So I went to the 90th anniversary Girl Scout singalong this weekend (yay!) and was wondering how many other Scouts there are out there. Hence, this Girl Scout poll…
How many years were you in Scouts?
What level did you go up to?
What did you like the most about it? Dislike?
For those who made it up to Seniors–did you ever get your Gold Award?
To answer my own questions:
11 years
Senior
like: CAMP, CAMP, CAMP! dislike: having to do Scouts’ Own (kind of a contemplative thing meant to replace having an organized religious ceremony on Sundays at camp)
I was a Girl Scout from Juniors, through Cadets, and Seniors. I never got my Gold Award because I was too lazy! So I think that makes about 7 years.
Our Senior troop was kind of tied to the Sea Scouts, and instead of a troop number anymore, we were the Mariners Scout Ship Maui (or MSS Maui). We competed in nautical-themed competitions called GAMs (can’t remember what the hell that stands for anymore!).
I loved camp! Let’s hear it for Camp Joe Sherman in the San Bernardino mountains! We would go for two weeks in the summer to ride and care for the horses out there. It was a blast.
As seniors, we also acted as camp counsellors for Brownies, that wasn’t as much fun! Didn’t much like the sing-a-longs either.
Troop 965 ruled! Thank you Mrs. Shriner for all your unappreciated hard work!
Hmm. Probably about four years. I would’ve stayed in longer, but my original troop leader moved and I hated the people in the troop I ended up in.
What level did you go up to?
Junior
What did you like the most about it? Dislike?
I really didn’t like most of the girls in either of my troops. In the first one, most of them were older than me and tremendously snobby. In the second one, most of them were younger and also tremendously snobby. But I did like all of the activities. Camp was fun and we went on quite a few trips.
I wish I had been able to find a troop. One of my friends is working on her gold award right now and I envy her a bit.
I was in about long enough to wear a brown uniform and then a green uniform.
Why did the girl scout handbook have a two-page spread on proper bed-making? The boy scout handbook sure didn’t. That kind of thing has always p-o’d me. I hope the scout handbooks of today are improved.
I was in for four years - two as a Brownie and two as a Junior.
Favorite thing - overnight camping at Fountainbleau State Park on Lake Ponchartrain. Telling ghost stories about Marie Laveau and singing songs about boys and girls kissing in canoes.
Worst things - When I moved up to Juniors (this was probably around 1978) my older cousin had a uniform that my Mom made me wear because she didn’t see the need to buy a new one when we had a “perfectly good” uniform. I think it must have been around 10 years old, and was completely different. Instead of a cool green jumper with white shirt and little green trefoils, I had an ugly light green shirt dress. The horror!!
Also, I absolutely hated selling cookies. I’ve never been very good at sales, and am extremely competetive. I hate competitions that I don’t have a chance at winning.
In 1980 we moved to a different city, and I dropped Girl Scouts.
I was a Brownie for 2 years, then a Junior for a couple months. The troop leader either quit or moved away - it’s been a long time!
I liked camping best, selling cookies the least. My mom wound up as the troop’s cookie chairperson one year and had to organize the whole fundraiser. Our spare bedroom was filled, floor to ceiling, with boxes of cookies.
My sister made it through Cadette and into Senior before she quit. There were so few girls in the area interested in going beyond Junior that she had to go quite a distance away to attend meetings and she lost interest.
Morgainelf, are you sure we didn’t share moms? I had to wear my cousin’s “perfectly good” Junior uniform about 1988 or so. Yucky light green jumper and faded trefoil shirt (probably the same thing you envied in 1978).
The cool thing then was that Girl Scouts had just started allowing pants as part of the uniform, which my babydyke heart coveted fiercely. I was almost the only girl in my troop who still wore a jumper, so I felt like a baby.
Bluethree I’m pretty sure my handbooks didn’t cover bed-making! I’m really jealous of the Brownies now—they have all sorts of cool patches we didn’t have when I was a kid.
Funny how some scouts hated selling cookies. I was initially very shy about it but became an excellent seller in later years (the cool stuffed animal incentives helped). My mom was the “Cookie Mom-ster” a couple years in a row. You have to admit that the smell of chocolate permeating the living room is a perk!
About 4 years; couple months as a brownie then ages 11-14.
What level did you go up to?
Junior
What did you like the most about it? Dislike?
I wanted to quit pretty much the enitre time I was in the Scouts. Hated the catty girls and the ineffectual leaders, hated the pointless badges, hated the trip to Disney Land, and begged to be allowed to join the Boy Scouts who participated in more interesting activities. Looking back, it was the troop itself that was so awful, not the Scouts as an organization. I loved, and still love, Girl Scout cookies, and at a sleep-over, the troop’s leader’s husband let us watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Late Night at the Apollo.
For those who made it up to Seniors–did you ever get your Gold Award?
Nope. My troop leader quit, so I was allowed to quit.
I was a Scout for about 3 years. I made it all the way through Junior, but never went on to be a Cadet.
I liked camping and outdoorsy stuff, but we didn’t do too much of it because our leaders were older and not into it.
I HATED selling those damn cookies. Hated, hated, hated it. And I still hate the fact that cookies are most people’s main association with Girl Scouts. Not camping, not leadership, not cool, fun female bonding, but rackin-frackin Thin Mints.
I agree with Romola that Girl Scouting has the potential to be really great, but there are way too many lame leaders and stupid activities.
booklover, it’s good to hear that they don’t cover bed-making anymore. I’ve actually been trying to find that out for years and haven’t been able to get my mitts on a modern handbook.
