Girls under 18 serving on camp staff ?

[John-in-KC]

ScoutNut,

 

Our Council uses a 4 tiered scale:

 

Instructor (Under 18 years old), has 1-3 steps depending on YOS.

Counselor (18 and over), has 3 steps.

Assistant Director (requiring NCS training), 18 and over, I think has two steps

Area Director (requiring NCS training), 21 and over, I think these are negotiated a bit more directly.

 

Program Director and Camp Director are negotiated individually.

 

There are other elements of the scale, but they are specialist positions... maintenance, chaplains and such.

 

Gender does not matter on the scale, but in order to attract enough guys, Council would have to raise rates across the board to get the applicants deep enough that there'd be no reason to look at women.

 

Right now, the simple fact is there are not enough well-qualified men to fill all the spaces. Does that make more sense?

 

[desertrat77]

IM Kathy is right.

 

Professional, scout-like behavior transcends gender.

 

The BSA scout oath and law can be followed by males and females.

 

[Proud Eagle]

If you have an active and involved female youth Venturer or Sea Scout, and who can make a real contribution to the camp, and you have the facilities and adult leadership to handle housing and supervision of female youth, then go ahaed, but keep in mind that neither Venturing nor Sea Scouting is the same as Boy Scouts and thus there will be a learning curve.

 

We have had good results with a few female youth who were very active Venturers in a crew that was very high adventure and aquatics oriented. The two I am thinking of both went on to earn the Quartermaster and I think also the Silver Award. Also both were at least 16 when we signed them on, so they were experienced in a similar setting by that age, knew the skills we needed them to teach, and had a level of maturity that prevented any problems.

 

However, when we have hired female youth who were not active in Scouting for something even as seemingly mundane as the camp store, that has brought very bad results. I would not at all be in favor of hiring female youth off the street.

 

(Daughters in very Scouting oriented familes can work out OK sometimes, too, but not always.)

 

Also, while I am will to make exceptions, if your camp is running a Boy Scout resident program, you should think about what the guidelines and age limits are in that particular program for both membership and leadership. As a general matter a camp that only runs a Boy Scout program (no Venturing, Sea Scouting, or Cub Scout programs) should mostly target either youth members of the Boy Scout program, adult leaders in the Boy Scout program, and such other individuals as would be suitable adults for a Boy Scout program to be your staff. (We have had rather mixed results with male youth not involved in Scouting, some good, some bad, and we have found that while exceptions may be justified, it is generally a bad idea to have any non Scouting youth as staff.)

 

I should note I would not be in favor of hiring any first or second year Scout as staff even if they were old enough, nor would I be in favor of hiring a first year Venturer on staff. It takes time to get this Scouting stuff figured out.

[jhankins]

Our camp staff certainly isn't paid what I've seen mentioned here, and room and board comes out of the pay, so some staffers only make $50 a week.

 

If there is adequate supervision, disclosed rules and regulations, and it's not an affirmative action campaign to have female youth on staff, I'm all for it.

 

From what I've seen at our local camps, though, I wouldn't trust any young lady I know to be at camp without better supervision.

[Proud Eagle]

The low dollar pay being reported for some camps offends me.

 

Our own council pays what we feel is a terribly low wage, but it is the best we can do. We did make a major effort to increase the pay for all members of our staff several years ago during a leadership change. Basically we tought it was unethical to pay the rate that had been going, and further we figured if someone wasn't going to give us at least our new minimum

plus room and board worth of value we shouldn't have them on staff in the first place. At the time we selected $100 per week plus room and board and free program experiences as a base for even our most junior staff members. Before that some made much less than that. Now we have managed to have that continue upward a bit. The next big pay challenge is compensating senior supervisors and special skills adult staffers at an appropriate level since those have largely been stagnant for several years.

 

I should not we are a council with very limited resources. We are in an area where Scouting is often a signficatn expense for families, camperships are frequent, teens working summers is common, etc. We wish we could provide a scholarship fund for our staffers, but the truth is our council struggles just to keep the lights on and make payroll, and the camp is lucky to be able to afford to keep up on minimal maintanence. Yet we considered it a matter of values and honor to do our best to improve staff pay across the board.

[Eagle007]

Proud Eagle, I'm not sure how many years your council has been unable to make ends meet for your summer camp staff but it seems this economy has a lot to do with it. The BSA is just another organization that is struggling in the huge melting pot of society. When dollars are tight, it seems as if the non-profits suffer the most.

[desertrat77]

Proud Eagle, I understand your point of view. As a youth in the '70s, I worked as a staffer for three summers at a camp in AK--it too had very limited resources. (Interesting because the rest of the state was booming because of oil, but those dollars hadn't flowed to the BSA).

 

Pay was low (twenty five dollars a week starting pay, increased by ten dollars a week for each year you were hired back) and we received room (WWII pyramid tent) and board (good fare).

