Scoutmaster of Scouts BSA Troop 248 for Girls Answers your Questions
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cburkhardt
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Dear Friends,
Regular readers of DCUM know I occasionally post a comment to answer questions about the all-girl program known as “Scouts BSA”. I’ve been the Scoutmaster of our all-girl Scouts BSA Troop for Girls since it was formed in 2018. There are no co-ed Troops in the BSA, only all-girl or all-boy Troops. Our Troop has become a well-known and large (53 girls) organization that meets on Saturday mornings at All Souls Episcopal Church, near the National Zoo. We have our annual Open House this Saturday posted in the events section of this site, so I will not discuss that. The purpose of this posting is to answer any questions you have about what is available in Scouts BSA for girls in particular and how it works. My responses may refer to what our group does, but I will also generalize to what the 85 other Scouts BSA Troops for Girls do in the DMV. To summarize, our group meets on two Saturday mornings each month and goes on a Friday – Sunday campout every month, except for December. We go to a week-long summer camp near the Shenandoah Mountains in late June as a group. Some of our most-experienced girls go backpacking instead, such as the 14 who backpacked 75 miles through the historic Philmont Scout Reservation this just-completed summer. We have 26 women and men who volunteer to assist this girl-led group and we strictly follow the youth protection regulations of the Episcopal Church and BSA. Our parents choose not to have their girls engage in product sales, so we are funded entirely on break-even dues and event fees that pay the cost of operations. We hold a simple coffee reception each year to raise funds to help under-resourced families pay the cost of their participation. Girls follow the identical iconic BSA advancement system. After nearly four years of operation, I can share from experience that the program perfectly serves the interests of girls. Four of our girls have earned the Eagle Scout Rank, and I expect we will have a similar number this academic year. Girls can join Scouts BSA Troops for Girls from age 11 through 17 (or, they can join at age 10 if they have finished 5th grade). Our group has an even representation from age 11 through high school, which provides older girl examples to follow. There are many other organizations and activities serving the interests of girls. There are also many historic downfalls and mistakes of the BSA and other organizations. Because those topics have been exhaustively discussed on postings these past several years, I’m asking that this posting focus on what we do and how we do it. I invite those who want to debate the relative merits of organizations and review the tragedies of the past to start their own postings. I’ll try to check in on questions a couple of time a day for as long as there is interest. |
Anonymous
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Thank you for a thought-provoking post. I’m a leader for GS in an area with one of the oldest BSA troops in the country but not almost no BSA Troops for girls, let alone thriving ones. I’ve been very curious about how a thriving girls BSA troop is set up! Would you mind answering:
1. How do you fund outdoor gear acquisition for each girl, and where do you store troop camping supplies? 2. Did you recruit leaders and volunteers from existing boys’ troops’ families, or from new girls’ families? What (if any) barriers did you face to recruiting sufficient numbers of volunteers with outdoor experience, and how did you overcome them? 3. How do you recruit girls at age 10, which in my experience is a time when they’ve already committed to a time-consuming travel sport, dance program, etc? 4. What did your troop formation and start-up look like? Was it driven by one leader or a group of interested families? I’ve seen false starts in our area by well-intentioned parents already involved in BSA who just didn’t haven the time for a boys’ and girls’ troop and ultimately stuck with the boys because the existing structure and membership had so much momentum already. 5. What are your girl:adult ratios for weekend camping? Thank you for posting this! I have a lot of respect for anyone who wants to spend their free time volunteering for kids’ programs. It’s increasingly rare! |
Anonymous
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Congrats, it sounds like a great program. I'm curious what a typical meeting looks like. How is it structured? How does the group decide what merit badges or activities to do?
53 kids is a lot! Do they break up into smaller groups by age? Camping one weekend a month is a big time commitment! Do many kids make it to all 11 trips? How many at each trip? How much time is required of parents? |
cburkhardt
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Great questions.
