Venture Crew... w/ or w/o Girls? What's your take??

[Joni4TA]

They're allowed... but what's the general opinion? I have a Venture Crew Advisor that doesn't want girls to be involved, especially when it comes to overnighters, camping and high adventure stuff... how would you work with this to allow some girl participation?

[Bob White]

What are the wishes of the Charter Organization? They sponsor the program to meet their goals, not the goals of the Advisor.

 

Bob White

[Joni4TA]

Good Question BW! I had not thought to find out. I will have to find out who the CO is and go from there I suppose. I was hoping for some advice on trying to convince the Advisor that "GIRLS" don't really have any COOTIES! :-)

[OldGreyEagle]

I come from a Venture Crew that ::GASP:: has girls !!!

 

As you peruse this forum you may come across Outdoor Thinker, she is from the crew. She was Scoutcraft Director at our Summer Camp last summer ::Hums:: "On the banks of old Stillwater..." As such she lead two "outposts" (away from camp) a week. One was wilderness survival and the other was the canoe outpost. Recently our crew went back packing to the New Jersey Pine Barrens. Outdoor Thinker was accompanied by two fellow sister crew membes and my son. The girls did GREAT, as they always do.

 

The only real issue is female leadership, you have to have a female over 21 on all over nighters and thats where we scramble, but then we have taken to during joint trips with another crew that has a female advisor but not mamny members. We provide logistics, they supply the female, its win-win.

 

Now, if your guy wont take girls, heck, start your own crew, co-ed if you want, but to really wrankle him, do a all female crew and develop a program that will turn the boys as green as their shirts.

 

 

[buffalo2]

Coed Crews are the only way to go - raises things to a whole new level. With that said, finding female Advisors can be a struggle and incorporating youth new to the Scouting program as teens will make you work as well. But all the good things that you're working for in Scouting are in Venturing as well, and on a larger scale!

[Campaholic]

Being a girl crew member, I would have to agree it's the only way to go, thank you buffalo2. I'm not sure what your advisors reasons for not wanting girls is, but I am kind of interested, so if you find out, post it. One of the hardest things that we run across is finding a female chaperone. Some co-ed crews have female advisors, however, ours does not, so we kind of struggle. We've recently starting doing activities with another crew that has a female advisor, so it solves our problems a bit.

 

Some positive things to tell your advisor is, it allows some of the guys to feel like they're older and more trustworthy. I mean, I don't know how old you are, but sometimes leaders want to shelter their boys (and girl scouts leaders do the same) but it's a really good life experience to have boys and girls work together on challenges.

It allows both girls and boys to better understand each other...and that may sound odd, but our crew was originally composed of members of a boy scout troop and members of a girl scout troop and although I have a better understanding of the Boy Scouts and the guys in our crew are trying very hard to understand, it let's us see into the other organizations.

It's possible that all the people in your Venture Crew would be coming from your troop that you already have set up...a good point would be that you have already done so much with those people. Adding some girls in the mix would allow you to do some different team building things.

I'm sure there's several more I could think of that just aren't coming to me right now.

 

I have to say that I've had nothing but positive experiences in my co-ed crew. If that's what you think you want,remind your leader Venture Crew's are supposed to be "Youth Run" organizations and he needs to keep that in mind. I hope I was helpful.

[OldGreyEagle]

Ah, Campaholic, you wouldn't happen to be president of your crew would you and be Vice-President of the Councils Venture Youth Organization and sister crew member of Outdoor Thinker would you? Your experiences sure sound familiar, like I have lived them

[Campaholic]

Nope, not sure who you're talking about...maybe OutdoorThinkers Crew has similar issues...

[Fat Old Guy]

There's really only one reason to have or not have girls involved and that is because the members want it that way.

 

I don't know why our society is so intent on thrusting women into every thing that men or boys do. Women go to court to get into men's clubs but I have yet to see a man suing to get into a women's club. Okay, the parents of a boy did sue Campfire to get him admitted but that was 30 years ago.

 

I don't know if I would have wanted to go camping with girls when I was 14. At 18, I know that I wouldn't have wanted it: wake up in the morning with bed hair and nasty breath and then have to face a GIRL. Argh!

 

I know of an all girl crew in my area and I never hear anyone saying, "You should have guys in your crew." They opted to not recruit guys and that's that.

 

Looking back at my church youth group which was co-ed, it was a miniature soap opera.

[OutdoorThinker]

Ultimately it's up to your charter organization, but we've got a coed crew and although we've had some rocky moments we've really gotten the coed thing down. It's been a wild ride, but truly awesome.

