Single female AOL crossover

[Jenni]

We are willing to establish a Girl Troop to pair with our Boy Troop, and have female leadership. However, we only have one female scout crossing over. The FAQs on the Safety page on Scouting BSA makes it sound like programming can’t happen without a sane gender buddy pair. Does this mean our girl who has journeyed fur years with her fellow Den-mates will not be able to do activities with them in the Troop because there is not another female youth? If you have encountered this, what was your solution?

[RememberSchiff]

@Jenniwelcome to scouter.com

Edited September 27, 2023 by RememberSchiff

[InquisitiveScouter]

18 hours ago, Jenni said:

We are willing to establish a Girl Troop to pair with our Boy Troop, and have female leadership. However, we only have one female scout crossing over. The FAQs on the Safety page on Scouting BSA makes it sound like programming can’t happen without a sane gender buddy pair. Does this mean our girl who has journeyed fur years with her fellow Den-mates will not be able to do activities with them in the Troop because there is not another female youth? If you have encountered this, what was your solution?

@Jenni, technically, yes.

Also, Council will not allow you to charter a female Troop unless you have five Scouts.  Check with your registrar, please.

[dk516]

@Jenni some Councils may allow forming a provisional unit when you do not have the full number of 5 Youth but can show them that you will most likely reach the goal within a year. 

By the letters of YPT (and yes they have been enforced more strictly recently) a single Youth could not participate because of the buddy requirement. Also, bear in mind that as a linked Troop, each unit still has to provide 2-deep leadership at each event, meeting, outing, etc. If she's the only one what is your realistic outlook on finding more girls? Do you have enough prospects that it would even make sense to form a unit long-term?

Maybe as a temporary solution you could meet with another girl unit to satisfy the buddy requirement while you are recruiting enough girls to make your new unit work?

[FireStone]

When is the crossover? Assuming something like February/March, you have time to try and recruit. Grab some flyers and promotional materials from the BSA Brand Center website, post on social media, get the word out around town and see if you can get some other interested girls and parents on board.

If it becomes prohibitive to establish a local troop (not enough interest), the best thing might be to just find the nearest existing troop and get her involved there.

I know from parents here that were faced with similar situations they ended up not being willing to go out of town, just because of the added time traveling to meetings. Which my response to that has been, "Driving 20 minutes each way to a weekly meeting with an existing troop is less time than you'll spend if you set up a local troop and are the SM or ASM." I know there is more to it that drive time, and obviously a local troop is preferable where scouts know each other from school. But don't rule out a non-local option, even if just temporarily.

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

14 hours ago, FireStone said:

I know there is more to it that drive time, and obviously a local troop is preferable where scouts know each other from school.

It can also be the other way around - if your patrol members attend different schools, then you expand your friendship circle and have more social support.

Half of my troop attended my school, the other half attended another. My friendship group in my patrol mostly came from the other school, friends I wouldn't have made without scouts.

[Cburkhardt]

Our mega-sized girl troop (that is not paired with a boy troop) does not rely on crossovers.  We recruit at least 80% of our new members through simple open houses and similar tactics.  I would focus on effectively recruiting girls.  Solely relying on "crossovers" does not provide plentiful membership for girl troops.  I would spend time figuring out how to recruit bunches of girls who have not been in Cub Scouts instead of figuring out how to operate a micro-sized girl troop.  Your heart is in the right place and you will figure this out.  Proceed with confidence.  You have a wonderful program to offer girls and they will join when you share your story.