My daughter wants to join Girls Scouts.
I am not really sure what they are about, aside from fund raisers and cookie sales.
What is the scoop on this organization?
I don’t know, but it she wants to be outdoorsy I know several ** female ** boy scouts.
Outdoorsy is not an issue. We live in a semi-rural area of alaska.
She is not outdoor deprived.
I think the Venturing program was reorganized to take up some of the Explorer programs after the 1998 Supreme Court decision. The minimum age is 14 and entering high school and anyone can join.
Can’t tell you anything about Girl Scouts, other than I looked at one of their handbooks once and thought the program seemed easier than Boy Scouts. Then again, I was only 14 or 15 at the time, so what do I know?
I hope you are not assuming that I did not visit the site.
Official site like that are a bunch of crap to me, most of the time.
I do not plan on making this desion based on Girl Scout Marketers.
Let me be a little more clear in my question.
I sence that the Girls Scouts Organization is mainly about raising money for administators. I do not know if I want my daughter waisting her time selling cookies and having fund raisers just for a camping trip or two and a couple sing-alongs.
It seems to me that they are just training little girls to look and act professional in order to raise monay at the local grocery store and sell cookies.
Is there more to this organisation at a deeper level.
Is it about the girls or the DAMN cookies.
Charity Navigator gives the national organization (Girl Scouts of the USA) three stars (out of four). Apparently they spend about 12.4% on administrative expenses, which is a tad high. (Charities should shoot for 10% or less, IMHO).
However, most of the action is coordinated by local member organizations which are separate from the national organization. I couldn’t find one for Alaska, but Charity Navigator shows several ranging from two to four stars. Probably the best thing to do would be to find some other parents in your area and ask them.
But the cookies are quite yummy.
[sub]Thin mints![/sub]
Its a subversive plot. Beware.
Okay, so 12.4% of the money they raise goes to administrative expenses, but where does the other 87.6% go? To pay for camping trips? Merit badge printing? Campaign funds for commie-pinko democrats/fascist republicans/hippie greens/Andy Dick?
Where does the organization stand politically? Does it act on its political outlook through donations, etc? Any controversies regarding the organization’s practices, like the no-gays-in-scouts policy of the boy scouts?
This is completely anecdotal, I was (am?) a Girl Scout. As I recall, there was some pressure to pay money for uniforms, but only one girl had one. There was also pressure to do projects to get badges, but only the same single girl did this. The rest of us were just a bunch of elementary school girls who met in the gym and had a passion for knowledge and nature.
We sold cookies, and we had a yearly “camp-out”. We were taught all sorts of things year round, which we were expected to use on the camp-out. Rolling your bedding, packing your supplies, cooking over a fire, knives, knots, nature hikes… the usual (pre-teen) scout stuff.
What I didn’t expect, though, was the relationships I forged with those girls. We all had something in common, and its something that not a lot of girls have in common. We all wanted to learn on our own, away from school. We all did learn too, about nature, life, and pulling together as a team. They make you work together, but by the time of our yearly camp-out, we were all so close no one had to make us.
I never had a uniform, and I don’t recall my parents buying anything for me. As for the cookies, they aren’t hard to sell, at least around here. I honestly can’t recall any money-gouging… I was young though. I only have fond memories of the Girl Scouts, but I should probably ask my parents if there were any costs I was unaware of. (I’m 23 now, and i’m pretty sure they’d tell me.)
-Kristin, one badge and not counting.
My brother and I were in Boy Scouts for years, we went camping many times, went to summer camp every year, earned all sorts of Merit Badges and made lots of friends. Boy Scouts was where I learned to camp, ride a horse, paddle a canoe, row a boat, fire a gun, shoot an arrow and build a 20 foot signalling tower out of logs and rope. It was definitely one of the high points of my childhood/early teen years, and my brother’s too.
My sister was in Girl Scouts for a year or two and didn’t enjoy it very much. Comparitively speaking they didn’t seem to do much of anything.
Don’t know if the difference had more to do with the indviduals involved or how the organizations were run locally at that time, but there you are.
BTW I always kind of wondered how Boy Scouts were able to get by without an equivalent to the famous Girl Scout cookie sale. We did do fund raising but it was much more low key and less visible.
I was a Girl Scout and so was my daughter. Both of us had various leaders and it seems to me that the experience is very much dependent on the leaders. Some leaders were very much into trips, others were into projects. Some wanted the whole troop to work on badges at the same time during meetings, and others left the choice of badges to the girls, and the work to be done outside of meetings.Some wanted to make all the decisions for the troop, while others had the girls make the decisions they were capable of - you couldn’t have 7 year olds make all of the decisions, but they could decide whether they wanted to go ice skating or bowling, but 15 year olds might be able to run the troop. I’ve never heard of troops that focused mostly on general fundraising , although I’ve heard of one or two that did a lot of fundraising toward particular troop goals- a really expensive trip or equipment.
