My radar went off a couple of years ago when I first learned of the impending council merger. We were assured that it was necessary for the financial survival of GSUSA. Thus, the “corporatizing” of the organization. Rumor has it that the upper echelon now earns some of the highest corporate salaries in the country!

While we weren’t one of the first councils to merge, we weren’t the last, either. Yet, there doesn’t seem to be an end in sight for “working out the bugs.” Bring five regions together with five ways of doing things, and they cannot find the least common factor in their procedures. Instead, they seem to have bundled their procedures together, jumbled them, and now we’re all being smothered in red tape.

Leaders are overwhelmed by so many new rules. Service Teams are frustrated by having to educate the leaders about so many procedures at once, having received very little useful training themselves. (”Training sessions” were little more than PR hype with no actual nitty gritty training.) Council Staff is overtaxed–traveling among many regional offices, with little time spent at their own desks. They don’t even answer the phone directly anymore–calls are automatically directed to voice mail.

This disconnectedness has caused an atmosphere of stress and frustration amongst everyone involved. Perhaps it will level out eventually, but I fear that the attitude of Staff members will never be quite as friendly and helpful as it once was. The grassroots green neck bond has been replaced with “business-attire” stiffness.

The filter-down effect has been that the Service Area Team now shoulders much more of the responsibility. This is especially true when angry leaders cannot reach someone at Council. In my opinion, our Service Area Manager spends an amount of time equivalent to a full-time job fulfilling her duties. Yet no mention has ever been made about converting the highest-level volunteer position to a paid position!

I understand the complications of a merger, and the power struggles that ensue. What I’m experiencing is something more–a change in attitude and direction, and one with which I’m not pleased.

As for girl programming…Studio 2B was introduced in 2000. How was that program developed? Market researchers interviewed girls who were NOT Girl Scouts, and asked what they would like to see in a program. What kind of awards would they like to earn? (The theory was that girls were no longer interested in wearing uniforms with patches and badges.) Since the fad that year was charm bracelets, the girls voted for charms. Hmmm…marketing research, input from “cool” girls, up-to-the-minute awards. Destined to be a hit, right? Wrong. Why do you think it failed? Because true Girl Scouts were interested in a more traditional program. Whether they always wore their uniforms or not, they still enjoyed earning patches and badges, and had no use for cheap charms that broke as soon as you wore them. As for the Studio 2B materials–what troop could afford to purchase individual packets for each girl (at approx. $5.50 apiece) several times a year? And what girl wanted to do mandatory journaling of her progress? It was too much like homework!

Even so, we as leaders, were assured that Studio 2B was strictly optional. It would be used in conjunction with the traditional handbooks and badge books. Before we knew it, though, the materials had become mandatory as part of the requirements for both the Silver and Gold Awards! My best guess is that once the national office realized they were stuck with a lemon, they had to unload all those packets without suffering too much of a loss.

Now we have the “Journeys.” While I haven’t seen those for the youngest age levels, I have read through the Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador books. (By the way, the older girls–formerly “Seniors,” resent losing their title, only to be given one that sounds decidedly political.)

“New Age” comments aside, the programs seem to be a re-working of what the girls have done all along. The “new” mantra of “Discover. Connect. Take Action.” is nothing more than what girls would do to earn a badge. They’d learn a new skill, master it and create something in the process.

What IS different, though, is the focus of the skills. The Ambassadors learn about women who changed the world (not much different from some of the older badges), and then they are taught to be advocates. This still doesn’t sound too bad, because it will hone leadership skills. But to force them to journal yet again, and make a Board Room presentation is asking too much. Demanding that their efforts be “sustainable”–an ongoing outcome, is even more difficult. The outcomes are more difficult, and the process more tedious. “Modernized” or not, my troop evaluated the materials and weren’t at all interested in them.

Leadership is an admirable quality, but I think GSUSA is forgetting that mastering “old-fashioned” skills such as sewing, cooking and camping, and then teaching those skills to younger girls develops leadership, too. And courage. And confidence. And character.