The Troop acquired all tents, stoves and other non-personal equipment over the last three years from dues money, contributions from our church and other sources. All girls have to bring is their personal sleeping bag, ground pad and clothing. The bags and pads are inexpensive and of reasonable quality at Wal Mart. Under-resourced families can get free equipment through a local group of BSA volunteers who maintain a warehouse of donated used equipment. We are a “stand alone” girl Troop, meaning we are at a church where there is no boy Troop. We did this on purpose to assure the focus would be on having a successful all-girl operation. We recruit the girls during open houses and find only about 20% have a brother in an all-boy Troop. Some of our girls are also in Girl Scouts. We have no problem recruiting adult volunteers, including many with outdoor experience. I believe this is because we are large-scale. Just think of it – we have over 100 parents, so a good number are going to have whatever talent or capability the girls might need. Small Troops with 10 members and a few adults are vulnerable organizations that lack the depth. We also do not over-use our volunteers. People are asked to do only one thing. We never “double-up” assignments with our people. We also start our monthly adult Zoom call precisely on time, so we never, ever waste anyone’s time. We have no problem recruiting girls at age 10 – 12, which is our ideal “joining age”. I think this is because our families tell us that 10-Noon on Saturdays is open time for these girls. We started our Troop by conducting 4 focus groups in the District of adults we thought had children who should be interested in joining. We recruited 12 adults from those gatherings and have maintained a reasonable growth since then. It was driven by a few individuals, but soon became a multi-family effort. Today we have over 30 of our families contributing to the operations in some meaningful way beyond our minimal requirements (see below). A few are deeply involved, but the rest just do their part a couple of times a year. Girl Troops that are affiliated with Boy Troops need to operate as separately as possible, including different campouts and events. Otherwise the adult committee gets combined into a big blob that sometimes favors the interests of the boys. The committee can be shared, but the programs are supposed to be operated separately. Our typical weekend campout usually has about one adult for every 5 youth. In Scouts BSA, there is no particular ratio required, but there must be female leaders. We are a majority female group of volunteers, so this is not a problem. Our typical 2-hour meeting is structured so that our youth “Senior Patrol Leader” leads it all with her eight appointed assistants. This includes program skill instruction, meetings of the sub-group “patrols” to plan how each sub-group will cook on the next campout, games, presentations by visitors, and planning time to determine upcoming events. We also present awards for Scouts who have advanced ranks or earned merit badges. Girl Troops have the capacity to meet for longer time periods and should. That is why we meet twice each month for a longer time. Our elected youth leaders show up to our meetings at 9 AM once a month to have their leadership and planning meeting. 53 girls is not a lot. This is because we break them into four sub-groups called “patrols”. Each patrol has adult advisors and does some things independently of the other patrols. We often have competitions between them. The patrols are scrambled in every way. We mix ages and schools so everyone learns to get along with others. The older girls become role models. Most girls attend about 2/3 of our camping events. When you are putting on an event every month (except December and August), you get on a roll and it becomes a system. Again, this is something that larger groups can pull off more easily than 10 youth and a few adults. It would just not work without wearing out the involved people. Parents are required to help run two events per year (meeting, campout or service project). They are required to car pool. They are required to pay dues and event fees. They are required to make some contribution (the amount I up to them) to help pay for our under-resourced girl participants. |
Anonymous
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I was the Girl Scouts PP with the first set of questions and just wanted to say a huge thank you! I’m so intrigued and wish I was nearby so I could visit your troop in person. We see a lot of girls who are craving these experiences move into outdoor-focused GS troops in high school, but they draw from the entire region so distances are a challenge. I know my younger girls want more outdoor experiences and we are struggling to provide them within the frameworks of the GS funding and volunteer rules.
Two more quick questions, and thank you again for sharing all of this: 1. Could you share your dues and event fees? 2. How do you identify participants who need financial assistance and work with their families to make bigger events and experiences feasible for them? (I lead a GS troop in a small school community, so we know who needs assistance for certain things and it’s easy to apply for formal financial aid through the council without the entire troop knowing) |
cburkhardt
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Great additional questions.
