2 year tenting rule - with yurts??

[Jameson76]

6 hours ago, Eagledad said:

Ah, the age of dealing with fear. Everybody excepting your same age tent mate is a suspected bad guy. Not very scout like I guess, but keeps everyone safe.

Not to make light of any real issues, but am I the only one that sees all the hoopla of the molester behind every tree, etc sort of smacks of the communist scares of the 50's?  Were there and are there bad people out there, yes.  Is it to the levels that our media and lawyers would make us feel there is...no.

Follow the reasonable YPT guidelines, do not overthink or you will be scared of your own shadows and question every decision you are making.

[Liz]

8 hours ago, elitts said:

I di put forward an interpretation of that rule that says "An 11 year old can tent with a 14 year old because their ages are only 2 integers apart", but I didn't get much buy-in. 

So instead I've had to content myself with insisting that if they'd meant "24 months apart" they would have said so.  Which matters because when the rule first came out I had people arguing that we needed to start bringing the roster on camp-outs to make sure we didn't have a kid born in May 2004 tenting with a kid born Oct. 2006 even though their ages were still 14 and 12.

We discussed this at our committee meeting and we decided to use a CYA approach and assume they meant 24 months. This also makes it simpler because you won't have kids who are eligible or not eligible to tent together at different times based on whether they've had their birthday yet this year or not. 

[Liz]

8 hours ago, Eagledad said:

Ah, the age of dealing with fear. Everybody excepting your same age tent mate is a suspected bad guy. Not very scout like I guess, but keeps everyone safe. Unless that same age tent mate has been bullying you since Cub Scouts. True situation we had to deal with.

OP, what do the parents say? 

Barry

Yes, that's a situation very similar with what I ran into with my oldest kid's first patrol, described earlier in the thread. 

When the committee met and discussed this issue, we just all agreed to review the G2SS and make sure having all the girls in one yurt wouldn't be forbidden. 

7 hours ago, MattR said:

I agree. Also, you know these girls, do you expect any problems? Do they work well together? Or are they cliquish? If there is just one older girl that looks out for the younger scouts then nothing more than a quick discussion with all the scouts about looking out for and being helpful to each other is all that's needed. Have fun.

This is a great group of girls. I don't anticipate problems. 

3 hours ago, mrjohns2 said:

There was a faq or a Brian on Scouting asking about adirondack trail shelters being accommodations and not using the tent rule. I would consider a yurt being more cabin like than an adirondack. 

I feel quite comfortable calling a yurt an "accommodation" rather than a tent. What I wasn't quite clear on was whether the 2 year rule also applied to tents. I was leaning towards "no" because it doesn't mention the 2 year rule in that section, but felt an argument could be made that since it doesn't specifically say it does NOT apply, and only addresses the mixed gender or adults sharing with youth issues, that it was supposed to be assumed that the 2 year rule still applies. 

It sounds like I'm definitely not alone in leaning towards "it doesn't apply." Of course common sense will still need to be taken into consideration for individual outings, but in this one I feel (as long as we're not breaking any rules) common sense tells me we're fine. 

[ianwilkins]

10 hours ago, MikeS72 said:

I had to google 'yurt'.  In 55 years of scouting I have never been anywhere that had them.  My first thought when I saw the pictures was 'Oh, Genghis Khan!'

Indeed.

One of my ex-Explorer Scouts made them for a living for a while, not sure if he made a living from it though. Did think about renting one off him, but one more of those things you never quite get around to.

And to add to your lexicon, we have 4 or 5 "lavvu", ours are 8 person tents that are octagonal, with one central pole, but we call them tepees because we got bored of everyone saying "you what?" when we said "lavvu". They're great because they pack down very small, one person can easily carry a tent for 8 people. Ideal for campsite camps not far off the beaten track.

[elitts]

8 hours ago, Liz said:

We discussed this at our committee meeting and we decided to use a CYA approach and assume they meant 24 months. This also makes it simpler because you won't have kids who are eligible or not eligible to tent together at different times based on whether they've had their birthday yet this year or not. 

How does using 24 months make it simpler though? (Do we mean the same thing?)  Because using 24 months instead of 2 years it means that if someone just turned 12 on the Friday of a camp-out, they are limited to tenting with someone no older than 13 because anyone who is 14 would have to be more than 24 months older (unless they have the same birthday).

Whereas if you use "2 years" you can just say, "If you are 12, you can't tent with anyone older than 14" and you don't have to worry about specific dates.

