, but they don't disclose much about variation in the data. (My income capitalizes on that weakness.) So, we know how average kids learn in an average learning environment, but ... Scouts (girl or boy) aren't average. Nor is the environment we provide them. A crisp night under the stars hardly cares about your sex. The rain falls on the progressive and the reactionary. We have discussed elsewhere that turning scouts into school undermined this nations approach to scouting. We would do well to apply with caution our understanding of book-learning to scouting.

Thank you, @@RichardB, for making my point. The chosen buzzword (even correctly spelled) does not convey the proposed means. It may convey a vision (of families happy that they can access a Pack or Troop where they couldn't before), but it doesn't convey one iota what we might do to fulfill this vision. So, it sounds like there's something magical behind the curtain. That it's so special and intricate that we need a video to decide if we like it. Someone who doesn't sit on these blogs is blindsided by the obfuscation, someone who sees no reason why their troop can't integrate tomorrow feels shortchanged. Either market it as "BSA Girls-Only Packs and Troops", or chuck it. We can debate if that really makes things more accessible to families or not. But at least we know what we're debating. We can debate if we need the same ranks with different names or not. But at least there's some sense as to why. Then when faced with Venturers you can introduce debate if First Classette girls can earn Eagle or First Class boys can earn Eagless. But beg your colleagues to stop patronizing us with accessibility rhetoric as if being beset with daughters as well as sons is some disability to overcome. Unless, that is, they really do want the whole idea to backfire.

I deal with venturers. I prefer E-mail or home/cell phone. If they haven't copied their folks on the E-mail, I'll CC them on the reply. I encourage them to use the group mailing list. They've wanted me to get on another media (in-stir-gram or snapper-chat?), I declined. If they put out a friend request on FB, I'll accept it. But, I don't communicate crew business using it. Profusion has its limits.

I don't encourage our SM to focus minutes on national events. Believe it or not, our boys often have more immediate concerns. Make a plan or adopt a theme -- parables, this week in our nation's history, famous scouts --and follow it. Often, the scheduled minute will have some application to current events. Now if our boys want to understand events like these, have them plan visits to community centers or offer to be color-guard at memorial services. If possible, visit the monuments in question. Talk to town councils and the decisions they made regarding them. But, that's not an SM minute, at best it's an announcement: "Any patrol that wants to look into the events of last week in a scout-friendly way, come see me, I'll have some ideas for you."

Congratulations! They really do vary by family. But around here there is a grand tradition of a ceremony followed by some kind of meal (lighter if it is in the evening, grander if it is in the afternoon. Both of our sons procrastinated, so theirs was in the late morning/afternoon followed by a big party at our house the Sunday after high school graduation. As to the ceremonies themselves, NESA has a booklet (http://www.nesa.org/PDF/EagleCeremonyBooklet3.pdf) from which most of the boys take their script. However, I give points for creativity, and have always wanted to see a ceremony in the form of a panel discussion where the SPL takes questions from the audience to ask of the Eagle, his mentor, a friend, a representative from the service project beneficiary, and a parent. If anyone pulls it off, please post it with attention to me.

@@RichardB, I cannot begin to describe the ire national is generating (not just this forum, which was only the early signs of it) by couching the notion of girls-only packs and troops in marketing doublespeak. I've already written my SE about it. But, just this weekend I've heard from a parent who heard about it at his committee meeting from a scouter who attended a council presentation. The term "family access" was patently offensive - to both folks who would have co-ed troops and those who would not want membership extended to the opposite sex. If your colleagues want this boat to float, encourage them to abandon that term, with apologies to the nation, and speak plainly.

If "Eagle rank is still under discussion" the proposal doesn't involve coed troops. Sounds like the "parallel" programs that Mike Survaugh was discussing at Jambo. It really is pathetic that pros are telling @@Stosh that he'll have to live with the paradox of opposite sex in his scouting for boys program, but don't worry, they'll keep that precious bird in a lock box. I'm wondering if it would help to phase this in for a birth cohort. In other words, extend BSA pack/troop membership to females born after February 8, 2010. That will allow girls to start working the program with boys immediately, should the CO see fit as lions and wolfs. Those girls would be Webelos by 2011. That would give @@Ankylus and others time to pack his bags, or go all soft at the site of doe-eyed crossovers.

