Camping, the Outdoors, and Defending Leaders Again
Experiences as a Leader, Opinions 18 Comments 
cadettes, camping, leader issues, outdoors, time
A few months ago, a link to the article The Girl Scouts Is Raising Our Next Generation of Rippers was posted in some GS groups, and this paragraph was noted in particular:
In my neighborhood in Washington, D.C., the local Boy Scout troop goes camping once a month and the Girl Scouts go three times a year. Chalk one up for the boys. Only 40 percent of Girl Scouts, in fact, do any kind of outdoor activity on a monthly basis. Although half of all Girl Scouts rate camping as a favorite activity, only 3 percent go out and pitch a tent every month. Four percent go hiking monthly, and 19 percent go walking, an activity that sets a pretty low bar.
And right on cue, it brought out some of the people who love to compare BSA to Girl Scouts (which is another rant for another time) and also the ones who like to bash Girl Scouts for not going on enough camping trips. Or just blame GSUSA for everything under the sun. Then throw in a parent who whines that Girl Scouts “failed” their daughter – whatever that means (yet another rant for another time). But they are being extremely unfair to GS leaders, and I have to say I take their comments personally because the volunteer base is a big portion of what encompasses “Girl Scouts.”
I consider myself an outdoors person compared to the average woman. I enjoy hiking and love outdoors activities. So does our Cadette co-leader. We specifically look for outdoors activities for the girls as they have told us that they enjoy them as well. We’re known as a troop that does a lot of outdoor activities. So keep that in mind.
All that said, planning and coordinating camping trips is a hell of a lot of work. It’s fun and I enjoy it – don’t get me wrong – but there is no way we’d be able to do it monthly. No way. Last weekend we took our Cadettes camping up to Chimney Rock State Park for their Girl Scout Weekend. In addition to the time spent prepping, I am just worn slap out. It took me Sunday and Monday to recover (and maybe a little bit of Tuesday to be quite honest). Next year for camping-type experiences, we’ll probably go backpacking in the fall for the first time and then tent camping in addition to possibly cabin camping. But both of us have families to tend to, and we have other obligations that we have to meet. As of next fall, I’ll be leading both a Brownie and a Cadette level. I might get some flak for saying this, but I’m going to say that Boy Scout leaders don’t have the same family responsibilities that Girl Scout leaders do because the vast majority of us are moms, and like it or not, mothers shoulder more of the household load.
As for Boy Scouts going camping monthly, well whoop de freakin’ doo. I’d rather offer our girls a variety of experiences and opportunities to choose from. If we went camping monthly, there would be no way fit in the other events and activities we do, plus our girls would get bored with it. Additionally, sometimes I feel guilty for giving so much time to Girl Scouts because it takes time away from my family and husband. I feel like writers of those type of articles and some commenters forget that this is a volunteer run organization, and therefore we don’t get paid for the hundreds of hours we put into this. They haven’t been leaders themselves, so they don’t understand our point of view or really have an idea of how Girl Scouts works. There are other components to GS other than the outdoors. Here’s another rant that I went on last year about a similar issue.
My co-leader and I can’t give your daughter what she would get in Venturing and nor can any other leader I know. But we can give her a well-rounded experience like doing woodworking, learning about the dulcimer and other folk arts, and a trip to a retired NASA facility just to name a few. We’ll learn financial literacy skills. And yeah, we’ll throw some outdoor activities in there too.
Even if everything with GSUSA was sunshine and rainbows, there would be limitations because you’re dependent on your volunteer base. As an example, I know some AWESOME leaders who can’t take their troops hiking or on camping trips due to health issues. Like I said before, there’s only so much we can do. The leaders I know in our service unit put a LOT of blood, sweat, and tears into our troops, and just because it doesn’t meet others’ unrealistic expectations doesn’t mean we should be shamed.
What’s a “ripper,” anyway?
