We received a note today from a family that they’re dropping out of the program on the basis of the upcoming branding change. This is a new family who likely isn’t aware of the changes the program’s undergone over the past decade.
Anyone else here getting feedback or reaction from your members?
I got one question that was essentially “does this mean were going to start having girls in our troop?”.
I pointed out that this recent news is simply a branding change at the national level and has no effect or changes at the unit or local level. I also noted that current national policy for the Scouts program is that units are single gender and that policy is not changing.
In addition, I shared a brief history that girls were admitted to certain scouting programs going back to the 1970s and that girls were allowed to join “Scouts” five years ago. I think it important to dispel any notions that girls are somehow anathema to the overall scouting ethos.
That seemed to satisfy, but I think I’m going to add this to my comments at our end of year Court of Honor in June.