Girls in Scouts BSA in the News (and in recruiting numbers)...

[fred8033]

15 hours ago, SSF said:

Fred, it is true that a brand new patrol of new scouts (all Scout or Tenderfoot presumably) could potentially win a camporee over vastly more experienced scouts (1C, Star, Life, Eagle) who have competed previously in multiple camporees and klondikes, but the odds and probability of them actually doing that without some outside assistance is relatively slim. 

I've often seen biased judging too and I rarely like camporees competitions, unless we win.  But except for the physical size, I don't see much advantage by older scouts.  Younger scouts often benefit from more recent teaching and being a little more focused.  Older scouts have size, but have often forgot or are not as committed to the competition.  

My experience is few older scouts really care about the competition.

[qwazse]

20 minutes ago, cocomax said:

The camporee was set up so that the adults running ...

You could have stopped right there and won me over.

Even if @Eagledad didn't mean to imply adults had their thumbs on the scales, that's what this was. The new patrols don't deserve to be patronized like that.

My favorite camporees were run by JASMs. Adults might help set up etc ... but the youth allocated points, etc ... If the boys want to patronize the new scouts that's on them. Chances are, they'd do it by being cheerful and courteous, not doling out bling.

@cocomax if your PLC really feels burned by this, they should write a letter telling the district key-3 so, and copying every SM in the district.

[dfg890]

6 minutes ago, FireStone said:

I'd protest it. I know that's easy to say in the Internet and less so IRL, but it just seems like this needs to be reined in. Marginalizing boys just to pump up girls for Scouts BSA is wrong.

I'm a Cub leader and I try to imagine this stuff at the Pack level. Could there be a Pack that gives a girl the top trophy in the Pinewood Derby even though her car ran slower than boys' cars? Geez, it's hard to believe, but after reading stuff like this about what Troops are doing, it's entirely possible.

I'm a den leader. My daughter won the pinewood derby this year. No one blinked because, well, her car was the fastest, and that's how it goes sometimes. She was surprised, tbh, and I was of course proud.  I think, especially with the cubs, we have to move away from making gender a highlighted thing in general.  Scouts are scouts.  We judge them on their performance at events like cub games or jamborees.  We are guided by the oath and law, and our training as leaders. 

That said, I've often though coed dens might help this, and of course it should be up to each pack. But in our case, a combined group of girls serving as a single den stands out a lot more than a mix of girls and boys in dens, and it would lessen feelings of a boy vs girl mentality at events like this.  There are plenty of practical reasons a change like this might be useful (after all, venturing scout troops have been co-ed for a long time).  As long as the YPT policies are followed with female and male leaders two deep, I don't see why this couldn't become more common.  Some troops might not want to do that, and that's fine. Let's make it a choice.  

I think there will be hiccups along the way.  It's incumbent upon the leaders to try and do better.  We all need to do our best to avoid marginalizing the boys (intentionally or not) and we need to avoid marginalizing the girls too, especially if we want to retain scouts.  It will take a little time to get over these growing pains.  But I think in the end, scouting will be much richer for it.  After all, throughout life, our kids will have to learn to work with people from all backgrounds and the more they get to do this in scouts, the more they can hopefully respect others. 

And I definitely don't want the girls to be given special treatment. My daughter bombed her outdoor code, and I wonder if she was penalized as much as a boy would have been.  I didn't see all the score sheets, but I wonder. And I don't want them to wonder if their awards aren't real.  It may come from a well-intentioned place, but either you know your oaths and law, or you don't.  On the flip side, there were cubs chanting 'boys are stronger than girls' at the campfire, and we can't have that either.  We need to be unified in the scouting family.  

[Treflienne]

2 hours ago, Cburkhardt said:

With a preponderance of 11-13 year olds, the SM staffs are of course needing to do more than normal.  After all, the girls and their parents need to have an essentially quality experience over the first six months or so.  You can’t expect an inexperienced 12 year old SPL who is not even Scout rank to figure it all out.  So is it likely there was over-coaching in this instance?  

I am feeling that the amount of intervention is a tricky judgment call in this case.    On our recent campout,  there was a point at which,  if I had been out with a bunch of junior girl scouts (grade 4) I would have told them "look at the kaper chart".   But I held off.   Eventually I did call the patrol leader out of the happily sociallizing crowd of girls and whisper in her ear that she might think about having her scouts take a look at the duty roster.  

The girls had a great time.   But they did end up concluding that they would like to be more efficient next time.

[malraux]

1 hour ago, fred8033 said:

My experience is few older scouts really care about the competition.

Isn’t that the real victory in the competition?

[SSF]

2 hours ago, PinkPajamas said:

Our Weblos girl den wipes the floor with the boys den

Keep talking like that and you'll be invited to be a judge at this camporee next year

[Oldscout448]

1 hour ago, dfg890 said:

  On the flip side, there were cubs chanting 'boys are stronger than girls' at the campfire, and we can't have that either.  We need to be unified in the scouting family.  

Ummm,  as a general rule,   males are stronger than females.   It's a well established fact.                                                                                            

[PinkPajamas]

29 minutes ago, SSF said:

Keep talking like that and you'll be invited to be a judge at this camporee next year

Hard pass. Their scoring "system" sounds like a clustermess.  