The fact that the “Journeys” books run $7 for the girls’ edition and an additional $15 for the leader’s guide is ridiculous. The set that came out this year is planned as only the first of about 5 per age level, too.

This seems to be an obvious bid for income. And what will happen when the national office realizes it has an albatross to go along with the studio 2B lemon? You guessed it–make the “Journeys” programs mandatory to unload the inventory.

Rumor has it that the handbooks and badge books will be discontinued altogether in 2010! I’m just thankful that my troop will have graduated by then…

And thus we have the heart of the matter. Programming will always be updated. Procedures will always change. Change is not necessarily a bad thing. But to go outside the organization, and hire marketing specialists to rework the GSUSA “brand” is self-defeating if that “brand” reeks of commercialism. Whatever happened to frugality and being thrifty? Why do we now have directives regarding mandatory uniforms? It used to be that if you wore your pins, you were considered to be in uniform. To dictate such a policy in the midst of an economic downswing is ludicrous! To push new, expensive programming materials is effrontery!

It’s not just the new programming, but also the restructuring of the entire organization that is off-kilter. Hopefully, GSUSA can realize that marketing specialists are not gurus, and that such outsiders may not “get” what Girl Scouts is all about. If the powers that be can realize that, maybe they can recover before it’s too late, and camp properties that have been GSUSA owned for many years must be sold to pay for this latest faux pas.

The New Age of Innovation reveals that creating value and future growth in business depends on accessing a global network of resources to co- create unique experiences with customers. CEOs, executives, and managers must transform their business process…

GSUSA Partners with The Ashland Institute
On August 20-23, 2007, program facilitators from Girl Scouts of Arizona Cactus-Pine Council and The Ashland Institute, an Oregon-based organization that specializes in personal development programs for women, led 29 council volunteers and staff, National Operational Volunteers (NOVs), and GSUSA staff in “Coming Into Your Own” (CIYO) at the Edith Macy Conference Center in Briarcliff Manor, N.Y. Additional CIYO meetings will be conducted in November and February 2008 at the Conference Center.

Coming Into Your Own is an adult leadership development program customized for Girl Scouts by The Ashland Institute. Its aim is to create a team of adult champions who will model a search for integrated leadership that springs from a deep sense of self-knowledge. This team will bring its CIYO experience into the fabric of GSUSA’s 2008 Spring conferences where participants will have the opportunity to explore the Discover, Connect and Take Action components of the New Girl Scout Leadership Experience.

By infusing parts of CIYO, participants will get to explore the “how” of the New Leadership Experience for girls as well as the “what” as members of the movement prepare to embrace the girl-led, experiential and collaborative leadership experience for girls.

Infusing Interior Leadership
A first step in “infusing interior leadership” in the Girl Scout movement, the Coming Into Your Own program guides participants as they:

Explore ages and stages unique to women’s lives
Review their own lives as well as share and witness in small groups
Understand different archetypal dimensions of themselves
Identify and strengthen undeveloped capabilities
Use a “symbols process” to see each person’s current situation from different archetypal perspectives and reshape them to release potential that is emerging
Identify important intentions they would like to make real in their lives
Enhancing Girl Scout Adult Leadership

As Tamara J. Woodbury, CEO at Girl Scouts-Arizona Cactus-Pine Council, wrote about the purpose of enhancing Girl Scout adult leadership, “The world around young women teaches them to focus their attention on their exterior, giving over-weighted value to the opinions of others versus their opinion about themselves. In most schools, youth groups, religious communities and even families, we unintentionally discourage girls from discovering their true self. Research shows that the drive to support girls to conform to acceptable images and to make life choices that are predictable and defer to social expectations overpowers even the most conscientious parents, teachers and mentors.”

Transformative Circle
The Ashland Institute’s approach works with the whole individual—the physical, intellectual, emotional and spiritual dimensions—to encourage deeper introspection. Facilitators combine the attention of one-on-one relationship with small-group work and the transforming power of the circle. They employ short presentations, dialogues, video, journaling, archetypes and symbols to address aspects of life such as work, relationships, health and family.

