Anonymous wrote:My kid is a Cub Scout Bear but they don’t do much. They are doing pinewood derby next month and have random meetings every 3 weeks with all the grades K-5, but we have never gotten any patches. I don’t know how they are supposed to be earning badges or adventures or whatever? I thought each scout needs to complete the grade’s assigned adventures. They don’t need to do this every year to advance and become an Eagle Scout after the final project?

The badges and ranks for Eagle start when you join a Troop (5th grade or later). A lot more independent work at that point. Elementary is a good time to get used to and learn the skills needed at the troop level.

It is popular in my area. Many troops for Scouting America and Girl Scouts. Scouting America used to be Boy Scouts but now welcomes Girls hence the name change.

My daughter’s elementary school has multiple girls scouts troops for each grade. It is a discouragement that they limit the size. I don’t like that model. It is exclusionary. “Sorry - you didn’t join in Kindergarten- we are full now!” Girl Scouts should adjust this. Not a good way for recruitment. Otherwise we are enjoying it.

Scouting America has no limit and you can join anytime. My son loves it. Hopefully my daughter will switch.

Anyway, both are very popular here! I’m thinking all the boys on my street are in, but different packs/troops.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son did Boy Scouts through elementary school. He enjoyed it but wasn’t self
Motivated enough to do Boy Scouts. He missed most of those meetings due to sport conflict and don’t follow thru on the badges.

I tried fo years to find a troop for my daughter, but they limited the size of them. The one t her school was full and the nearest was
Like 25 minutes away in traffic. It was also at a different school so not with her friends. That set up made no sense to me so she never joined.

Hi- the troop wasn’t full, they just needed more leaders. If you had volunteered it would have opened more spots.

No, it was full. When I looked on the website it said “full,” when I asked the council(?) person, she said it was full. My only option was to have her join a not full troop or start a new one. I’ll admit I was not into it enough to start a new troop.

The difference was striking compared to Boy Scouts where my son signed up at open house and attended (with parent) the next meeting. This was before girls were allowed to join or my daughter would have joined as well. Instead, she did “little sister stuff” with the other sisters at the meetings.

Anonymous wrote:Our GS tries to do camping with Daisy last year and thus year , but no moms want to step up to do the first aid training or certified. There is a lot of liabilities and responsibilities unless one is already being a nurse or doctor knowing all these, and we know some little ones will need the first aid kit at this young age.

Ask your service unit or council if there are any multi-troop camping events. While I was trained in first aid through the GS, I didn't want to be responsible. So I only took my troop camping at these group events, where someone else was the official first aid person. I also liked that they did all the activity planning, so we could just show up and figure out when we went to archery, canoeing or when we made a craft.

We also looked for community events like overnight at the zoo or planetarium (sometimes just for scouts, other times open to all). To the girls, it was like camping and I was fine with sleeping bags in a large room with a roof.

Our GS tries to do camping with Daisy last year and thus year , but no moms want to step up to do the first aid training or certified. There is a lot of liabilities and responsibilities unless one is already being a nurse or doctor knowing all these, and we know some little ones will need the first aid kit at this young age.

It seems to be less popular because of scandals, people sharing what really goes on, etc.

Anonymous wrote:Its always troop dependant. I noticed this with my boy and girl. Girl Scouts had more camping, fun and she's still in for high school. You cant generalize, based off the extremes in troop culture I've heard about in just my area.

That's nice to hear. The troop by us does zero camping.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My son did Boy Scouts through elementary school. He enjoyed it but wasn’t self
Motivated enough to do Boy Scouts. He missed most of those meetings due to sport conflict and don’t follow thru on the badges.

I tried fo years to find a troop for my daughter, but they limited the size of them. The one t her school was full and the nearest was
Like 25 minutes away in traffic. It was also at a different school so not with her friends. That set up made no sense to me so she never joined.

Hi- the troop wasn’t full, they just needed more leaders. If you had volunteered it would have opened more spots.

I'm the Alexandria PP and, no, the troop was full. They -- the council? the leaders? -- capped it at 12 or so. I could volunteer as a leader to start a new troop but not with the existing troop. It was full and not accepting new members.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD went through high school and earned her gold award, which was added to her awards on college apps. I would never allow either my boy or girl to join what used to be the boy scouts, was going broke from all the abuse lawsuits, so decided to include girls because previously they excluded half the population and realized they could be a revenue source instead

Except the name change & accept girls/girl leaders now, what the differences are for boy scout & scouting Amerixa?

They are entirely welcoming and inclusive of trans and nonbinary Scout leaders and scouts.

Exactly, now they can take money from all to pay off their abuse law suits

I'm obviously paying attention but I do think they're putting in a lot of effort. I had to do a bunch of child abuse training just to buy badges for the kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD went through high school and earned her gold award, which was added to her awards on college apps. I would never allow either my boy or girl to join what used to be the boy scouts, was going broke from all the abuse lawsuits, so decided to include girls because previously they excluded half the population and realized they could be a revenue source instead

Except the name change & accept girls/girl leaders now, what the differences are for boy scout & scouting Amerixa?

They are entirely welcoming and inclusive of trans and nonbinary Scout leaders and scouts.

Exactly, now they can take money from all to pay off their abuse law suits

Its always troop dependant. I noticed this with my boy and girl. Girl Scouts had more camping, fun and she's still in for high school. You cant generalize, based off the extremes in troop culture I've heard about in just my area.

We lived in MoCo too when DC1 was in ES and couldn’t find any GS troop around. Those that were mentioned on the GS website I reached out to and they never replied. Not sure why the GS model is much tougher to have troops existing to join.

In contrast - once we moved to Fairfax - DS joined Cub Scouts easily. There was a troop right at the ES with dens for all grade levels. Parents were required to stay during the mtg to help crowd control and to go in camp outs. It felt like a lot at first but was fine and I think helps expose you over time to scouting so you get more comfortable volunteering once the get to the Scouting America level. Still the main leaders are most frequently dads who were scouts themselves when kids.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:DD went through high school and earned her gold award, which was added to her awards on college apps. I would never allow either my boy or girl to join what used to be the boy scouts, was going broke from all the abuse lawsuits, so decided to include girls because previously they excluded half the population and realized they could be a revenue source instead

Except the name change & accept girls/girl leaders now, what the differences are for boy scout & scouting Amerixa?

They are entirely welcoming and inclusive of trans and nonbinary Scout leaders and scouts.

Anonymous wrote:DD went through high school and earned her gold award, which was added to her awards on college apps. I would never allow either my boy or girl to join what used to be the boy scouts, was going broke from all the abuse lawsuits, so decided to include girls because previously they excluded half the population and realized they could be a revenue source instead

Except the name change & accept girls/girl leaders now, what the differences are for boy scout & scouting Amerixa?

DD went through high school and earned her gold award, which was added to her awards on college apps. I would never allow either my boy or girl to join what used to be the boy scouts, was going broke from all the abuse lawsuits, so decided to include girls because previously they excluded half the population and realized they could be a revenue source instead