Only six months till girls in Scouts BSA.

[Hawkwin]

14 hours ago, DeanRx said:

The concern of many adults in our troop is IF we start a female troop (or help others do it).... how much of a time / talent drain is there going to be from the original unit?

Absolutely a concern but as with any new founding of a troop, the vast majority of the volunteers should come from the parents. Just a guess, but I would imagine less than 10% of all active scouters in a troop are not parents of scouts in that troop. The vast majority of scouters move on when their own scouts leave.

A new girls troops should pull the vast majority of their leaders from their parents. In some cases there will be overlap as well as some complete transfers (e.g. female leaders in a boys troop might move to the girls troop so that they have adequate YPT leadership).

Realistically, this is something the CO and the existing committee should work out in advance as much as possible. Such changes in leadership and volunteers should not come as a shock to either the new unit or the existing one.

[DeanRx]

Hawkwin-

I agree to a point.  However, I assume that the majority of any girls who want to start their own troop are doing so because they have male siblings already in the program.  As you state, and I'd agree, you bet the less than 10% of involved adults do not have youth in the troop (boys troop).  I would also bet that less than 10% of girls joining ScoutsBSA come from families that are not already highly involved in scouting.

That means that at best, a parent in a new girl's troop will have to split their time between the two units.  Or at worst, look at the boys unit and think "well, they already have more volunteers in the boys troop... the need is greater to get these girls off the ground.... I might as well donate my limited time to the unit with the most need."

That equates to an adult volunteer talent drain on the existing unit in favor of the start-up.

[Eagle1993]

2 hours ago, DeanRx said:

Hawkwin-

I agree to a point.  However, I assume that the majority of any girls who want to start their own troop are doing so because they have male siblings already in the program.  As you state, and I'd agree, you bet the less than 10% of involved adults do not have youth in the troop (boys troop).  I would also bet that less than 10% of girls joining ScoutsBSA come from families that are not already highly involved in scouting.

That means that at best, a parent in a new girl's troop will have to split their time between the two units.  Or at worst, look at the boys unit and think "well, they already have more volunteers in the boys troop... the need is greater to get these girls off the ground.... I might as well donate my limited time to the unit with the most need."

That equates to an adult volunteer talent drain on the existing unit in favor of the start-up.

In our pack 60% of the girls that are joining come from families that did not have sons in the pack.  Just one data point.  I do think sisters will account for a lot, but I also see former Boy Scouts who only had daughters start to come back to the program. I still concur that there will be a volunteer shortage and why many linked Troops will act as coed.

[DeanRx]

On ‎8‎/‎21‎/‎2018 at 5:18 PM, Eagle1993 said:

In our pack 60% of the girls that are joining come from families that did not have sons in the pack.  Just one data point.  I do think sisters will account for a lot, but I also see former Boy Scouts who only had daughters start to come back to the program. I still concur that there will be a volunteer shortage and why many linked Troops will act as coed.

I hope more units are seeing that.  This is the only thing that will keep BSA afloat with the departure of LDS looming...  I have since aged out of pack activities with my boys, so I do not have a good feel for how many cubbies are coming from siblings versus new scout families.  If the majority are from the later group... this bodes well for the membership health of BSA.  It bodes well for the leadership needed to support BSA4G units too.

[FireStone]

I'm impressed that so many units even know how many girls they're getting already. I have no idea. I know of 2 girls joining because they're daughters of other leaders. Beyond that, I have no clue. And I'm the Pack Recruitment Chair, so I hope I'd be one of those in-the-know folks. 

We haven't done our recruitment night yet. We're promoting it, been doing so all summer, but until next month I won't have any clue if we'll have just those 2 girls or if we'll have 20. 

 

[malraux]

2 minutes ago, FireStone said:

I'm impressed that so many units even know how many girls they're getting already. I have no idea. I know of 2 girls joining because they're daughters of other leaders. Beyond that, I have no clue. And I'm the Pack Recruitment Chair, so I hope I'd be one of those in-the-know folks. 

We haven't done our recruitment night yet. We're promoting it, been doing so all summer, but until next month I won't have any clue if we'll have just those 2 girls or if we'll have 20. 

 

We just had our recruitment night, and had pretty fair turnout. A lot of higher grade youth, both boys and girls.

[Setonfan]

Just saw the recruitment numbers for the Orlando Council.  They are getting a huge number of new Cub Scouts, and they are getting more new boys as well as new girls compared to last year, school to school.  Have heard that the number of new adult volunteers is up as well, interesting side note, a number of the new adults are Eagle Scout dads who have just had girls in their family and are now signing up.  

