2020 NCS Wrap-Up Brought to You by Generation X

Here’s your 2020 National Council Session wrap-up by yours truly.  This will be a full blown Generation X (of which I am a proud member of) exercise in cynicism, questioning authority, and sarcasm.  And some bitterness thrown in.  You’ve been warned.  I have to get it out of my system though so that I can move on.

Unless there’s some crazy reason for it, this will be the last post about the 2020 NCS.  I might make references, but there will be no more dedicated to it.  THANK GOD.

First, here are a few titles I thought we could have used for themes:

• 2020 NCS: Brought to You by the Volunteer Toolkit
• 2020 NCS: Abandon Hope All Ye Who Enter Here
• 2020 NCS: Sloth Edition
• 2020 NCS: The Never Ending Story
• 2020 NCS: Resource Team? Are you there?
• 2020 NCS: Stand at Ease
• 2020 NCS: Revenge of the Interruption Mic

First, it should have been held in-person.  This virtual hot mess should have voted in board members only and then pushed off the proposals for another year.  But you know, lawsuits and all that.  I’m not saying this necessarily thinking the votes would have gone the other way.  I believe there were quite a few delegates who only applied to get a free trip to Orlando, and even if it had been in-person, they would have been in a hurry to get out and see Mickey.  Like the delegate who said that we should just keep the Standing Rules at a 45 minute discussion limit because they had “other things to do.”  Just wow.  That matched the delegate in 2017 who said they had dinner plans and we needed to finish this up.   I had flashbacks to a delegate at a council annual meeting who wanted to override the bylaws so that “we could just go on and get this over with.”  Why are these people even delegates?

The enormous amounts of pauses and waiting were absolutely maddening and excruciating, especially for someone like me who has ADHD.  I also heard there were lots of technical issues behind the scenes, and interestingly enough, certain well-known names were never recognized and placed where they needed to be even though they had followed all of the procedures.  Wow, isn’t that crazy?

It was such a let down to look forward to a NCS for three years and then to have to experience that.  At this point, I’m not interested in ever seeing another one again.  It makes me sad.

And sorry, while there are some girls who are extremely well spoken, some are obviously being coached and treated like puppets.  Sometimes you could even hear voices in the background prompting them with what they should say.  Shame on who is doing this!  Let girls speak for themselves instead of using them and hiding behind them.

No Girl Scout Promise & Law after the flag ceremony?  Really?

There were an AWFUL lot of Point of Orders.  A lot.  Was it like this in 2017?  I don’t remember there being that many.

About mid-way through Friday night’s session, I began to have regrets about bringing up the whole interrupting queue thing.  I don’t understand though why the chair didn’t rule the multitude of questions during Proposal 1 out of order.  It doesn’t matter if a girl asked the question or not – if she’s out of order, she’s out of order.  Not to mention the pauses and Stand at Eases during Q&A ate up a lot of time that could have been used to help alleviate some of these Request for Infos.

Also, Ann Homer (the GSUSA Parliamentarian) said that they had originally gotten rid of Request for Info & Parliamentary Inquiry because people abused it using it as a way to extend debate.  This is exactly what happened with delegates who used it to promote Proposal 2 as written by asking leading legal questions that had already been answered or were in the Workbook rationale but furthered the agenda.  I guess turnabout is fair play.  One of them who did it even had a smirk on her face and Jen Rochon did too.  Dang.

I heard delegates say before, during, and afterward that they had studied the proposals enough that they knew what their decision was going in.  That’s a problem right there and not how it’s supposed to work. You study before the NCS to have background knowledge and THEN listen to what others have to say and to also carefully consider what amendments are made.  Not necessarily make up your mind ahead of time.

Believe it or not, I actually did try to have an open mind during all of this.  During one of the GSG Town Halls, Marty Poch of the authoring council for Proposal 4 explained their thought process behind it.  I really enjoyed hearing from her.  I personally thought there were too many loopholes in it even after her explanation, but I was still curious to see if there was some aspect I missed.

There were still a lot of delegates out there who were clueless and woefully unprepared.  Did they even read the Workbook?  Their councils dropped the ball with training.  I don’t know how to fix that, and I don’t know that it can be fixed as dysfunctional as some councils are.

And the secondary amendment to lower Proposal 4 to 20% failed too?  WOW.  I thought that was a sure thing.  (I just took out a VERY sarcastic and bitter comment right here.)

Get ready for a raise.  I guess that goes without saying with everything going on.

By the time everybody got through the motion to Postpone 5 and/or 6, 5 & 6 could have been decided upon.

I didn’t hear Proposal 3 because I went off and sulked after Proposal 2 passed.  I heard though that people began to raise questions that sounded like they had issues with the National Board’s power at that point.  Too late!  You all should have thought about that BEFORE voting for Proposal 2.  Oh well!

