Ireland seeks Eagle now before she ages out

[Stosh]

3 hours ago, Back Pack said:

Did we change topics? I get confused when we sometimes we’re told to stay on topic and other times we go so far off. 

I kinda thought we were a bit on topic in that out in the real world we have Doctorate degrees that mean many different things.  We have also titles that mean many different things.  What would stop BSA from having the Eagle rank follow suit and thus mean many different things?

[NJCubScouter]

17 minutes ago, Stosh said:

What would stop BSA from having the Eagle rank follow suit and thus mean many different things?

Nothing would stop them if they wanted Eagle to mean different things, but I think they want Eagle to only mean one thing.  To date I have seen nothing from National that suggests otherwise, but of course they haven't actually announced the Boy-Scout-age program for girls yet and exactly how Eagle is going to be handled.

[Jameson76]

29 minutes ago, NJCubScouter said:

Nothing would stop them if they wanted Eagle to mean different things, but I think they want Eagle to only mean one thing.  To date I have seen nothing from National that suggests otherwise, 

But, as the day is not over, one can never tell with BSA National.  They do seem to sort of do what they want.  In this case maybe, just maybe, they will do a survey, then based on the unpublished results of the survey (questions and/or answers) make a proclamation that all the work done prior to being officially allowed in the scouts can in fact be counted so as to clear the road.  This will be done because XX% of those surveyed, even though they are not in the program, feel that a program such as the Boy Scouts of America (NOTE - Current name and subject to change based on survey results) should allow exceptions for the heretofore excluded class known as girls.  Also they might join a group that undertook such an action

While sounding far fetched right now, check back in 12 months

[Stosh]

Time will tell, but don't hold your breath Smurphy. 

[Tampa Turtle]

15 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

But, as the day is not over, one can never tell with BSA National.  They do seem to sort of do what they want.  In this case maybe, just maybe, they will do a survey, then based on the unpublished results of the survey (questions and/or answers) make a proclamation that all the work done prior to being officially allowed in the scouts can in fact be counted so as to clear the road.  This will be done because XX% of those surveyed, even though they are not in the program, feel that a program such as the Boy Scouts of America (NOTE - Current name and subject to change based on survey results) should allow exceptions for the heretofore excluded class known as girls.  Also they might join a group that undertook such an action

While sounding far fetched right now, check back in 12 months

Comrade, the survey will have overwhelming support regardless of the outcome. (You will of course not get the survey.) And as for you Citizen Stosh I here the camping is delightful in Siberia this year.

[an_old_DC]

35 minutes ago, Jameson76 said:

....

  This will be done because XX% of those surveyed, even though they are not in the program, feel that a program such as the Boy Scouts of America (NOTE - Current name and subject to change based on survey results) should allow exceptions for the heretofore excluded class known as girls.  

You forgot the Professionals. I thought I heard that at a region meeting, every single SE in attendance was in favor of opening doors "to the whole family."

[Stosh]

22 minutes ago, Tampa Turtle said:

Comrade, the survey will have overwhelming support regardless of the outcome. (You will of course not get the survey.) And as for you Citizen Stosh I here the camping is delightful in Siberia this year.

I've done the Siberian camping.  The boys build snow huts, I'm too lazy so I meadow crash under the stars.  Woke up one morning and it had snowed 2", the boys found me from the whale hole exhaust I was putting out.  Was doing okay until I had to sit up and all the snow went down my neck.  Coffee!  Coffee!  Where's the coffee!

[HelpfulTracks]

On 1/10/2018 at 1:54 PM, WisconsinMomma said:

As far as I can tell the request has been respectful and courteous.  Different people have different styles, some are rule followers, and some are change agents.  It's all OK.   My opinion would change if the girl or her family starts trashing the BSA and behaves poorly, but I don't think anything is wrong with a polite request either.

Per her the aforementioned article.

Her father, corporate attorney Gary Ireland, slammed the BSA for this.

