Concerns with coed rules, leadership, liability

[gblotter]

3 minutes ago, cocomax said:

Maybe BSA has been doing a lot of things correctly over the past years to have so much higher membership numbers than Canada.

Or another way of putting it ... maybe Scouts Canada has really been screwing up by adopting a co-ed Scouting program.

[EmberMike]

11 minutes ago, gblotter said:

Or another way of putting it ... maybe Scouts Canada has really been screwing up by adopting a co-ed Scouting program.

Scouts UK has seen numbers go up. 

Neither case is enough data to point to co-ed being good or bad for business. 

[Eagle1993]

I believe the UK scout org is coed.  They have about 457,000 Scouts and a population of 5 - 19 year olds of 11.18M.  So they have 4.4% of their Scout age population in Scouts.

USA has 63.1M in age range of 5-19 so roughly 4.1% of their Scout age population is in Scouts.  

Note I’m not counting UK girl guides or US Girl Scouts in these numbers (or any other scout organization).

 

 

[EmberMike]

Anyone can cherry-pick any scout organization they like to make their point. There are over 50 million scouts around the world in various organizations. We're talking about 3 organizations in particular here, which collectively make up less than 3 million scouts. 

The scouting world is pretty big, and a lot of it is co-ed. I have no idea how co-ed affects overall membership, and I doubt anyone here knows either. Although I'd be highly impressed if anyone could compile info from numerous scouting orgs and draw some scientific conclusions. 

[Col. Flagg]

2 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

As for girls and troop size, it can go both ways -- oh, we're so small, we can't take girls!  and  oh,  we're so big, we can't take girls!   Whichever variation applies, I'm sure it will be used.

Adding a second boys unit to an already large Boy Scout unit would be a significant issue in and of itself. But adding a new girls program, with 20-40 new girls who don't know how Boy Scouts works, would be like taking on a new Scout class of 20-40...and their families.

And it wouldn't stop at the end of Year 1 like it does now. It would continue for a few years until you get a full crop of girls through the program. You'd have to train Scouts and parents alike.

You can make light of the excuses that might be used, but you cannot dismiss the fact that these are very real issues. Issues that impact the already over-strained volunteers. Issues national has not even looked at fully. They are too busy counting the yet-to-be-spent money they think they're going to get.

[WisconsinMomma]

@Col. Flagg, first you are assuming the number of girls that will be joining the program, and second, you are assuming there will be no new volunteers stepping forward to help.   Both points could be off.  

[WisconsinMomma]

1 hour ago, gblotter said:

I predict Scouting will lose two boys for every new girl that enrolls. In the end, BSA will be a ghost of its former self - following in the disastrous path of co-ed Scouting in Canada. BSA National is rolling the dice, and the results on membership will be devastating - similar to the catastrophe of BSA's social experimentation during the 1970s when millions of boys walked away from Scouting in protest. Has it been so long that we can't remember and learn from these past mistakes?

1)  Your guess is as good as mine.

2)  Most parents today were not in BSA leadership in the 1970s and do not relate to that period of Scouting.  Only a few remember whatever it was that happened.

[Eagle1993]

1 minute ago, EmberMike said:

Anyone can cherry-pick any scout organization they like to make their point. There are over 50 million scouts around the world in various organizations. We're talking about 3 organizations in particular here, which collectively make up less than 3 million scouts. 

The scouting world is pretty big, and a lot of it is co-ed. I have no idea how co-ed affects overall membership, and I doubt anyone here knows either. Although I'd be highly impressed if anyone could compile info from numerous scouting orgs and draw some scientific conclusions. 

Agreed, but I am interested as to why the Canada Scout membership dropped.  I don’t think it can simply be explained as coed as UK numbers appear fine.  BSA is going coed, that decision has been made.  Are there mistakes Canada made that we can avoid and best practices that other coed scout organizations made that we should follow?