Everybody does realize that the Constitution > Credentials section of the Blue Book, so if the National Board wanted to, they could override what was decided upon in Proposals 4 and 6?  Not saying they would, but they could find a way around it.  Kinda like they did in 2008.   Again, too late!

Once enough time has passed and everybody’s memory is foggy, Proposal 6’s $200 lifetime membership amount will be raised too.  Or – even if people do remember and raise a ruckus when it happens, what can you do about it?  Nothing.  No complaining.  You gave that voice away when you voted in Proposal 2.

She wasn’t quite as deadpan sarcastic funny as she was in 2017, but Sharon Matthews did the best job of all of the chairs. But Sharon, you never answered my email to you in 2017!  And in case anyone is wondering, SHE gave me her card and told me to email her.  I don’t shoot off random emails to National Board members.  Maybe to CEOs, but not the National Board.

I heard that the Citrus council CEO wants half of the National Council to be made up of girls in 2023.  Tee hee, wouldn’t that be cute?  To have a few girls as delegates in each council (if they choose) is absolutely fine and great experience for them.  But not half.  Assuming the state of Florida allows girls to have voting rights on boards, would the Citrus council be okay if half of its board of directors were girls?  Or better yet, let’s make the National Board half girls.  Girl-led, you know!

That whole affair about allowing a delegate at the interrupting mic to move to another queue with full access to make a motion to send Proposal 4 to a National Board committee was LUDICROUS.  I was yelling at my laptop the same way I do at the TV during Georgia football games.  Were the queues even open at that point?   One word:  SHENANIGANS.  Was this delegate prompted to do it?  It made absolutely NO sense to make that motion in the first place when they were in the process of fixing the vote malfunction.  If that had passed, the National Board would have had FULL authority over dues with NO guardrails whatsoever for at least the next three years.  And then on top of it, there was the bogus “well, technically you all weren’t voting” excuse to say the Point of Order wasn’t well taken.  Thank goodness for Appeal the Decision of the Chair.  And we wonder why there are trust issues?

Speaking of Appealing the Decision of the Chair, the Girl Scout Universe must have known that was going to happen because anytime I brought up parliamentary procedure this past year, I had this overwhelming urge that it was very important to discuss Appeal and go in detail about it.  Crazy.

I keep telling myself there’s some reason why the Girl Scout Universe allowed this to happen.  Maybe I’ll talk more about the Girl Scout Universe in another blog post.  Y’all might think I’m crazy though.

Interesting that a council (with a girl delegate saying it) wanted to hear 5 but postpone 6 (which would benefit volunteers but cost GSUSA $$$).  Seems like it would have been the other way around.  Just sayin’.

For the past year or so, I’ve heard that the next dues conversation will be about raising them so that they’re equal to what we offer and match our “brand identity.” Or something like that.  I’ll just leave that right there and not comment.  So all 600 of you girl delegates, get ready to vote on a massive dues increase in 2023!

Although more discussion should have happened and I’m not a big fan of it, I really don’t blame everybody for calling the question so quickly during all of this. Kudos to everybody for hanging in there.  Gawd.

What I’ve learned from this whole membership dues affair is to get what you want, first seize power and then indoctrinate non-stop.  Eventually you’ll succeed.  And if someone gets in your way, flip the issue on them as if they’re the ones causing the problems.  Like lawsuits trying to hold people accountable are divisive, and be sure to label those who give dissenting opinions and question the status quo as discontented complainers who are standing in the way of working together.  They make great scapegoats too.  I recognize these tactics because I saw and experienced them years ago in my council (again I want to mention that we are under new leadership before something is said to me ).  I’ve said it before, but the parallels to this are eerie.

I just couldn’t make it to the bitter end when that last Stand at Ease came up during the new National President & Board Chair’s final message.  I was done.

Today I listened to the new National President & Board Chair’s pre-recorded incoming speech.   I find it very ironic that she spoke about coming together, trusting each other, and acting the way we want our girls to emulate, but yet pointed a finger at social media (putting it back on the volunteers) and the FN lawsuit as examples of not doing so.  Physician, read my last two blog posts, and then heal thyself.

I heard after the fact that the next NCS will be in Orlando.  IN JULY.  You don’t know misery until you experience Florida heat and humidity in July & August.  If I had to make a decision today, I wouldn’t be going.  I don’t care for Orlando anyway due to a stint working at Disney in college and especially not in July.  It’s hard to justify dropping $1k especially with hotel prices being jacked up due to tourist season.  It’ll be one big party anyway with very little business.  Overheard in 2026:  What was that thing they used to have during Girl Fest?  The National Something Session?

There was a cataclysmic shift that nobody felt this past weekend.  I hope I am very wrong and one day I don’t say, “I told you so.”  But the collective memory of this organization is short, and nobody would know what I was talking about anyway.  National Council R.I.P.  Born:  1915.  Died:  2020.

As my generation says, “Whatever.”