malraux

I also find it to be a weird choice that GSUSA makes it difficult to find a girl scout troop to join. You have to send an inquiry to find local troops that are currently accepting girls and hope there's an opening. For all the tech issues with the BSA, the beascout pin system does work.

Just now, Eagle1993 said:

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.

Weirdly, we have the same situation; the 4th and 2nd grade GSUSA troops folded so several of those girls transferred over.

My impression of the webelos program is that it is intended as a 1.5-2 year process. You can earn the pins in any order, with the general idea that you earn the web core ones in the first year to get that rank and then the aol core ones the next year, but you can work on aol elements while a 4th grader.

7 minutes ago, Eagle1993 said:

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.

 

Totally anecdotal, but that's pretty consistent with my pack's experience. We're having pretty good recruitment numbers, still trying to pin down if any kids aren't coming back.

40 minutes ago, karunamom3 said:

Can awards (belt loops) be recognized retroactively in our Council's system?

We, meaning the new leaders, recently found out that the old leaders were not giving credit for all of the boys achievements. The boy would get the belt loop for an elective, but it would not be entered into our Council's computer system (and I supposethat means National too?).

What they were doing was taking each ranks book and entering in the required electives and entering the number of electives required by randomly choosing an elective from the book. Ugh. Our boys complete many more electives than the few required. 

As new CM can I add in all of the correct awards into the system?

I'm pretty sure that within scout book you can. (and I think that internet advancement would also let you do so). When I was converting my pack's records to scout book, I had to add a bunch of missed things, like bobcat awards, to get everything correct. The system let me add bobcat for previous years.

That said, does it matter?

But the scouting page or the be a scout page are more gender neutral. Its really the sign up for more info about scouts bsa starting in February that has a prominent girls only look. But if I’m a boy, I’m looking to sign up now. 

15 minutes ago, fred johnson said:

I'm scared that adult leaders mock this topic and don't take it seriously.  This is not a light switch where we either free range or baby sit every moment.  Abusers look for programs in which they can abuse.  Kids will sneak in alcohol, tobacco, pot, drugs, fireworks and more.  Kids get hurt, drown, fall in fires, break bones and more. 

We can be effective as leaders while at the same time minimizing our presence and impact.  It's about keeping kids safe.  

To a large extent, the free range ideas are about properly assessing risks. So its recognizing that the drive to a trailhead is often as or more dangerous than the hike itself. Also the goal should be how to handle dangerous situations, ie being prepared. 

1 minute ago, Cambridgeskip said:

The biggest danger to any child in the western world is traffic. It simply wasn't a thing in BP's day. These days it is the single biggest killer of children aged 5-16 in the western world. When my scouts do something unsupervised by adults it is them being hit by a car that is top of my list when it comes to things that leave in a cold sweat. I'm not saying don't let kids off the leash, just teach them to cross the road safely first!

Or properly buckle up while in the car. 

7 hours ago, fred johnson said:

IMHO, I think BP would very much support the concept.  But at the same time, we don't live in his time.  Things have changed.  We know more than we did.  IMHO, I think it's appropriate to value the concept and hold it as our ideal, but we need to then correct for modern times and what we know now.

But in modern times, kids are relatively safe from things like abduction.

1 minute ago, cocomax said:

We are already there. . .

Two years ago I was at a camp-o-ree that for the events they had stations set up with pop ups and folding chairs were the scouts were taught a subject using flip charts.  Packing a back pack,  leave no trace,  basic first aid,  and navigation were some of the subjects taught.  Patrols were awarded points for paying attention and answering questions at the end. After finishing one station they would rotate to the next station.

I asked around why they were running things that way, without the boys actually doing anything and was told it was modeled after Wood Badge, that is the way things are taught at Wood Badge so they thought bringing flip charts to a camp-o-ree would be the right way to go.  The Wood Badges are using the Wood Badge course its self as the example of the correct way to run scouts.         

But for the LNT stuff at my wood badge, we actually went out to have semi-practical stuff done by the Venture crew... Some people really get the wrong ideas from WB.

2 minutes ago, FireStone said:

I'm impressed that so many units even know how many girls they're getting already. I have no idea. I know of 2 girls joining because they're daughters of other leaders. Beyond that, I have no clue. And I'm the Pack Recruitment Chair, so I hope I'd be one of those in-the-know folks. 

We haven't done our recruitment night yet. We're promoting it, been doing so all summer, but until next month I won't have any clue if we'll have just those 2 girls or if we'll have 20. 