[WisconsinMomma]

1 hour ago, gblotter said:

I am repelled by the idea of taking my troop to a co-ed summer camp. Even if I forced the issue, our Scouts would likely refuse to go. Frankly, these boys view summer camp as a week to get away from their sisters - not compete with them during a song-fest.

I am not sure of your role in Scouting, but if you have extremely anti-co-ed feelings you may want to step back from spreading those opinions among the youth.  If the boys are doing their own camp selection and annual planning, maybe they will make different choices, and whatever they choose should be supported. 

[EmberMike]

2 minutes ago, Col. Flagg said:

You can make light of the excuses that might be used, but you cannot dismiss the fact that these are very real issues. Issues that impact the already over-strained volunteers. Issues national has not even looked at fully. They are too busy counting the yet-to-be-spent money they think they're going to get.

 

You're right, these are very real issues. And we all know there would be challenges associated with this. 

I didn't petition the BSA to make this change without acknowledging that there would be a lot of work to be done, and that it wouldn't be easy. But I'm ready and willing to do the work. I know not everyone is, but I suspect enough people are willing to try and make it happen. I don't care what's going on up in Canada or anywhere else. I believe in the BSA and what this organization can do if enough people dig in and do what needs to be done to make this work. 

[Col. Flagg]

6 minutes ago, WisconsinMomma said:

@Col. Flagg, first you are assuming the number of girls that will be joining the program, and second, you are assuming there will be no new volunteers stepping forward to help.   Both points could be off.  

We are talking about starting a second unit. Whether 10 or 50 girls, you are talking about a second organization. This second organization will require leadership and adult support. It will require logistical and operational support, among other things. 

BSA is assuming two things: 1) Either current volunteers and COs will take on these units and provide the services they do today, or 2) A new set of volunteers will spring up and help roll this out. Both of these assumptions are short-sighted on BSA's part.

Experience with the current program shows that new volunteers are very hard to come by. We get new parents joining Cubs, Boy Scouts and Venturing all the time, but I can tell you the number of new adult volunteers is not increasing at all. It is quite laborious to recruit, train and manage volunteers in the current program. BSA is assuming that adding girls will somehow create a new pool of applicants. This is no more true than recruiting boys will get more adults to volunteer.

Adults volunteering in the BSA has gone DOWN year-on-year. The decline has DOUBLED since 2013!! What amazing program has BSA developed that is miraculously going to get the parents of girls to all of a sudden volunteer??

[Eagledad]

25 minutes ago, EmberMike said:

Scouts UK has seen numbers go up. 

Neither case is enough data to point to co-ed being good or bad for business. 

The UK didn't see the rise for over 30 years. And the Canadian case is a great example of the BSA is basically following the same model.

Barry

[Col. Flagg]

5 minutes ago, WisconsinMomma said:

I am not sure of your role in Scouting, but if you have extremely anti-co-ed feelings you may want to step back from spreading those opinions among the youth.  If the boys are doing their own camp selection and annual planning, maybe they will make different choices, and whatever they choose should be supported. 

Sorry, but why should he step down to avoid spreading his ideas, and yet others here with different ideas are not offered the same option to step away to avoid spreading their ideas? 

 

[Eagledad]

My personal opinion is the program will change dramatically, not so much by admitting girls, but from the adults that will join as a result of all the membership changes. Most of the adults will have very little understanding or experience with Patrol Method, so while it will be set up in the spirit of the handbooks, the adults won't let it process toward the design intention of the method. The adults that do know will be few and far between. If they don't know what they are looking for, they won't  know how to drive toward it.

Barry

[EmberMike]

Just now, Eagledad said:

The UK didn't see the rise for over 30 years. And the Canadian case is a great example of the BSA is basically following the same model.

Barry

My point was that picking 2 organizations that make up about 2% of scouts worldwide doesn't tell us much.

Are they following the same model? I thought Scouts Canada was fully co-ed. No separate dens/patrols/troops/packs. And their organizational structure is kind of different from the BSA already. More traditional BP Scouts model than BSA's program.