[TuckahoeJoe]

Several months ago, I spent two weekends of Boy Scouts for adults where "feedback is a gift" was repeatedly stated.  Family scouting was often accompanied by "change is inevitable."  Fast forward, I have volunteered about 8 hours this weekend with 4 more to go doing a coffee break at a highway rest stop with my son's troop.  I realize that there is a group here vocal in their support of BSA4G; however, I have heard a lot of negative comments from travelers ranging from snarky, sarcastic comments to matter of fact comments against BSA4G.  Frankly, I have observed or dealt with these comments at fundraisers or other uniformed functions since the announcement.  And it is never a pleasant moment.  I don't see public acceptance of this move.  Further, I don't see the critical mass in Cubs forming to support the change that is Scouts BSA--at least in my council.  I hope there is a Plan B which doesn't involving gutting venturing crews to save face.  Every time I get those comments, I think, feedback is a gift and wonder whether there is a room in Texas with a lot of unopened gifts.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[qwazse]

3 hours ago, TuckahoeJoe said:

Several months ago, I spent two weekends of Boy Scouts for adults where "feedback is a gift" was repeatedly stated.  Family scouting was often accompanied by "change is inevitable."  Fast forward, I have volunteered about 8 hours this weekend with 4 more to go doing a coffee break at a highway rest stop with my son's troop.  I realize that there is a group here vocal in their support of BSA4G; however, I have heard a lot of negative comments from travelers ranging from snarky, sarcastic comments to matter of fact comments against BSA4G.  Frankly, I have observed or dealt with these comments at fundraisers or other uniformed functions since the announcement.  And it is never a pleasant moment.  I don't see public acceptance of this move.  Further, I don't see the critical mass in Cubs forming to support the change that is Scouts BSA--at least in my council.  I hope there is a Plan B which doesn't involving gutting venturing crews to save face.  Every time I get those comments, I think, feedback is a gift and wonder whether there is a room in Texas with a lot of unopened gifts.

I have had mixed "external" comments from 10 years ago the minute I started venturing. It took some effort to not take those personally.

FWIW, BSA does count positive vs. negative media placements. I have no idea what that actually means. An exec just told me that they do.

 

 

[MikeS72]

18 hours ago, Setonfan said:

Just saw the recruitment numbers for the Orlando Council

Being a part of the Central Florida Council, I can attest to the fact that pack school nights are going very well.  In my district, we are at the halfway point in school night presentations, and have registered 264 new scouts.  At our pack's school night, we registered 26 new cubs, 10 of whom are girls.

[gblotter]

My father-in-law is a past council president with information not available to most Scouters. He is very supportive of BSA's girl decision (I am not), so we generally try to avoid discussion of the topic to preserve family harmony.

He claims that there is only one chartering organization in our entire council that is considering a linked troop arrangement. Every other chartering organization intends to keep their troop boy-only (at least at this early stage of the game). He doubts that girl membership in Scouts BSA will ever exceed 20 percent, and girls will certainly not offset losses from the LDS exit.

He did not have statistics for girls in Cub Scouting, but he knows there is already much greater acceptance of girls in that program. He sees little resistance to girls in Cub Scouting, but girls in Boy Scouting is a different story. He acknowledges that traditional Scouters have cause to feel alienated, but traditional Scouters are not viewed as a growth market for BSA.

[Eagle1993]

I definitely agree there is less pushback or concerns regarding girls in Cub Scouts vs Boy Scout Troops.  20% is probably a fair estimate as UK has 25% girls.  As far as offsetting LDS loss it depends on how many LDS scouts stay.   It will be interesting as the impact will vary greatly by council. 

It is still early for Troops.  In my council only a few packs were early adopters but now many more are ramping up coed packs. I’m slowly starting to hear of Troops considering linked Troops, especially those who know they will have possible female AOLs crossing over.  I saw one SM who was vary anti BSA4G, even yelling about it during a District Meeting.  He is now working on creating a linked Troop where he will be ASM.  He was against it but now that it is official wants to see it run well.  I expect that story will not be uncommon.

In general, I don’t expect a surge of girls in Scouts BSA until the Cub Scouts start moving in over the next 5 years.  

[qwazse]

3 hours ago, Eagle1993 said:

...  I saw one SM who was vary anti BSA4G, even yelling about it during a District Meeting.  He is now working on creating a linked Troop where he will be ASM.  He was against it but now that it is official wants to see it run well.  I expect that story will not be uncommon. ...

Been there, seen that with venturing.

That's the funny thing I've learned about Americans in general ... even if they can't stand what you're doing on principle, they'll help you give it an full-blown try. I think it's because that way, if you fail, you won't be able to blame it on not having the best hands helping you!

[Setonfan]

Good that there are troops getting ready to provide a quality experience.  Over 7,000 girl Webelos are now registered and it’s still very early in the recruiting season.  Looks like there will definitely be a critical mass.

[HelpfulTracks]

An interesting note.

I have spoken with 2 different districts about round up in the last 24 hours. The Year over Year (unit to unit) numbers of new Cubs is up significantly.

Not really surprising, since this is the first Roundup to include girls. What is mildly surprising is that if you take the girls out of the registration, the numbers of boy Cubs is also up significantly. Now, it is still early in Roundup and things could change, but it is encouraging.

EDIT: We also have several ScoutsBSA female troops organizing, a couple with 20+ youth "signed-up" and 6+ NEW adults, along with 3-4 Adults with BSA experience.

Edited September 8, 2018 by HelpfulTracks