Eagle1993

We added a lot of boys the last 2 years and have around 25% of all boys in the school in our Pack. We are adding a few more boys but I expect their number (Tiger and above) will be flat to last year. Last year we had 8 Lions at JSN but only 4 this year (no girls). Parents of the four were discussing how to get more to join. Overall, I think we will be flat with boys (pending Lions) and seeing growth from the girls. As you said, nothing official until recharter and we have a fairly decent size group of minimally engaged scouts... so I could see some of them dropping.

I’m pretty sure they would as long as they don’t have to actually provide actual leadership. They are surprised BSA would allow parents to spend the night who wouldn’t agree to a CBC.

We have a similar issue with our Tiger den. The Lion leader stepped down and we have struggled to find other leaders. As a committee we went name by name through the den and identified a few possible candidates... try all declined due to other commitments. I found 1 leader who is doctor and is responsible for a pediatric department at a major hospital (so he is busy). I’m continuing to push to find others to help but so far no luck. Now, my daughter is in this den (the only leader is the parent of another girl) so I won’t let it collapse. My wife has taken YPT and has reluctantly “volunteered” to be our other leader. We will have the boy and girl dens meet together (otherwise the boy den has no leader and would collapse)... So, we are barely set. I would recommend having a meeting with the parents and explain the need for two leaders to be identified within the Den. Ask them to think of non parent options (aunts, uncles, grandparents, friends) who may be interested. In the end, if you still see lack of two leaders someone else from the Pack would have to help out or you let the Den collapse.

When I talked with new parents of our Pack last night they were surprised that the BSA allowed parents to stay overnight (even 1 night) with youth without registering as a leader. Society’s acceptance of organizations who fail to protect youth is pretty low... especially from sexual predators. I wouldn’t be surprised if BSA requires background checks of every parent spending even one night in the future.

To be clear, the fourth grade GSUSA Troop at our school fell apart... which is why we see so many from that grade in our Pack.

Just had our Join Scouts Night. Looks like we will be adding 7 - 10 more girls to our pack for a total of 17 - 20 out of roughly 90. It varies greatly by age with 0 5th graders but 9 4th graders. The GSUSA Troop at that grade fell apart and many of them joined Cub Scouts. Most of the girls joining do not have brothers in the Pack. Roughly 50% of the new Scouts joining our pack are girls and our total Pack size will be at its highest it’s been in 10+ years.

@gblotter If that is the case I’m out. I don’t need a club to hang out with other families. Cub scouts is somewhat like that but the only reason I’m sticking with that is that I know what comes with Boy Scouts. If they make Boy Scouts Webelos 3 I have no interest.

I definitely agree there is less pushback or concerns regarding girls in Cub Scouts vs Boy Scout Troops. 20% is probably a fair estimate as UK has 25% girls. As far as offsetting LDS loss it depends on how many LDS scouts stay. It will be interesting as the impact will vary greatly by council. It is still early for Troops. In my council only a few packs were early adopters but now many more are ramping up coed packs. I’m slowly starting to hear of Troops considering linked Troops, especially those who know they will have possible female AOLs crossing over. I saw one SM who was vary anti BSA4G, even yelling about it during a District Meeting. He is now working on creating a linked Troop where he will be ASM. He was against it but now that it is official wants to see it run well. I expect that story will not be uncommon. In general, I don’t expect a surge of girls in Scouts BSA until the Cub Scouts start moving in over the next 5 years.

I think the rat race which was reserved for adults entering the workforce had moved down to infants. Parents think.... for little Johnny to be CEO of Twitter or President of the USA he must attend Yale or Harvard. In order to attend Yale or Harvard he must never get in trouble, go to a “great” high school and get perfect ACTs. He also needs good extracurricular activities.... blah, blah. It goes all the way to ensuring they fetus listens to Beethoven in the womb. I think too many parents today feel like any failure during youth is a life sentence. Many parents do not see a need for little Johnny to play outdoors unless it helps him on his track to be President. Advancement helps communicate a value to those parents. This is definitely not everyone and I do see a growing backlash where building resilience, free play and other terms are being emphasized. We may have seen peak helicopter.... or perhaps the helicopters will simply have a new metric to track. I can only imagine.... “Johnny, you must complete your 30 mins of assigned free play before you practice piano.”

I don’t think he is correct. We should learn soon from the girl’s Scouts BSA book. I can tell you they updated the Webelos book to add girls and they still require them to teach the Patrol method under Scouting Adventure (to earn AOL) ... even to girls.

A bit more info. July finished with 10,000 girls. Cub Scouts now has 19,000 registered girls at the end of August.

Update on fall recruiting...note that this is from Nationals and is consistent with what I have seen so far in my unit and District. I think it will be interesting to see the September numbers. BSA has seen a 16% increase in new Cub Scouts in August over August of 2018. They also indicate that many councils report the vast majority of Packs are family Packs welcoming girls.