About where the money goes- I know that some of the cookie sales proceeds go to national, some go to the council and some goes directly to the troop. My local council (Greater New York) runs a camp and sponsors a variety of free or nearly free (to the girls and troops) activities throughout the year.
Really you need to talk to the persons involved in Girl Scouts where you live and see what they do. My troop when I was involved did crafts, ate snacks, went on field trips, performed community service and did activities which led to the acquiring of merit badges in addition to fund raising and camping trips. I enjoyed my experiences very much- but not all troops are created equal.
As Doreen says, it really depends on the leader.
It’s not just about grooming girls to sell cookies to prop up the administration. It’s supposed to be the equivalent of Boy Scouts, but generally the girls don’t get to do stuff that’s quite as cool. Still, when I was a girl scout we went camping and did outdoor and safety stuff, and worked on various badges during meetings. In Missouri the GStL council runs some one and two week long summer camps, which I attended when I was a wee girl and my daughter went to for the first time this year. They are loads of fun. My first two years I did the horse camp, which meant I spent every day caring for a particular horse at the stable and having riding lessons. The price was (and still is) absolutely right. I don’t know if the council in Alaska has its own campgrouds, but if they do I highly recommend looking into their summer camps.
Anyway. My troop in grade school varied in quality depending on the leader. I quit when, in 7th grade, the leader insisted we spend part of a meeting walking back and forth with books on our heads to improve our deportment and become ladylike. The heck with ladylike, that’s not what I wanted out of the Girl Scouts!
My daughter wanted to be in Brownies because all her friends were, and it meant buying a uniform vest and some pins (and frankly I doubt this particular leader would care much if we hadn’t) and paying $20 dues (that’s per year). For that $20 plus the girls’ portion of the cookie money, they went ice skating, bowling, had a bonfire with s’mores and juice at a local park, etc, all activities voted on by the girls.
They also made sachets with pot-pourri and glittery gauze and took them to a nearby nursing home, where they gave them out to the residents and sang Christmas carols. They also participated in a city and county wide collection of items for a local food pantry.
When they weren’t on a field trip they usually made some kind of goofy craft.
In my grade school there was a big deal made of cookie sales, and a big ceremony awarding the girls who’d sold the most, etc. I hated it. My daughter’s troop just takes in the orders and them fills them, no fuss, no browbeating. No standing outside of stores, either! Like I said, it really depends on the leader.
To be honest, I’m not aware that the Girl Scouts have any kind of political aims at all. The idea seems so bizzare to me that reading your question made me laugh out loud with surprise. I don’t mean to make fun–it’s an entirely legitimate question. But it’s so completely foreign to anything I ever knew or experienced with the GS.
From my POV, it’s worth it just for girls to hang out with their friends and do fun things–unless the leader is really bad. I am unaware of any GS regulation that says anything at all about homosexuality.
I did google “girl scouts political” and found these couple of links:
I found another article claiming that “One third of all paid professionals in the Girl Scouts are openly lesbian, thus biased in the new indoctrination of unsuspecting young girls. 20 years ago, Girl Scouts learned about how to sew and cook, today they learn how to successfully hold a feminist rally and have sex with women.” I can’t tell you about the percentage of lesbian GS officials, but I can tell you defnitively that niether I nor my daughter learned to hold rallies or have lesbian sex at GS.
It seems from the links I’m finding that most complaints about GS politics involve outrage at their not discriminating against homosexuals, and their feminist bent (they teach girls they can have carreers, and don’t just teach them to cook and sew! gasp!). GS is also, it seems, a non-profit, and so there would be legal consequences to their engaging in politics. I’ve never known GS to encourage any sort of politics (beyond encouraging knowledge about the country’s political process and teaching that voting is important, or the kinds of things described at this site-- http://64.233.179.104/search?q=cache:LGjZhPxZNmgJ:www.girlscouts-ct.org/Forms/2004_election.htm+girl+scouts+political&hl=en ) nor have I ever heard of any kind of “parallel” organization that could do so legally while keeping GS in the clear.
I was in Girl Scouts growing up, and it was a lot of fun. Selling cookies was only a small part (and boy are they GOOD.)
At meetings we’d goof off a little, discuss upcoming events, maybe do some crafts, play games, sing songs-usually new ones we had learned, have a snack, etc. Sometimes we’d have a guest speaker, depending on what place in the book we were studying. Badges were usually done in sections-a Home Ec section, Health, Politics, History, Outdoors, Arts, etc. I only had a uniform as a Brownie-the only thing they wanted us to get was a sash or vest for our badges, and our handbooks. We needed other things for day camp, though.
One of my troop leaders was the wife of PA attourney general Tom Corbett, so one year he came to visit our troop and talk to us about politics.
We had field trips-we went to see plays, planted flowers at a nursing home, went on tours of local businesses, we went swimming, hiking, etc. I never went on overnight camping trips, but I DID go to day camp, and that was always a blast.
I say if your daughter wants to do it, and it’s a good group, go for it! Talk to the troop leaders and see what’s what.