I would point out another thing… The analog to Girl Scouts is not Boy Scouts but Cub Scouts. Which is a whole ‘nother set of problems with our organization, but REAL problems. A significant fraction of Girl Scouts are daisies — how many kinder and 1st grade Cub Scouts are going camping each month? Oh, right, Cub Scouts don’t even HAVE kinders!
If you compare apples-to-apples (daisies & brownies to cub scouts, juniors to weblos, CSAs to boy scouts) what you see is that DBJ girls are expected to do more advanced things than cub/weblo boys at every level. Some of that is that girls are developmentally more advanced than boys at those ages.
Our problem is that we are not keeping girls in as teenagers. When you average together 10 CSA girls and 90 DBJ girls, and then compare them to the average of 40 boy scouts and 60 cub/weblo scouts, all it tells you is that the average girl scout is 9. It doesn’t tell you anything at all about 15-yr-old girl scouts vs 15-yr-old boy scouts, or 9-yr-old brownies vs 9-yr-old cub scouts. I’ve battled this abuse of statistics at our council level many times. So they run surveys of girls and parents asking what sort of activities the girls and parents want, and the 9-yr-old girls and the parents of 9-yr-old girls select activities appropriate for 9 year olds. And then council staff says “our survey shows that girls and parents mostly aren’t interested in older-girl activities.” Not understanding that the people NOT in the survey are the CSA-aged girls and their parents, not in the survey because they are not girl scouts, not girl scouts because after 5th grade they quit, and they quit because “there aren’t any activities for older girls.”
BSA has a very strong separation between their programs, and when people say “Boy Scouts” they default to the picture of a green uniform — they are talking about 11-18 yr-old boys. But “Girl Scouts” means the whole program from 1st-yr daisies to 2nd-yr ambassadors. (And, yes, I think it was stupid to separate seniors and ambassadors, and it is stupid to have separate badge work for cadettes, seniors and ambassadors. Ask the troop leader trying to do first aid for a troop of 2 cadettes, 2 seniors, 2 ambassadors…)
We desperately need to fix our retention problem, and step one is to realize that we have one, and that our current identity is that we are a program for little girls. The most logical way to get out of this problem is to start where we are with the girls we have, and have the program “grow up” with the girls by adding older-girl programming. And yes, that means having robust programs for a few girls now, so that the younger girls will see these exciting things and want to stay in girl scouts, so that 5-10 years down the road it won’t be just a few girls. And the most logical place to find these wonderful older-girl programs is to look in our history and ask our alumnae, because we were once amazingly successful at older-girl programs.
Great comments! Whenever I go on my rant about the unfair comparison between BSA and GS, can I use some of your comments?
We do need to fix the identify. We’ve had this problem for a long time now, because the “little girl” stereotype was around when I was a GS in the 80’s too. Has it ever been anything but that?
Our council did a much better job offering older girl programming this past year, but we ran into an issue where some of them didn’t meet the minimum number to make the session due to a variety of issues – one being that there’s less of a pool of older girls to draw from. I hope this doesn’t affect planning for next year.
I was never a girl scout as a girl, but my sister-in-law was First Class and my husband an Eagle. I think that there was still a pretty good older-girl program in the 70s, and I wonder what happened in the 80s that changed that?
It’s possible that what this is really about is Title IX, with sports taking over both kids and adult volunteers? When did the cookie sale become so all-consuming? Maybe older girls were turned off by that, and adults figured out that cute little girls sell cookies way better than awkward teenagers? I think it’s important to understand what happened if we are going to reverse it.
Of course we, as an organization, need to figure out if we want to reverse it. There’s lots of money to be made in the Amway For Little Girls gig…
I don’t know, but many times I’d hear, “Aren’t you too old to be a Girl Scout?” even back then. Once I had a man come up to me at a booth and ask that question, and after I replied (with a smile) that no, Girl Scouts goes all the way up to high school, he said, “Oh. Well I only buy cookies from girls who are cute,” and walked away. I was an awkward middle schooler at the time, and that comment really embarrassed and humiliated me. Now I’d say, “Good, because we don’t sell cookies to assholes.” I also caught a lot of flak for being in Girl Scouts from my peers in middle and high school. I’m curious if that were the case in the 70’s.