The financial arrangements on running a Scout BSA Troop are pretty much up to the people involved in forming and operating it. They open their own bank account and obtain and spend revenue in a normal manner. There aren’t many restrictions on how to raise or spend money as long as the adult Troop Committee oversees the process. Very simple and common sense. Our Troop Committee carefully added up the many costs involved in running a “best practices” Troop, with the intention that the amount would be recovered on an annual basis through dues. We are a big and very active Troop that provides a rigorous program year-around. So, we developed an “all in” budget that includes: equipment acquisition, maintenance and replacement; cost of tours and special projects; annual national re-registration dues; patches and other advancement recognition items; flags, rope, batteries, plastic storage boxes, snacks for meetings, Scout Handbooks and other Scout program literature, and hundreds of other costs we could remember. Our parents’ thinking is that we do not want to be continuously asking members for small fees and do not want the most involved volunteers (called “Scoutmasters” in Scouts BSA) to be personally paying for things. The actual cost to operate over the course of a year is about $400 per Scout, so we collect this in two installment (in the fall and spring). Families with more than one girl get a 50% discount after the first child. In addition, we charge $40 for our weekend campouts. This pays for all program, camping fees, and food (Friday snack, Saturday meals and Sunday breakfast). Some of these campouts cost more than and some cost less, but we keep the fee the same to keep things simple. In total, if a girls attends six campouts and is a member, her annual out of pocket cost will be $640. When I share this figure, some people think it is just outrageous, because they compare this to Scout Troops that only charge minimal national dues (“My girl pays only $47 to our Troop!”). Of course the error in that logic is that they are comparing apples to oranges and not valuing the time not spent doing product sales. I am perfectly proud of our management of the program and would challenge anyone to show where a girl can get an equal best practices experience for anywhere near this figure. I sometimes chuckle when I learn that families often spend more than that in a single weekend on a travel team road trip. So, we are satisfied that we are delivering great value. As for under-resourced families, all of our families are encouraged to contact either the pastor of our Chartered Organization (sponsor) church or the adult Chair of our Troop Committee if they desire financial assistance with these fees. The answer is always yes and the amount is often to discount the fees by 50% (more if needed). Decisions are made in confidence and the only people who know who receives help are the pastor, Troop Committee Chair, our adult Treasurer and me. Big, special trips like the one our 14 Scouts and six adults took to New Mexico this summer are done on a special stand-alone budget. These optional, extraordinary opportunities cost upwards of $1,500 each and the participating Scouts involved do special fundraising activities for that specific event. But, this never involves product sales. The Scouts earned about half of the New Mexico fees through their efforts, leaving the remainder to be paid by families. Still, two girls needed financial assistance, which was gladly provided. The BSA also has scholarship monies (called “camperships”) that help with these fees. |
Anonymous
| How does camping work for girls - one of the benefits I see of girl scouts is girl scout owned camps. How do you keep girls safe/help girls feel safe on campsites where there are boys/men? |
Anonymous
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Thank you for the dues answer. Here’s my GS experience for transparency and to help other PPs think about their situation, since you’ve been so helpful, OP:
Product sales eat up January-March for my GS troop and even though it funds a year of activities, the time spent prepping for cookie sale and recovering from that can eat up nearly half of the school year’s meetings. It also causes a lot of difficulty because girls who leave the troop work hard to earn money they don’t benefit from, while new girls reap the benefits of the previous year’s hard work. We end up self-funding for some activities to get around that, which creates a ton of tedious follow-up and parent communication. Imagining the possibilities of getting 3 months back and starting the year with a fully-funded budget is tempting. |
Anonymous
| This seems like a good opportunity for higher SES families with girls with a strong interest in camping. What other programming do you do aside from the camping? Community service, STEM, career exploration, etc.? Could you operate your program if you had, say, 50% of girls on financial assistance? |
Anonymous
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Another great question.
