AwakeEnergyScouter

As long as it's consensual, I don't care. My point was more that scouting isn't automatically going to turn into a meat market just because you have girls and boys scouting together. I see a lot of FUD about this and since it's so far all scared speculation as opposed to lived experience I figure sharing would be helpful.

I never heard of them. I have, because I was trying to find just a regular scouting experience for my child with no semi-official Christian affiliation, no gender segregation, and applying the Scout Law and Oath to everyone all the time (no discrimination). They don't have the lineage, but I was willing to just fill my child in on BP and scouting myself, as a stopgap until US scouting got things sorted out. I tried contacting several listed chapters close to us but never got a response. I don't think they are as much of an option as it seems.

My troop had zero couples in my entire time. All coed all the time including tenting together.

If that were true, millions of young people all over the world wouldn't have developed into the adults they are today. But we did. And even if you take it as true - scouts isn't a gender identity curation movement. We're an inclusive outdoor adventure organization.

I lived it - actually more than what the current proposal is, because gender wasn't a consideration for patrol formation - and my experience was positive. Not just "not bad". The presence of both genders in the patrol was both a moderator of antisocial behavior in both genders as well as a key condition of real-world leadership training. I was bullied in middle school, and scouting was my refuge, too. I can relate to that. And maybe you personally did need a single-gender environment right then. I'm not you, I don't know. But your experience isn't the only possible one. I needed a mixed-gender patrol. I would not have wanted to be in a patrol with just other girls. The option to have that should be there. I see that it still isn't, but at least normal troops is a step in the right direction. It's the standard option, globally. Scouting isn't really about gender identity exploration. We're about outdoor adventure. That's our thing. At least in my patrol, we were truly brothers and sisters in scouting. The vibe was different from school in terms of sexual tension. I can't know for a fact, of course, but I'd like to think that a regular patrol would still have been a refuge for you. If not, the single-gender option remains.

Well, ok.. you have a point. I didn't want to get into program weakness details because I see this as a big picture reframing that will allow us to get to that with good windhorse. Of course, we do have to actually get to that, and I could be mistaken. But check this brand new marketing video out - this is like a US version of Scouterna's We are raised by adventure video. This is our wheelhouse, we can "sell" it, and people want it. And I'm sure my unit isn't the only one that can deliver (age-appropriately) almost everything in that video to anyone that signs up today.

I think a lot of you guys who are saying that renaming does nothing haven't quite appreciated how important this is for growing membership and strengthening the program again. I don't expect to convince you now, but hearing not just that the organization is changing name, but what Krone said about the rationale and the context he put it in, makes it clear to me that Scouting America leadership is willing to do what it's going to take to keep delivering a quality scouting program, but to more young people. I'll be out there helping make that happen. Back to basics - Scout Oath, Law, outdoors program. No exceptions or faking on the Scout Law and Oath anymore. Everyone is welcome. https://apnews.com/article/boy-scouts-new-name-scouting-america-d583f5712680f155b4f6b762128734d3 I fully expect Scouting America to overtake GSUSA as the scouting program of choice for girls in 10-15 years now.

Scouting America is going to be just fine, as long as everyone is indeed welcome so that we do live our timeless values.

Such wonderful news! Finally, US scouting normalizes.

Our pack just participated in our local part of a worldwide conservation status check in urban areas called the City Nature Challenge. Because the overlap of scouts and scouters with conservationists isn't an accident, the person organizing our city's effort on behalf of the city was a scouter for many years and still runs a survival camp for troops. So we got to talking about more scouts than just our pack participating, and looped a commissioner in, who in turn connected the city organizer with council. So far, so good, let's do a good turn and be Earth Protectors. We connected with council a bit too late to really market it through them, but our pack had a blast with it! Lots of really paying attention to nature. But as far as the community is concerned, we did it on the downlow because council asked to exclude the BSA logo from all the organizations participating displays! (To save the city a charge of $5000 to use the logo.) Even if scouts had been a significant portion of the observations in our city, the visibility would have been close to nil. Other non-profits and even for-profit companies helped as groups on behalf of their organization and were recognized for it. It struck me as a policy that was clearly well-intended, but also a bit self-centered. Obviously we don't want to be too attention-seeking, but people do also need to see us around doing our thing for people to feel like we're a part of the community.

