NBC-WSJ Poll on BSA 10/11 decision

[SSScout]

1)   The girls that want to go hiking and camping and get dirty will vote with their parent's feet.

2)  The girls that can't live without a hair drier will vote with their extension cords.

3) GSUSA last month announced their opinion that the BSA was "poaching" on their territory and that the BSA was only interested in more membership /money (as if the GSUSA doesn't have the same trouble).  I doubt if allowing females will solve any membership number problem.  Can boys (or would they want to) join GSUSA?

4)  The majority of the WOSM is already fully gender neutral.  The nations that aren't, aren't.   

5) The COs that do not want cooties, er, females in their Cub Dens, Boy Patrols, Venture Crews, Explorer Posts, Scout Ships  can organize mono-gender Dens/Patrols/Crews/Posts/Ships if they want.   Such is allowed, just as mono-faith units are allowed,  

6)   It's about time.

7)   Women have had the vote and politicians are still not trusted. Women have legally equal access to athletic venues/equipment and team sports, and the Packers are still in business. Women learned to weld/rivet/build/fly bombers and we won WW2 but still have not eliminated war.  How has the world changed?

8) It has been noted that boys and girls learn at different rates, at different ages, mature differently. So? 

9)  Such Scout action has already been in place in many units around the country, only not "officially".   So the experiments have been done.  The world still spins on it's axis, the IRS still goes after scoff-laws and my well hasn't gone dry yet.   

 

See you on the trail.....

[NJCubScouter]

Russia.

 

Some of them, yes.

[Hawkwin]

I’ve asked this before but why can’t scouting do their own survey?

 

I've worked for a non-profit member organization decades ago and one of my roles was member surveys. We ALWAYS outsourced that function as you want a company that does that and nothing else. Wording of a survey can change the results so you want experts to do that. The order of the questions can change the results, again, you want experts. If you want to survey more than just your members, then you need a company that has access to existing lists of people based on the demographics you want to survey - again you will want experts to do that for you.

 

And lastly, you really don't want people like me (someone that was an employee at the time), that might have a bias toward one result or the other, designing the survey. You want an unbiased expert company (assuming you want good data and not just confirmation of your opinion) to run the survey.

 

This is why very few entities do their own survey.

[walk in the woods]

1)   The girls that want to go hiking and camping and get dirty will vote with their parent's feet.

2)  The girls that can't live without a hair drier will vote with their extension cords.

 

I think you're trying to say it won't impact the BSA.  However, my CO formed a Venturing Crew a few years back, they never camped anywhere that didn't have a flush toilet.  Why, because the girls and women leaders wanted it that way.  I had a woman in my Woodbadge patrol, very in favor of co-ed scouting, who brought a hair dryer to Woodbadge.  If you are saying girls who can't live without a hair drier will vote for GSUSA, I'd say you're incorrect.

 

3) GSUSA last month announced their opinion that the BSA was "poaching" on their territory and that the BSA was only interested in more membership /money (as if the GSUSA doesn't have the same trouble).  I doubt if allowing females will solve any membership number problem.  Can boys (or would they want to) join GSUSA?

 

4)  The majority of the WOSM is already fully gender neutral.  The nations that aren't, aren't.   

 

Channeling dear old Grandma Walk, "If all your friends jumped off a bridge would you jump too?"

 

5) The COs that do not want cooties, er, females in their Cub Dens, Boy Patrols, Venture Crews, Explorer Posts, Scout Ships  can organize mono-gender Dens/Patrols/Crews/Posts/Ships if they want.   Such is allowed, just as mono-faith units are allowed,  

 

Insults aren't helpful.

 

6)   It's about time.

7)   Women have had the vote and politicians are still not trusted. Women have legally equal access to athletic venues/equipment and team sports, and the Packers are still in business. Women learned to weld/rivet/build/fly bombers and we won WW2 but still have not eliminated war.  How has the world changed?

 

There are more women in college today than men.  More women get degrees than men.  Men die by suicide at a 3.5X clip compared to women.  White males are 7 of 10 (https://afsp.org/about-suicide/suicide-statistics/).  Boys are diagnosed with ADHD at double the rate of girls (http://www.chadd.org/understanding-adhd/about-adhd/data-and-statistics/general-prevalence.aspx) and are medicated into submission for school purposes.  The pendulum has swung past dead center with no signs of slowing down.

 

8) It has been noted that boys and girls learn at different rates, at different ages, mature differently. So?  

 

There was a time that it was recognized boys and girls learn differently and we revamped classroom education completely for the benefit of the girls.  It worked!  See above.  If the attitude is "So?" then why did we change then?

 

9)  Such Scout action has already been in place in many units around the country, only not "officially".   So the experiments have been done.  The world still spins on it's axis, the IRS still goes after scoff-laws and my well hasn't gone dry yet.   

 

Rouge is the new normal.  Should be interesting.  

 

See you on the trail.....

All Scouting is Local.....

[Hawkwin]

Why over-complicate it? Members only. Use your my.scouting login.

