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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My experience with cub scouts is that families are thrilled to easily find a place for their girls.  So many moms I've talked to have declared it's nearly impossible to find a den/troop/whatever they are called in Daisy/GS in our area.  If they could even get information about GS at all, in order to have their daughter sign up, it was knowing someone in the troop, or volunteering to start one themselves.  With Cub Scouts, all of them walked into an existing Pack and very few needed to volunteer to get their dens up and running within a week or so.[/quote]

Every system has pros and cons. It's easier to find a den to participate in because there's no size cap on dens -- they have to take everyone from their school/geographic area who wants to join. The rest for many, at least in the early years, can be massive dens that become very chaotic and can overwhelm some kids, especially since BSA doesn't seem to have much in the way of rules about ratios -- our den at its max was 22 boys, with only a single leader (which one time resulted in a handful of boys leaving school grounds into the neighborhood during a den meeting because the den leader couldn't keep track of everyone). GS caps troop sizes at 12 and is strict about ratios so you have to have at least two leaders for every troop; troops can choose to go over the cap, but then have to find another leader. This means it can be harder to find a troop with openings, but the troops themselves are far more manageable in size and have a higher level of supervision.[/quote]

That may have been your experience years ago, but cub scout packs don't run like that.  While there are no official den size limits, most try to stay below 10.  (Our Pack's den goal # is 4-8.)  Also, every cub scout event requires *trained* 2-deep leadership - so not just a body, but a trained body.  So, while I suppose it's possible that our Pack (of 100 boys) can get away with having only 2 leaders available, that's not going to happen.  Instead, our pack will likely have 28 trained adults there (2 per our 14 dens), plus parents since packs are family friendly and allow siblings to participate in everything we do.  Of course, we only meet in that large group setting once monthly, usually we're meeting in our small dens.

I'm unclear on how GS troops are run - do all your ranks interact with each other, ever, or are they completely independent of one another?  [/quote]

Yes, all local troops are part of a larger local unit, called a Service Unit.  For example, our Troop is troop # ___ and we all belong to Service Unit 51-9, and then these Service Units are part of an Association (Association 51, called "Ashgrove West," which includes Reston, Herndon, Great Falls and parts of Oak Hill in Fairfax County."  All of the Associations together make up a Council.  Our Council is Council of the Nation's Capital.

So, it goes:  troop, service unit, association, council.

Beyond that, I'd like to say that our school personallyhas always historically had a very very very active group of troops.  So that is even more unofficial and official support than just beyond the official GS organization.  Beginning in kindergarten, each class has at least one if not two troops.  These newly-minted mom leaders get support and guidance from the upper grade level moms and leaders.  As the girls progress up in grades, they progress in doing more and more challenging things. I really think it's this informal network of moms/leaders which makes the experience great for our troops.  The mom leaders can get advice, hints, lessons learned, etc. all from the older and more experienced moms.

When we first joined in kindergarten, I truly thought it would be a dippy experience and we'd do it for a y ear or two, and then move on.  But we're still going strong six years later and it just keeps getting better and better.

Did you know there are also international scouting centers?  The girls can raise $$ to visit scouting centers in London, Switzerland, Mexico, India, and a few more, I believe.  The more I learn, the more I like it, and the better the experience is, and so on and so forth.[/quote]

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