Those who were in boy scouts.

[Ghost_Wheel22]

As long as you don't have Dennis Rader as a leader you should be fine.

[BaneTheBrawler]

for some things yeah but i remember the moms being pretty involved. it seemed to me like the parents just picked whoever had the time/inclination to do stuff

[Francisco]

I was in Boy Scouts for several years, and earned Eagle.

There wasn't a whole lot of religious stuff, although our Scoutmaster made us all go to church on Sunday's if we were on a trip together. A couple of the scouts didn't really want to go, and she (yes, we had a female scoutmaster) kind of put them on a bit of a guilt trip.

And yeah, I did some of the Order of the Arrow stuff. The "ordeal" was working with other pledges to do hard labor type tasks around a scout camp. We had to clear paths, build stone walls, stuff like that. During the entire process, we were strictly forbidden from speaking. There may have been one or two exceptions, but I can't recall what they were.

This was a two day event, during which you're given minimal food. Something like 1/4th of a peanut butter sandwich for lunch, and a hard boiled egg for dinner.

Definitely had a weird vibe about those people though. Never really stuck with the OA after the ordeal.

As for my first troop, I got an entirely different vibe from those leaders. They were basically a bunch of surly, grubby, 50-60 somethings who sat at this table at the head of the room, saying nothing to the scouts except to sporadically intimidating them during their board of reviews. They basically let their 25-40 year old sons run the show.

The older guys basically reminded me of this:

http://homepages.ihug.co.nz/~wattses/imageQRO.JPG

[Rollercoaster]

That is definitely not the norm for GS at all, and they are further along the secular path than BS.

I plan to volunteer when it comes to GS, and possible even be a troop leader someday. My girl is getting out in nature a lot in either situation. Luckily, since I live in such a highly populated area, I can have an easier time picking out which troop she should join. I want to find an active one for sure.

This obviously also goes for my son, except I think my volunteering would probably be more limited, and more my husband doing it.

Totally! My elementary school was new and didn't have a troop yet, so my mom didn't have much to pick from at the time. It was hard walking into a group where everyone else went to the same school and are already friends.

[Byrd]

This obviously also goes for my son, except I think my volunteering would probably be more limited, and more my husband doing it.

We actually had a female scoutmaster, I don't recall how much pushback there was, I know we were a fairly small troop with a small group of candidates, so it may just have been a lack of options, I'm not sure. This was back in 1990 or so, and it didn't seem all that weird because she'd been involved since her sons came into the troop in 1985 or so (their father was out of the picture). Other Moms were also involved in the troop peripherally, but she was the standout, obviously.

Regardless, depending on the group, I'm guessing you can be fairly involved in boy scouts regardless of your gender unless you end up in a particularly conservative region or troop. For what its worth, this was in Oregon, a secular troop.