[perdidochas]

10 hours ago, Liz said:

We discussed this at our committee meeting and we decided to use a CYA approach and assume they meant 24 months. This also makes it simpler because you won't have kids who are eligible or not eligible to tent together at different times based on whether they've had their birthday yet this year or not. 

It is the simplest way to do it.  

[John-in-KC]

Why aren’t adults trusting the Scouts to honor the Scout Law?

youth bed down is youth leader business. 

[mrkstvns]

56 minutes ago, John-in-KC said:

Why aren’t adults trusting the Scouts to honor the Scout Law?

youth bed down is youth leader business. 

Yes, but responsibility for youth safety ultimately rests with the adults.  I presume that you're saying that since adults are there to help guide the youth leaders, the way we should respect the YPT guidelines is by educating the SPL and delegate implementation decisions to him.

[fred8033]

2 hours ago, John-in-KC said:

Why aren’t adults trusting the Scouts to honor the Scout Law?

LOL ... I've been on too many camp outs with scouts.  Scouts are not angels.  Also, SPLs are not angels; nor are SPLs usually long experienced leaders.  

Key point is G2SS is adult responsibility.  

[Treflienne]

16 hours ago, Liz said:

assume they meant 24 months. This also makes it simpler because you won't have kids who are eligible or not eligible to tent together at different times based on whether they've had their birthday yet this year or not. 

 

8 hours ago, elitts said:

How does using 24 months make it simpler though?

I agree with Liz.

If Sally and Susy are 25 months apart in age, they can NEVER tent together.

If Sally and Sarah are 23 months apart in age, YPT age rules ALWAYS permit them to tent together.

It doesn't change month by month.  The kids can easily figure out who in their patrols they can tent with.  And it is the same for the next camping trip, also.

But it does mean that a barely 11-year-old cannot tent with an older 13-year-old.

[David CO]

41 minutes ago, fred8033 said:

Key point is G2SS is adult responsibility.  

The kids know that G2SS isn't there to protect them.  It exists to protect BSA bank accounts.  It exists to protect executive payrolls.  You can't expect the kids to care about any of that.  

[elitts]

1 hour ago, David CO said:

The kids know that G2SS isn't there to protect them.  It exists to protect BSA bank accounts.  It exists to protect executive payrolls.  You can't expect the kids to care about any of that.  

Yup.  Even kids are capable of calling "Bullshit" when they see a rules list that claims "safety requirements" say that a 12 year old can't put some shredded bark in the 4 wheeled wagon red ryder wagon they got as a 4 year old  and pull it down a path.

[Liz]

6 hours ago, Treflienne said:

 

I agree with Liz.

If Sally and Susy are 25 months apart in age, they can NEVER tent together.

If Sally and Sarah are 23 months apart in age, YPT age rules ALWAYS permit them to tent together.

It doesn't change month by month.  The kids can easily figure out who in their patrols they can tent with.  And it is the same for the next camping trip, also.

But it does mean that a barely 11-year-old cannot tent with an older 13-year-old.

Exactly this. It makes it simpler because it doesn't change with the seasons. If Aeryn (my kiddo) and Samantha can tent together, they can tent together throughout their years in Scouting. If Samantha and Michelle cannot tent together, then that doesn't change just because Samantha had a birthday in April and now it's June. They can't tent together ever.

But apparently, they can yurt or cabin or lavvu together in large groups.  

[fred8033]

17 hours ago, Treflienne said:

But it does mean that a barely 11-year-old cannot tent with an older 13-year-old.

That does sound like a good idea.  Though it might be viewed as the grey area, it's about the amount of difference where it would be raising flags for me.  

[fred8033]

16 hours ago, David CO said:

The kids know that G2SS isn't there to protect them.  It exists to protect BSA bank accounts.  It exists to protect executive payrolls.  You can't expect the kids to care about any of that.  

I must disagree.  G2SS is close to the exact set of youth protection rules I'd promote.  Of course, there are entries I roll my eyes at.  My repeated example is playing laser tag or even paint ball.  Those two games are the modern day version of playing tag.  If when scouting can't help teach responsibility in games like that, then scouting is making itself an anachronism.  Worse, our scouts have to pretend not to be scouts or not to be part of scouting at that moment to play laser tag or paint ball.  

But even as I get frustrated with those two entries ... and others ..., scouting is much better off because of G2SS.