I don’t think there’s enough room next to his head.
O brother.
Anything else brilliant you have to share, or can we all move on with our lives?
Sorry didn’t mean to bump heads.
I’ve always assumed that the money I spend on GS cookies goes to support the troop activities, which are aimed at developing the skills and character of girls. At least they were when my daughter was in it four years ago. They used the money to buy knitting supplies to knit cat blankets for the animal shelter, and to fund a camping trip. Choosing a day spa? What skills are being taught? What character is being developed? Are we located in Beverly Hills here?
I presume that the trip or other expensive activity should be something in keeping with the Girl Scout goals, not to send the little girls to a day spa to get pretty. I would not in all good conscience support buying GS Cookies knowing they’d go to a spa. It just feels wrong.
It does sound like the other mother went about her complaining in a kind of crappy way, despite that I’m opposed to collecting money from people to go to a spa.
I buy girl scout cookies because I like thin mints. I don’t particularly care about the money any more than I care whether or not the waitress at Denny’s uses my tip to buy blow or diapers. And as someone who has experienced the glory of attempting to sell stuff as a kid, (No one ever wanted cub scout popcorn the way they go gaga for cookies. :mad:) I don’t begrudge them a spa day.
The girls did learn some things of value. They learned that you can earn money in order to get some of the things you like in life. And they learned to discuss the options as a group, present their views, and vote of what the group would do.
“Earning” money by selling cookies ostensibly for charity and then using the earnings to go to the spa just doesn’t seem honest. So what if they voted on it? The troop leaders should be guiding their decisions. If they had earned the money by letting people know upfront they were raising money to go to the spa, that would be different. What if they voted to use the money to buy themselves jewelry? I dunno, it just sits wrong with me.
Ostensibly for charity? No one has ever told me they were selling girl scout cookies for charity. My sister’s troop used the money to pay for workshops they did every Saturday morning. Some workshops were artsy crafty things like making barrettes to put in their hair. Others were more active or community service oriented things. Big whoop. I guess next time someone offers you the sheet, you can interrogate them on the plans for the money and boycott if they don’t meet your standards. Me, I’ll be buying my tagalongs (and I do mean tagalongs, don’t sell me any of this peanut butter patty shit) and enjoying them.
Just repeating this because some folks seem to still be hung up on the word ‘spa.’ It’s not a spa. It’s a party with a theme. Learning to throw parties is a very old Girl Scout thing. I wasn’t in a troop long, but I remember doing one with a Hawaiian theme. It took planning and work to make the decorations and set up the games and music and nobody afterwards said, “Hawaii? Why are you spending money on Hawaii?”
I’m counting decades, now. That was about forty years ago.
I was never under the impression that cookie sales were for charity. I always thought they were to pay for activities. The equivalent of a bake sale for a high school band.
Personally, I don’t see the attraction of a spa-day but then I’m not an eight-year-old girl. But I don’t see it as being significantly different from if they had voted to all go see a movie and then have a pizza together.
And the girls decided on going to a fucking SPA? What the holy living fuck is WRONG WITH THEM? :mad:
Oh… wait. Google is just going to disappoint me, isn’t it?
It was originally going to be Tame-a-Bear-Then-Mount-a-Minigun-on-it-and-Ride-Into-Town, but the park authorities complained about the noise.
.
:rolleyes:
No leader does the job because s/he has piles of free time. The leader does the job because s/he WANTS to make it happen for the girls, and nobody ELSE will do the job. Some parents are involved and help out, others drop their girls off and leave, and come back at the end, and somehow never respond “Sure!” when asked for assistance. I’m co-leader of a troop right now and that’s the way the other parents behave ths year. A couple years back, the troop leader (of the Junior troop) was venting to me about how she had to RENT A MINIVAN to take the girls somewhere because NOT ONE SINGLE PARENT could help out with driving to some place 45 minutes away. This cost the troop a hundred dollars or more, money they could have spent on activities if even one parent had helped out.