Program facilitators Barbara Cecil, Glennifer Gillespie, Beth Jandernoa of The Ashland Institute and Tamara Woodbury, CEO at Girl Scouts-Arizona, Cactus-Pine Council, have been leading innovative and successful women’s programs for over 25 years. Small-group guides Maria Ort (Board Chair for Arizona-Cactus Pine Council), Mary Mitchell (Volunteer Recruitment manager at Arizona-Cactus Pine Council), Jo Norris (volunteer with Arizona-Cactus Pine Council), and Ashland Institute consultants Peri Chickering, Dorian Baroni and Christine Whitney-Sanchez, who have extensive experience in leadership and personal development work, led as well. The Ashland Institute has supported Arizona Cactus-Pine Council since May 2006 in the development of an inner leadership approach for staff, volunteers and elders.

For more about Coming Into Your Own and the work of The Ashland Institute, visit http://www.ashlandinstitute.org.

Our local council (and maybe others?) use an Ashdon Farms as our supplier for the Fall Fundraiser. Could there be a misunderstanding?

I really want more information on this before I start my daughter’s on this new program. Since we are independent Girl Scouts, we are really getting no information from our council or other troops.

Thanks.

I prayed with my campmates each evening and with the girls and no one was uncomfortable thanking the Lord for these beautiful girls bestowed on us to protect and nurture and love. The girls played games, sang songs and made new friends- many of different faiths at that. The moms got along great. This is what I was hoping AHG would be like. It is normal, middle American fun.

I also get along great with my fellow GSUSA leaders at my church. They have actually assisted me in my efforts to bring AHG to our parish. They are toughening up and fighting the battle to change the tides of GSUSA. If they fail, I will welcome them with open arms into my troop. I am 43 and instead of taking on a battle, I want to have fun and raise my girls NOW. Like many, I have walked away from GSUSA and am focusing my time and energy NOW. AHG is what you make it. I pray for my GSUSA leader friends every day, however, they are losing precious time with their daughters.

I pray for a turn around for GSUSA and I do sincerely hope they get their act together and become a real healthy competition for American Heritage Girls. Go to our website: http://www.ahgonline.org and check us out.
We are having a blast. After you are finished, go to the above frontier girl website. Anything look familiar?? Good grief. My mother always said being copied was the best compliment, but this is ridiculous and sad.

My co-leader at the time was a Morman and was unable to sign the statement of faith for American Heritage Girls. There was no way I could look her daughter in the face and tell her that while she would be allowed to remain in my troop, her mother would no longer be able to help since she did not believe exactly the way I did. As a result we founded Frontier Girls in 2007 and now have troops in 9 states (with several more coming on board this fall.) We offer more badges than any other program (including the Girl Scouts) and have made a commitment to write a badge on virtually any subject that interests a girl with the exception of those we feel are better addressed by parents or religious leaders. We are the only program that offers badges on character traits such as modesty, joy, responsibility, and kindness.

You can learn more about our program at our website, http://www.frontiergirls.com . We are 100% volunteer run and are supported solely through registration fees and individual donations. Each troop organizes their own fund raisers based on their goals and keeps 100% of the money earned. We want our girls to be known for patriotism, community service, and good character, not for the product they sell.

Even if you never get involved with Frontier Girls I highly encourage EVERY parent, whether of boys or girls, to visit our site and go to the Level Achievement Award under our Awards tab. These are a list of 30 life skills every child should have by the end of 2nd, 5th, 8th, and 12th grades. If you do this with your child, they will be well prepared for life on their own after high school.

Please visit our website at: http://www.frontiergirls.com

I agree with a previous poster that GSUSA is dabbling in a lot of things but don’t have a grasp on the bigger picture of where they come from. Who is finding all of these “consultants”?

My heart is breaking …