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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Girl Scouts is lame. My oldest DD did it for two years, and was bored and quit. Every meeting was finger painting or making macaroni necklaces and she was too old for htat. All GS cared about was cookie sales. My younger DD has no interest in it. [/quote]

This is why GS being 'what you make of it' is stupid. Every girl and scout should have access to the same level of activity choices and rigorous training no matter who your troop leader is. By keeping your troops small and each one's leadership limited to 1-2 moms, it really limits the exposure of the girls, the activities they can participate in or have access to, and the overall desirability of participation.

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I have hefty experience with both GSUSA and BSA.  The flip side of your complaint about GS is that if you are unhappy with your daughter's troop experience it is enormously easy to just start your own troop.  Find ONE likeminded adult and a few girls and you are good to go.

In Boy Scouts, if you are unhappy with your son's Cub Scout pack or Boy Scout troop experience, it is much more difficult to start your own pack or troop.   In my town, we did not have a Cub Scout pack for quite a while.  Two dads attempted to start one.  They needed to find an organization to charter it, people to be on the Troop Committee, and 10 den leaders.  The dads that organized it all ended up spending SO MUCH time on organizing the whole pack, they barely had any time to do fun stuff with their own boys.  After 4 years the pack never really got off the ground and only had 20 boys total....grades 1-5.

There is a Boy Scout troop I know of that is barely limping along as well.  They only have three active adults.  You could have a decent Girl Scout troop with 3 active leaders and parent support here and there.  But a Boy Scout troop really needs a lot more infrastructure to be as great as a previous poster mentioned.   Boy Scout troops have hefty infrastructure and require a lot more manpower than Girl Scout troops.  In my opinion neither structure is better or worse.  They are simply different.

As far as the Boy Scout program goes, I have a son working towards Eagle right now, and I will say I feel it is very individual (or parent) driven.  Boys can advance or not.  If they want to advance, it is up to them and their parents to make sure it happens.  For example, the work on all the merit badges happens outside of troop meetings, and I as a parent have to be pretty involved in it, because the boys aren't allowed to meet on their own with the merit badge counselors.  I need to be aware of every contact for safety reasons, and my son needs a buddy or a parent along if he is going to meet with a merit badge counselor.   So in addition to going to meetings every week, my son is on his own going to work on merit badge stuff on the weekends, and that requires me to help out as he is not yet driving.

As a Girl Scout leader, we basically did any badges, Journeys or higher metal awards as a troop.  In theory they can be earned individually but the Girl Scout program makes it quite hard for parents to know what the requirements are or to figure out how girls have earned these awards.[/quote]

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