So What if Girls joined, The changes to the BSA

[desertrat77]

The BSA would clearly benefit from going coed.

 

More scouts, more volunteers, more resources. New life to an organization that has slowly become hidebound over the last couple decades.(This message has been edited by desertrat77)

[SeattlePioneer]

The Chartered Organization for my Pack is a Catholic Church. It's not an issue for the school districts I deal with.

 

Being able to invite girls and boys to a common recruiting night would be a plus. As a practical matter our Cub Pack has almost no references to Christianity. I'm not familiar with AHG materials, but I imagine the same thing would be followed as far as program goes anyway.

 

I see no reason the two programs couldn't be run by a common committee approved by the Chartered Organization.

[WAKWIB]

Basement asks: What changes?

A somewhat bigger committment to supervision would be one. I realize that, as a rule, Venturing crews have been pretty good at policing themselves and holding their own accountable for behavior between the guys and gals. This would be a whole lot different with the middle-school crowd. If you have a co-ed Scout troop on a campout and especially at summer camp, you better recruit some leaders that are used to working the grave-yard shift.

For the 11-17 program, I don't think there would be a lot of changes. The girls can and should learn the skills and activities the boys do.

Facilities at some camps will likely need an overhaul. Most shower/restroom stuff has been upgraded over the last 20 plus years for the inclusion of adult females and to insure youth/adult privacy, but they may need even more improvements with a large influx a girl campers.

Finally, we all know "helicopter parents." That phenomena may increase with the girls joining. The helicopter of the "father- of-only-dear-daughter" class will be most interesting.

[Cambridgeskip]

You'll tend to find that for the cub programme having girls will make no difference to how thongs work at all. At that age there is very little difference to their physical strength or maturity.

 

At scout age it is different but not unmanageable. Girls typically hit puberty a good year or two before boys and so when you get to age 12 or 13 girls are typically taller, stronger and more mature. By the time you get to 15 or 16 though the situation has typically reversed.

 

You get different things from them as well. I find that the boys tend to be better at inspiring others, of standing up and being counted when things aren't great. It's raining, you're trying to strike camp, it will be the boys who are better at getting stuck in to getting it all tidied up. Or at coming up with programme ideas. The girls on the other hand will tend to be more organised, when you are striking camp the are better at having packed their kit the night before or for actually being able to implement programme ideas.

 

You also get a certain type of girl that wants to go to scouts rather than girl scouts/guides. It's best summed up by the fact that about 18 months ago we had a joint wide games and camp fire night with the girl guides that use our HQ. Their girls typically had pink wooly hats and floral pattered gloves and purple wellies with pretty patterns on. Our girls typically had walking boots and gore tex water proofs and not a hint of pink it sight!

 

Most of the more practical issues that a lot of folks imagined when scouting went mixed in the UK simply never materialised. We keep a supply of sanitary towels in the our HQ and on camp for if the girls forget or get caught out, they know where they are and look after themselves. We have separate tents for boys and girls most of the time and the kids respect that. And scouting has not been overwhelmed with girls, nationally it is about 15% girls.

[Kahuna]

G2SS would expand exponentially. Bigger than a New York phone book.

[packsaddle]

SeattlePioneer, please...if you're going to quote someone, actually quote them.

What Cambridgeskip wrote was, "You'll tend to find that for the cub programme having girls will make no difference to how thongs work at all."

By changing his words and then putting them in quotes, you have completely changed the content and misrepresented what he wrote. While 'thongs' ARE 'things', it is clear that the reverse is much 'broader' and I will add, to Cambridgeskip now, that I happen to agree completely...that thing about thongs, lol. Those thong things will work the same no matter what. And I fervently hope that in our zeal to ban fat persons from scouting (you know, that OTHER thread in this forum), this topic never arises in the discussion...ever.

 

Scoutfish, I know you're tempted...no photos, please, in the Facebook group...please.

On the other hand and in fact, I have to thank you, Cambridgeskip, for making my day with your observation just now. You have an interesting mind.(This message has been edited by packsaddle)

[SeattlePioneer]

As I've noted before, I'm currently interested in adding an American Heritage Girl unit alongside the current Cub Scout Pack and managed by a common committee in the interest of both units.

 

That would provide a program for girls in addition to the current Cub Scout program for boys.

 

One advantage of this is that it's practical to do NOW.

 

Another is that having a separate programs aimed at girls and boys seems like a superior method to a single program that combines girls and boys, with program compromises that don't serve either in an optimum fashion.

 

Why change to a less than optimum method when the optimum method can be implemented now?

[packsaddle]

No reason at all. So stop wasting time talking about it and DO it already. Best of luck to you.