I was in girl scouts and my brother was in boyscouts. They had the pinewood derby and many trips to interesting places, especially their annual week-long canoe trip on the Colorado river, for which they prepared with months of swim and canoe practice. The girlscouts sewed novelty pillows, made candles, and prettified empty bottles. Big difference, no? I hope today’s girl scouts is a whole lot more like boy scouts.
I don’t have any actual memories of selling the cookies, but I’m opposed to the concept on general principal.
How many years were you in Scouts?
I think about 10.
What level did you go up to?
Cadette. There weren’t really enough girls to have a senior troop, and it wasn’t worth it to travel to be in the closest Senior Troop.
What did you like the most about it? Dislike?
I liked almost everything. I mostly liked the fact that our leaders (the same two women stayed with us through Brownies all the way up to Cadette, and one of them hadn’t had a daughter in scouts for years) let the interests of the girls dictate most of our activities, and generally ignored the mandates of the main office. We didn’t like getting badges, because the other troops turned it into such a competition, so we voted to do the activities, but for the most part, to ignore the actual badge. We also didn’t like camping with the other troops in the region, so we usually went by ourselves. This sounds like our troop rejected a lot of traditional scouting, but it was a great experience and I really believe that I got a lot of good out of it, and we always hit the main, important GS points – service to community, self-esteem, working together, etc.
For those who made it up to Seniors–did you ever get your Gold Award?
Nope, only Silver
The best part was when, as a Brownie, we got to go the the Boston Museum of Science and have a sleepover with troops from all over New England. You could spend the whole night visiting the exhibits. Our troop got to sleep on a balcony overlooking the big Tesla generator, which was cool. I still love the Museum of Science because of that experience.
The worst part was that that was pretty much the only interesting thing we did the whole time I was in Girl Scouts. While we did macrame, the Boy Scouts were fishing and camping and cool stuff like that. As a tomboy, I was kind of bitter about that.
I loved everything about scouting, but the best thing was just being part of the group. I can remember being in kindergarten and first grade and seeing all the “older” girls in their Brownie uniforms and wishing I could join. I was so excited when I actually was old enough to be a Brownie.
I loved badges (I think I ended up with about 40). I did a lot of things that I would never have gotten a chance to do, some of which still stay with me – all of the camping skills, ice skating, and especially the needlework (I know, it’s a girly thing, but it was great to be taught by women who really knew what they were doing). Our troop even created our own badges (Community History, and I think Bowling) which were fun too.
I was very shy, which made cookie selling something of a chore, but it turned out to be a good experience for me. My sister and I went door-to-door all around our neighborhood, and I learned to be more assertive.
The outdoor activities stayed with me too. I can still remember one camping trip in which we watched the sunset from above the clouds, and another at a secluded spot in Pinnacles National Monument that I still think was one of the most beautiful places in the world.
Dislike?
The usual cattiness that happens when you put a bunch of teenage girls together without an excessive amount of adult supervision. Also, my Senior troop was very progressive and didn’t really follow the handbook or a lot of the traditions. I would have preferred it to be a bit more conservative.
4) For those who made it up to Seniors–did you ever get your Gold Award?
The best parts were making new friends, annoying the bejeezus out of our leader and her prissy daughter, spending the night at the local mall and pigging out at the candy store, learning new things like sewing, and being a flag bearer in a parade.
Worst parts were camp (they forced girls to clean latrines, and some started throwing up; my best friend and I ran away when the counselors weren’t looking) and other prissy/ immature girls. I quit when the troop got too big and uncontrollable, and was in 4-H unti I graduated from high school.
Thirteen years. Yup, that’s second grade through my sophomore year of college. When my Senior Girl Scout troop started to suck, I got my own together.
I bridged to Adult Girl Scouts at the end of high school. Other than helping out with a few projects and cookie sales, though, there isn’t much for an adult Scout to do who can’t make the time commitment to lead, so my highest level would be second year adult Scout, if that is really a level.
Liked the most: learning useful skills, camping, earning badges. And the BEST thing was our sleepovers at science museums! Oh yeah!!
Disliked: When my G.S. troop quit doing anything Scout–ish and started just going on trips all the time.
When I had to work with (more like around) the higher-ups in my G.S. council. Unfortunately, they had no imagination and were stupid gossips to boot. It was sad, because it discouraged the volunteers who really believed in it.
Oh, yeah, and the blatant money-making schemes where they use the girls. Like selling cookies (individual troops only get a tiny percentage of those sales), and changing the uniform and books every two years, without fail.
Did my Gold Award project; got screwed out of a Gold award by my lazy leader not doing paperwork.
Wow, I complained way too much. I agree that Girl Scouts is a wonderful idea, but the carrying-out needs some tweaking.
I quit Girl Scouts my first or second year. As I recall, we were on a camping trip. That was cool. But the adults wanted to go tothe movies (that may have been planned) so they took all of us elementary-aged girls to see “Whatever Happened to Baby Jane”, a Bette Davis thriller. I didn’t want to see it but was forced to, because none of the adults wanted to stay with those of us who were chicken. Consequently, I had nightmares for weeks, until I taught myself to be a lucid dreamer. I told my mother I didn’t want to belong to any group that would force me to do something I didn’t want to do, and she agreed and I quit. The troop leader came to my house to try to talk me into coming back, but I refused. I was never much of a joiner after that. I like the cookies, though.
First through seventh grade. I finally dropped out because our leader seemed to be doing NOTHING but having us plan for stuff happening six months ahead. The camping was always the best part anyway. My mom was one of the leaders for several years, and she still prides herself on being quite the pyro. She used to impress us all by starting fires in the RAIN.
I still have my Junior vest somewhere. I didn’t do too badly, as far as patches and badges go, that thing is covered. (Painfully girly thought: I can’t quite believe I actually willingly wore that shade of green. You’d think I’d have stuck with it when I could finally wear blue!)
