Eagle1993

We have fairly clear alignment in my town's 4 packs. Two are tied to churches and the other two are linked to the two public schools. I think my pack is the only one that did Lions but other than that we have the same admission policy. I do think the addition of girls could change the equation a bit and require us to interact a bit more. I like the idea is simply informing the other packs of the policy change. What are your thoughts about recruiting? Should my pack go in and directly recruit girls from the other school and churches if their packs don't offer a program?

@@lakes_stu I definitely expect some girls to be members of both BSA/GSUSA, including several in my area. GSUSA, in my location, has been handled as an after school activity with minimal parent involvement outside of leaders. Their outings are infrequent and rarely include camping. GSUSA is fairly inexpensive compared to BSA. Even the uniform is an order of magnitude less costly. So, whille I expect some to remain members of both I think (just a guess) the majority of girls in scouting wil pick one or the other...especially as they age. It will be dependent on what their friends do, where their interests lie and the relative strength of the organizations in their community.

I had a conversation with another pack in our town and they are thinking about staying boys only. Both of our packs are closely tied to two separate public grade schools in our town. One option we just started considering was keeping one of our packs (theirs) as boys only and the other as coed. Then, any family that would want a boys only pack could go to theirs. Any girl in their grade school could join our pack. That way, we may have critical mass to actually implement some girls only dens. Not sure if this is how we will actually go but it may be a good option for the first few years as we transition to adding girls.

@@CalicoPenn. Great summary. While I am still interested in everyone's opinions on how this was announced and if it is a good idea, I have a pack to run and will be facing these issues head on sooner than later. I wish the BSA either went all in coed or kept girls out. This policy is going to be a nightmare to implement. Our pack is faced with the options of our Trustworthiness being questioned or crushing the souls of young girls who may want to join. I know in 2-3 years we will figure this out... I just think they setup a very difficult starting point. Right now, I would rather be fly fishing on the river for our annual salmon run instead of chasing down annual dues, planning our upcoming rain gutter regatta or any one of the hundreds of actions we all do in support of scouting. I do it because my dad did it for me when I was a kid and because I believe it is the best organization for kids to have fun while learning life skills. I expect our CO to come back and state we are coed. I know our Pack and school and can anticipate the challenges and opportunities. As you stated, we will do our best to obey the scout law! I hope we can use these forums over the next few years to share best practices openly as we all face this transition.

I couldn't agree more. I think a lot of packs will be faced with either turning away girls or not following the spirit of the policy of single gender dens. Plus we have individual unique situations like the one I mentioned above. I honestly don't know what we will see but I do know we will need plans for these situations and a priority in our mission. Right now, our priority is serving all youth going forward which means we may have situations where we violate the spirit of BSA policy. I'm curious if other Packs that have started discussion and decided to go coed but are willing to deny individual girls membership or force them into 1 - 2 person dens while there have stong all Boy dens with solid leaders.

We have a current den with a boy girl fraternal twin. They have a single mother who is also the den leader. The girl has been attending den meetings for several years as a sibling. She has dropped out of Girl Scouts and would like to join our pack. Her mom emailed me the day the news came out. Will I force her to now attend different den meetings when the parents, both den leaders and her mother would object? I doubt the girls den would have many members... maybe 2-3 since they are older. Forcing a girl to leave her brother and their den who she has been an informal part of, a single mother to either quit leading her sons den or do double duty and to implement a policy the entire den objects to... is not Helpful, Friendly, Courteous, Kind or Cheerful. Perhaps you can say our solution is not Trustworthy... but I've already had discussions with our SE. Perhaps we are more Loyal to our current pack members than the spirit of the National policy. Yep... probably not fully Obiedent. I don't see Thrifty, Brave,Clean or a Reverent factoring in much. I'm sure we will have all Girl dens with 6-10 scouts that can meet separately. But I don't believe that will be the case in all situations and for someone to throw out accusations that we aren't following the Scout Law shows little knowledge of scouting or situational leadership.

@@numbersnerd ... I doubt anything will come out to state an all girls Bear den and an all boys Bear den can't meet at the same time and place each having their own leader. Not sure how that is not Trustworthy. I'm assuming that is what Chrisos is thinking. We will follow the letter of the rules nationals comes out with... how we follow them will be up to our Pack. We already do that with multiple Tiger dens Who meet at the same time and place. I honestly don't know what direction we will take in terms of den meetings. We need to see the rules from Nationals and discuss with leaders.

As the Cub Scout program is the first impacted, I'm curious on what actions leaders have taken to date and interesting findings. Our pack has discussed this with our COR and our CO will discuss this topic at their upcoming board meeting. Our committee met and agreed to recommend going coed. We sent an email to our parents explaining the current status (no change) along with our committee recommendations and the CO plans. There is a lot of concern of the damage this will do to GSUSA. Mixed feedback on how we should run dens (coed "on paper" separate) or pure single gender.

