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Boys and girls den with same den leader and meeting at the same time?

#1

Is this allowed?

Our pack just registered it’s first girl this week, a lion Cub. We’re now trying to figure out the logistics of how to set up a den for her. We currently had only one other lion, and his grandmother is his den leader. Assuming she is willing, can she be dual registered as the den leader for the boy’s den and the girls den, and lead both den meetings simultaneously? Essentially the dens would function together, but would be distinct on paper, thus maintaining the separation required by YPT. Additionally, since they’re Lions, the girl’s mother will always be attendance, and the Lions meet at the same time as the Bears, so there in another YPT leader in attendance at the same time.

Can anyone spot any problems here?

#2

Depending on how many female leaders you have, you may want to register the girl’s mother to ensure you always have a female leader when she is in attendance.

#3

Almost all of our registered leaders are female. The Lion, wolf, and bear den leaders, and the entire committee.

#4

A leader may only be officially registered in one position per unit. This is a BSA restriction. So the leader can not be dual registered as a Den Leader of two dens in the same unit, as recorded in your My.Scouting roster.

However, Scoutbook has no such restriction. On your Scoutbook roster, a leader can have all the positions you wish to assign.

As a temporary measure, having two scouts meet together to get the dens started can work. They can recruit friends and the dens will grow and then they can split.

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#5

I’m new to all this, but from what I’ve seen thus far in the training:

  • the girls and boys must be registered in separate dens
  • nothing I’ve seen says the den leader can’t be den leader for two dens
  • nothing I’ve seen says the dens can’t meet at the same place/time
  • two deep leadership is required
  • if a girl is there, then you must have a female adult (leader?) present…*
    *I think that an alternate is the girl’s father/male adult-partner, but he MUST stay with her if there is not a female adult leader present.

So what I’ve seen is Den 1 is the boys Lion’s Den
Den 11 is the girls Lion’s Den
The same adult(s) are listed as Den Leader for both Dens
The Den Leadership chooses to hold joint den meetings with Den 1 and Den 11.

It is easier if you have a female adult leader. In my case, the only girl in Den 11 is my own.

#6

I have not seen that exception anywhere from National. Everything else you said is correct.

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#7

Well, according to my.scouting, my pack has only 2 Den leaders, because everybody else is registered as a committee member or the cubmaster.

#8

I had to cancel a camping trip last month because of the female registered adult rule. The circumstances were extraordinary.

We have two female leaders who attend nearly every event. Neither signed up for the trip. We have several other female leaders, but none of them signed up for this trip either. Here’s what we had:

2 boys with a dad
1 boy with a dad
1 boy with a den leader
1 girl (my daughter) with the Cubmaster

With no registered female adult, my daughter could not go. My wife was working on Saturday night, when we were camping, and I could not arrange child care for my daughter. So, if I didn’t go, it created two problems: (1) we would have only one registered adult and (2) we would have no one with BALOO training, since I was the only adult in the pack who had it.

I asked the council whether they would be willing to make an exception for the Cubmaster’s daughter. They wanted to, but they felt they had to escalate the issue to National to get approval. National denied the request.

Before girls could register as Cub Scouts, this would not be a problem, if my daughter had been attending as a younger sibling.

It is important to note that the BALOO problem was only because it was a camping trip. But the two leader rule applies to everything - even a trip to the local playground or a weekly meeting. And so does the female adult rule.

Last weekend, another adult in my pack completed BALOO.

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#9

@MatthewWalters1 my.scouting reflects how your adult leaders are registered by your COR. Your pack can change the adult leader positions. The easiest way is to change them as part of the recharter process.

#10

I don’t believe that the registration is den-specific. What I mean by that is, if I am registered as a Den Leader, then I am a Den Leader. It doesn’t say “Wolf DL” or “Bear DL”, and I have heard rumors that the BSA is moving toward eliminating Tiger DL and Webelos DL as registered positions (distinct from the generic “Den Leader” position). I’m not aware of any requirement that a den have a unique den leader, just that it must have a den leader.

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#11

Yes, I was told that by our FD (we didn’t have a DE for 8 months), but I’m honestly not sure how much it matters as long as the key 3 positions are assigned. The rest just need to have the appropriate training for the roles they actually serve, regardless of what position they are technically assigned to in the system.

#12

It might be more accurate to say that den leader registration is rank / program specific:

  • Lion Den Leader (LL) for Lion dens
  • Tiger Den Leader (TL) for Tiger dens
  • Den Leader (DL) for Wolf and Bear dens
  • Webelos Den Leader (WL) for Webelos dens
#13

Thanks, @JenniferOlinger. That’s what I was trying to get at, in my usual circuitous way. I didn’t have the correct position codes to hand. :slight_smile:

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#14

No, if you have even one girl present, you have to have a registered, YPT-certified female leader; a parent is not a substitute for this. If you do not have a registered, YPT-certified female leader, the girls are not permitted to attend the event.

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#15

See there are exceptions made all the time. Two unregistered parents can watch two scouts selling popcorn for a pack, without a leader present. Why is this allowable? Because they are THEIR parents.

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#16

Before we spin off down the same total irrelevant rabbit hole again, on this thread I’d like to discuss what registered leaders are required on paper at the pack level of organization. We’ll sort out events on a case by case basis, and my pack has lots of YPT female leaders, so this isn’t the potential problem I’m worried about.

I’m inquiring about organizational structure necessary to make this work, not how to carry out an event with a girl at it.

#17

@MatthewWalters1 - I would suggest talking to your Council Staff or Commissioner

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#18

@DonovanMcNeil

Our DE literally just started on Monday (after not having one since April) and hasn’t completed his training yet, and our commissioner is retiring from the position (and all of of scouting) at the end of the month but functionally is already checked out (here’s also very old and not up to date on this stuff as far as I know, but I’m new here too). I don’t think i can except much from them.

#19

Generally, @DonovanMcNeil’s response is correct. Your council may have additional requirements beyond what National BSA requires in terms of minimum number of registered leaders, and what positions they must fill.

My understanding is that the minimum required registered adult leadership at the pack level is:

  1. Chartered Organization Representative
  2. Cubmaster
  3. Committee Chair
  4. Pack Committee with minimum three members (count includes Chair)
  5. Minimum one Den Leader

This used to be stated in the Cub Scout Leader Book, but I don’t happen to have a copy on hand here, and my copy is at least a couple of years out of date anyway. That said, my recollection is that if you have a Webelos Den, that adds a Webelos Den Leader as a required registered leader. If you have a Tiger Den, you would add a Tiger Den Leader as a required registered leader.

The three-person committee minimum is stated in the annual chartering agreement here:

The Unit Performance Guide in the Commissioner Manuals section of the BSA website has a section on forming a new unit, which includes this graphic:

image

which suggests that the Chartered Organization Rep is probably not counted in the “at least five primary registered adult volunteers”. That makes sense since COR is an organization-level not unit-level position (i.e. each organization has one representative, not one representative for each unit that it charters). Cubmaster plus three committee members plus one den leader = five registered leaders.

There’s a CubCast (https://podcast.scouting.org/cubcast/) from January that talks about smaller units/dens, that might have some official guidance on how to handle situations like yours.

2 Likes
#20

@CharleyHamilton, Thank you very much. That was a very interesting response. I’m going to add the Cub cast to my list.

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