Plus, I will be completely honest – the older girl program when I grew up was boring. It really was. And I had a kickass troop leader, so she wasn’t the problem. Maybe it improved during the 90’s. People complain about the older girl Journeys, but I don’t see them any worse than the Careers in Exploration/Challenge of Being a GS/Dreams to Reality programs that were required when I earned my Silver and Gold.
I personally experience the all-consuming travel ball and competition dance eating into GS. I have lost many a girl due to multiple practices a week (in 5th grade!!) and their weekends completely taken up by tournaments or competitions. Parents don’t see the long term value of Scouting and just see the scholarship carrot dangling in front of them. They also like to show off their kids to everyone else. They’d much rather say their child scored the winning goal or her team won the regional tournament than to say their daughter earned the Silver Award.
Cathyf, I was a Girl Scout in the 70’s and early 80’s.
I loved scouting, which for me meant earning badges, going camping and selling cookies. We also marched in parades. My friends and I stayed in through 1 year of cadets. Then we dropped out because we all wanted to be on various sports teams and at the time Girl Scouts did not offer any badges in sports. Thus, this activity which was taking up so much of our time, like basketball practice everyday after school for several months, had no place in scouting. If we could have done both things, I think we would have stayed in scouting. My own daughter just finished her first year as an ambassador. One way I have kept her troop together is by making room for the girls other interests. If they have to miss meetings during a sports season, or school play that’s fine. They are welcomed to come to as many meetings as they can. Some girls will complete badge requirements that they miss on their own at home. Other scouts just enjoy learning new things with their friends and are not fixated on completing the badge. It has worked well for us.
The Senior program was gutted in the 1960’s and then rebuilt as the Gold Award in 1980. For a while, the highest award in Girl Scouting was earned as a Cadette. I earned my first class in 1977 with about 20 other girls from our Cadette “Super Troop.” Almost none continued with me into Senior Scouts. The only official Senior program was service aide bars.
But even back then, people looked at the Junior level as being “Girl Scouts.” Pushing the program down to younger and younger levels hasn’t helped. When Juliette Low started Girl Scouting the youngest girls were 10.
The BSA have a PILOT Program for Kindergartners called “Lion”…
Actually Cub Scouts do have kinders they’re called Lions.
As for programs for older girls, the one I worked at for nine years is amazing – Canoe trips ONLY for older girls (12 and older), multi day camping/canoe trips in a true wilderness area – pretty amazing! the alumni site is nlcbaa.org and there’s a lot of info there!
Great post. My son’s Boy Scout troop doesn’t go camping every month, but they go very often. They are able to do this because his troop has a couple of dedicated leaders whose kids are grown, so they are able to take the time to do this. I think you are right – even when women are empty nesters, they have tend to have additional responsibilities that men don’t have. And, yes, my son only goes on some of these because the lack of sleep, no time to do schoolwork, etc. can’t happen every month.
A few years ago, a member of my Council’s Board commented on a GSUSA document about attracting older girls – “I’m not sure what to do about that since Girl Scouts has been uncool since I was a girl.” And she was past retirement age.
I have learned not to complain about anything run by volunteers unless I am willing to take it on and do it better. (And doing it better is often more difficult than you realize!)
Good point about the parents whose kids have aged out. When my younger child, a boy, joined Boy Scouts I was very surprised to discover that the adults kept on volunteering often long after their sons had aged out. I had not experienced that with Girl Scouts. My experience with Girl Scouts has been that most moms move through the levels of scouting with their daughters and then leave when their daughters leave. I have met a few Service Unit leaders who were older but they were not troop leaders and it does not seem to be as common.
I think it’s a matter of balance, AND not leaving the older girls out of Girl Scouting too.
Yes, other activities (besides camping and being Outdoors) are also great for girls in Girl Scouting.