@@numbersnerd ... interesting that someone with your handle is referencing tweets as a legitimate guide on the pulse of the public. I think you could keep the number part but fellow nerds may need to pull that card. In my district meetings, my own pack and a couple of other councils I have family in... the volunteers and leaders have been nearly 100% in favor of this change. That said, I wouldn't state that as a true summary of opinion across the entire BSA. You really need to look at the surveys they collected and adjust for the actual BSA demographics to actually get any true reference... and I doubt that wil be shared. I will only say that this is a large country with a significant diversity of opinions. I question anyone claiming to know what the majority of BSA members or non members believe or will act on without survey data. I would also state that sometimes changes should be made for the long term health of an organization even if there is significant debate from its current members.

As a committee chair of a pack, Eagle Scout, long term BSA supporter and parent of a 10 year old Webelos scout and a 6 year old girl who will be a future Cub Scout.... i am one of the "we". I'm sure there are many others.

I certainly hope national quickly sends out some sort of transition plan to packs. I've already have parents of girls sending in emails asking what uniform they should buy and if they can fully participate in the pack now. They saw 2018 and think that means January. I'm glad we had a committee meeting planned for tomorrow so we can fumble our way through this. It will be a long night at the bar (no uniforms at this one).

I absolutely agree. My volunteers are also soccer coaches, t-ball coaches, help at their church, etc. if they have to dedicate a large portion of a weekend for scouting, they will want to do this with their youth... not a lot of other leaders to train them how to setup a tent. I'm sorry, but most of this training should be online and perhaps a short hands on portion if needed. This isn't scaling Everest or even high adventure. I thought the current training was too long and had minimal value. Maximize any time you get from volunteers with the scouts ... not on overburden some training.

I think it's the units call. Right now the policy is boys only. So if someone is gender fluid they are not eligible. If someone is a girl they are not eligible. Only those that are boys, and today that includes transgender boys, are eligible. Remember that these boys will be using restrooms, showers, etc with other boys. If someone is a girl, I highly doubt they would want to "trick" nationals by pretending they are transgender and identify as a boy with everything else that entails. I agree this is not an easy situation to navigate but I don't think we are talking about 99% of the youth population. We are talking about 0.3 - 0.6% that are considered Transgender. Assuming half are boys that would mean 0.15 - 0.3% of youth fall into that category... compared to ~50% of youth that are girls. I don't think we need to now add girls to scouts just because we added transgender boys and there may be some others that have fluid gender identities. I'm not saying we shouldn't add girls but I don't see this as a reason we should.

Our schools do not allow Boy talks anymore. We do yard signs all around the school (on public right of way) and in leaders yards for the week prior, flyers at school registration and I send an email to every parent in the school talking about the fleeting time you have as a parent and why scouts are a great opportunity. All of these have links to our Facebook page which we encourage parents to like. I don't know which one or combination works but we had 32 scouts attend join scouts night out of a school of 650. 13 joined so far, adding to all dens and we should have around 14 Lions once they complete their applications. Our pack size dwindled to the mid twenties after we were banned by the school (from any contact .... signs, talks, flyers, etc). The methods above have improved our contact with parents

http://www.metrowestdailynews.com/news/20170916/girl-scout-leaders-not-happy-boy-scouts-looking-to-be-one-stop-shop "Jeff Hotchkiss, executive director and CEO of the Mohegan Council in Worcester, said the council discussed the matter at a meeting in August. He said the volunteers thought the concept should be pursued. “The response across the nation is that 75 percent like the concept,†Hotchkiss said. “It’s still undefined as to what it really means. At this point, the national (office) said let’s just keep talking about it.â€" This is the first BSA official I have heard quoted saying anything about the results of the survey. I don't believe this means anything is imminent but it probably means this issue will not be going away any time soon.

We never have and are not currently recruiting girls for our pack; however Boy and Girl siblings are welcome to attend most activities. We have decided that if BSA adds girls to the program that our Pack would go coed but we haven't decided how to do that without angering the GSUSA (most of our leadership has political leanings that align with the GSUSA). We have discussed looking at joint recruiting efforts and activities in some cases.

One correction, the NOW letter did come out before the national meeting but the Outside Magazine and Tribune op eds came out after.