“It is outrageous and embarrassing that the Scouts will ban local young women from participating, particularly as we are the host country,” he said. “Scouts need to be a certain age and rank to attend a Jamboree. With the Boy Scouts allowing girls into the program very soon, it is unclear why they continue to refuse admission to Sydney.”

That does not seem polite, courteous or respectful.

[HelpfulTracks]

On 12/28/2017 at 7:10 PM, HelpfulTracks said:

I will query my 16 yr old Life Scout and my 13 yr old soon to be Venturer (and possibly a Scout) as well and get back to the thread. Though I have discussed it with both I will ask the in reference to this thread.

As stated I asked my children. It has been a few days so I will paraphrase and hopefully get the idea across.

I started by asking what they thought about suspending the time in rank requirement for Miss Ireland.  Almost in unison (one made a statement, the other a rhetorical question) time is a requirement.

Me: But she has spent time working the requirements.
Son: But not as a Scout.
Me: But she was not allowed to become a Scout
Daughter: I am not allowed to be a Venturer yet, but I have done most of the requirements, does that mean I get to count ALL of the stuff I did already?
Son: Cool, by that standard all I really need to do is complete another project and I can get the Summit award, because I have done almost all of it before I joined Venturing.

I changed the argument a little at this point to what if they just went ahead and opened it up early for her. My daughter was thrilled as long as they opened up for ALL girls, not just her or a select few. My son was good with opening it up now as long as it was ready. He pointed out that BSA says they are not ready and he would rather they wait if there was a chance that the program would be "messed up". He would rather they wait and get it right.

It was a long conversation with a lot of back and forth but there were two really great nuggets.

The first was them using my own word on me. They hate it for her, but "Life isn't fair, and it's time you (she) learned that." I tried ot turn that around on them by saying your right, so they should just go ahead and let her in now, life would have to be unfair to them, not Miss Ireland. The reply was that makes a lot of sense, but unfair to thousands of current Scouts, past Scouts who missed their Eagle and possibly thousands of other girls will come, just so we can be fair to ONE. They didn't think that made a lot of sense.

This one was my favorite, and one I had not thought about. A Scout is THRIFTY. My son pointed out that he is pretty sure I could pay for all of his Scouting trips, yet I still expect/require him to fund raise, wash cars, walk dogs, cut grass etc. to pay for Scouting himself, because, as I apparently often say, a Scout is thrifty and pays his (her) own way. He pointed out that he would be much more empathetic to her situation if she is indeed earning the money to travel to Canada on a regular basis to be considered active enough to earn Canada's highest Scouting award.

In short, both of my kids felt bad for her, but also felt that they just did not see a way for her to earn Eagle, with out giving her special consideration.

[HelpfulTracks]

I had to go back and look up a few things when I read this:

“It is outrageous and embarrassing that the Scouts will ban local young women from participating, particularly as we are the host country,” he said. “Scouts need to be a certain age and rank to attend a Jamboree. With the Boy Scouts allowing girls into the program very soon, it is unclear why they continue to refuse admission to Sydney.”

To me it looks like Mr Ireland is using the Jamboree as a reason to go ahead and allow HIS daughter (and presumably ALL girls) to start Scouting now. But the next NSJ is not for more than 3-1/2 years in 2021, so any girl that started in 2019 would have plenty of time to reach First Class by the Jamboree.

So I assume he is referring to the WSJ in 2019. Depending when in 2019 BSA4G starts, there will likely be enough time for them to earn First Class and get registered.

His argument struck me as, at best, disingenuous. So I wanted to go back a validate what I remembered. Anyway you look at it WSJ does not come into the equation with his daughter. First. girls were at the 2017 NSJ and will be at the 2019 WSJ as Venturers. Second, according to multiple articles, Sydney is already 16 and a would be a Junior in High School as of now. Based on those articles she turned 16 sometime in early or mid Summer. So she would be too old to attend the WSJ as a youth. But she could apply to be on staff as part of the International Service Team.

