How will you talk about girls troops and packs?

[MikeS72]

4 hours ago, David CO said:

Told by who?

It has always been the case that the school can invite or not invite any unit(s) they choose. 

DE.  It was not said in a 'this is what happens if you don't take girls' manner, but rather to state that if the Pack that normally host the school night at that particular school will not be taking girls, they will try to find a nearby pack that is going to have a girls program attend school night, thus giving those family an alternative.

In our area, each Pack has one or more elementary schools that we draw from.  Not that we are restricted to children from that school (we have children from all 4 of the schools within 5 miles of our meeting place), just that we do not actively recruit as a Pack from the other 3 schools.  If a child wants to join because he has friends in our Pack, that is his choice.

[David CO]

1 hour ago, MikeS72 said:

DE.  It was not said in a 'this is what happens if you don't take girls' manner, but rather to state that if the Pack that normally host the school night at that particular school will not be taking girls, they will try to find a nearby pack that is going to have a girls program attend school night, thus giving those family an alternative.

A DE cannot invite another unit to your event. 

I can't imagine myself going to all the time, effort, and expense of putting on a nice event at the school only to have the DE invite another unit in to freeload off of all my hard work. No way. If a DE wants to organize a second scout night at the school for the co-ed unit, he is free to do so, but he is not going to do it on my time and my dime.

 

 

[NJCubScouter]

10 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

In my pack, I think I will ask the CO if they will charter a separate Pack for the girls with their own Pack number, and we will share Pack Committee meeting night and share Pinewood Derby (because of equipment and setup challenges).  But we will need leaders for a girl Pack.   The Pack meetings could be on the same night but in different rooms in the same building.  It will be interesting to see what the other committee members and CO think about it. 

I don’t think National counted on you, and I mean that in a good way.

[Eagle94-A1]

9 hours ago, skeptic said:

 Those actually directly involved NOW are either very gung-ho to move forward, or at least willing to work to smooth out the rough spots and offer the program to a broader group of youth.  🙄

That is not the case in my neck of the woods. We lost another unit over the issue, and are about to lose a second. We had lost a bunch of volunteers with the last membership change, and are still trying to replace them. It is now even harder because of the girls issue. Most of the troops in my district do not want to have anything to do with girls or being "linked troops." 2 troops, which had packs fold over the last membership policy change, have expressed concerns that when their packs restart, they will be coed, and they will be forced to become "linked troops" with girls. As for my troop, the SM meets with the IH today. He told me he believes the CO will go coed, BUT the overwhelming majority of those polled, Scouts, Parents, and Others ( committee members, ASMs without kids, Webelos, etc) do NOT want to be  a "linked troop" and that if the girls want their own troop, they are OK with it, as long as they do not meet or camp with the boys. We'll see how long that stays, as I believe @David CO is correct, BSA is slowly going to a coed program at all levels.

[Chisos]

My experience is similar to that of @Eagle94-A1.  Our Pack is staying boys only as is our troop.  Even with all the media hype we've had very little interest from parents interested in getting their girls into the BSA program.  For now if we get any requests I'll probably refer them to other units in our district that are doing to Family/Linked setup; and those parents who want boys in an all-boy unit can refer to us.

I hope when the dust settles there will be variety of different arrangements so that families can pick what's best for them (coed, linked, all-boy, etc.). 

[MikeS72]

9 hours ago, David CO said:

can't imagine myself going to all the time, effort, and expense of putting on a nice event at the school only to have the DE invite another unit in to freeload off of all my hard work. No way. If a DE wants to organize a second scout night at the school for the co-ed unit, he is free to do so, but he is not going to do it on my time and my dime.

We do not look at it as freeloading, as the DE is the one in our District who sets up school nights, is the one who visits all of the classrooms at the school, arranges and pays for the building use permits.  All we have to do is show up at the school on the designated night, explain the Pack's programming and organization to parents, and sign up those new Scouts.

We are not in any way against the decision to allow girls into the organization, our current boy only model is due to the size of the meeting place available to use via our CO.

I understand that school night may well be done differently in your area, and if we expended a great deal of time and expense to set up a recruiting night I might feel the same about another unit coming in uninvited by us.  I would however, regardless of how the recruiting night is organized, be more than willing to tell any parent with a daughter interested in being a Cub Scout which local units offer a girls program, along with contact information for that unit.

[WisconsinMomma]

30 minutes ago, Chisos said:

My experience is similar to that of @Eagle94-A1.  Our Pack is staying boys only as is our troop.  Even with all the media hype we've had very little interest from parents interested in getting their girls into the BSA program.  For now if we get any requests I'll probably refer them to other units in our district that are doing to Family/Linked setup; and those parents who want boys in an all-boy unit can refer to us.