When Scouts BSA Troop 248 for Girls goes camping, we take along our trained Scoutmasters and a good number of chaperone parents. We follow the BSA system of youth protection that provides a set of protective practices too lengthy to discuss in this posting. However, a good summary is that Scouts are never allowed to be alone. They must always have at least one buddy with them when doing anything, especially when going to washroom or shower facilities. These are segregated by sex and further separated between adults and youth. Adults are prohibited from any one-on-one contact with a youth, including in-person and on-line contact. Two adults must always be present when interacting with a youth, and at least one must be female. Weekend camping is easy. We are usually camping in a site by ourselves, so keeping the Scouts safe and separated from others is pretty easy. At the summer camp we attend, there are twenty other all-girl and all-boy Troops present on a 200-acre parcel. Girls in Scouts BSA are very common and not a rarity. Each Troop camps in its own site and other Scouts are not allowed to enter unless invited by the Troop leadership for a special event (shared meal, etc.). The entire parcel and the larger Scout Reservation within which it sits, are patrolled by law enforcement. Given the modern era of youth protection, there is simply no exceptions to the youth protection rules, and any adult leader who does not cooperate in strictly enforcing them is immediately removed from Scouting. Actual abuse has been very rare in Scouting since the youth protection procedures were strengthened years ago. |
cburkhardt
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Thanks for the questions on the scope of Scouts BSA programming.
The Scouts BSA purpose is to teach good decision making and leadership skills. Scouting has chosen the outdoors as its principal classroom, so our girls naturally become quite confident in the outdoors and camping overnight is part of that. However, our experience is that girls arrive at our Troop without much camping experience and with an amount of fear of being outdoors overnight. Most take to it pretty quickly, but this is mainly because they are put into a small “patrol” with other girls who teach them how to do it – and to not be afraid. I believe girls come to understand the duality of the outdoors. It is impossibly beautiful yet threatening at the same time. They overcome the fear as they follow the examples of the older girls and acquire skills and practices to become physically and psychologically comfortable. There is always a sense of tremendous accomplishment when this happens. Once confidence and competence arrives, the girl next becomes familiar with how to be a leader of others when leading things as simple as the cooking of a patrol’s meal to planning and leading an evening campfire involving 40 other girls. The same process of learning and fine-tuning decision-making and leadership skills take place in meetings, on hikes, during service projects and eventually through exercising elected leadership. It is probably true that girls who will not camp and become involved in the outdoors will not enjoy being in Scouts BSA. Not every group is for every girl. As for the remainder of the questions, the BSA “advancement program” provides the service, cultural, career, and hobby side of Scouts BSA programming. When a girl starts out, her first 2 years are generally spent mastering the outdoor, citizenship and Scoutcraft program. When she earns the rank of “First Class Scout”, she has completed the basic curriculum and is able to be self-sustaining in the outdoors. This includes the ability to survive, save lives (first aid, lifesaving, etc.) and be confident as a person. First Class Scouts are neither bullies nor bullied. They are confident, informed young women who stand up for themselves and others. Service projects are required each time a girls wishes to advance a “rank”. The stem, career and educational side of Scouting is through the merit badge program. Girls earn several “required” merit badges that teach advanced life skills and citizenship. They also earn a number of “optional” merit badges that directly expose them to the broadest array of careers. The curriculum of a merit badge is written by nationally-credentialled non-scouting leaders of an industry or profession. The girls participate in classes and relevant practical experiences. For example, girls in the railroad merit badge actually experience riding in the engine of a train. There are 135 merit badge covering all major careers. Well, I have probably exhausted you with this explanation, but that is how the program works and “fits together”. When a girl does it all (21 merit badges and a big Eagle Scout project), she becomes an Eagle Scout. We could easily run this program if we were subsidizing 50% of out youth. This is not a “rich person” program and it is impossibly cheap to operate. And, there are many community leaders who understand it who are willing to step forward with contributions when needed. However, I will share that most of the families I think might be under resourced pay the full dues and fees and do not step forward for a discount. For those families, Troop 248 is all their girl does outside of school and family. These parents have prioritized what their girls are doing. They, more than well-off parents, show up and listen to what we are doing. |
Anonymous
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Former GS troop leader here. I have to say - I was very angry and disappointed when BSA went in this direction, for many reasons that I won't bother with here.