Welcome, @captkeating! I can relate to your excitement about reconnecting to scouting as an adult leader! I'm sure you will have a great time together, while Building a Better World while you're at it! I saw a joke BSA leader badge on Etsy the other day that said "CAT HERDER" and that seems to be the job as a cub scout leader! Good for you for stepping up! I'm thinking about incorporating collaboration games into next year's pack meetings to give the cats some focused experiences with what happens when you collaborate vs don't 😂

I asked my dad, but it was the generation before him that experienced the change so his experience was pretty much like mine... at this point you really need a historian, the people who lived it are almost all dead now. I did find out that during his time, our troop was a sea scout ship. They spent a lot of spring meetings readying the boats. We still owned some of them when I came through, moored at the same dock. Even though we were a troop we did learn to rig and sail gigs, probably because the troop used to be a ship!

I would have liked to have ordered her thesis, but she only takes Swish as payment and you can't open a Swish account with a foreign address. Do you remember how it was contentious?

Total sidebar: I noticed the manner of mentioning Rinpoche, @SSScout - were you his student?

Are you sincere? I do not read you to be. Please correct me if I'm wrong. It's quite possible that I am.

I don't have much to say on the Eagle project topic since we don't have that in Sweden and haven't read up on the instructions, but reading this sparked a potential initial general view of the line between civic and political: civic is supporting building community in a liberal democracy. To the extent that parties promote policies (often implicitly because everyone in mainstream society agrees) that are consistent with liberal democracy, we count those as civic even though one could argue that technically they are political because a political party advocates for it. That remains true even when, like in this example, mainstream citizens in a liberal democracy actually start taking actions inconsistent with liberal democracy. (The non-mainstream I'm specifically thinking of here is the neonazis in the town I grew up in. They explicitly want to crush liberal democracy, but they are also persona non grata outside their own group and nobody in scouting in Sweden loses any sleep about not listening to them or taking action to prevent them from succeeding.) Uniformed scouts marching in an anti-Nazi march is not like uniformed scouts staffing an "election cabin" to campaign for a particular political party, even though technically being anti-Nazi is a political stand that is also proposed policy for multiple political parties. Being anti-Nazi is being pro-liberal democracy, and thus the scouting backing of what is technically also a policy stand of political parties counts as civic. Does that make sense? Anybody see any holes?

I actually thought that was very clear. That section of the book stuck with me immediately upon reading and I was literally thinking of it when I wrote the general reflection above. I knew right where to find it to expand on both the actual meaning but also to (hopefully) gently and skillfully deflect the attack on my character. Perhaps it isn't so immediately relatable to everyone, then. My apologies if that wasn't clear. My point is, I do not appreciate being called duplicitous, and I do not appreciate teachings that are very precious to me and considered a religion by the BSA being called duplicitous. You don't have to agree with the view, but attacking me for holding it is not cool.