 

How many 1st year scouts have a my.scouting login? I am positive my son doesn't.

 

Nationals also doesn't have his email.

 

And, unless you obtained a 100% response rate, then you would still have a margin of error - and one probably much higher than a survey that was sent to a random but otherwise representative sample of scouts. An online survey would most definitely skew results toward older scouts, urban scouts, and higher household income scouts as there are still scouts not only without their own email but also without home internet. I would think a richer more urban segment might give different results.

[Col. Flagg]

How many 1st year scouts have a my.scouting login? I am positive my son doesn't.

 

Nationals also doesn't have his email.

 

And, unless you obtained a 100% response rate, then you would still have a margin of error - and one probably much higher than a survey that was sent to a random but otherwise representative sample of scouts. An online survey would most definitely skew results toward older scouts, urban scouts, and higher household income scouts as there are still scouts not only without their own email but also without home internet. I would think a richer more urban segment might give different results.

 

Yet how many first year Scouts have their own iPhone or Galaxy or Google Phone? Another straw man argument. These kids have technology and can get email and access *IF* their parents help them. Getting a login or even simply using your BSA ID to input in to a website is easy. Most kids -- rich or poor -- in most areas have phones with Internet. Their schools have Internet. There are libraries and other places with Internet. The segment of the population, in Scouting that does not have Internet access is likely identical to the number of left-handed, blond kids that like strawberries....minuscule.

 

You will never get a 100% response rate in anything. That doesn't mean you don't get a decent sampling of how people feel.

[RememberSchiff]

It is trivial to create fake my.scouting accounts. No legit email, phone, or address needed. 

Edited November 2, 2017 by RememberSchiff
fake instead of bogus

[Col. Flagg]

It is trivial to create fake my.scouting accounts. No legit email, phone, or address needed. 

 

If they are not tied to a BSA ID then they don't get access to the survey. That's what was used (BSA ID) for two of the three surveys I took.

[RememberSchiff]

Doubt that would be fail-proof either, unless the BSA purges redundant BSA-ID's. Through no fault of my own, I think I have three or more different BSA-ID's from past positions and units

 

I can't see going back to the same people and systems that failed in past surveys.

Edited November 2, 2017 by RememberSchiff

[Col. Flagg]

Nothing is ever failure proof. Just ask Equifax.

[RememberSchiff]

Does anyone know regarding my.scouting

 

  number of non-redundant, active my.scouting members who are not employees is what % of (total BSA membership - employees)

 

My guess is it is less than 50%.

Edited November 2, 2017 by RememberSchiff
clarity

[T2Eagle]

Does anyone know regarding my.scouting

 

  number of non-redundant, active my.scouting members who are not employees is what % of (total BSA membership - employees)

 

My guess is it is less than 50%.

I certainly don't know the number, but since everyone has to renew their YPT every two years I would say that almost every adult is a my.scouting member. Who knows how well they purge those rolls when BSA membership ends.

[Hawkwin]

Yet how many first year Scouts have their own iPhone or Galaxy or Google Phone? Another straw man argument. These kids have technology and can get email and access *IF* their parents help them. Getting a login or even simply using your BSA ID to input in to a website is easy. Most kids -- rich or poor -- in most areas have phones with Internet. Their schools have Internet. There are libraries and other places with Internet. The segment of the population, in Scouting that does not have Internet access is likely identical to the number of left-handed, blond kids that like strawberries....minuscule.

 

You will never get a 100% response rate in anything. That doesn't mean you don't get a decent sampling of how people feel.

 

*sigh*

 

You really don't know what a straw man is, but I digress.

 

It doesn't matter how many have their own phone. If you are trying to be FAIR to all scouts, then you can't do an internet survey as not all scouts have such ready access to the internet at home. There is nothing "straw man" about that. It is simply fact.

 

http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2014/09/19/census-computer-ownership-internet-connection-varies-widely-across-u-s/

 

the census data find that nearly 25 million households (21%) have no regular internet access at all, either at home or elsewhere.

 

 

And that stat is even worse for low-income households with kids:

 

https://www.theatlantic.com/education/archive/2014/12/what-happens-when-kids-dont-have-internet-at-home/383680/

 

Roughly half of low-income families nationwide lack Internet service.

 

 

 

A decent sampling REQUIRES the survey participants to have equal access to the survey - otherwise you would get very poor results that will skew toward higher net worth households and urban households. Forcing some scouts (in particular poor scouts) to go out of their way to respond is a great way to discourage them to respond at all.

[Back Pack]

I think you missed his point as I read it. Most phones have internet so by default they have access to any web survey. The internet access you mention is old fashioned pc in the living room type access. If you look at other ways to access internet even poor people have access. Equal access does not mean everyone has to have internet in their home. It means they need to have access no matter the method. You seem hung up on access in the home.

 

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/terence-p-jeffrey/census-americans-poverty-typically-have-cell-phones-computers-tvs

[Back Pack]

For the record this is the definition of a straw man. One could argue that requiring equal access to home based internet while dismissing the other ways people can access the internet is a straw man.

 

https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/straw%20man