 

The key was recruiting. The staff was small and it was considered an honor to serve. I think most of the staffers would have served for room and board only if need be.

 

The experiences and memories of those summers are powerful to this day.

 

I think it's great to pay staffers well if the council can afford it. Not all can do that. Then it becomes a matter of service, and there are seasoned scouts willing to do that.

 

True, the challenge comes to pay qualified adults for specialized positions. At our camp, active duty soldiers were detailed to camp for two weeks at a time to run the rifle range. One of the DEs closed up his office in town and ran the waterfront. The camp director was a school teacher who was paid to run the camp during the summer. Perhaps those were simpler times but it worked well.

[jhankins]

I like the idea of our military men and women assisting on the ranges! Temporary duty is common for scouting events in my neck of the woods (leaders being sent as part of their work to camp), but it's an under utilized resource for more than that.

[Eagle92]

J',

 

Just don't let the active duty folks, or the Reservists and Guardsman for that matter, who get TDY play with their HMMWV in the wilderness area of the camp, as the HMMWV may flip over and ruts are not LNT friendly.

 

Seriously though having TDY folks is a blessing. They have huge amounts of experience, the kids listen to them better (some worship the ground they walk on in my expereince), and they cost the council only room and board.

[acco40]

Let me ramble on a bit please.

 

1) My first summer camp I was an inexperienced SA, who's oldest son, a Star Scout, was going through his second summer camp. Well, here I am in my mid-forty's, middle age physique, etc. getting ready to take my swim test in the lake. I'm surprised to see a very attractive, blonde, female (guessing around 18) as my instructor. Well, the male ego has to show that this SA doesn't tire, can swim perfectly, etc. Needless to say, I had no problem passing the test but yes, the last few yards I did have to catch my breath (pacing was horrible on my part). So having female staff can be dangerous - but not the fault of the female staff.

 

2) We've attended the DIBC (Dorchester International Brotherhood Camporee) in London, Ontario numerous times. The ratio is about 50/50 with Scouts Canada and the BSA participants. Scouts Canada is 100% co-ed and that comes to a shock for those who are not used to it - like the 15-17 year old BSA scouts! They acted like star struck puppies! I had to chuckle. Their behavior was exemplary and I've never seen the eleventh point of the Scout Law adhered to so stridently.

 

3) As for using our service men and women as "staff" - I'd love it! Keep in mind that many of the soldiers are only of few years older than the Scouts. Also, keep in mind that they belong to an organisation, the US Army for example, that doesn't exactly have YPT, discipline and other such things as the BSA. Their training techniques are a little different that what is used by the BSA. The Scouts know full well that I, as Scoutmaster, is not exactly someone to be feared such as a high school assistant principal (or was that only 40 yrs ago when I was in school?), drill sargeant, commanding officer, etc. I never grinned so broadly when at the National Jamboree in 2005, I politely asked a group of Scouts (who did not know me from Adam) to move over to the right side of the road. They all mumbled something under their breath and meandered about a foot more to the right for a couple of yards but then meandered back taking up 90% of the path. Well about a quarter of a mile further a young private, in uniform, with an M16 rifle on his shoulder, shouted out to the boys, not with profanity but close, something like You pukes get the hell over now, you are blocking traffic! Well it got their attention. (This message has been edited by acco40)

[Mr. Boyce]

As a group, teen girls tend to be better organized and more motivated to act like adults than teen boys.

 

The results are pretty easy to see. It takes boys a while to catch up, to get their act together.

 

In terms of summer camp, I'd say why not hire boys rather than girls; find a space for them to learn to become more adult?

[Tampa Turtle]

At Camp Woodruff there were some outstanding teenage girls as instructors; the young lady doing Bird Study was wonderful in her enthusiasm. One was a lifeguard who was greated by shouts of "Hey, Good looking Girl!" everytime our Troop marched past. I needed a whip.

[5scoutmom]

Our summer camp has a female director this; last year and for several years prior, she was an area director. Her HS senior niece is at camp this year and will be in the same area as my HS junior son; they were both at camp last year. A 15 year old girl who is the sister of a scout will be on staff as well this year. Some of our med people are female as well.

 

I think that if females are staffing the waterfront, they should be required to wear a certain type of bathing suit that is appropriate and docked pay or fired if they don't. I believe the camp has the right to require that.

[shortridge]

5scoutmom,

 

The camp where I worked had a rule of only one-piece swimsuits, which applied to staff, leaders and parents. (We had both Boy Scout and Cub Scout sessions, so there were plenty of parents along during the latter part of the summer.) Never had any problems.

[Mr. Boyce]

I just finished reading Michael Gurian's book on the Mind of Boys. It's important to point out, as above, that, generally speaking girls can blow away the boys at this age in any test of personal responsibility and social skill.

 

So the boys have a disadvantage; why not hire boys so that their summer camp experience benefits their maturation process?

 

Nothing against girls, at all; but just some discernment about the value of it all.