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Since it seems we're the only ones still active on this thread...

When I first got the 'pitch' from BSA, the party line was that a great, untapped potential existed as a result of demographic changes. That is, more and more families are doing things together. Further, there is less and less time for individualized attention: fathers have to split their time between Suzy's basketball game and John's Scout program. If we could open up BSA to girls, then we could alleviate this familial pressure...and maybe even offer girls leadership skills and help in their formation.

It was a sales pitch that was well-received by many male leaders who were in this camp, though I candidly don't know how many of them were divorced etc. Frankly, I thought it was a solution in search of a problem. True, membership has been falling for some time...but as this graph shows...

...there WAS an increase in membership after the 1970s Vietnam-era "make love, not war" retraction.

I suggested that BSA try to examine what "worked" during the Reagan years and try to replicate that vs assume that just because BSA had 100 years of success in forming young men that BSA can simply whip this program on young women and it will ipso facto be a success.

Obviously, they didn't take old DoodleBob's advice.

Again, I don't doubt that times have changed. I also recognize you gotta roll with the changes. In a vacuum, I'm not against permitting girls into BSA insofar as Girl Scouts do a lousy job of forming young women, PROVIDED strong controls and safeguards.

But bringing air into that vacuum, we know some truths are eternal. Girls and boys ARE different (notwithstanding that Tired of Taxes sounds like she'd make an awesome Scout). Further, the fact that senior management never really reached out to the rank and file for feedback/opinions tells me all I need to know about how much my opinion is valued.

However, what I DO see, is that National has not been heavy-handed in this new approach. I see many local Troops embrace the new normal, and many avoiding it like the plague - and so far, nobody has been shunned. Time will tell just how "hands off" senior management will be. For now my view is that many people bemoaning these changes are either divorced from Scouting, chronic complainers, or both. Meanwhile, strong Troops continue to provide strong leadership and direction to the male youths.

Thanks for listening.

I hope some of the others here (especially the scoutmasters) return to this thread and see your last post, DoodleBob.

BTW, sometimes my posts are too brief and not clear enough. So, to make my opinion clear:

I agree with you 100% that BSA should not be co-ed. The parenthetical comment in my last post about some girls needing adventure, too, was only an added remark. The Girl Scouts (or some other organization) should provide those opportunities for girls.

That pitch that you said the BSA gave is interesting. They should’ve listened to your advice, DoodleBob. It sounds as if scoutmasters who have daughters wanted their girls to be involved. I have no daughters, so maybe that’s why I see things differently. When my boys were little, I knew many other mothers of boys. And we all complained to each other about the lack of programs for boys. Plenty of special girls-only programs that excluded boys, and some co-ed programs, but nothing for boys only. Except the Boy Scouts.

For the record, my boys probably wouldn’t have minded the BSA going completely co-ed. They’re out of it now, anyway, two of them grown now. But, as a parent, the way I see it, even if the BSA plans to keep boys and girls in separate troops, and not allow them to camp together, for example, it’s just one less thing boys are allowed to have.

Of course, the BSA has had co-ed programs for a long time. But, if the whole thing becomes co-ed, the BSA will change to accommodate.

For the record, I would’ve been a terrible scout. lol On those boy scout camping trips, my sons told me the troop couldn’t shower for days; they had to use the woods as their toilet; they’d become filthy dirty. One of my boys signed up for wilderness survival training where they had to go deep in the woods where each scout had to build his own shelter using sticks and branches, spending overnight in the dirt with bugs crawling all over him. As a young girl, I enjoyed adventure, but maybe not that much. lol

Well, at least the troops are doing their own thing, for now, and the higher-ups aren’t pushing the issue.

I will say that national does not make it easy to be the leader of a unit - at all.

They should be more worried about program than about membership. Lately they’ve been trying, but not hard enough. That huge camping facility in WV is a money pit. Bechtel? They are so massively in hock out there.

They loosened up the shooting sports program in terms of what’s permissible, but then locked events down to council run events only.

As for girls being in the program. I was doing that a decade ago out of necessity. Little female sibs were showing up to Pack meetings in large numbers. I formed them into dens and put them in the program. Got huge, huge blowback. Now its policy.

National hands its jobs out to politically connected people who are rich. They don’t hand them to people qualified to do the job.

It’s still the best program available.