Never too late. If you have expertise in an area like say fishing, architecture, law, skating or other things you could volunteer to be a merit badge counselor.
That’s the sort of camp that Girl Scouts would put money into to service VERY FEW girls at a loss.
Its awesome that Boy Scouts has it, and has enough interest and funding to keep it open. but Girl Scouts wouldn’t have the interest or funding to keep something like that operating.
Another big difference between GS and BS is that girls usually leave the program after fifth grade - only about 1/4 of the troops retain membership through middle school, and high school participation tends to be sparse. As the mother of a high school aged Girl Scout, there aren’t many of them - and their interests are really diverse - lots of geeky drama kids remain, very few athletes, almost non of the “popular crowd,” some driven girls who want the Gold Award and are really smart. So the population pool for any sort of extreme camping is small to start with, and then the girls that are part of the population to pull from - not many of them are into extreme camping.
(Anne Bancroft is still a Girl Scout - and she does extreme camping :)).
Female Venture Scouts have the opportunity to do Northern Tier and Philmont treks. My daughter and several other girls went to Philmont a few years ago. Sea Scouts is also co-ed and tends to do more adventurous stuff.
I was a Girl Scout through high school, but only because my mom and a few others kept up the more challenging outings and activities. My daughter’s Girl Scout group petered out in 5th grade or so and, by the end, their idea of an activity was a Spa Day. Fortunately she found Venturiing and is now a Western Region officer.
It’s not that recent. I went to camp almost every summer in the late 70’s on cookie credits.
On the contrary, virtually everything you describe above as constituting onerous requirements that raised a “huge outcry” for the Girl Scouts’ Gold Award have been required for years for the BSA Eagle Scout project.
I’m very familiar with this, as I’m an Eagle Scout myself, a former Scoutmaster, and my son earned his Eagle Scout award himself last year.
First off, there is a mandatory workbookthat must be used by Eagle Scout candidates. The current workbook is 26 pages long. Candidates must prepare a proposal, get it approved (via signature) by the beneficiary, then get it approved by their troop and district. Everything must be documented for the project, including all labor, equipment, materials, and expenses. Candidates must then complete a final report, which is reviewed at the troop and district level. To actually earn the rank of Eagle Scout, they must go through a “Board of Review,” which is then approved at the district, council, and national level.
While there are no minimum hours required for an Eagle Scout project, the project must be of sufficient scope to provide an opportunity for planning, development, and leadership. Projects that do not provide such an opportunity will not be approved. (The “no required minimum hours” guideline was added due to some troops, districts, and councils requiring ridiculously huge projects.)
From the current workbook guidelines:
[quote]
[ul][li]There are no required minimum hours for a project. No one may tell you how many hours must be spent on it.[/li][li]Routine labor is not normally appropriate for a project.[/li][li]While projects may not be of a commercial nature or for a business, this is not meant to disallow work for community institutions, such as museums and service agencies (like homes for the elderly, for example), that would otherwise be acceptable.[/li][li]A project may not be a fundraiser. In other words, it may not be an effort that primarily collects money, even for a worthy charity. Fundraising is permitted only for securing materials and facilitating a project, and it may need to be approved by your council. See “Eagle Scout Service Project Fundraising Application” later in this workbook.[/li][li]No more than one Eagle Scout candidate may receive credit for working on the same Eagle Scout service project.[/li][li]Projects must not be performed for the Boy Scouts of America, or its councils, districts, units, or properties.[/ul][/li][/quote]
I’ll add that “Life Scout” is simply the rank before “Eagle Scout” in BSA. (There are six ranks in all: Tenderfoot, Second Class, First Class, Star, Life, and Eagle.)
The Star rank and Life rank *each *require Scouts to take part in service projects totaling at least six hours of work. Scouts do not need to take the lead for these projects (unlike the Eagle Scout service project.)