I hope when the dust settles there will be variety of different arrangements so that families can pick what's best for them (coed, linked, all-boy, etc.). 

I think at this time it's too early to tell how much interest there is from families of girls for BSA programs.   I mean, it's still barely getting started.   At our Back to School night when we have a recruiting table, it will be interesting to see if any families of girls will ask for info.  Also, I know a lot of girls' families but I need to be careful not to step on the toes of the GSUSA, which of course has many girls right now.  I think the girls' programs will start very very small, but that's OK because it will be more manageable. 

I think it will take at least 2 years before we know whether the girls program really sticks and has sufficient demand or not. 

[David CO]

27 minutes ago, MikeS72 said:

We do not look at it as freeloading, as the DE is the one in our District who sets up school nights, is the one who visits all of the classrooms at the school, arranges and pays for the building use permits.  All we have to do is show up at the school on the designated night, explain the Pack's programming and organization to parents, and sign up those new Scouts.

Sorry. I guess I misunderstood your previous post. When you said that the pack was the "host" of the school night, I assumed that the pack had organized and paid for the event. 

 

[numbersnerd]

On 5/5/2018 at 9:38 PM, MikeS72 said:

DE.  It was not said in a 'this is what happens if you don't take girls' manner, but rather to state that if the Pack that normally host the school night at that particular school will not be taking girls, they will try to find a nearby pack that is going to have a girls program attend school night, thus giving those family an alternative.

 

Well, if this happens to is, we'll be asking what schools those packs recruit from and  recruit there ourselves. Because to be fair to all of those families, if they want a boy-only option, we should be there to present them with one. That's fair, isn't it?

[WisconsinMomma]

We discussed girls at the committee last night, and our Pack will bring in girl dens if there is interest.  The Pack will also have boys and girls potentially working co-ed as needed for programming, which is a concern, but a few leaders were told "off the record" that this was acceptable to our council and bought into the idea.  So now we will wait and see if any girls take an interest in the Fall recruiting season.  We will not poach from Girl Scouts and it sounds like the families on committee who are active in GSUSA will stick with the program they started with.  It will be interesting to see what the interest level is. 

Edited May 8, 2018 by WisconsinMomma

[Saltface]

3 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

The Pack will also have boys and girls potentially working co-ed as needed for programming, which is a concern, but a few leaders were told "off the record" that this was acceptable to our council and bought into the idea.

Already?!

[FireStone]

3 hours ago, WisconsinMomma said:

We discussed girls at the committee last night, and our Pack will bring in girl dens if there is interest.  The Pack will also have boys and girls potentially working co-ed as needed for programming, which is a concern, but a few leaders were told "off the record" that this was acceptable to our council and bought into the idea.  So now we will wait and see if any girls take an interest in the Fall recruiting season.  We will not poach from Girl Scouts and it sounds like the families on committee who are active in GSUSA will stick with the program they started with.  It will be interesting to see what the interest level is. 

We had a similar discussion at last week's committee meeting, with pretty much an identical outcome. 

We're not going to recruit girls, definitely not from GSUSA and not really even from the general public. The most we're going to do is just ammend our recruiting flyers to say "Open to boys & girls in grades 1-5." 

Basically the committee seems content to go with whatever happens. If we get a lot of girls expressing interest, great. If nothing happens, it's business as usual for the pack. 

Edited May 8, 2018 by FireStone

[WisconsinMomma]

20 minutes ago, Saltface said:

Already?!

Honestly, I really don't know how this will play out in real life until we get there.  It will be a learning experience!

[Will1234]

OH come on this needs to stop as an active boy scout I think girls in boyscouts will ruin the experience. So far I have been rushing trying to get my eagle so I dont have to deal with girls in boyscouts. I hate how the debate mostly involve the adults because if we had a say this would not be happening #keepBoysscoutsBoyscouts 

Edited May 8, 2018 by Will1234
spelling error

[Sablanck]

1 hour ago, Will1234 said:

OH come on this needs to stop as an active boy scout I think girls in boyscouts will ruin the experience. So far I have been rushing trying to get my eagle so I dont have to deal with girls in boyscouts. I hate how the debate mostly involve the adults because if we had a say this would not be happening #keepBoysscoutsBoyscouts 

Girls are already involved in Boy Scouts.  My son has been to summer camp 4 times and has a number of Venturing girls teach his merit badges.  Is there still a camp somewhere that has no girls on the property?