BUT, if we don’t offer another path to Girl Scouting’s highest awards, perhaps an Outdoor, hands-on path, we may still see our Membership losing numbers, especially for older girls.
I think we DO need to take a very close look at current Official Program in Girl Scouting, AND pay special attention to older girls. I am aware that Girl Scouts’ current focus on younger girls is their way of supporting the Movement – and hopefully coming up with more Membership. But I agree with you that focusing on what all Members want – – including older girls – – is also SO important.
We need MANY more badges of all kinds, and we need to have more Official Outdoor Program, including Progressive Badges for all ages. We also need to save our remaining camps. They are needed for the girls of all ages. And YES, we need to address our older girls too. Only focusing on the younger ages is a mistake.
At first, the Outdoor Girl Scout Project (a Take Action unofficial group) was focusing on offering another Journey for the girls of all ages. Now, we would like another Path to the highest awards. We are concerned that we have gone too far away from the wonderful traditional Program we used to have. Yes, new information and focus is great, updates are great, but let’s not lose what works best for us. I think this would be a mistake.
I will be reading your article at least one more time. You have made some great points in that all of us in Girl Scouting should be thinking about.
I will also want to read the “Failed your Daughter” article too. Thanks for another great posting.
The other issue is simple logistics. Boy Scout troops exist in perpetuity; my brother graduated high school over 25 years ago and his former troop is still active at our church. This gives their troops the ability to acquire and maintain the large supply of equipment that can be needed to keep up with that sort of camping pace, as well as the presence of adult leadership with extensive outdoor experience. In Girl Scouts, however, troops come and go and may experience changes in leadership along the way. This means that you’re not building up the same level of physical resources, and leaders are likely less experienced – and therefore less confident. Evan if a troop wants to keep up a heavy pace of outdoor experiences, both of those put Girl Scout troops at a disadvantage when compared with Boy Scout troops.
As you said, though, I don’t like getting hung up on the comparisons between GSUSA and BSA. They may offer similar experiences but the organizational structure is so different that the delivery must follow suit. It doesn’t make one organization better or worse, just different,
But even if we had that camping equipment (which we do – it’s just stored at our houses), our troop would not want to go camping every month because that would cut into other activities. For example, if we had gone camping this month, we would not have been able to go to the US Whitewater Center.
You are correct, you will receive flack. I am tired of girl scout leaders complaining about the planning.
The thing is, I have a family responsibility, a job and am a Boy Scout Scoutmaster (leader for 9 years and counting), a Boy Scout Roundtable Commissioner, merit badge counselor AND I am in a mentoring position for the Order of the Arrow.
I am also a Girl Scout leader (really the only real leader for my current troop) for 6 years and counting.
Oh yea, and I have a job and a home to manage.
No, my Girl Scouts do not camp monthly, we go out 2-3x/year even though my boys are out most months. Here is the KEY. You need to ask or expect some help and support from your troop parents (your committee of parents) and have your GIRLS do the planning. We ALL have other responsibilities so stop using that as a crutch. I am an outdoor person. I do a lot for my scouts. Thankfully I grew up in a scouting family and took every bit of Boy Scout training that was out there.
Planning certainly gets easier as the girls get a bit older (in some ways) but in other ways it’s harder.Your girls are old enough, have them plan. You be there to mentor. You be the voice of reason and their support but they plan.
Oh yea, and if they fail in some way, let them. They will fail at some point and that’s OK. They will have an awesome learning opportunity and possibly memories to last a lifetime.
My point is that if we went camping once a month (which the girls wouldn’t want to do in the first place – we’ve asked them how often they want to go camping and it’s only once or twice a year), it would cut into other activities that they want to do monthly like woodworking and other council events that are offered. We give them a long list of choices.
Also, there are troops that aren’t outdoors based, and IMO that’s OK. If a girl wants to be in a troop like that, she and her parents are welcome to switch. We shouldn’t expect all GS troops to live up to some kind of standard when it comes to “camping trips.” If you did, we’d have an even harder time trying to find volunteers. Not to mention they are the volunteer and aren’t getting paid to be a leader – so it’s their and the girls/troop’s prerogative how they want to run things.