This year, I got NOT ONE SINGLE VOLUNTEER to help pick up the troop’s cookie order… 1 hour of work on a weekday morning and NOBODY could manage to spare the time. Finally the troop leader, who happened to know one mom’s schedule basically called that mom up and begged her to help.
Now, where my troops have been better than the OPs: we’ve never gotten such a nastygram. Not even when the cookie money was communal like it is up through Juniors (as a Cadette, my daughter’s money is sequestered for HER use and if she doesn’t go on an activity, she contributes nothing for it).
The OP needs to basically write a polite email saying something like “sorry your daughter feels she was coerced; I was at the meeting where they discussed and voted and did not see any such pressuring going on. It might be a good learning opportunity for you and her to discuss how to speak up for her own interests when there is group discussion. Girl Scout cookie money, at the Brownie level, is treated as the troop’s income for troop-wide activities; it is understood that while different girls sell different amounts, all the girls benefit from the teamwork.”.
Depending on when the vote occurred, you could even say “She knew this was the plan even before cookie sales occurred”.
Basically, “sorry you’re unhappy, this is the way things work, and fuck off, bitch”.
And hope that Li’l Sweetums gets fed up with it and quits the troop before next year.
Well, I think most people know that the cookie money goes for ACTIVITIES - that’s what Girl Scouts do, after all. People will even ask me “what will your troop do with the proceeds”.
For what it’s worth, the bulk of the sales money goes for the Council as a whole to support council-wide activities, camps, funding for underprivileged girls to join Scouts, etc. My girls did an overnight at a very nice camp facility - 30 dollars for the entire troop, because the facility is supported by the entire area’s profits.
Frankly, I don’t see the hate for a day spa trip. The girls should be able to benefit from the fruits of their labor in a way that is acceptable to them. And, as Jaded Goddess pointed out, it can be tied into a character-development lesson on self-esteem and the need to relax and take care of themselves once in a while.
Not everything in Girl Scouts has to be about museums and camping. The best memories I have of Scouting are the frivolous things we did for FUN. If it’s not FUN, there is no reason to belong.
Seems to me that voting to use the extra money for an activity covers most of these things pretty well. In fact, doing something you particularly don’t want to do even though the rest of the troop voted that way also seems like a good way to build most of these values.
I think a lot of the problem here (as on on the dope) is because the OP used the word “spa” instead of theme party.
When you go for your Eagle Scout badge (level?) it’s actually required. At one point you are asked why you stayed with the Boy Scouts so long, if the word ‘fun’ doesn’t show up in your answer at some point (they’ll ask you if you had fun if you don’t bring it up on your own, and you’d better say yes) you’ll be denied becoming an Eagle Scout, at least in my council.
But the Troop Leader did guide their decisions, by outlining what percentage of the proceeds the girls would have as discretionary money to purchase a treat for themselves. Not 100% of the money went towards this themed party.
Plus, it’s a great learning experience for when they’re in the workplace and management decides that a Team Spirit day is a fabulous way to boost morale, even though the employees themselves would probably have voted to use whatever money went towards this ridiculous farce in a different way, such as coffee or lunch for the office…
I was the treasurer and Cookie Mom for my daughter’s troop. Because of the huge disparity in the number of boxes sold, we kept a ledger with individual accounts. If a girl sold $500 worth of cookies, then $84 (less a few bucks for the common fund expenses, such as badges) went into her individual account. If she sold $25.00 worth of cookies, then $4.20 went into her account. Booth sale proceeds were divided equally among the number of participants.
Each girl could choose how she spent the money she earned doing fundraisers. Most girls chose to spend it on our two big trips, which were mixtures of civic activities (e.g. touring Ft. Sumpter/working at Give Kids The World) and frivolous activities (ghost tours/DisneyWorld).
While I’m not completely on board with dismissing a parent’s objection (especially if the objecting parent was the one who raised the most money), I can understand the OPer’s frustration. I spent more hours than I’d care to admit sitting in the Kroger vestibule selling cookies because none of the other parents had a free hour to spare. This is what ultimately led to having individual accounts. When you have one girl selling 10 boxes of cookies and another selling 2000 boxes (seriously), it isn’t fair to split the proceeds equally among the girls.