I only know my council, but they support us with flyers, posters, etc but the boots on the ground are from the units. Our unit ensures we are present for registration. Our unit puts out yard signs and schedule join scouts night. Our unit pays Facebook to post advertising posts and sends out Tweets. Our unit obtains a Google business account and advertisers there. Through this we get to our parents. What I have heard from the GSUSA leaders who joined our pack is that we are much more grass roots and “local” than Girl Scouts. I think the personal touch of units takes more work but is more likely effective in getting the message to the youth and parents. To me our approach is much better than stuffing flyers in bags at a corporate chain.

To be fair there have been some reports of BSA leaders claiming BSA is replacing GSUSA. I’m not sure if that’s true but it did lead to our CSE to put out a response that must be careful not to cause confusion. CSE Letter on Infringements.pdf

How Packs run probably vary more than Troops. With that said, we have been encouraged (by DE) to have parents attend all den meetings. It is required for Lion and Tiger. I push back after Tiger as it’s time to cut the cord. We have monthly Pack meetings or outings. We we were told the 72 hour rule primarily impacts Troops at summer camp (when parents attend) as Cub Scout events rarely last 72 straight hours. But who knows. Note that I have no plan tracking hours for each parent across the year... I don’t believe that was the intent.

Girls can be AOL this year. Many of the Webelos 1 completed 4th grade in May so 6 months would put them at Nov/Dec for earning AOL. There are others that could have been 10 even earlier. Girls in Troops start February.

I compare the the BSA updates similar to how we handled adding girls. As the change occurs, I expect over communication and focus. As a Pack we wanted to ensure the girls that joined understood we fully welcomed them, regardless of what noise they may hear from outside. So, we sent emails to parents, included the girls as a focus during various events and ensured we fully welcomed them. Now that they are fully on board we are moving to business as usual. We still need to add some reminders that we accept both boys and girls in our Pack as MANY are unaware of the change. I would expect a lot of focus from BSA through June/July next year on girls given this major change. Units adding girls will need the guidance and many people are still unaware of the change. Over communication will be key. Over time it should be balanced but I have no issue with the increased focus short term.

There are a lot of people willing to spend countless hours complaining on Internet forums but when asked to actually help they disappear. However, there are also Districts who have internal politics (as @cocomax describes) and don’t do a great job of identifying talent to help.

Who cares. There is nothing wrong being LGBTQ or staight. If a male is interested in males in high school but discovers they are interested in women in their 20’s what harm is caused? The only way this is “bad” is if you think being LGBTQ is sub optimal. I could care less. I don’t believe it is a sin, an affront to God or bad for society.

I see no violation if you coordinate den meetings... see the FAQ below. The only ask by my council when I followed up is that the girls and boys should have some aspect of the meeting separate (for example if there are subgroups or teams the girls are on one). https://www.scouting.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/06/FAQ-Family-Program-061218-FINAL.pdf Q: Should dens for girls and dens for boys meet at the same time and place? It is up to the chartered organization and the pack or the den to decide meeting times and places. Q: Can separate boy and girl dens work on the same activity at the same time together? There is no set rule or guideline on this. If appropriate, this can be treated the same as two dens of the same gender working together. It will be up to the good judgement of leaders to decide what is best for their units. I don’t see a violation given these clarifications. As far as harming youth for our convenience..... My wife has worked (and is working) for private all girls schools and we have friends that work for a private all boys school. After our experiences we have all chosen to send our kids to coed schools. I don’t disagree that there are benefits but there are also issues in those schools and some negative impacts and on net we believe a coed experience in school is more beneficial. I see the same with scouting.

Exact opposite in my area. Most are against National’s half baked solution and are working to find legitimate ways to fully integrate.

What policy are they violating? National FAQs state boy and girl dens can meet together. I do agree the must follow YPT. It will be easier to follow with combined den meetings.

I think he wrote “separation” not “segregation”... reminds me of the SNL skit of too much violins on TV...😀

Welcome! This is a great group with a diversity of opinions and a ton of experience. I know it’s a few years out for her, but if you know the Troop she would likely feed into (if it exists) I would recommend checking to see how they plan to run. If they plan on keeping the Troop meetings completely single gender then I would go with @qwazse‘s option B above. If they will have coed meetings and outings (as linked Troops) I would consider option A a bit more. I’m CC of an early adopter Pack with 10 girls. We had 1 girls den and while it was functional it didn’t work as well for us as the Boy’s dens as having Lions hang out with Bears was simply too much of an age gap. However, I know many packs that make the single school room den meetings work well. Given volunteer constraints and feedback from leaders (along with aligning with the future Troop plans) we have told our Den leaders they can use option A if they like. (Separate girl/boy dens for each grade that meet together.) If you are looking for more guidance there is a Facebook page (BSA Family Packs/Girl Troops) that provides guidance. Good luck!

I agree there have been a lot of changes and I have a lot of issues with with how they have rolled this program out. They made promises they never intended or could keep. 100% with you there. The YPT change is major and seems to be clearly impacted by adding girls. I think the membership fee increase is simply them trying to fill a budget hole But I just think sometimes a book is just a book. As long as the requirements stay the same I have no issues, in fact I support two different books. If they start reducing requirements for girls I’ll have a problem and I’ll jump on board that complaint train!