I completely understand questions the motives of the BSA and believing there is something else driving this possible change. I even speculated (based on one article) that the LDS leaders told them that they were leaving making the BSA need to quickly find new recruits. That is clearly wrong given the response from knowledgeable LDS scouters. Calling 1 letter from NOW and a couple of opinion pieces PC pressure on the BSA is a stretch. The fact that the letter and opinion pieces referenced came out AFTER the BSA's national meeting where they made the video showing possible changes weakens the external PC evidence further. I really believe the BSA is being honest regarding their motivation. This is not something they feel they have to consider due to outside PC forces but due to changes is family dynamics. Does anyone else in this forum hire people? I've been through multiple training sessions regarding recruiting and changes to our corporate benefits packages because of the significant changes to how millennial are different than previous generations. I think the BSA is wise in looking into this and I don't see that as PC pressure. I think they clearly state their motivation and it is consistent with what I've seen in my corporate training. That isn't PC, that is a recognition that parents (our customers) are looking for something else for their kids. So, I'd rather see a debate regarding the actual proposal than point to possible bogeyman who are pushing a secret agenda. Yes, that happened in the past. The LGBTQ push came from outside forces, was strategic, attacked our COs and sponsors and was not driven (for the most part) by looking at actual needs of our members (though I agree with the change). I also agree the BSA isn't being straightforward by calling this "making scouting more accessible"; however, I think they are being honest with their motivation. Finally a bit of a separate note. Someone asked if any of the 50+ United Way and the corporate sponsors came back after we added LGBTQ leaders and members. I couldn't find much info and wonder if anyone else knows. If not, I think it would be appropriate to ask these groups if they restarted giving and if not why they didn't.

@Col Flag ... hope the locals are aggressive on those mosquitoes. I have family in Slidel LA and it took a long time for the Katrina inspired mosquitoes to subside. I'm not sure how aggressive they were with spraying after the hurricane (clearly other issues took priority). Great to hear your and other scouts good work. Stay safe!

@@Eagledad. I guess I'm looking for some sort of evidence of the PC push and the purpose of pointing the debate outward vs simply debating if and/or how we add girls to the program. There is ample evidence and we all lived through the previous admission debate and that clearly came from outside pressure. I don't think we should let BSA off the hook by simply stating they are caving to PC police and there is no point in pushing back. I'm personally on the fence on this one and think the BSA would honestly consider member feedback this time around (as the outside "PC" pressure isn't really there). If the BSA thinks they have to do this due to outside PC pressure then we are in pretty bad shape.

Eagledad... I'm simply responding to the various posters who are claiming BSA is looking to add girls because of a "PC" claim. I tend to take the BSA at their word. Watch their video for proof starting at 5:45, they clearly state why they are looking into this ... based on millennial family dynamic changes. Sorry I missed adding that reference in my statement, but I thought most already watched the video which was linked multiple times in these threads. I don't see evidence pointing to any organized PC campaign pushing for girls to join BSA. Attempting to blame outside groups is a weak argument and unsubstantiated. This is really an internal BSA debate.

I am fairly close to progressive groups and I'd like to see the evidence there is any significant outside pressure from the "PC" community. There was definitely a outside campaign for gay and transgender boys to be admitted but I don't see this for girls. How many UnitedWay chapters have cut funding due to BSA not admitting girls? Change.org had over 2 million signatures gathered against the BSA and supporters of BSA (amazon smile, united way, etc.). To date I have found <9,000 signatures in change.org (and none against our financial backers) in support of adding girls. When I talk with my progressive friends about BSA adding girls ... their initial response is concern of the harm it will do to the progressive GSUSA. I think this is much more of an internal discussion with a focus on millennial parent dynamics than some sort of PC play. There are a few op eds and a letter from NOW but nothing serious. If you can point to 50+ United Way chapters that dropped funding and million+ petition campaigns then I'd believe you. Otherwise, I think the PC argument is a straw man. From the progressive community, BSa's theistic requirement is a much bigger deal and probably the next area of "PC" attack. Admitting girls is an internal debate as long as the GSUSA remains vibrant and progressive.

@@Eagledad. I think this may vary by school. Our GSUSA program has huge recruiting classes and they begin at K5. So, parents are looking for the Boy counterpart at K5. I've turned parents away at K5 in the past and they rarely came back after follow ups for Tigers or Wolf. Our average Tiger den would start at 6 kids and build to 8 by Webelos 2. Our 1st year of Lions had 19 kids join. GSUSA had over 30 daisies in the same school. Parents are clearly looking for clubs and activities when they register their kids for school the first time and I don't see us getting that mindshare back after that point in time. We never had 19 kids join any den any year. We will have to monitor this over the next couple of years to see the long term impact. I do agree that Lions and Tigers should and could be less intense and even separate from the pack to help prevent burnout.. the more I think about it the better it sounds. That said, the pack should still help a bit so the volunteers are not off on an island.

Most of the youth here get more heavily involved in sports as they age... not less. I don't see the "my son won't be a pro decision" until high school. By that age 13-14. I don't see many scouts starting at that age.

Oops..."bs" = " instead of" Not sure how I fat fingered that one.