I was a Girl Scout through grade school. My oldest daughter was a Girl Scout from kindergarten through 4th grade, and I was her assistant troop leader that final year.
On the plus side, it’s a tremendously beneficial social (and socializing) outlet for pre-teen girls who don’t have many other places to do social-type things that aren’t directly affiliated with either “school” or “church”. It provides a neutral ground to learn about multiculturalism and how “other” people think about things. (Although there are GS for high school girls, generally by the time they get that age, they’ve got more important things to do like focus on boys and drivers licenses, and GS begins to seem babyish.)
On the negative side, it’s a tremendous strain on the girl who isn’t the sit-around-and-giggle, gung-ho group activity type. The shy girl who never knows what to say, the geek who would really rather sit home and read a book, will find it a social ordeal, not to say a weekly gauntlet to run, and should in mercy be allowed to opt out if she just can’t stand it after a few weeks.
It doesn’t matter what they’re doing–the badges, the songs, the campfires and cookouts–it all comes down to “a social activity”.
The cookie sale occupies really a very small proportion of the troop’s annual mental and physical energy. It’s only a few weeks in the spring, and then it’s over. What’s more significant is the opportunity for obnoxious competitiveness it frequently fosters in both girls and leaders, so make sure that your girl understands that it’s no biggie if she only sells a few boxes of cookies to Mom and Dad, because there will be girls in her troop whose parents will remorselessly and relentlessly take her cookie brochure to work and force it on their co-workers, and there’s no way she can compete with that. As long as she (and you) can be philosophical about that factor, the cookie sales won’t have that big an impact on you.
I don’t know, DDG, I was a pretty shy, bookish girl and I think GS helped me come out of my shell a bit.
I have a girl- and a boy- scout.
The overall theme of GS seems to be independence. The overall theme of BS seems to be cooperation. (JMHO).
Anyway, I just returned from a GS campout. We went to our area GS camp which had a sign at the entrance that said “This camp was paid for by Cookies!” or something similar. The camp was on the coast and was quite nice. It had several ‘bunkhouses’ that slept about 25. The main bunkhouse had a commercial kitchen and lots of meeting and craft rooms, plus an infirmary. We didn’t use that main bunkhouse.
There were two kitchens in our bunkhouse, one on each end (with pans and dishes, fridges, stoves, ovens, etc) and a large bathroom with several showers and bathrooms in the middle. We had two nights there.
The two leaders let me come because I whined that I wanted to, but they are very organized women who planned to take all 15 girls by themselves. They had an extremely thorough schedule and had organized the girls into 4 teams. My daughter’s team was in charge of planning and preparing breakfast on Saturday. They made pancakes, bacon, orange juice and strawberries and whipped cream. I was very impressed with the girls teamwork and skill. They did everything themselves- I had no idea that my 9 year old could cook a breakfast like that! I kept trying to help do various things, but the leaders reminded me that the girls were supposed to do it all themselves. The meal teams had hostesses (who set the table and served) and the clean up crew (I was impressed at how they washed dishes for 19!). One team gets a break at every meal.
The weekend was educational and craft city. The meal planning included discussion of healthy foods. The girls used sewing machines to make fleece boas, decorated shoes and shirts, had a “hair-do” session, made skirts out of old pillow cases, and made ankle bracelets and necklaces- all in preparation for the nights “silly fashion show”. After the show, there was a hygiene discussion and everyone showered and got ready for bed. They stayed up very, very late laughing and giggling and using cloth scraps to make special clothes for their stuffed animals. Inbetween scheduled activites they had scavenger hunts, snacks, “down time”, and a dip in the pool.
I noted that a group of older girls were at the camp for sailing lessons also and there were many different types of watercraft on the property. I also noted that the lifeguard at the pool checked each girls swim skill level before letting them in the water.
My BS experience has not been as good, but the GS campout was a blast.
I loved being a Girl Scout. I got to go camping a lot, and it gave me my only experiences with really tough backpacking, fishing, winter camping, and so on. We did a lot of fun stuff, and I can still sing more weird songs than anyone I know. I got to meet lots of neat people–not just making friends with other girls in my troop, but the kids and leaders at the big camps I went to–that was a taste of diversity, let me tell you. There was this one leader I just adored, called Toad, and we looked a lot alike so I got to be Little Toad. 
I was a shy, bookish girl who was always on the outside of the group, and GS was a great place for me. The leader’s daughter became my best friend for several years.
Around here there is a very active older troop, and several of the girls stuck with it all through high school and earned their Gold Awards (=Eagle). One of them is my neighbor and former babysitter, so I’ve seen a lot of them. Mostly, though, it tapers off after 8th grade.
Indeed, it does depend a lot on the leader. My sister was in a really boring troop.
My memories of Girl Scouts are pretty positive. I’m not much of a salesperson, so I didn’t do as well with that, but I don’t remember there being any huge competition.
Can your daughter sit in on a few meetings to see how she likes it before she (and you) makes the commitment?
Robin