Scouting America

[Tron]

On 9/18/2024 at 3:33 PM, Eagledad said:

The troop membership trend used to reflect the pack membership trend five years later. But the Cub growth in 2022 makes me wonder if adding girl membership will change that factor. I would be curious to know how much membership changes in the GSUSA from 10-year-olds to 12-year-olds. Do girls lose interest as the program becomes more outdoor? That is when my daughter quit.

Barry

National has to fix the girl troop/blended troop/coed troop issue before any female cub scout uptick can have a beneficial affect on troops. In my area we've lost so many female scouts due to no or poor troop options over the past 2 years. National needs to pull the trigger on full coed before next April or we're just going to lose a ton of female scouts yet again in crossover season.

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

1 hour ago, Tron said:

National has to fix the girl troop/blended troop/coed troop issue before any female cub scout uptick can have a beneficial affect on troops. In my area we've lost so many female scouts due to no or poor troop options over the past 2 years. National needs to pull the trigger on full coed before next April or we're just going to lose a ton of female scouts yet again in crossover season.

This seems to be generally true. Once the rules start requiring gender segregation, suddenly you have an operational problem if you don't have a critical mass of girls (to be clear, we also care about and value the presence of boys in Scouting America units, but because it used to be the case that all units were 100% boys there are already a lot of boys in the organization such that best I can tell nobody is struggling to serve them), and it's hard to get that critical mass in one go. 

We had a scout in my unit be the only one who couldn't tent with another scout at Webelo-AOL "transition" summer camp and had to tent with a parent. That happened because of the genders of who happened to sign up from our unit as well as the added complexity for the camp to track and match gender in each campsite and operational den. The scout was promised a tentmate by the camp, and the scout was excited to meet them until the point close to bedtime that it became clear that they weren't coming. The camp had moved the pack with the other lone girl to another campsite and patrol without noticing that it broke the gender pairing. TBH I can't blame them. It's too much.

Edited October 2 by AwakeEnergyScouter
Typo

[Eagledad]

1 hour ago, Tron said:

National has to fix the girl troop/blended troop/coed troop issue before any female cub scout uptick can have a beneficial affect on troops. In my area we've lost so many female scouts due to no or poor troop options over the past 2 years. National needs to pull the trigger on full coed before next April or we're just going to lose a ton of female scouts yet again in crossover season.

Are you saying an option for full coed or single-gender patrols or just full coed?

I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe National knows something you don't.

Barry

[Eagle94-A1]

Talking to folks in the UK when they went coed, single gendered troop, whether all male or all female, gradually died off.

[Eagledad]

22 minutes ago, Eagle94-A1 said:

Talking to folks in the UK when they went coed, single gendered troop, whether all male or all female, gradually died off.

It makes sense, efficiency with limited resources of adults would encourage a coed program.

Barry

[qwazse]

Moms who were fielding a very active GS/USA unit in our neighborhood retired. So we are a little behind in girls joining the pack. I’m starting to give those parents a warning that their daughters will need to recruit a critical mass for our CO to support them. The parent remain clueless that “family scouting”, “scouts BSA”, and “Scouting America” are just corporate doublespeak for the program of BSA4G that now operated in anddition to BSA.

[BetterWithCheddar]

On 10/3/2024 at 4:07 AM, qwazse said:

The parent remain clueless that “family scouting”, “scouts BSA”, and “Scouting America” are just corporate doublespeak for the program of BSA4G that now operated in anddition to BSA.

In defense of those parents, I don't think the BSA (SA?) has done a particularly good job of branding itself in the public sphere, considering those of us closer to the program still struggle.

I still do not know how to refer to the classic Scouting program formerly for boys ages 11-18. We used to distinguish between "Cub Scouts" and "Boy Scouts." Then it was "Cub Scouts" and "Scouts BSA." Now, I guess it would be "Cub Scouts" and just "Scouts?" That's confusing because Cub Scouts are also Scouts, are they not?

[MikeS72]

18 minutes ago, BetterWithCheddar said:

In defense of those parents, I don't think the BSA (SA?) has done a particularly good job of branding itself in the public sphere, considering those of us closer to the program still struggle.

I still do not know how to refer to the classic Scouting program formerly for boys ages 11-18. We used to distinguish between "Cub Scouts" and "Boy Scouts." Then it was "Cub Scouts" and "Scouts BSA." Now, I guess it would be "Cub Scouts" and just "Scouts?" That's confusing because Cub Scouts are also Scouts, are they not?