I'm talking about karma and recognizing how it operates. That is very different from duplicity. Duplicity is changing moral view to suit oneself; recognizing how karma works is cultivating insight and allows you to at the very least accrue merit if not quite stop generating it entirely. Volume One of The Profound Treasury of The Ocean of Dharma: The Path of Individual Liberation by Chögyam Trungpa Rinpoche, page 414: "The Six Types of Karmic Consequence The general notion of karma is that uncertainty, delusion, or ignorance begins to trigger the mechanisms of lust, or passion, and aggression, which then produce karmic consequences. These consequences are divided into six sections, which represent six ways of organizing our world very badly; (1) the power of volitional action, (2) experiencing what you have planted, (3) white karmic consequences, (4) changing the karmic flow by forceful action, (5) shared karmic situations, (6) interaction of intention and action. It is quite predictable: since our world is created from passion, aggression, and ignorance, we get back from it what we put in. Things are happening constantly in that way. It is very steady and very predictable. (...) 6. Interaction of Intention and Action The sixth and final karmic consequence is the interaction of intention and action. It is divided into four subcategories. WHITE INTENTION, WHITE ACTION. The first subcategory is called completely white. An example of completely white karma is respecting your teacher and having devotion. Because that whole approach is related with healthiness rather than revolutionary thinking, ill will, and resentment, a lot of goodness comes out of it. So perpetual whiteness is created. BLACK INTENTION, BLACK ACTION. The next subcategory is completely black. This is like taking someone's life without any particular excuse or motivation. You have murdered or destroyed something. That is completely black. WHITE INTENTION, BLACK ACTION. The third and fourth subcategories are mixtures of black and white. The third category is basically positive: with the good intention of protecting the whole, you perform a black action. For instance, with the good intention of protecting the lives of hundreds of people, you kill one person. [My personal note - surely you recognize this category from Western moral philosophical thought as well? The trolley, for example. Surely you have engaged with this category in a hypothetical series of situations yourself.] That seems to be a good karmic situation. If somebody is going to press the button of the atomic bomb, you shoot that person. Here the intention is white, but the action itself is black, although it has a positive effect. BLACK INTENTION, WHITE ACTION. In the fourth subcategory, the intention is black and the action is white. This is like being very generous to your enemy while you are trying to poison him; it is a mixture of black and white." Your intention with your scouts was probably white, but if you honestly didn't realize that the action might have been black then you - and especially anyone reading who still can change the action for their scouts - ought to know that there was something more to know. Hopefully, your scouts were able to turn their suffering into wisdom and compassion and didn't have other karmic circumstances that being expected to take sexism on the chin amplified substantially. Speech is an act, you know. Four of the ten unmeritorious karmic acts are speech acts. Speech has causes, and is a cause to effects. (Unless, of course, the speaker has transcended karma, but that's not the case we're discussing.) You can hurt people quite well without any physical action. Also, certain kinds of harmful speech tends to precede harmful action, so waiting for predictable action is actively engaging in ignorance (here, meaning not knowing how the world works), which is also a karmic act. What makes knowing that someone wants you excluded so corrosive is that it means that black intention is on the table, and you need to figure out just how black and just how far that person is willing to go. It forces you into a defensive posture around them at all times. Notice that this is not a free speech issue; it's a social cohesion issue. The problem is not that the government is going to come arrest you and others in a way that undermines liberal democracy, or that you are being pressured with job loss and/or other severe personal consequences for saying unpopular or even revolting things. It's legal to be a neonazi but that doesn't mean that BSA is required to let them sieg heil at scout meetings. What's right in one context can absolutely be wrong in another by consistent moral principles.

Well, generally speaking, that also has to be case-by-case, no? Some boats need rocking and now is the time to do it. But not every boat, and not every boat right now. All the combinations of good intention, bad intention, good outcome, and bad outcome occur. The trick is to get better at recognizing both intentions and outcomes. Sometimes being conflict averse is bad. Sometimes it builds harmony that leads to strength and functioning. Without a situation or a context you can't really say if it's good or bad. With a clear and stable mind, we can take the attitude of "first thought, best thought" and do our best to use our good intention to create good outcomes.

So more conflict-averse rather than trying to draw the line between civic and political?

Curious about this. Opposing book bans seems civic to me, as opposed to political because freedom of speech is a bedrock foundation of liberal democracy and the context of book access in community libraries is one in which freedom of speech is appropriately the most salient one, including in historical context. (As opposed to limiting speech to what is scoutlike and consistent with the Scout Law and Oath in BSA contexts, for example.) Wo Bücher brennen... Why don't you think your council's Eagle Board would approve this?

