Enter the Uniform Zone… IF YOU DARE!
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dead horses, gsusa, memes, squirrel, traditions, uniforms
ENTER THE UNIFORM ZONE… IF YOU DARE!
Although I don’t spend nearly as much time on Facebook as I used to, I do browse through the FB group Girl Scouts Gab from time to time. I can’t find the exact post now, but basically the leader was asking others about getting her girls to wear uniforms and asking what others do.
FWIW, we have navy blue troop t-shirts that we wear to most outings. We don’t wear vests if we are going to be doing something that could mess them up, but I do ask them to wear them if we are out in public as a group along with the troop t-shirt. It gets us some free publicity, and frankly, it’s easier for me to keep up with them. At meetings, they can wear whatever they want.
However…. if we have ANY kind of ceremony, I do ask them to go “formal” and wear white tops with khaki bottoms. I really don’t think it’s too much to ask, and I think it’s a great compromise between shelling out money for the official tops and bottoms and being affordable. Plus, you can find whatever is comfortable, and this works wonders for those of us who are sensory overloaded.
All that said – dang – have we gotten slack when it comes to uniforms in the past 15 years or what? I was pretty much out of the loop from the time I completed Seniors in 1989 to when I became a troop leader in 2010. I’m not talking about the actual uniforms themselves like the white & khaki. I’m talking about WHEN and WHERE we wear them (or currently, willy nilly!).
Shoot, back in the good ole days when we walked uphill both ways in the snow to get to the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace in Savannah, wearing a formal uniform was a requirement. A few years ago, I was kind of embarrassed when our girls didn’t even bring their vests while we were there. I have a story from my Troop 20 days when I fell and knocked myself out at the J-Low Birthplace, but that is for another day. SQUIRREL
I could be totally off on this, but I get the impression that somebody up at GSUSA saw declining numbers back in the late 90s and hit the panic button. Quick! We gotta keep girls from quitting! Take a poll! Girls are embarrassed wearing uniforms? Throw ’em out! But by relegating uniforms to the back burner, I feel GSUSA undermined the Girl Scout brand by diluting it. Uniforms grab people’s attention. I kind of cringe when I see troops at cookie booths who aren’t even wearing a vest or sash much less anything that says GS. (Yeah, I know it’s cold as all get out, especially up north during cookie sales. But wear ’em over the coats!) What is there to identify them as GS? I don’t have any way to prove this, but I really feel like the average person would take Girl Scouts in general more seriously if they saw them in some kind of uniform. We complain about not getting as much credibility as Boy Scouts, but then we turn around and say that the little things don’t matter.
(As a side note, it’d be interesting for someone to do a study to compare cookie sales with girls in formal uniforms vs. girls who aren’t wearing anything GS at all).
Now I’m not a uniform Nazi by any means because I’m not saying wear them to EVERYTHING! Well, maybe I am one according to some people after reading comments on various GS Leader groups. But c’mon people. Yeah, I understand about costs. But going to white & khaki was genius on someone’s part. Let’s go with it. If you really want to make it work, we’re creative.
Well, the horse is dead and has been beaten until its bones have turned to dust. Carry on.
Wearing uniforms is all about the leader’s expectations of her girls. My girls know that if we are going on a field trip (non-messy), attending a SU or Council event, or having a ceremony that I expect them to be in their khaki and whites. Unfortunately, more often than not, we are the only ones in uniform. Our school system requires solid colored bottoms and polo shirts, so all of my girls have a white polo and some sort of khaki bottoms. Its a no-brainer. And yes, one year we had a child who couldn’t afford the vest and insignia. Guess what? We had two other parents who saw the need and chipped in, the rest we paid for with cookie money. I too was a GS during the time of the sock flashes and polyester Bill Blass nightmares — but people took us seriously, and even respected us. The yknew we were Girl Scouts not some random group of girls hanging around.