It’s the Little Things – Girls Guides Pet Peeve
Experiences as a Leader, National Operations 5 Comments 
badges we don't need no stinkin badges, da-nice, girls guides, gsusa, leader issues, pet peeves, volunteers
Sometimes it’s the little things that get to me. As we all know, a lot has been made about the Journeys and the Girl’s Guides books. To be honest, I’m more irritated by the Girl’s Guides books than I am the Journeys. I guess I remember the late 80s days of From Dreams to Reality (bor-ring!) and Let’s Make It Happen! (sounded like a game show) and Careers in Exploration (high school guidance classes, anyone?) and see those as the frontrunners to Journeys (h/t Da-nice aka Samona’s doppelganger), so I’ve been beaten down by them.
But back to the Girl’s Guides notebooks. I will pass on commenting at this time about the massive overhaul in badges a few years back, because that’s not the point of this post.
Now, when you get past each girl not really getting her own complete set of badges because the Girl’s Guides are too expensive (whoops, there I go commenting again), you might think – “Well you know, having a three-ring binder is kind of a good idea. You can add in any additional handouts that you get or a pocket insert and have your stuff all in one spot.”
But then, you buy the three Skill Building Activity Sets. I just call them the Extra Badge Sets. You go to insert all of them in your Girl’s Guide notebook. And this happens:
Yep. And you’ve got to mush it all down into the binder to be able to snap it together. Kind of like when I’m trying to get into my skinny jeans. And you just pray that you don’t drop it, whereby the notebook bursts open and paper goes flying everywhere. Also like my skinny jeans, but there’s no paper going flying anywhere. Instead it’s part of my body.
Did anybody test this out before moving ahead with these notebooks? I understand that the next size up for binders would have been even more expensive and bulkier, but did anybody at GSUSA or the designers stop and say, “Hey, this idea isn’t really going to work. All the badge sets don’t fit in there, and going up to the next size notebook is going to be too costly and not very functional. Maybe we ought to drop back and punt.”
It’s little in the grand scheme of things, but I think of this pet peeve and grumble every time I have to open up the notebook to get a badge out and stuff them all back in again.
And really, it is the little things that count. When you take the time to look at something from the user’s point of view (even if it seems little to you), it shows that his or her take is more important than whatever your idea is, no matter how awesome you might think it will be. I get the impression that somebody (or more likely, a committee) had this flashy-notebooks-that-look-impressive idea in their head but didn’t get someone to actually USE them to see if they were functional.
Good point! When I worked in Graphic Design, we pre-press people and proofreaders always made a sample before we went ahead and printed things. Every time. Period. Which makes me think, somebody probably caught this ahead of time and told somebody about it. That somebody then OK’d the job anyway, which really does not make sense to me either.
So… the committee (or maybe one person?) may have known about the problem and OK’d it anyhow. Or they did not do a good sample (maybe used 20# or 60# paper instead of cardboard for heavier pages to see if it all fit…) But no matter what happened, perhaps (or surely) a FIX for this would be a good idea for later on. Or now. Maybe they thought people would just buy another folder. Or not.
Many people would REALLY love smaller and more portable books. You are not the first person that has noticed this. ALSO having more volunteers on important committees in the future might also help. Especially people with printing experience. My take.
And with round rings instead of D-rings you can’t turn pages without tearing something, even without the additional pages. For future printing I wish they would at least put in d-rings. That shouldn’t be too difficult or costly.
I like the idea of having one badge book for each level. Not every girl can afford to buy a binder much less the inserts and on toop the journey books, and the ones that have one don’t even used it. especially if badges are being sone in troop meetings. “What happened to use resources wisely”?
We really have these problems too. And carrying these things around…not all leaders are young, healthy….some of us are Lifetime Members over 50. Either GSUSA will price everything so high I can’t afford to have a Troop. Or make it so hard to juggle…..I LOVE Girl Scouting….honestly use many of the tried and true old books, and ways <3
In the past, when a new girl joined our Cadette, Senior, Ambassador Troop, she was given the Badge Book. The girls brought them to every meeting and really worked on the badges of their choice. Now, we don’t buy the girls the book. It is too cumbersome, needs constant updating, and no longer has badges that interest them. I have moved all my badge pages to a large three ring binder which is too large to take to all of the meetings. The girls are begging for badges of interest, like those from the past.
I agree – this was not thought through. Colorful, catchy packaging, but inefficient and unusable.