[Oldscout448]

45 minutes ago, malraux said:

Isn’t that the real victory in the competition?

I think the critical question is why the older scouts don't care.   

 If they have grown past the " gotta have more bling"  stage and care more about having fun and teaching the younger scouts then yes that's a good thing.

Bur we had a district camporee that the same troops patrols" won" year after year.  Even when it was very clear that they didn't.  Somehow the numbers always got tweaked just enough for them to win.  After a while the older scouts just stopped competing.  Sometimes they are smarter than we think.

 

[ParkMan]

1 hour ago, Oldscout448 said:

Ummm,  as a general rule,   males are stronger than females.   It's a well established fact.                                                                                            

But that's not why the Scouts were chanting that.  There's millions of facts that they could have chosen to chant.  But they chose that one for a reason.

Further, it's a divisive thing to do.  In essence it's pitting the boys against the girls.  As we are all Scouts, there's no real reason to do this.

Edited March 29, 2019 by ParkMan
Expanded the thought

[ParkMan]

3 hours ago, cocomax said:

The camporee was set up so that the adults running the events could give the ribbons to anyone they wanted to for any reason they wanted. The scoring system was things other than best time or best score.

I know this because our troop went head to head with the girls in the Alligator Pit Crossing (lashing contest) our boys got a better time then the girls and were told we had the 8th best time of the day so far. So the girls had a time that was 9th best or worse.  When the awards were given out we got a second place ribbon in the event that our boys feel THEY DO NOT DESERVE. The troop that did the even before us did the event in half the time as us, were younger scouts and had great scout spirit and they got nothing.

The girls got a first place in the Alligator Pit Crossing and it makes zero sense to me or the boys in our troop.

The 5 girl patrol won first place at lashings,  first place at Frisbee, first place at knot tying, first place at soccer, first place at first aid and first place at leaky can relay they got several other ribbons as well, I can't remember them all.

No other troop that I can remember got more than 2 ribbons, there was no strong second place patrol, the new 5 girls patrol skunked everyone. It was not even close. 

The people running the camporee made a point of saying that the girls winning best troop proves that girls belong in the BSA and that now the boys need to step up their game so that they can keep up with the girls.

Sunday morning the boys in my troop were wondering out loud  *IF* they ever go to another  camporee that had 3 girl patrols instead of just one, would the girls automatically win first second and third in every event? 

The boys in my troop are not happy.

What an awful disgrace from the adult organizers here.  I would have some blunt feedback for the District Chair after this.  The people organizing this Camporee need some better guidance going forward.

One thing that particularly saddens me is that this kind of behavior always backfires.  There are lots of Scouters out there who are apprehensive about the impact of girls entering the program.  We've seen several instances of that in just this topic alone.  It only serves to further feed that apprehension when nonsense like this occurs.  Volunteers have to approach troops for girls and troops for boys on a level playing field.  No special exceptions either way.  It's better for the girls that way, it's better for the boys that way.

[Eagledad]

3 hours ago, qwazse said:

 

@cocomax if your PLC really feels burned by this, they should write a letter telling the district key-3 so, and copying every SM in the district.

Even after you mentioned adults cheating, I still didn’t consider it. I’m embarrassed because I was blaming the unit leaders, but now I’m wondering it they were coaxed into going.

I agree Cocomax should meet with the Key3, but I’m suspicious they are the problem. If it’s the key3, then it’s the Council. 

Shesh

Barry

[cocomax]

The council CEO/Scout Executive was on site for this event.  He even stopped by our camp site and talked with us Saturday morning. 

I am suspicious the key3 are on board with this new way of scoring events at camporees.  

I now have a few questions for him next time I see him.

My mind is blow by the fact that a new all girl patrol got top 3 in all 11 events and most of those being first place. The boys they are linked with only got 2 ribbons.

11 ribbons,  that is amazing. . . 

No wonder the boys in my troop were wondering if there were 3 all girl patrols at a camporee if they would win all the events. 

I expect this is just the way things work now. 

 

 

Edited March 29, 2019 by cocomax

[ParkMan]

9 minutes ago, cocomax said:

The council CEO/Scout Executive was on site for this event.  He even stopped by our camp site and talked with us Saturday morning. 

I am suspicious the key3 are on board with this new way of scoring events at camporees.  

I now have a few questions for him next time I see him.

As a district volunteer, I'd be floored if the council key three had an inkling of how Camporee planners were scoring events.  The council key three should have significantly bigger fish to fry.   In fact, I doubt our district key three know how Camporee events are scored.

My recommendation is to ask some of the planners how they decided on the format.  Explore it with them.  Then, I'd recruit a couple of experienced troop adults to join the Camporee committee. 

[mashmaster]

I have been to two camporees this year and saw this same type of scoring biased towards the female troops.  At both those troops won and I personally saw unfair scoring in their favor and also their leaders overly helping the girls.

It saddened me because it cheapened the experience for all involved and the moms of the winning troops overly celebrated IMHO.  I think this is something that will level out over a couple of years.