What I have learned, experienced and seen in the last few years is how difficult it is for Girl Scouts to get into the outdoors. Maybe it is the smaller structure of individual troops (no GS troop leader is likely to ever take on 53 girls!) that makes it hard. My girls were always up for camping/outdoors, but 1) I was the only camp certified parent, and could never get parents to help out 2) no one else was willing to step up for various trainings (kayaking, backpacking, ax throwing, etc) and 3) the amount of work to get a camping weekend off the ground was so much that I couldn't wrap my head around it more than 2x a year. I would be utterly exhausted after those weekends. I had one girl who joined BSA while in our troop and would show up at meetings complaining that we never went camping every month like her Scouts troop did. Eventually, we folded during Covid. I have to admit I'm jealous of this aspect of Scouts BSA. My girls moved on to other troops. I'm the camp parent, but even still, the troop leaders can't ever seem to find time to commit to camping. I just don't get how your troop gets that kind of commitment and support for camping trips, OP. |
Anonymous
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Dear OP,
One thing I never do is compare Scouts BSA Troops for Girls to Girl Scouts Troops. I don’t know much about their program, but am happy there are so many Girls Scouts Troops available to serve young people in our city. It think it is great that girls have so many options to choose from, be it sports, culture or scouting organizations. It just strikes me that these are two entirely different organizations with different approaches to serving girls. I have never sensed that our Troop is in any way competitive with Girl Scouts – and that is what our girl members tell us. The outdoor capabilities of the BSA and its Troops for Girls are quite advanced in terms of facilities, planned activities and personnel (volunteer and professional) and have been for over 100 years. This is because the BSA has chosen the outdoors as its principal classroom to teach decision making and other life skills. We do things indoors when we have to (meetings during the winter, etc.), but almost always default to going outdoors to conduct instruction of any type. We don’t do a lot of indoor tours of places, leaving this to the individual Scout when she is earning a merit badge (following around a dentist, judge or engineer on the job are examples). There are a lot of outdoor-oriented women and men who really enjoy showing our Scouts how they can confidently master things in the wilderness. When a girl can feel confident there, she is not going to put up with bad treatment at school or elsewhere. Our Scouts just attract these people from among our participating families and elsewhere. And, the monthly pattern of outdoor events adds a regularity to our activity that allows these folks to pick two or three outings over the year to participate in – so we don’t wear people out. Finally, after a volunteer is trained, the BSA is confident in their capabilities and lets them use their judgement as they go about organizing trips. The exceptions are the appropriately strict youth protection regulations put in place in the late 80s and essential life safety practices around aquatics and other highest-risk activities – these must be followed strictly. I hope that you can return to youth services activity in the future and bring your experience and ambitions to continue upgrading the prospects of the girls who live in our area. |
Anonymous
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My neighbor formed a cub scouts pack that is boys only. There's are little 5 year olds. Is that even allowed?
What should my daughter join instead? Should we form our own cub scouts pack, Girl scouts or 4H? She's very into camping, the outdoors, and farming |
Anonymous
| Cub Scouts is the great program for elementary school girls and boys. The entry age goes down to age 5. Cub Scout groups are called “packs”, and usually number about 40 children and their parents. The packs are further divided into smaller “dens” that have meetings in parent homes. Dens are either all-girl or all-boy. It sounds like your friend is running an all-boy den. Find out who is running the larger Pack from your friend to locate an all-girl Den. You can also find a Pack with all-girl dens by visiting www.BeAScout.org. Packs go camping 2 or 3 times a year and parents must attend if they want their child to overnight. |