No women allowed - is this usual?

[Mr.Maynard]

Hi scoutscooter

Im sorry to here that you have a troop that acts like that.

In the Chicago area council we have woman SM, CC and so on.

In our troop we require every leader to go thru leader training not just the fast start training in order to go camping with the troop.

We have woman leaders in our troop but they dont have the full leader training required for them to go camping with the boys.

If they did have the training I dont see any reason not to let them go.

As far as your sons troop goes I think that your troop Committee is afraid to say anything to your SM. May it be they dont like the conflict or thinking that the boys all look up to him and if he leaves who will step up and take over it is a big responsibility to run a troop & how many boys will leave if he steps down.

I think if you take the time to get fully trained he couldnt say no to you.

If he does you can go to your Council office about it. Telling them that you have the training to lead the boys.

If you do something like this you & your husband have a choice to go to every troop outing with your son or to find a New Troop that doesnt thinks it should be all men.

 

Mr Maynard

 

[gwd-scouter]

Sure is nice to hear so many of you support women in Scouting - at every level. A little less than a year ago I took over as SM of our Troop. None of the male leaders were willing to take the job and I didn't want to see the Troop fold.

 

The result of the announcement that I was the new Scoutmaster was as I expected, and similar to what some of you have said. 3 Scouts quit outright and joined another Troop (interesting to note that 2 of them had quit that Troop years earlier to join our Troop). Couple of leaders left too.

 

Comments were typically - we can't have a girl take us to summer camp, we can't go camping with a girl, etc. etc.

 

Fortunately, I have the support of the remaining leaders and Scouts and those new leaders and Scouts that have joined this past year.

 

For all you moms and ladies in Scouting, keep your spirits up!

 

 

[david14011]

I've been involved in scouting as an adult for a year and a half. I was in scouting for 10 years as a youth. When I returned to scouting after 18 years of inactivity, I never once questioned the presence of women in scouting. I've worked with and respect a female scoutmaster. I recently completed Wood Badge Course NE-IV-175 in the Keystone Council, Pennsylvania. We have 7 patrol members, one of which is female. This just added to the experience. We're like a family now. We are a somewhat diverse patrol. We have a tile salesmen, a carpet installer, a computer systems developer, a naturalist (She's afraid of spiders. Go figure) a retired Colonel, an unemployed truck driver and a Mechanic. Everyone has something to offer scouting.

[SemperParatus]

The resurrection of this thread has me thinking.

 

Does anyone know if there are any female Scout Executives in the US?

[david14011]

In our council we have two female District Executives.

[gwd-scouter]

Some bits of info:

 

1988 - BSA removed all restrictions for women serving in leadership positions.

 

1992 - somewhere close to half million adult leaders in Boy Scout Program: 3000 were female Scouters, and of those, 844 were Scoutmasters

 

In 1992, DesPlaines Valley Council had the first and only Female Scout Executive.

 

 

[david14011]

GWD-Scouter: What's your source for this information? I think It may come in handy.

[gwd-scouter]

Found this website some time ago when I was pondering whether to become the Scoutmaster for our Troop. Wanted some info on women in Scouting. Am still trying to find something more recent.

 

http://users.aol.com/randywoo/bsahis/women.htm

 

Creator of website says info came directly from National, but I haven't actually verified that.

 

Karen

[ScoutNut]

Irene Szinavel became SE of DesPlaines Valley Council in 1995. Ten years later she is still serving as our SE & doing a fine job.

 

 

[EagleInKY]

From the website - "In 1978, .... The Old Kentucky Home Council in Louisville, Kentucky , became the first Council to have a female to serve as a Field Director." I remember her. My parents were involved at the district level. I had no idea she was the first.

[AwHeck]

Somehow I missed this particular statement earlier:

 

Mr.Maynard said "We have woman leaders in our troop but they dont have the full leader training required for them to go camping with the boys.

If they did have the training I dont see any reason not to let them go."

 

Now, while there is the Introduction to Outdoor Leader Skills, I do not see it as a requirement prior to leaders going camping with the boys. Obviously, the more trained leaders the better but we encourage adults who want to work with the boys to participate on every level without having to wait on training. We have one ASM who has been active off-and-on for several years, taken the old ScoutMaster Fundamentals course but was never able to make it to the Outdoors part due to work travel commitments. That certainly didn't prevent him from participating in campouts when he was available.

 

I am the Committee Chair. I am female. I have been through the old Scoutmaster fundamentals (including outdoors), the new NLE and Scoutmaster specific, Troop Committee Challenge, and Wood Badge. I have not gone to the new Outdoors training but I also rarely camp with the troop.

 

Our new scoutmaster is female. When I was looking for a new scoutmaster, we spoke to many adult leaders in the troop, both male and female. I believe we made an excellent choice. We did have one family that objected strenously to a female scoutmaster and another one or two that made mild protests. None have dropped out since her selection was announced almost a year prior to her taking the reins (we allow for plenty of "turn over" wherever possible). While we were still in the deliberation stage, I spoke to several of our older scouts and asked their opinion of a female scoutmaster - none had an issue that they vocalized to me. Prior to taking on the scoutmaster role, she had been serving as our "Life to Eagle Coordinator" which basically meant that she provided the good swift kick when needed and provided advice and assistance to all Life scouts as they progressed to Eagle. Every single Eagle Scout who worked with her came out of the experience with a great respect for her and her skills and knowledge.

[Mr.Maynard]

AwHeck

Let me clarify what I had meant when I stated that no woman go on camp outings with us.

If any leader doesnt have the full leader training that is required by the troop no leader with out the training can go camping with the boys. I didnt mean just the woman!

The woman that we have in our troop that have been there for at least 4 or more years decided not to go to training. (They are just not the camping type)

I know a lot of woman that are CM,SM,CM& CC and praise them for the excellent job that they do in scouting.

 

[gwd-scouter]

Mr. Maynard - your Troop must be blessed with an abundance of leaders. While I think your policy about training and camping has merit, our poor little Troop would never go camping if we had a similar policy. Our Scoutmasters have always had all the required training and have worked hard toward getting our other leaders trained when their schedules permitted. Unfortunately, in our Troop, our leadership has never been consistent and we always seem to be starting over.

[Mr.Maynard]

 

gwd-scouter

Our troop has about 23 leaders and about 43 scouts. We are blessed to have a good group of people to help with the troop our SM is a Chef, we have a sheriff, firemen, I am a drafts man I gave a lot of time & made a knot Book (right & Left Handed) to help the boys. In other words we give a lot to our troop. A lot of time and energy just as everyone does.

This Blue & Gold we have about 13 boys crossing over to the boy scouts and 3 Leaders are coming up with them. They already know about the training that they need in order to go camping with us so they are already signed up for the training.

All of our leaders are invited to the committee meetings that we have so everyone has a say in what goes on with our troop so that no one feels they are not included in what happens with the troop. I think that is why we have such strong leadership.

As every troop we have our disagreements but we deal with them thru the committee meetings and let the committee fix the problem if not we work together to fix the problem.

I think that if our leaders are happy then we have good leadership.

We are planning a leader outing just for the leaders and new leaders that are coming up to the troop so that they can see just how we work as a team and do everything we can to help each other with what ever is needed.

We do this so the new leaders have the opportunity to ask questions about what ever they like. I think that is the reason why we have such a strong leadership.

 

[gwd-scouter]

Mr. Maynard - congratulations to you, your leaders and Scouts on such a successful troop. Our Troop is very young and over it's 7 years has had a succession of SM and other leaders. I am hoping that one day we too will be blessed to have so many Scouts and Leaders who are committed to the program and work hard to see it succeed.