 

We just had our recruitment night, and had pretty fair turnout. A lot of higher grade youth, both boys and girls.

12 minutes ago, Pale Horse said:

Must have...new adult patrol patch...where can I get?

http://www.patchtown.com/catherderspatrolpatch.aspx

That seems to be adding a new requirement to receiving rank, which is something you shouldn't be doing. I could also see it getting rather problematic if you end up with scouts on the spirit board that have a dislike of a younger scout.

1 minute ago, WisconsinMomma said:

I went to Wood badge right after my second son crossed over to Boy Scouts, I had graduated as his Den Leader, and I was continuing with Cubs as Assistant Cub Master.   My husband is going to WB this year, his third year as an ASM.  (I'm a Fox married to a Bear.)  I sell Wood Badge to cub level Scouters by saying that I was never a Boy Scout, and Wood Badge lets me experience Scouting the way my boys will in their troops, so it's a great chance for non youth members to get more of a taste of what it's like for the boys. 

I went as a wolf den leader, but I had pretty substantial scouting experience when I was younger. That was the right time for me as it gave me a pretty good recontextualization of that knowledge. It certainly showed me that my troop from way back then wasn't as scout led as it should have been, and gave a good exemplar of a well functioning troop. Certainly for me early in my scoutering career was right, but I could see it being wrong for others.

I’m sure it can work in some situations, but it also means that if it starts going bad, it’s hard for someone to fix. 

6 minutes ago, ParkMan said:

We seem to have lots of these posts.  Some parent showed up at a troop, didn't understand Scouting, took over, and ruined it all.  Sometimes folks try to associate that with women - but not always.  

The common thread I see in these is a troop that can't seem to figure out how to rally around a defined program and channel adult energy accordingly.  It has nothing to do with male vs. female.  At the unit level, the failing is in understanding that organizing adult energy and having a defined culture is something you have to work at. 

At a national level, I'd argue that we've missed the boat on preparing adults to lead programs.  We focus on so much on SM training around Scout skills that we've neglected those skills you need to deploy a program.

There’s also a theme of 1 family having multiple positions within the key 3. 

7 minutes ago, Eagledad said:

This was predicted on the forum back when the discussion of girls started.

Sexism has been used on this forum lately when the discussion of females comes up. I don't think it's malicious either, I think they really believe it. The traditional program is so foreign to their perspective, the opposition must be personal. 

As the larger numbers of strong personalities with no youth scouting experience join, programs will change toward the vision of those leaders instead of the goals and vision of the BSA. It's a natural result. In the past, the BSA had enough experienced scouters to resist most of these types of adults. But it is quickly shifting. 

Barry 

But this doesn’t seem like a recent development …

Reading the study, I don't know that BSA policy on transgendered individuals would have much effect. The process described doesn't apply to someone with childhood gender dysphoria, but when a close group of friends all come out together, usually as part of a maladaptive response to trauma. That's something that could happen regardless of rules, nor do rules really prevent that from occurring. The study also isn't a prevalence study or anything else. 

2 minutes ago, gblotter said:

If Surbaugh wanted to be honest (not lie), he could at least acknowledge that this was a divisive decision driven by declining membership rather than hiding behind an insulting and manipulative survey. Wouldn't some honest discussion coming from the top be refreshing for a change?

To what end? Sure, some people get to vent at Surbaugh directly, but does that help improve the implementation? Is the hope to get him to change his mind? Would that really help retain any members that are leaving because of this, or help attract new members?

Just now, FireStone said:

That's just not true. It's a popular opinion that girls should be in Scouting. How popular? I don't know. But it's not some small fringe group.

Its also likely fairly regional in the different opinions, so hard for anyone to estimate its exact popularity.

I'm also appreciative of the idea that sometimes organizations have to change even its not what a majority of its current members want.

2 minutes ago, ianwilkins said:

Bingo!

Its weird when the reddit community is the reasonable and uplifting one...

Just now, gblotter said:

Yes - we would all like to see the data. But even if released, the survey was crafted to be so manipulative, designed to elicit only one response - any data from a survey like that would be pointless, in all reality. Can you at least give me room for rage over such an insulting process?

can you handle it when not everyone joins in your rage?

This sounds like someone way back had a cute idea that got formalized for no good reason.

19 minutes ago, Sentinel947 said:

There's a lot of Christian Church's that would and will object to that. 

I'm big on people being able to pick their own identity and label, but yeah I would agree that labeling isn't the clearest. I also don't know how best to discuss it in this sort of forum as its kinda none of my business.