AlphaCentauri

It's hard to believe a Try-It would require entering a chat room! Since there is no way for moderators to prevent inappropriate posts, chat rooms are only for those not easily offended. Could they perhaps mean to instant message a friend? Of course, from what I have seen, AOL will not register Brownie aged children unless they lie about their age. I don't know about MSN.

ScoutNut wrote: National does not have a good track record of replying to messages, but at least the girls get the satisfaction of knowing that they did contribute some of the feedback that National keeps telling us it wants They give us s---loads of booklets and badge requirements about female empowerment and how "it's good to be a girl," and then they can't even send a form letter to girls who take the time to write?

Wow... have they picked their colleges yet? My husband would appreciate a few students who write that well in his classes.

And if they are trying to appeal to girls from low income families, why would they do something to astronomically increase the cost of the program?

The problem is that the girls targeted by the change are still Juniors. They haven't seen the old or the new materials, and can't really envision what they will want in the program when they are a couple years older anyway. At this age, they want to redo whatever they did before that was fun -- and have to be dragged to new activities because they really are not any good at judging whether they will like an activity until they (are forced to) try it once.

Whoa, can't we all just get along? Maybe it could have been worded differently, but there is a valid point. It is good to reevaluate your program if you find it is systematically deterring a particular ethnic group from joining. But if you find your program would need to radically change to appeal to that group, you'd better find out how that change will go over with your core constituency, and if necessary offer different options. And in addition to the girls, someone should look at the point of view of adult leaders -- if we think it's all B.S. and don't act as troop leaders/moderators, girls don't get to join scouts anyway.

So who were the girls in these focus groups that went for the Studio 2B concepts in the first place? And did anyone think to run it past the girls who actually stayed in scouts through Cadettes and Seniors instead of only asking the girls who weren't interested before? I think it's lame, and I'm an old fuddy-duddy. I was far more cynical at their age. ("I was so much older then; I'm younger than that now.") If anyone asked me, I'd change all the scout levels to build on the earlier ones -- as it is, when you move to the next level you're a "tenderfoot" again. Why not have badges that allow equivalent badges at a lower level to count for a couple requirements? For instance, if you got the Eco-Explorer Try-it, you would already be part of the way toward Junior Eco-Action badge. If you then got the Junior level Eco-Action, you would have fewer requirements to fulfill for your Eco-Action interest patch. If you want the girls to be goal oriented instead of just showing up and gluing trash together as a craft project, you should respect the fact that they will feel their previous effort no longer counts for anything when they move to the next level and can't display the previous level's badges.

The Studio 2B charms don't seem very appealing to me. I don't see a lot of girls wearing charm bracelets anymore -- that fad enjoyed a very brief revival. I guess their parents must have embraced it :-) But they look like exactly the sort of thing that would look good on an earring. Are anyone's girls attaching them to wires and wearing them that way? If you're trying to get girls to get recognized for the effort they put forward earning the charm, an earring is a much more visible piece of jewelry, and more likely to provoke questions about, "Where did you get that?" You can buy plain gold or surgical steel wires in craft stores or lapidary shops, and one set could be used to swap off all a girl's charms. (She would have to buy two charms to get a matched set, if anyone wears matched sets in HS anymore, but the cost is still comparable to what they would buy at Claire's anyway.)