Cut and pasted from the front page of scouting.org

[BetterWithCheddar]

1 hour ago, MikeS72 said:

Cut and pasted from the front page of scouting.org

Thanks, but I'm not sure that really helps. The BSA moniker is no more, yet we still brand our flagship program as "Scouts BSA?" (never mind the fact that "Scouts BSA" wasn't a particularly strong re-brand to begin with).

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

4 hours ago, BetterWithCheddar said:

I still do not know how to refer to the classic Scouting program formerly for boys ages 11-18. We used to distinguish between "Cub Scouts" and "Boy Scouts." Then it was "Cub Scouts" and "Scouts BSA." Now, I guess it would be "Cub Scouts" and just "Scouts?" That's confusing because Cub Scouts are also Scouts, are they not?

I think we're all struggling with this. I have found myself saying and writing "cub scouts" more (for cub scouts, of course) whereas I used to just say "scouts" about them, and "the regular scouting program" about what is formally called Scouts BSA and trying to reserve "scouts" for those older youth. But I can see that my division of cub scouts being "extra" and Scouts BSA being the "regular" program isn't necessarily how others around me think about it so I don't know that I'd recommend that last bit.

I suppose the way it used to be way back when cub scouts were wolf cubs and blue-winged butterflies makes it clear in that 'scout' isn't even in the name for those, but it would be a real bad idea to give up the US Cub Scouts brand when there's nothing particularly wrong with it. But, certainly, to me 'scouts' is the patrol-method-using thing above all else, so while it doesn't solve the problem directly I do think that adding that 'cub' for cub scouts can help with clarity.

[fred8033]

We never had clean terminology ever.  It was always confusing.  BSA was always Boy Scouts of America and Cub Scouts were always members of BSA and thus were Boy Scouts.  ...  It's just that we were so so used to the terminology.

Perhaps, it's now ... in order of my preference
      Scout Pack versus Scout Troop
      Cub Scouts versus Troop Scouts
      Cub Scouts versus Scouts  
      Cub Scouts versus older scouts
      Pack Scouts versus Troop Scouts
     

[BetterWithCheddar]

"Cub Scout Pack" vs. "Scout Troop" is the cleanest delineator today, IMHO.

When I'm talking with the Cubs, I may say something like "When you're a little older and join a Scout Troop, ..."

I'll often refer to the BSA/SA as the "national organization."

[qwazse]

On 10/4/2024 at 5:47 AM, BetterWithCheddar said:

In defense of those parents, I don't think the BSA (SA?) has done a particularly good job of branding itself in the public sphere, …

I would say BSA intentionally obfuscated! It’s not hard to be plain-spoken when describing the programs. We currently offer:

Cub Scout packs

Boy Scout troops

Boy Scout troops for Girls

Venturing/Sea/Exploring Scout Crews/Ships/Posts for CoEds in High School and early adulthood.

Tell the truth. Market accordingly. It’s not hard.

[AwakeEnergyScouter]

1 hour ago, qwazse said:

Boy Scout troops for Girls

So, SO awkward though. And... doesn't feel true. The absolute vast majority of people are cis. Nobody - literally nobody - thinks that cis girls are boys, so how can they be boy scouts?  The term is arguably unclear.

I wasn't a boy scout as a youth. Any my male patrolmates weren't girl scouts. And we also weren't hermaphrodite scouts. We were all just scouts. What we were doing was way more important than what gender we were.

Taking gender as the primary lens on life and then viewing scouting through it is a mistake. In a scouting context, make scouting the primary lens on life and leave gender to be one of many, many secondary characteristics of scouts.

Gender is not the prism through which everything must be seen and understood.

[HashTagScouts]

We may make more of that than is needed, just because many of us were around before and after the change, and we're more trying to find our own way on how adjust. Each country has their own flavor on how they have set up their program, but the comparable program to what many of us have known as "Cub Scouts" and "Boy Scouts" are just "Cub Scouts" and "Scouts" to them.

Scouts UK			Scouts Canada
Squirrel Scouts	4-5 years		Beaver Scouts	5-7 years
Beaver Scouts	6-7 years		Cub Scouts	8-10 years
Cub Scouts	8-10.5 years		Scouts	11-14 years
Scouts	10.5-14 years		Venturer Scouts	15-17 years
Explorers	15-17 years		Rover Scouts	18-26 years
Network members	18-25 years
Scouts Mexico			Scouts Brazil
Cub Scouts	6-9 years		Cub Scouts	6.5-10 years
Scouts	10-13 years		Scouts	11-14 years
Walkers	14-17 years		Senior Scouts	15-17 years
Rovers	18-21 years		Pioneers	18-21 years

Edited October 10 by HashTagScouts