And I think it’s great that you are able to do so much. Kudos to you. But you aren’t everybody, you don’t know everyone’s family situation, and it’s unfair to expect others to do the same. Are you doing something to help GS leaders manage their time and troop planning? It sounds like there’s a need for it.
There are a couple things no one mentions when comparing GS to BS. First, Boy Scout troops do a lot more than just camping once a month. Many weekends, my son has to choose which events he wants to attend. Secondly, there is a national award for BS troops who camp monthly. So they have an incentive to offer this program. The boys decide whether or not this is an award they want to earn, then plan out the camping trips for the next year – including when, where, the theme of the camping trip, and which patrol is in charge. Not all troops are actually boy run, but that is the goal from national. Also, since BS troops are chartered to a place or organization, such as a church, they are perpetual. When you want to sign your son up, you contact the council who tells you all the packs/troops available in your area. They do not put you on a waiting list and never contact you for 3 years, like GS did with my daughter. But that is a rant for another time. Since they are perpetual, they tend to retain leaders long after their sons have aged out. This gives them a large pool of experienced adults available to go camping throughout the year. In the troops my son has been involved in, every adult does not go camping every month, except my husband, who enjoys camping. The others went several times a year, or in some cases, none at all. In my GS troop, we have 2 leaders and we do everything with the girls. If one of us isn’t available, it doesn’t happen. We do camp several times a year and the girls love it. I really feel that the way the structure is set up, it is completely unfair to knock GS troops ON THE LOCAL LEVEL for not providing as much outdoor activity as the BS troops in the same area. If GS would move to having troops chartered to an organization, it would enable experienced leaders to mentor new ones, it would help retain the older girls because the younger girls would get to see what the older girls were doing and stick around for their turn, and even make cookie selling easier for older girls who could partner up with an adorable Daisy.
I have walked in the shoes of both a GSUSA (15 years) and BSA (25 years ) leader. As a girl, I stayed in Girl Scouts though high school graduation because I was on a canoe race team and a First Class Scout. For me, as a girl, and in the early years of my daughter’s scouting years 1998-2012, badges were definitive skills sets. The precursor to First Class were challenges that grouped skill sets and had you take a “challenge” that tested the skills you had learned. My daughter’s early years had the remnants of Studio 2B as requirements for Silver and Gold.
We now have a bit of an unusual dynamic in our Service unit. We have a Cadette troop and a Senior/Ambassador troop at one meeting place that are run by a veteran leader for Cadettes and two alumni, recent college graduates for the S/A. These troops are very active with almost monthly events but change their expectation that not every girl makes every trip. We have a second group of troops that I have spearheaded, currently k-9th, divided into 4 troops D,B,J, CSA. 3 of 4 leaders do not have daughters in Girl Scouts they are two young girl alums and me. Our third leader has 3 girls in the program and next year they will be in the C/S/A troop while mom stays the Junior leader. So both groups, the leaders stay in place making meeting planning easier.
In both groups we can plan more camping opportunities as we have a bigger group to draw from and more leaders to enact the girl’s plan for the weekend. Not every camping trip is about the outdoor skills directly. They can be for the purpose of historical tours, amusement park, or Journey in a weekend, etc. They are a way to do more for less money, do more in a longer time frame then just meeting nights. The skills from camping are a backdrop to the purpose of the weekend.
As a leader, the more often we camp the less planning/trip we need for the same reason. Once reservations are made, the equipment is always ready, there are minor changes to the packing lists,the basics of meal planning fall into place more quickly, the purpose of the trip is planned and off we go. Honestly, my daughter’s troop elected once in 12 years to take a trip and stay in a hotel after more than 10 camping trips a year in grades 3-12th. The reason? They needed to study for their Senior years finals and prepare for graduation but would not miss attending the 10th anniversary sing-a-long in Washington DC.