I also asked my council about the "zero out" rumor, and skerns123 is exactly correct. No troop could take a big trip if they couldn't carry funds over. And the cookie sale rotates time of year in different councils. Ours ends in March -- not much time to spend the money! If Planned Parenthood provides support, this is the first I'm hearing about it. But from my involvement in a community service nonprofit through my job, I can tell you that parents of girls in urban high schools are very interested in having their girls hear about sex from someone other than Abercroombie and Fitch, Calvin Klein, and UPN sitcoms. Having the Girl Scouts discuss it helps change ######## from something "cool" and "edgy" to something serious that calls for Responsibility and Maturity. Someday, maybe we can add Abstinence to that list, but we're up against a lot in the media and the urban high school culture (e.g., if a girl hasn't had a baby, she's considered a wallflower; if a boy isn't having sex with girls at every opportunity, girls will regard him as being "on the down low" and won't consider entering into a long-term relationship with him). There is no "don't ask, don't tell" rule in our Safety Wise. Remember that most pedophiles are heterosexual and almost all are male, so the issue of heterosexual adult male volunteers is more pressing. There are rules about sleeping arrangements and two-deep leadership that cover the risk of abuse, sexual or otherwise. Personally, if any girl or female adult is gay I'd prefer to know about it, so appropiate steps can be taken to assure everyone's privacy. As a teen, I was in an Explorer Post with boys and girls, and it was not a problem -- we were expected to respect each other and each other's privacy and we did, period.(This message has been edited by AlphaCentauri)

I also think the girlie-girl part of S2B is a mistake -- the girls get way too much of that kind of pressure; GS should be an alternative. But I think that the kind of women who become scout leaders aren't in to that either. National can't force everyone into one mold, certainly not women. Women aren't in it for the recognition or to advance to higher ranks in the organization; we are in it because we find it personally fulfilling. And we are independent-minded enough to do things our own way when we have different ideas. I think you will see troops following national just enough to get covered by the liability insurance, and then proceeding to do their own thing. And it may be the best thing that could happen. After all, Boy Scouts' Explorer program always had each Explorer Post following its own members' interest -- some into outdoors, some into vocational pursuits, some into sailing, etc. GSA should look into the advantages of encouraging each troop to have its own theme so girls could choose one that interests them. When I was a teen, there were more girls in the Boy Scouts (as Explorers) than the Girl Scouts. But my friends and I were in different posts -- mine did lots of backpacking and canoeing, another couple friends were in a post sponsored by a firehouse that basically trained the scouts as paramedics. Others were more into foreign travel (eg. climbing Kilomonjaro). If I Were In Charge, I would develop potential themes for individual troops and provide support materials for volunteers to take on that kind of a program. It's not a coincidence that a lot of teens are in programs like Trek and Outward Bound that are more structured and more like booking with a group excursion, since it takes some experience to plan the type of complex experiences that go beyond what a girl can get with her own family. If a scout leader can choose a theme and then get materials to suggest trips and programs, tell her and the girls step by step what needs to be done for each, gives information on what has worked and not worked for other troops, etc., they could recruit more girls and leaders, I think. Nothing improves recruiting like hearing that girls a couple years older than you are doing something that makes you incredibly envious.

What's wrong with having the college girls be campus girl scouts and organize programs for younger girls on schedules they can work with. The campus girl scouts at a college near us organize a badge workshop about once a year, host the thinking day celebration, and also host a seminar on some topic of interest to women followed by a formal tea (sounds goofy, but it's very popular with the girls the way they do it). Their programs are great, and probably a more valuable contribution than trying to fill the troop leader role when they don't have that kind of schedule flexibility.

I'd be afraid what my kids would say about Studio 2B if they were asked to assess it. For that matter, I'd be afraid what they would say about Cadettes. We tried to start them on the Leadership Award last year, and got some pretty cynical replies on the worksheet about leadership qualities. Suffice to say they didn't feel they had learned anything new.

I have heard about this Yahoo group, but Yahoo list a gazillion groups. Do you have a link?

Well, our troop's previous leader has moved on to Cadettes with her daughter. I'm starting out with a half dozen sixth graders (and their very involved parents) and a flier inviting younger girls to join us. First meeting is in two weeks. While I've been assistant leader for two years, the previous leader handled all the nuts and bolts and I was cheerleader. Now I've got to do the forms, manage the money, keep things focused, etc. Any words of wisdom from the (probably not) older and wiser leaders out there who have been here before?

Congratulations, Jaime!!!