Boy Dens - Girl Dens

[JosephMD]

Since next year packs will be able to have both boy and girl dens, but not mixed gender.  I'm wondering what kind of pressure that will put on the volunteers.

 

If this goes as intended, it should double the number of dens in each pack - siblings will likely dominate, and their active volunteer parents are already doing it.  Expanding to non legacy scouts with no boys in the family isn't likely to yield additional den leaders for some time.

 

I'm afraid it will be hard to implement.

[numbersnerd]

Put me in the "I'll believe it when I see it" group.

Every family that wants to have a girl join should be given a packet with both Youth and Adult apps. That should get the message across. If you want her in, you are in, too.

I would be willing to bet that of the few that express interest, fewer than half will step up to the plate and contribute.

 

Some may think that's harsh, but when we already have problems getting enough volunteers, that may be the only way to get enough on board. And even then I'm skeptical.

[RememberSchiff]

Well what were results of the pilot programs prior to this decision?

 

[Snow Owl]

Put me in the "I'll believe it when I see it" group.

Every family that wants to have a girl join should be given a packet with both Youth and Adult apps. That should get the message across. If you want her in, you are in, too.

I would be willing to bet that of the few that express interest, fewer than half will step up to the plate and contribute.

 

Some may think that's harsh, but when we already have problems getting enough volunteers, that may be the only way to get enough on board. And even then I'm skeptical.

 

We do that for the boys now   It is not difficult to get youth to sign up, it's getting the adults you need that is the real issue.

[rfd536]

You will have separate dens on paper and co-ed dens in real life.  The reality is even if a pack wanted to keep them separate, some meeting places are not big enough to accommodate 10-12 separate den meetings at a time.  The pack we were in already takes up all available rooms with 2 dens sharing the cafeteria area at times.  

[Snow Owl]

We have had girls in our dens for a couple of years now, the only change for us will be we now turn an application in to council.  We have had zero problems with "coed" dens.  There are many units nationwide for a number of years that have either been part of the some pilot program or just doing it in full sight of their prospective councils and national.

 

National nor council tracks anything related to dens or patrols for that matter.

Edited October 11, 2017 by Snow Owl

[fred johnson]

Even if the program is designed with boys-only and girls-only dens, I could easily see packs have the same adult leader for both the same rank boy and girl dens.  You can say "single gender" dens, but it can't be enforced.  What I see is you will have "den 2" girls and "den 2" boys ... meeting at the same time ... doing the same things.  

[Cleveland Rocks]

You will have separate dens on paper and co-ed dens in real life.  The reality is even if a pack wanted to keep them separate, some meeting places are not big enough to accommodate 10-12 separate den meetings at a time.  The pack we were in already takes up all available rooms with 2 dens sharing the cafeteria area at times.  

 

There's no rule that says that dens have to all meet together. The Pack that's part of our Troop's CO has their dens all meeting on different days, times and places.

[Hawkwin]

We have had girls in our dens for a couple of years now, the only change for us will be we now turn an application in to council.  We have had zero problems with "coed" dens.  There are many units nationwide for a number of years that have either been part of the some pilot program or just doing it in full sight of their prospective councils and national.

 

National nor council tracks anything related to dens or patrols for that matter.

 

Hey Snow, it would likely be a huge benefit to all of us if you could make a few posts on how your local org has been doing this for years. Some of the pros and cons, anything you do differently, pitfalls, successes, etc.

 

Those of us that really want to make this work could immensely benefit from your shared experience.

[qwazse]

Instead of a DL+ADL model, concerned packs in an approving CO will register a DL_boys+DL_girls model. The two dens will happen to meet at the same time and same location. No way BSA is going to cross the CO boundary to encourage anything different.

[Snow Owl]

We had originally asked the Scouts from the various levels of the dens if they had an issue with the girls being Scouts. We did not ask it as direct as that but their response was confusion.  They could not understand why they were not already in the Pack.  They saw the difference between Cub Scouts and Brownies/girl Scouts as "Cub Scout go camping, girl Scouts sell cookie"  Not my works, Scouts honor.

 

We originally were going to have a girl den for all the girls called the Fox Den, we learn combining the ages did not work and we did not have enough girls or leaders to make separate girl dens at each level so we just put them in the mix.

 

We treated them the same as the boys, they did all the den activities and pack activities just like the boys.  We encourage all parents to become leaders and we really encouraged the girl cubs parents to become leaders; some did.  We already had/have female leaders so it was not a gender issue.

 

We were careful to not step on the toes of the girl scouts at our School so we never actively recruited, we just said we were open to youth 1st grade through 5th and no longer turned anyone away.  We expect now to have many more

 

We camp often and it is family camping so the families are responsible for their own children and scouts do not share tents so we did nothing different at campouts either. 

 

Even things like the buddy system were the same unless they were walking to the bathroom or showers then it either had to be two girls or an adult with a girl and boy.   In our Pack of 100+ Scouts we have only had a few girls each year so far - we did not seek them we just did not turn them away. 

 

We would award them patches and rank patches etc.  The only issue we had was uniforms.  We had a tie dye shirt made, intending it to be for the girls only, well all the Scouts wanted them so everyone has a tie-dye class B and the girls still have no uniform.  We were always very open about everything we were doing, both to the council and especially the parents.  The parents knew their child was not full BSA members so there was some dissatisfaction from the parents - not toward us but council.  That issue should be gone very soon too now.

 

We stumbled into allowing girls a few years ago when a girl came up with one of our scouts and asked if she could join, we though she was his sister so we said yes you can come to everything your brother does. She said no, I'm his friend.  We said yes and decided to see how it went.  It was much easier than we ever thought it would be.

 

There were no issues with the girls doing the program, there were no issues between the boys and girls.  I think the younger scouts are easy the boy scout age will be much more difficult but I think still easier than people think.

[HoLLyWood]

First, if we are all honest, we know this is all about money.  The last three decisions only accelerated the problems that scouting has had over the past few decades.  My question for Cub Scouts and probably in two years for Boy Scouts, is how do you handle district and council events. Do you have a separate event for all boy units and a separate event for mixed units? Our CO units will definitely remain all boy units as we are about helping boys grow into Godly manhood.  We definitely would not go to a Cub or Boy Scout event that included girls in close proximity to boys in a camping situation. You are only asking for trouble.

[RememberSchiff]

@@HoLLyWood welcome to scouter.com

[Snow Owl]

We have been going to district and council events for years with the Cubs that had significant numbers of sibling girls participating in all activities.  The last two years of Summer camp and winter camp for the Scout had venture crew girls and female staff.  I don't see that anything will need to change much.  Except attitudes perhaps.

 

I have not seen a cub scout event in the last 6 years that did not have sibling sisters participating and camping. 

 

There will be hiccups but I thing we will be stronger when this is all done.

[Cubmaster Pete]

There will be hiccups but I thing we will be stronger when this is all done.

 

Agreed. Change is scary, and I see both sides of this issue. I think most of the negativity is because its human nature to resist change, and thats ok.

 

There will be those who refuse to change, and with a local option they can go that route. Some will decide to leave.

 

So be it.

 

Thanks for your input Snow. Glad to see one who is making it work with good results.

Edited October 12, 2017 by Cubmaster Pete