Like Skeptic, all this attention to gender in BSA scouting made me curious about what gender-segregated scouting in Sweden used to be like. Even the words for gender segregated scouting sound antiquated and sepia-toned. It's hard to imagine. But apparently someone wrote a thesis on it recently, and so Scouterna has an information page on it. Since there's a language barrier for all other WOSM NSOs other than Scouts UK, I thought I'd post a translation. "Scout magazine MARCH 8, 2022 When the girls took up scouting That others than boys would be allowed to be part of the Scouts was far from obvious when it started, but despite strong opposition, the pioneers of girl scouting managed to champion their cause. Here is a part of history that is all too often forgotten. If you've been to a regular scout meeting, you've probably seen it sitting on the wall - the portrait of Robert Baden Powell, the founder of the scouting movement. But have you heard of Agnes Baden Powell? Or Ludde, Pelle, Pirre and the others who made sure that girls also got to experience scouting? From the beginning, girls were not meant to become scouts, says Bodil Formark, who is a historian and has written the first thesis on the history of girl scouting in Sweden. - It is quite clear when you consider that the basic foundation of the movement is called Scouting for Boys, she says. After scouting was launched in 1907, it quickly became a worldwide success. In 1909 it came to Sweden - for boys. Around this year, however, the first steps towards a scouting movement for girls were also taken. At Wallinska School in Stockholm, the three students Gerda Blomberg (Ludde), Elin Fris (Pelle) and Signe Geijer (Pirre) became interested in scouting in 1910, and brought along three of their teachers as scout leaders. - The Wallinska School was one of the oldest girls' schools in Sweden, a place where many of the first female academics either studied or taught, so it is a special environment in which scouting for girls arose, says Bodil. At first, the girl scouts were met with resistance - among other things, it was discussed in the press whether it was really appropriate for girls to practice scouting. - In that way, the story of girl scouting is an example of something that still exists in our society. That what girls or women do is always subject to discussion. Can they play football? Can they do this or what if they do that? During 1913, Svenska Flickors Scoutförbund (SFS) or Sweden's Girls' Scout Organization was formed, the first organization to bring together girl scouts. In the business that was built up bit by bit, eventually nationally, the girls got to be more than just girls. They could be scouts, with all that that entailed. There were class tests, special badges, world conferences and of course camp activities. - The movement primarily wanted to educate girls to become good scouts. A lot of girls' and women's history has been about being a girl in the right way, but here we had a movement that said "Well, you're a girl, but you should also be a scout". In Sweden, women only got the right to vote in 1919 and could participate in their first election in 1921. Girl scouting was thus pioneering girls' freedoms, and Bodil Formark believes that this was due to several things. On the one hand, the girls at the Wallinska School and the other founders belonged to an upper middle class, and therefore had both resources and opportunities to have a spare time. In part, the first leaders, according to Bodil, were able to handle the debate that arose about girls becoming scouts in a strategic way. By creating a program that was not too radical and outrageous, they were able to gain approval from more people. What they then did could be considerably more radical. An example is the long skirt that the girl scouts wore as a scout uniform. At the time, the fact that girls wore pants was considered controversial by many. - There are accounts that they wore the skirts when they went to the camp, but that they threw them off as soon as they got out into the forest. "Oh, how wonderful to be able to climb trees!" After a long process with a lot of discussion, the organizations Sweden's Girls' Scout Association and Sweden's Scout Association finally merged in the 1960s. Having separate scout meetings for children of different genders can now feel quite distant. Within Scouterna in Sweden, there are today only a few gender-separated groups. - Scouterna wants to follow and reflect society! In our society today, and for quite some time now, all genders are mixed in, for example, school and the like, says Anna-Karin Hennig, who is general secretary at the Scouts. The organization Scouterna is a member of the world organization WAGGGS, which gathers scouts who are girls. Outside Sweden there are still many scouting activities for girls only. - WAGGGS is one of the world's largest "girls only organizations" and is needed to make it possible for girls and young women around the world to have a leisure occupation. Being part of a mixed organization is simply not possible everywhere in the world, says Anna-Karin. Bodil Formark believes that the scouting movement in Sweden has so far had problems telling its story. It is the boy scouts that are highlighted and often girl scouting has been forgotten. She wants what has existed, and meant so much to thousands of girls and women, not to be forgotten. - To understand why the Girl Scout movement has not been given the same space in the writing of history, I believe that the movement would need to learn more about the power imbalances under which the merger took place, but also seriously discuss whether gender-integrated scouting has really increased equality within the movement. For me as a historian, the question of the history of the girl scout movement is ultimately a question of justice. If the movement is to tell its story, which is of course a choice, it should tell the story in a way that does not make half the activity invisible or diminish. Did you know that… ...it used to be common in Swedish girl scouting with scout names? It could be names like Ludde, Bro, Jerker, Babs, Pålle or Laxen. The names were used, among other things, because it was considered ugly to call an older person "you". ...there were many different special badges for the scouts within the Swedish Girls' Scout Association to earn? They were about lots of different things, such as bookbinding, shooting, barn keeping, astronomy, folk dancing and language interpretation. ...Signe Hammarsten (Ham) was not only one of the first three leaders of Swedish girl scouts, but was also the mother of the famous writer and artist Tove Jansson. Do you want to learn more about Girl Scouting in Sweden? Bodil Formark's dissertation The well-situated girl: About the history of the Swedish girl scout movement 1910-1940 can be ordered at denvalsitueradeflickan.wordpress.com . Last autumn, "Knight of a Thousand Adventures" was performed - a theater performance inspired by the thesis." Original text at https://www.scouterna.se/aktuellt/tidningen-scout/nar-tjejerna-intog-scouting/

