to think that Rainbows and Brownies should be scrapped...

[Bardette]

...and all kids can just go to Beavers and Cubs.
In our area there is a long waiting list for Beavers. My son would like to join a colony but we have been told there it will be at least a term until a space will be available.
Girls can go to Rainbows or Beavers, but boys can only go to Beavers. As girls take up half the spaces in Beavers and all the spaces in Rainbows that means three times the number of places available to girls in local clubs.
Surely it would make more sense and be fairer to have two Beaver colonies?

You know Retropear I think the only uproar about a boys only club would come from people who either didn't have kids or had older ones. I bet many parents of young boys would be ok with it and be happy to send them.

There are many co-ed organizations where boys are openly welcomed. And choose not to go. Or their parents choose not to send them.

Retro pear- have you missed the fact that the Scouts chose to become mixed? If they had wanted to they could have stayed boys only. As the Boy's Brigade are.

I think both boys and girls should be able to have separate clubs.

There was a thread here a while ago about women only gym, think it was curves.
Women race for life where men are excluded get bought up from time to time.

If men want to challenge thing then do what women did.

Not sure why posters have the impression girls are being discriminated wrt cubs and scouts when they can go to boys groups but it's boys that can't go to rainbows and brownies.

Our local boy's brigade for little ones is mixed I think, Hakluyt.

There are plenty of boys only sporting things though.

I can't believe that posters on here think that boy's only clubs don't exist in the UK!

I absolutely believe that single sex organisations work, my eldest DS goes to an all boys school, as will DS2 and although only a toddler so will DD. I think it makes them focus on the task in hand....learning, and I know from my own experience that the presence of boys can hold girls back in school.

Still doesn't make the whole no boys at Brownies but girls at Cubs thing ok.

They are separate organisations, Lucille.

One decided to go mixed.
The other didn't.
Their decisions were independent of each other.

I think that maybe people who are angry about this should be looking to cubs etc to get rid of the girls. Not insisting that the organisation for girls should be shut down or fundamentally changed to the detriment of many of its members.

But you do get that they are separate organisations with their own identity and policies, Lucille?

So you think that it's a good idea to have single-sex organisations, but if practical considerations mean that one previously single-sex organisation switches to accept the other sex as well then all other organisations need to switch as well, even if the same practical considerations don't apply to them?

If your DS's schools changed in future to allow girls, would you immediately lobby your DD's school to admit boys, even though it was a different organisation and had had no input into the first school's decision?

Oh ffs

How many times, if it wasn't for girls joining then the scouts would be over

Lucille how can it be ok for your children to be in a single sex environment but nobody else's? My daughter thrives in a single sex Brownie pack. As do many others. A male friend of mine thinks back fondly to his cub and scout days when it was all boys BECAUSE it was all boys there.
Boys and girls are allowed to be happy with it being that way. Put scouts back to boy only but don't take away an opportunity for girls to just mix with other girls for a couple of hours a week.

Lucille, you are going to have to take that up with the Scouts then. We are INDEPENDENT organisations.

bangs head on wall

But it is irrelevant, lucille. They are two completely separate organisations. Scouting chose to admit girls because not enough boys wanted to join to make enough units viable. Guiding chose to remain single sex because they had no problems with numbers and because there is no member demand to open to boys as well.

It's good for girls to go to all girls 2ndary schools Lucille. I don't think it's very good for many boys who don't fit the typical male mould. Most men I know who went to single sex schools loathed it (because they weren't alpha male types) but women loved it.

I think in a patriarchal society, we really don't need to worry too much about the menz

HeyNonny - my kids are now 7, 4 & 1, I've been a Rainbow Guider for 3 years. The oldest is a Rainbow in my unit. DH generally can have the other 2 during meetings, if he can't then occasionally a friend will take them for me (2 of her girls are in my unit, we swap ), or they just come with me. I am the only leader, so if I can't attend, we don't meet.

Retro - whether Rainbows is shite or not depends on the leaders. My unit has been to the panto, taken part in a gang show, penny hiked, barbecued their own sausages and bananas, made houses for mini beasts, had a meeting completely in the dark (we tried glow in the dark bowling), been on day trips to our county campsite, had the fire brigade visit...along with doing a fair amount of games and craft, if that's what the girls choose.