For an idea on the scope of a typical Eagle Scout service project, my son’s project involved a fund-raising car wash that raised over $1,000 for materials, some 32 workers (other Scouts, friends, adult leaders, etc.) over the course of 12 weekend workdays and a total of 415 person-hours of actual work (not including planning time).
For an idea of how much time this took, my son’s project proposal was finally approved in December 2013 after he presented it to two boards (one for the beneficiary and one for our troop committee). His car wash fundraiser was in April 2014. The project work was conducted on weekends in June and July 2014. He turned in his final report in September 2014, and had his Eagle Scout Board of Review in November 2014. This was the culmination for him of over six years in Boy Scouts.
For what it’s worth, our troop is a very active Boy Scout troop. For example, we have a campout every month of the year, year round (including winter). In my son’s 6-1/2 years in Boy Scouts (following 4 years in Cub Scouts), he (and I) went on over 75 overnight campouts. Several of these campouts were so-called “High Adventure” campouts, such as hiking the Appalachian Trail for a week, hikes in the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and a week-long 75-mile canoe trip down the Allagash River in Maine. We’ve camped outside (in tents) in downpours, in sub-freezing weather, and with 3 feet of snow on the ground. We’ve also gone on ski trips (camping in a nearby Scout camp cabin) and whitewater rafting trips.
robby, nobody is saying Eagle Scout isn’t sufficiently difficult. But the fact is, the requirements for the Gold Award are even more onerous. The minimum hours requirement is no small consideration. And most Girl Scout councils are still putting very onerous requirements on projects, which you say BSA has tried to eliminate. Girls are required to show their project will last into the foreseeable future. This has been interpreted very, very strictly by most Girl Scout councils.
A good friend of mine has an Eagle Scout son and a Gold Award daughter. She and her husband will tell everyone that the Gold Award was much, much harder to get because of the rules.
If you’re talking about the actress and not some other Anne Bancroft, I don’t think she’s been doing much camping or anything else since her death in 2005.
Well the question is WHY do they drop out by 5th grade? Both BSA and GSA have the same challenges of competition with other activities. Quite frankly I feel in GSA its because they find the program boring just selling cookies and doing crafts and spa days. Its also why they switch to Venture Scouts.
In Boy Scouts we tend to hold onto them a while longer till around age 14-16.
Why do we hold onto them longer? I think its because in BSA the program just keeps getting more challenging and fun as they age. When they turn 12 they start doing the more fun camping, canoeing, and backpacking trips plus high adventure stuff like Philmont.
Another big difference is I dont see the GSA equivalent to Order of the Arrow. OA is a kind of Boy Scout honor society that enable the boys to go further in the program and stay involved in the Boy Scouts into adulthood. Many of our adult leaders stay involved in the troop long after their own boys age out. Their are other such honor societies in Scouting such as Tribe of Micosay. Does Girl Scouts have such groups?
All these keep them involved longer.
BTW, who is Ann Bancroft?
Nm
Is keeping them involved longer an end in itself?
I was a Girl Scout until around 7th grade. By that point school activities, sports and volunteer work became a much bigger part of my life, and I didn’t have a huge need for Girl Scouts. It doesn’t diminish what I did as a Girl Scout simply because I didn’t keep doing it until college.
The Girl Scouts are a different organization than the Boy Scouts. They have different goals, different approaches and serve different needs.
My church youth group went to camp (with rustic cabins) together at least twice a year. Those of us in the choir went two more times. We also went on camping trips (with tents) at least once each year.
Many of the high school kids dated. None of them got pregnant, or claimed to be raped. There was one boy who kissed me and then didn’t stop when I asked him to - our friends dragged him off and he never bothered me again. It was over before the adults made it across the clearing. (And if the other kids hadn’t helped, I would have beaten him to a pulp. Fortunately, I didn’t have to go there.)
Humans are actually capable of controlling their hormonal urges. Part of growing up is learning to discipline one’s actions. I worry deeply about the stricter religious groups who think the way to keep people pure is to keep all temptation away from growing kids. They don’t develop self-discipline that way, and end up in horrific trouble in adulthood when temptation finally visits.