I agree with yknot. This is harsh. Like, taken aback harsh. Adults undermining the sense of worth of a child by communicating that that specific child is unwanted is not the same as not getting what you wanted or an inconvenience. It does real harm to children to hear that adults that have power over them don't think they should be where they are, even though the rules and society at large say it's fine. (As I write that, specific adult faces flash in front of me.) Losing a favorite after-school program isn't like being singled out to be told by adults that there's something bad about you and you shouldn't be where you are. But not your friends, note. The damage comes largely from that you're not in the same boat; the afterschool program isn't being shut down, you just can't be in it anymore because Reasons but not something you did, something you are. The impact of being excluded for something you are is very different. Did you know that 40% of LGBTQIA+ youth want to commit suicide because of the poor treatment they get? Scouts of all things should be a safe place for them to be accepted unconditionally. Racism and sexism take a toll, too. Meeting unkindness from so many people for something you are, not do, has a different impact than losing something you liked along with all your friends who are in the same boat. The patterns in how people behave grate on you in a different way than one-off things, especially when the gaslighting starts. Black youth who are met with low regard in their community exhibit more depressive symptoms after then also experiencing more racism than usual. (https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30652904/) Than usual. Imagine how much sadness and depression we could prevent if they experienced no racism. This happens in scouts, too. A Black scouter shared the story of his son being called the n-word in scouts. The other white scouters were not so interested in dealing with the hurt that this caused, and the parents denied that their scouts would ever do what they just did. The patterns after the scout law is broken when it's due to other scouts and scouters disliking the presence of a scout in a particular demographic are very similar to what happens with whistleblowers. Organizations often try to gaslight whistleblowers, which makes the retaliation harm worse because it shatters your confidence in how the world works when the institution that was supposed to protect you harms you instead and then tries to pretend otherwise. There's a second layer of betrayal there. I have been in that position of being expected to fix adults or deal with adult dysfunction that other adults didn't want to deal with as a child. I was very angry at them and I lost all my respect for them. Children having to lead adults is confusing lha, nyen and lu, the natural order of things. As a hat goes on the head and not the feet, adults lead children, not the other way around. Finding opportunities for children to practice leadership is good and important, but children are still children. The opportunities need to be age-appropriate. There is such a thing as throwing children into the leadership deep end without swimming lessons, and asking them to sacrifice their own well-being to show adults that people are people isn't age-appropriate. It is our duty as the adults in charge to protect scouts - really do it. Mandela, Gandhi, and MLK were adults when they did their human rights work. We should not expect children to fix adult messes.

Forgot one of the most important things... Scout-led! Absolute must. Took it for granted while writing.

Indeed a great question! Almost like a goal writing prompt 😄 * Smiling and laughing scouts at all events / no one left out, all scouts "invited to dance" by other scouts * Scouts want to hang out outside scouting because they're friends * Good and excited attendance at all outdoor events, of which camping and hiking are offered monthly and other outdoors life skills (fishing, orienteering, firebuilding and tending, skiing, skating, etc) are offered at least occasionally. Troops should backpack at least a few times a year * Troop goes to camporee/jamboree every year, at least considers going to next WSJ * Scouts following the Scout Law, Scout Oath, Outdoor Code, and LNT consistently * At least basic knowledge of BP and the scouting movement as a whole, attend JOTA/JOTI * Skills and automatic responsibility acceptance growth in individual scouts, especially in outdoors life and scout craft skills * Scouts take pride in their advancement and set their sights in the next "level" of growth, whether there is a belt loop or badge for it or not (if you blew requirements out of the water, do even more!) * Good ceremonies that touch the scouts wordlessly and feel special * Good windhorse in the committee as well as among the scouts * Full year program * Good community relationships