So his argument is BSA should open Scouting up to his daughter NOW so all those other girls can go to Jamboree. The more her father speaks, the more convinced I am that this is nothing more than an attempt to put one more trophy on his daughters shelf.

[Stosh]

It came at Roundtable tonight. 

Does anyone know what the Lone Scout requirements are for Eagle and how they differ from the standard requirements?

With the small boy units in small towns, getting 4-5 girls together to start a female troop would preclude any gals wanting eagle.  Lone Scout for Girls might be the fast track needed to get Ms. Ireland into first place in the race to eagle.  After all, I highly doubt Ms. Ireland got the Canadian award by showing up at their weekly meetings being from the US.  Do the Canadians have an equivalent Lone Scout program?

It might be nice to know some of this information, I'm thinking there's a workaround being cooked up somewhere along the line.

[Cleveland Rocks]

9 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

So I assume he is referring to the WSJ in 2019. Depending when in 2019 BSA4G starts, there will likely be enough time for them to earn First Class and get registered.

The World Jamboree does not have a rank requirement to attend, only age. WOSM calls the shots on eligibility requirements for participants, not the BSA.

[Col. Flagg]

12 hours ago, HelpfulTracks said:

I had to go back and look up a few things when I read this:

“It is outrageous and embarrassing that the Scouts will ban local young women from participating, particularly as we are the host country,” he said. “Scouts need to be a certain age and rank to attend a Jamboree. With the Boy Scouts allowing girls into the program very soon, it is unclear why they continue to refuse admission to Sydney.”

To me it looks like Mr Ireland is using the Jamboree as a reason to go ahead and allow HIS daughter (and presumably ALL girls) to start Scouting now. But the next NSJ is not for more than 3-1/2 years in 2021, so any girl that started in 2019 would have plenty of time to reach First Class by the Jamboree.

So I assume he is referring to the WSJ in 2019. Depending when in 2019 BSA4G starts, there will likely be enough time for them to earn First Class and get registered.

I suspect Mr. Ireland is not a very good lawyer because his research and reading comprehension skills are considerably lacking. Even my 19 year old son knows where to find the WSJ registration requirements. But what happens if Ms. Ireland is not one of the 10,000 people selected to go for the US contingent? Will she badger her Canadian friends in Ontario to be part of theirs? If she does not get in there will daddy fly her to Zimbabwe to be part of their contingent? Where does this sense of entitlement end?

He knows darn well that she could go, IF SELECTED, as a member of a Venturing Crew or even a member of her Canadian-based unit. He's being purposely argumentative to try to force an issue for HIS kid. Talk about poster children for entitlement.

[EmberMike]

It's not like this girl has had no connection with Scouting already and would be brand new to the program. She's dedicated more time and effort to Scouting than many boys, and she might miss out on achieving her goal just because of the timing of the change in policy. 

Scouts can apply for extensions for finishing Eagle. At the very least I think she should be allowed some sort of extension to finish hers. This wouldn't be setting any kind of bad precident or anything, obviously she is a unique exception given what she has been through and how she even came to be known in the discussion about the BSA and female members. 

I say let her go for it. I'll be writing a letter on her behalf to encourage National to make an exception for her. 

[qwazse]

One thing I am not a fan of: conferring rank on the basis of the squeaky wheel.

There is likely some other 16 year-old girl out there quietly putting up with this "outrageous and embarrassing" situation - documenting every skill/activity/responsibility along the way, but whose family and troop is keeping her out of the magnifying glass. There are certainly other women who have the paper trail to prove they did everything to advance according to the rules of their day -- except be male.

I do think the nobler thing for BSA to do is give all of those cases due recognition. But, if it is unwilling to do reach back in time, I don't see the point of any sort of special waiver for one parent person in the spotlight.

I'm not judging the dad like @Col. Flagg seems to be. I'm just ignoring him. That's how we do rank advancement around here. The parent's word never counts for that much, although it is nice to see their letter of recommendation.

Edited January 12, 2018 by qwazse