UKC

Just wondering when it became the norm for girls to join the scouting movement as opposed to the guides movement.

Also, are boys allowed into the guide movement?

In reply to subtle:
Girls have been admitted to the association since 1976 when they were first allowed to join the Venture Scouts section. This expanded to the entire organization in 1991; although the decision to admit girls was optional, it has been compulsory since 2007, although religious preferences can be accommodated.[7] According to the latest available census, there are 77,472 female members aged between 6 and 25 and a further 35,598 adult women involved in leadership.
From Wiki page


www.girlguiding.org.uk states that Girlguiding is the leading charity for girls and young women in the UK.

In reply to subtle:

Scouts is great for girls that don't like the all girls aspect of Guides.

In reply to subtle:

Legally a boy can apply to join the Girl Guides... but they have no other uniform option for him and well, why would he want to???

i joined scouts in 1994 purely because i had a terrible time in Brownies, no fun activities and was generally disappointed with the whole UK movement (i joined in Hong Kong and had a FAB time.)

Girl Guiding still out numbers scouts in total numbers of youth members but both organisations are struggling for adult leaders (although GGUK will not allow ANY male to be a uniformed leader only a helper!)

and yes 2007 was the year it was made compulsory for scout groups to take any youth member - i do know of some groups that still have no girls though - many just because they have such a good GGUK section at the same hut but some are more for the 'you sure you would like to go elsewhere, you would be the only one here' kind of group.

In reply to Little Brew:


Too many Gary Glitters, Jimmy Saviles and Catholic priests around have probably made everyone paranoid about joining in-case people think they joined for the wrong reasons!

In reply to crayefish:


No. I think the realities of modern living i.e. the 9-5 grind plus an hour of commuting each way, then doing a bit more work in the evening mean that many parents simply do not have spare time to give to such organisations. There also isn't a culture of volunteering your time in this country.

In reply to crayefish:


That's just an excuse used by those who can't be arsed to volunteer!

In reply to timjones:


where oh where is that like button?

In reply to timjones:

Yeah I guess these days volunteering is not quite what it was 'back in the day'. Let's blame the internet!

In reply to ByEek:

What a load of cr**p you are talking.

Why on earth does scouting have 500,000 plus young people in it rising at something like 5% a year.

Yes there is a culture of volunteering to help. get with it.

In reply to neilh:

yes we have fantastic record breaking numbers that keep growing, but just never enough adults! my old group struggled on for months with just 3 leaders because no parents would help with the scouts - plenty at beaver and cub level though. oh and it is just 2 hours a week.....

In reply to ByEek:


I find it sad that you appear to believe this.

In reply to The New NickB:


Me too. To a certain extent though, it is true. To take the scouts for example. According to their own website, they have a waiting list of 30,000 kids, but not enough leaders to run groups. My own experience is that it is exceedingly difficult get people to commit on a regular basis to groups like the scouts.

Now that I am a parent with two kids and working full time, I am in that rather depressing situation of not having time nor energy to be able to commit to something similar despite wanting to.

In reply to Little Brew:

"it is just 2 hours a week....."
Those will be the two hours you get get free after all the scout activities right?

In reply to ByEek:

Maybe you should go down and talk to the people who run these things. You would be surprised at how many are exactly in the same position as you, yet they manage to find the time and energy. You can commit part time on hours to suit.

After all no doubt you will want your kids to participate.

In reply to all:
Certainly in Guernsey, which probably has one of the highest levels of scouting membership as a percentage of the population. The organisation is encouraging part time leaders to get involved.

My son is a young leader with two groups, beavers in one and Scouts in the other, whereas I assist as required. I have some specific skills that I contribute but am not interested in going regularly.

So I help out with navigation, ropes and knotting, knife skills, climbing and abseiling, and on camps. I am not interested in playing games or doing other activities like cooking or craft work so I leave that to others.

In reply to subtle:

Ok, so girls in scouting movement since 2007 then, has this been a positive impact?


Has the introduction of girls seen a general decline in nr of boys joining? I know overall nrs are up but is this just the impact of girls joining?

And has the scouting movement become softer / more cuddly / more mollycoddled as a result?

Have Boys Brigade nrs increased since girls were allowed into scout movement (are girls allowed in the BB's?)

In reply to ByEek:


As a former Scout Leader, I am aware of the problems with Scouts, but everywhere I look I see volunteers, sports clubs, dance, music, drama, libraries, hospitals, disability groups, environmental work, animal charities. Major events 100% volunteer organised.

In reply to subtle:


As noted above girls have been in (what was then) Venture Scouts since 1976.

My own unit admitted girls in about 1980. It was a very positive step in all sorts of ways.

In reply to subtle:

Finding leaders can certainly be an issue, but in our region it isn't chronic - the leaders we do have tend to be fairly committed. However, fitting volunteering around life and work can be a challenge as a poster above mentioned.

Being a leader is immensely rewarding and I love the sense of paying forward. I got a huge amount out of Scouts when I was a kid so it only feels right that I put my time and skills back into it now.

In reply to Tony the Blade:

From my experience, there were "unofficially" plenty of girls "in" the Scout movement, particularly in Cub and Beaver sections, before 1991, as many leaders used to bring young daughters along with them rather than pay for a babysitter.

One of the reasons for opening up Scouting to girls at every level was to make this official - clamping down on it would have lost leaders.

I was technically a Beaver before the section was invented, as my Dad used to take me along to Scout meetings and camp.

Our Scout hut was opposite the Guide hut - many of them came straight across to Venture Scouts than stayed in the GG for Rangers. My sister dumped Guides as too boring for her.