[Cambridgeskip]

"I have to thank you, Cambridgeskip, for making my day with your observation just now. You have an interesting mind."

 

*Takes a little bow and blames the Olympic Beach Volley Ball"

 

Seattle Pioneer - I think we agree with each to a certain extent. Boys and girls are generally different but not exclusively so which is why the majority of girls still want to go to Girl Guides in the UK and I suspect if BSA ever went Coed would still want to go to Girl Scouts in the USA. The answer could of course be for Girl Guides and Girl Scouts on both sides of the pond to offer a more adventurous programme. It just so happens that on our side the answer was for scouts to accept that minority of girls who wanted to sign up.

 

In terms of cub leadership I think that actually a mix of men and women works best because they bring different things to the programme. It's great having a man to show cubs how to use a soldering iron (incidentally get hold of some LEDs, some 9v batteries and some solder and making flashing Christmas cards is a great craft activity that goes down a treat with everyone from 6year old beavers to 18 year old explorer scouts) but equally having that mum figure for when you've been on camp 3 or 4 nights and an 8 year old is starting to wilt a bit is also great. (And yes I know, a woman can also use a soldering iron and a man can also do the TLC bit but I'm generalising here)

 

In wanting to offer an AHG programme alongside scouts you are in some ways using the option we have over here which is you can offer separate boy and girl programmes at a group if you wish. This is generally offered at groups attached to Mosques and Synagogues which are the minority but does exist. If you do get it going I'd be interested to see how it works.

[SeattlePioneer]

Hello Packsaddle,

 

 

Too busy this year. My emphasis is on recruiting Latino families during the next year to see if I can make that program work.

 

Maybe next year for adding an AHG unit to the existing Cub Pack. I'm sure there is more to learn about doing that in any case.

 

I started investigating methods of recruiting more Latino families about October, 2010, so it's taken me close to two years to figure out promising methods to do that task.

 

Better to carefully think about methods, ways and means and have a well planned program tends to be my bias.

[acco40]

DeanRx - I've attended the Dorchester International Brotherhood Camporee in London, Ontario (Canada for those geographically challenged) quite a few times. Scouts Canada is fully co-ed. I had lengthy talks with the Scout leaders of Scouts Canada about the pros & cons most were somewhat ambivalent about it. The biggest negative was the need to have female adults on outings - not that having them was a bad idea, getting them was problematic.

 

I know the membership at the Boy Scout level was about 55% female, 45% female from the attendance by my guess Scouts Canada is for youth 5 -26, Beavers (5-7), Cubs (8-10), Scouts (11-14/16), Venturer (14-17), Rover (18-26). At the DIBC, most were Scouts & Venturers about 13-17 years in age. Believe me, the female Scouts in the presence of my troop made a huge difference (positive) in the behavior of the older Scouts (15 and above). For the younger boys, it was of no impact at all.

[Fehler]

Logistically, it would simplify things for parents (wouldn't have to remember which night is Cub Scout Night and which is Girl Scout Night). One activity for siblings would lead to better access to parent volunteers, since they wouldn't have to split their time.

 

But it'd be a turn off for some. Some parents, like myself, want something that is "just for boys" and "just for girls". We see in school that boys and girls are different, trying to shoehorn them into the same program isn't what a lot of parents want. All-boy is a selling point, not a liability.

 

If the BSA wanted to go co-ed, I would hope that they would leave it up to local units to decide whether to be co-ed, all boys, or even all-girls (with a requirement of having at least one all-boy, all-girl, and a co-ed unit at each level in every district.)

[Cambridgeskip]

Acco 40 Re: your observation on percentages boys and girls in Canada, was that based just on that event or more widely?

 

It's interesting because my experience with coed scouting is that girls tend to favour less frequent but longer camp where as boys tend to prefer more regular shorter trips. If that is something that goes wider than just my troop it might be why you saw so many girls at an event like that.

[SeattlePioneer]

>

 

 

I've proposed having an AHG unit for girls and a Cub Scout unit for boys managed by a common committee and running separate programs, probably in the same church parish hall. Would that still meet your preference for having separate programs for girls and boys?

 

I'm supposing that the program material could be shared between units when appropriate and have different programs when desired.

[frank10]

Lets be honest with ourselves, the reason we want to include our daughters in the program is because most GSUSA units suck. But here's the rub, how do we include the girls but keep the suck out of our program? Won't their leaders just come over with them? How do we keep the program aggressive and avoid adopting the snack and a craft attitude that is pervasive in the GS programs?

Face it, the reason cubs works is because we want it to work and make it work. No one would come shut your unit down if you held your meetings indoors and never went on a single trip... No one except the boys and their families making a line for the door like some one pulled the fire alarm.