October 10 2019

Farthest North vs. GSUSA: The Animated GIF Edition

National Governance    4 Comments    , , , , ,

Update:  The Alaskan Supreme Court denied GSUSA’s request to reconsider.

So not too long after I finished writing the update about the Alaskan Supreme Court ruling in favor of Farthest North in their case against GSUSA regarding membership dues, I found out that GSUSA submitted a motion to Reconsider.  This means they are asking the Alaskan Supreme Court to take a second look at their argument.

I don’t feel like writing another lengthy blog post, so I am just going to use animated GIFs to describe my thoughts.  Here’s how I felt when I found out about GSUSA’s motion:

Then I wondered if I would have to write yet another blog post about this case:

Posts about this topic take a lot out of me because they involve a pretty substantial amount of time and energy to research, write, and edit.  I am not going to go through GSUSA’s motion point by point, because a lot of it just rehashes their original argument.  If you’d like to read it yourself, you can download it here:  GSUSA Petition Rehearing

However, I do feel the need to discuss one of their arguments in asking the Court to reevaluate their ruling:

In deciding their dispute, the Court overlooked or misconceived material facts or propositions of law and misunderstood GSUSA’s position. As but one example, the Court inexplicably overlooked GSUSA’s Blue Book of Basic Documents (Blue Book) — dismissing it as a “pamphlet” — although it is the official collection of GSUSA’s governing documents.

Based on the tone of “dismissing it as a ‘pamphlet,'” it sounds like GSUSA is offended by what they deem as the Alaskan Supreme Court flippantly writing off the Blue Book like it’s something passed out on a street corner.  When I originally read through the Alaskan Supreme Court’s decision, I too did a double take at the word pamphlet thinking of the stereotypical one sheet of paper folded three ways.  But then memories from my AP American History class in high school pushed through the cobwebs, and Thomas Paine’s Common Sense came to mind (I’m weird, I know).  I obviously have some sort of association of the term pamphlet with it, so just for curiosity’s sake, I looked up the definition on Dictionary.com:

pamphlet [ pam-flit ]: noun
¹ a complete publication of generally less than 80 pages stitched or stapled together and usually having a paper cover.
² a short treatise or essay, generally a controversial tract, on some subject of contemporary interest: a political pamphlet.

I then pulled out my copy of the Blue Book and looked at it.  It’s 36 pages long, and I’ve stapled it at the top along with a three hole punch so that I can stick it in a notebook.  So… I would say it meets the definition of a pamphlet.

All right, so where does this leave us right now?  Well, at this point, we’ll just wait to see if first, the Alaskan Supreme Court decides to even hear GSUSA’s petition (they can dismiss it outright if they so choose), and then if they do hear it, how long it will take for them to rule.  Personally, I can’t help but wonder if GSUSA’s motion is a stall tactic to keep other councils from filing a case against them until they figure out where to go with this.  The 2020 National Council Session will be upon us before we know it, so I think it’s pretty much a given that this issue will be at the forefront in Orlando.

In the meantime, I plan on publishing updates as they come in.  There will be just one more, right?  Right???

If you have general questions on how this affects the organization or the history of this whole affair, please read my take on the Alaskan Supreme Court ruling, and you can find the Q&A at the bottom of the page.

And even further down the membership dues rabbit hole I go.  I hope it doesn’t collapse in on me one day.

See you in Orlando!

The Entire Saga can be found here:

4 COMMENTS :

  1. By Cheryl Waybright on

    GSUSA is offended by the blue book being called a pamphlet when the board dismisses its content and changes it willy nilly. Well, I dare say, get over it. GSUSA has chosen to stick it’s governing documents (constitution, bylaws, policies, etc.) into a short booklet, sometimes referred to as a pamphlet and call it a Blue Book. To anyone outside looking in they would say what’s the Blue Book? as it makes no sense outside of the organization. Kelley calls their actual book a Blue Book so I can only imagine the AK Supremes checked on the latest Tesla S pricing when trying to figure out what the GSUSA Blue Book really is. Unfortunately, the argument that Article V section 5 only relates to voting could find some support if the AK Supremes don’t understand the history of how that Article was changed and how the members (of the NC) voted in whatever year (Amy) to keep that sentence because the members of the NC, representing all members, felt it was important enough that as the first time “DUES” as a word appears in the whole wide blue book was mentioned. Perhaps any of us with lines in to board members of GSUSA that appear to want to bring peace to the GS world, make sure they understand the history and why what GSUSA Boards have done since 2009 to raise dues outside of the NC, on its own as a money grab, is outside the spirit of the organization as well as outside the written word of the blue book. GSUSA Boards of late have lost the respect of the girls and adults who understand governance and quality programming. It’s time for them to march into Orlando with a big apology, ask for forgiveness and conduct themselves properly going forward. It’s time also for GSUSA to leverage the current century and embrace the NC members who represent their councils for a full three year term – the Board does not need to profess it must manage between sessions on its own. Webinars and online voting occur in many organizations and could, if GSUSA’s board wanted to act in the spirit of the voice of the member, leverage that between conferences/formal sessions in person. And “internal political dispute” – well when the GSUSA board doesn’t listen to the masses, it’s not political, it’s turning a deaf ear. Go AK! Thank you for standing up for what’s right! Now where have we heard that before?!?!

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  2. By Marty Woelfel on

    To answer Cheryl’s question, it was at NCS 2008 where delegates (including me) voted to put back IN the following sentence in Article V, Section 5: “Decision on membership dues shall require a majority of votes cast. The GSUSA Board had proposed taking that sentence OUT in a total re-write of that article. Due to issues related to scope, the National Council, when amending the board’s proposal to put that sentence quoted above back into the Constitution, did the ONLY possible thing it could have done to tell the National Board that it rejected their claim they had the authority to set dues (which was in the rationale to the proposed changes). If it were possible to vote on rationales, there’s no doubt in my mind that the NCS would have firmly slapped the then-Board’s hand and said, OH NO YOU DON’T.

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  3. By GS-Amy (Post author) on

    The right way to have done it is what the NB did in 1969. At the time, the age & grades of girls (indicating the levels) were included in the requirements for membership in the BB.  At the 1969 NCS, the NB brought forth a proposal asking for the age/grade to NOT be included as a requirement because they wanted to be able to change it with program updates.   So the National Council voted and approved the proposal.  That language was moved to a section right below the requirements section and it’s specifically defined as STANDARDS (which the NB has authority to modify).  There’s even text making it very clear they aren’t requirements – and that section is still there to this day. This is what should have happened in 2008. If the NB/GSUSA wanted control of membership dues, they should have come forward like the 1969 NB did with a proposal and respected the NC and our governance structure.  Instead they tried to go in though the back door.

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