I have had to deal with something like this. Worse, I was not told about it at the time. It was not an actionable offense, but people acted like it was. So, once I got word, I acted in a way that the issue would be run up the chain ... two years later. I had two very unpleasant phone calls where basically, I stood by the accused while respecting the parents of the purported victim. It was a mess until I declared to council how I was going to handle it. Unfortunately by that time, the youth/adult was soured on scouting.

Several concepts we all must internalize: A scout is not "paying the penalty" when he does not get an award he didn't earn. He is getting awarded appropriately for his work. (I miss @@Beavah.) A camp is not paying a penalty when they can't take credit for giving an award that they only partially counseled boys on. They are being given the privilege of accurately reporting the services that they do and don't provide. Scouts have a responsibility to know the published requirements for any award. Reading a reference is the first step in any ideal method mastering any scout skill. Any method that does not explicitly include this step should be banned from scouting's lexicon. Scouts should have the courage to turn down an award that they did not earn. I know that's a big ask. But the whole blue card exercise is to give scouts agency in their own advancement. They get to choose which counselor has the honor of their signature on the scouts' trail to Eagle. Boys will be denied agency in their own advancement so long as camps don't require the scout hold on to their blue card at all times,only keeping the counselor portion upon badge completion, and the SM only holds on to the unit portion of the card whenever the scout so chooses to report badge completion. Compromises on any of these four concepts lead to "high speed, low drag" issues and the consequent denying good scouters like @allangr1024 the right to do their part in seeing boys grow up strong and good.

You're picking a term pretty far down the list of methods and not even mentioned in the aim, vision, or congressional charter. Patriotic youth organization -- that at least gets an oblique reference in the front page. Of course, Google itself is currently in the news for firing an employee who challenged sex-based diversity goals in a tech environment. not sure unisex programs would rise up on their radar under the category of leadership without extensive prompting.

This is the very tricky part of scout-mastering. Sometimes a troop/patrol needs to lean one direction or another on advancement because of a strongly felt need. E.g., you may really need scouts to master 1st class skills for them to meat a goals of hiking and camping in a particular region. Thus you push everyone towards that rank, because the more scouts without basic camping skills, the more you have to "dumb" down the program for safety's sake considering where the boys will be and what they'll be expected to do. On the other hand, you might have boys who want volunteer at the fire house and swimming pool. Well, then you might want to lean on everyone getting Fire Safety, Swimming, First Aid, and Lifesaving merit badges, and let trail to 1st Class be a focus on only a few weekends and meeting nights per year, again for safety's sake considering where the boys will be and what they'll be expected to do. Needless to say, the next guy in line might hear either strategy (e.g. no MB's until 1st Class, or no 1st Class until MBs) as a hard-and-fast rule handed down from on high, when a plain reading of the program materials encourage flexibility and allowing boys to advance at their own pace. That's why I strongly encourage scouts to read their handbook for themselves. It really is the first step in teaching a skill successfully.

Sounds like an Eagle project: surveying and reporting over-water power line heights in the names of the poor souls who were let down by government passing the buck.

I suspect wilderness survival was one of his electives. Or, maybe he was just short on nights for Camping MB, and his counselor threw down a challenge. Maybe he decided to challenge himself. We adults can't add to the requirements, but if a boy says, "I want to do X before making rank," who's gonna stop him?

Yep, it can take years to achieve 1st Class, when a troop properly insists on skill mastery. In the meantime, I encourage boys to one or two MBs at camp and a couple more in the off season ... Four a year. I get them in the habit of writing each badge that they earned on the appropriate line in the Star requirements page. That way, by the time they reach 1st class, Star becomes a matter of putting all their time in a position of responsibility.

Bottom line: it really stinks to be on phone with a fresh 18 year-old whose CC refused to sign his Eagle app -- unsatisfied with the credibility of a blue card -- and be the first guy to say "Answer me this, did you complete the requirements as written?" Do everything in your power to make sure nobody has to be "that guy" on account of how anybody else failed to counsel your scouts.