She’s been sleeping under the stars in Westchester for ten years. Pretty extreme.
Publicly, Girl Scouts has always said that it feels there is value in a girl remaining a member even if they don’t participate in much for long periods of time. This is because Girl Scouts’ philosophy has mostly been that the girl should be free to direct herself to participate in things she is interested in.
Also, I have had longtime staff members explain that they feel there is value in the sense of belonging that Girl Scouts offers to some girls who feel they don’t belong anywhere else. It’s a resource that girls can call on when they need it. For example, our council has had many girls who were inactive members who reached out to Girl Scout staff or volunteers for help when they experienced abuse at home, bullying at school, sexual abuse, questions about sexual health, etc.
On the business side, recruiting and retaining members is the organization’s #1 goal. It is where at least 50% of the organization’s effort is spent. What girls do (or don’t do) after they become members is a secondary consideration. This is because the organization is struggling to survive. IMHO, it’s in the non-profit death spiral–the real mission is to continue existing at all.
Well again I ask, does girl scouts have an organization like Order of the Arrow or Tribe of Micosay?
I had no idea what those things were so I looked them up. The answer would have to be “I don’t think so, but I don’t know,” because, like in BSA, different Girl Scout councils can do different things, and there are approximately 100 councils.
Exactly. Just look at universities, for example.
Of course, call me mad, but, can’t the local units determine what their own activities will be???
I’m an old GS and have a daughter who is currently a Cadette. I’m pretty sure that Juliette Low would be horrified at what’s happened to the organization, at how the focus is now all about becoming a tool of our corporate overlords. Sell and buy and be a business leader, girls! Send us a chunk of the money you raise, because we have a lot of administrators to pay! We did a “survey” and found you don’t want to learn practical or self-sufficiency skills, do outdoor activities, or camp. We’ve retired most of those badges, sold off camps, and set up schoolwork-type activities called “Journeys” that will improve your selling skills. We have lots of fun events now. Attend (no parents or scout leaders allowed) a Booz Allen Hamilton business conference and they’ll give you a Booz Allen Hamilton patch for your sash PLUS you’ll get to go zip lining afterwards, not that you like icky outdoor activities, but sorry girls, you cannot do the zip lining unless you attend the closed-door business program with our Booz Allen Hamilton mentors first.
From a survey of what people really think about what’s going on with Girl Scouts.
Yeah…as much as I can explain and understand the reasoning behind why Girl Scouts is going the direction it’s going, the survey results express a lot of the reasons I stopped my involvement with the organization a couple of years ago. I have my Silver and Gold Awards, I’m an Adult Girl Scout, I was a board member and a volunteer.
Historically, I never had a problem with paying administrators because most of them were excellent resources for girls, led interesting programming, etc. They were committed to what Girl Scouts stands for, and had usually been lifelong Girl Scouts. Since the 2007 council mergers, most of those administrators have been purged in favor of people with no Girl Scout experience or knowledge, who don’t care about anything except climbing the career ladder. They treat volunteers very poorly and have no vision or direction for the organization beyond “we have to get membership up.”
I spent 5 years creating a whole strategic plan for my council to reinvigorate the outdoor pathway, to use camp resources, to partner with other organizations to provide interesting programming, to tie Girl Scouts’ traditional outdoor activities in with the current interest in environmental awareness…only to have it killed by a new council CEO who said, “Why would we do anything we don’t have to? The only mandate we have is to get membership numbers up.” That was when I left.
It actually is OK if Girl Scouts wants to be something other than an outdoors club–but they have to decide what they are going to be. They don’t have a clear mission or service(s) to provide to girls right now.
And they want to get membership numbers up at the expense of the girls who are already members and the volunteers who lead them. Death spiral. But the death spiral isn’t about not being Boy Scouts or not doing outdoorsy things. The death spiral has to do with the lack of focus for the organization on the girl members and the volunteers who make the programs possible.