 

As OGE and Campaholic have mentioned, we've had some trouble with female adult leadership, but we always have an adult female chaperone before going on a trip -- only a few trips in our early days were cancelled.

 

The girls in the crew, myself included are really enthusiastic about being part of the boy scouting and having the oppertunity to help shape the newer program.

 

The guys and girls in our crew have gotten to be a very tight knit family -- I consider YoungSpikedEagle to be like a second younger brother. Very little soap opera drama.

 

For FOG, upon waking up at a camping event we girls wake up with bedhead and nasty breath too. We usually remedy it with a baseball cap or bandana and some teeth brushing. Most of the time we're still not awake enough to even notice that the guys are in the same disheveled state that we are in.

 

I think the coed Venturing program is a unique oppertunity. It's really changed the last few years of my life for the better.

[Fat Old Guy]

"I think the coed Venturing program is a unique oppertunity."

 

Of course you do. In case you haven't noticed, you are a girl.

[OldGreyEagle]

FOG, I dont know where you live, but you should visit Bethlehem, PA some time. Down close to the center of town is a very old cemetary known as God's half acre, its where the original founders of Bethlehem are buried. Also there is the grave for a native american said to be the model for Chingachgook in James Fenimore Cooper's Last of the Mohicans. But thats not the best part. The original founders of Bethlehem were Moravians and the cemetary follows the practice of the day, all the males are buried on one side of the plot, all the females on the other side, with a main walkway separating them.

[OutdoorThinker]

FOG: Thanks for the reminder. I think it's equally a unique oppertunity for the guys of the crew. They have the chance of partaking in high adventure (or whatever their specific theme is) with their peers...peers of both gender. Boy Scouting of America thinks it was worth trying and it's been successful. Whether you have an oppertunity to work with a coed crew or a single gendered crew, there are girls in American Boy Scouting now. Get used to it! Are we really that big of a threat? And if the guys are uncomfortable with it, they can a) stay with the troop or b) talk to their charter organization.

 

OGE: I'm gonna footnote your history lesson. (Sorry) Yes, the women and the men are segregated in God's Acre. Moravians lived their life communially, therefore everything was done segregated, well the married people lived together, but young women and young men grew up in different houses -- the concept was to build Bethlehem up as a missionary hub in the mid 1700s and shortly after the Rev War, the communal living style was forgone. HOWEVER the truly noteworthy point about God's Acre is that ALL of the tombstones are flat --- Moravians believe that ALL people regardless of gender, class, race are equal in the eyes of god, not only in life but also in death.

[Eamonn]

Reading about the cemetery in Bethlehem reminded me of the church in Rossin near Slane in Ireland that I used to attend as a child and do still visit when I'm over there.

Sunday mornings were chaotic.

The entire house at my Grandparents would be trying to get ready for church.

This was at a time when men wore suits to church and the women wore their Sunday hat.

There had been a lot of activity before this. Cows needed milked, hens had to be let out of the hen house and eggs collected. All the stuff that goes on at a small farm.

It was also a time when being late was totally wrong.

I had the misfortune of having "Sticky-upey-hair. While the ads on this side of the pond said that a little dab will do you.My uncles were more in the big glob will do better.

We would arrive at the church a few minutes early. The women would all go to one side of the church and us "Men" would all go to the other.

It was never that way in the church where I went in England.

After the service the women would rush home to prepare lunch and us men would stop at the local bar. I would be treated to a glass of orange pop and a bag of crisps.(Chips.) And the men would talk about farming, the cost of feed and cattle.

Then it was off home for lunch.

Still back to the topic.

I think that most of us have to agree that the females in Scouting have done and do a wonderful job.

If we look at the mission of Scouting we really need to ensure that everyone is working at learning respect for each other.

Coed Crews can and do go a long way to promote this.

I have a 15 year old and all his best friends are of the female variety. So I would hope that as an organization we can help provide all our youth with a meaningful and worthwhile program.

Eamonn

[andrewcanoe]

At the risk of sounding sexist or even stupid, Perhaps the advisor in the crew Joni wants to join has been unable to find a female advisor or feels uneasy having young women along and does'nt think HE could handle the added challenge he thinks would come with female members. It is also posible that the crew is against female members because of their(the crew members) insecurities. Not all male are as open minded as FOG and the members of OutdoorThinker's crew.

 

Personally I think the crew is the one missing out. Joni should organize her own co-ed crew and shine the pants off of the crew that won't let her join. Revenge is sweet.