It can't be all bad, my waiting list is only just down to manageable proportions for the first time since I joined.

Expecting Guides to do something to fix Scouts is like being really upset that Asda overcharged you on your bill, so you ask Tesco for a refund. It makes no sense.

HeyN0nny, my DC stay at home with DH when I go off to Brownies. He needs to make sure that he leaves work promptly those days, then pretty much as soon as he arrives, I dash out the door!

When I was BFing DD though (took on the pack just before I found out I was expecting), she would come to Brownies with me (first meeting she came to was when she was 3 weeks old although I had arranged cover so I could have taken longer!) and then she came on Pack Holiday at 4 months. I'm expecting DC4 so I imagine that I do something similar when he or she arrives.

madWoman, my DS does pre-school dance :-D He loves it. He is far from being the only boy in the class - last week we were very relieved when two girls turned up late, otherwise it was going to be eleven boys and one girl.

It's London, though. There were also three SAHDs, and far more nannies/CMs than mothers.

My DH would definitely let DS go to Brownies if they opened up to boys, I've just asked him (as would most of the fathers I know). However, I would much rather DD had the chance to do a girls-only activity. She's small for her age (not quite 1m tall), young for her year (still 4 in YR) and is in a mixed-years school, so from Sep will be in a class with boys up to 2years older. I want her to be able to do physical/gender-neutral activities with children her own size because for much of the time, she's competing against much bigger, more aggressive boys and she finds it frustrating that she's limited physically. If we had the money I would definitely send her to a single-sex school (I was, and though I would have wished otherwise at the time, I appreciate the benefits now).

Useful that the volunteers who've replied to my earlier question have older DC or family help. I just can't see myself being able to help set up a Rainbows with a 2yo DS in tow and no DH/parental help available. I think DD is going to have to wait till Brownies!

HeyN0nny, if you are really thinking about setting up a Rainbows group, do consider getting in touch with your local people.

Some Rainbows groups run on Saturday morning as that is the only time leaders can manage, or perhaps if you did the admin and didn't necessarily go to meetings all the time, other leaders could be freed up to run the meetings.

There is also a move towards Holiday Guiding, where units are run just for the duration of a few weeks in the holidays to give girls on the waiting list a chance to be part of Girlguiding.

Going to unashamedly put this link in again!

www.girlguiding.org.uk/get_involved/volunteer.aspx

Oops, trying to watch Tour de France too, so missed last two responses! Maybe a swap with a friend is a possibility...

Dino, the GirlGuiding website is truly rubbish, absolutely no way of finding out where your local group is! I had to resort to NetMums...

Sat mornings would be a possibility, HolidayGuiding would be even more difficult with a younger DC though. Tbh, we're probably a year off doing any more extra-curricular activities, DD has struggled to cope with school (tiredness rather than socially or academically) and I think Y1 will be a shock for her. In the longer-term, though, I am absolutely committed to doing whatever I have to do to ensure she has the opportunities I think will be of most benefit to her and if that means setting up a Rainbows or Brownies pack so that she can attend, of course I will (Tiger Mother, oh no!!).

Some people on here are a thick as fuck

Let's see if putting it in capitals helps

THE PREVIOUSLY MALE ONLY ORGANISATION (hence forth known as scouts) DECIDED TO LET PEOPLE WITH VAGINAS IN BECAUSE SOME PEOPLE WITH PENIS'S DIDNT WANT TO JOIN ANYMORE

Hope that's a bit clearer

Oh and MN does not hate boys... FACT!

I am enjoying this whole "saying fact after my sentence makes it the absolute unadulterated truth and stops all other arguments in their tracks" bit

Fact

Reading all of this, I suspect the OP phrased her question incorrectly. A perfectly reasonable question would have been 'why are Rainbows and Brownies single-sex, whereas Beavers and Cubs are mixed'. People often wonder this and it is a reasonable question, which many people have answered on here.
The suggestion that the single sex one shut down is not reasonable, as most people have said. Anyone is able to set up another organisation for boys only, or to volunteer to set up more Beavers and Scouts. The reason there are waiting lists for ALL of these organisations is a lack of leaders, not the fact that girls have stolen the places from boys. The answer to the long waiting lists is simply for more people to volunteer. If they don't, groups will continue to close and waiting lists to be long. Pretty simple really.