Now is the Time to Take Action on Camps

Well, I mighta sorta lied (again) about not writing about topics on the national level.  But I felt moved after I posted something on The (UNOFFICIAL) Outdoor Journey Idea Facebook Page regarding how covid-19 has created a crisis in Girl Scouting and what this possibly means for camps.

I’ll basically rehash what I said but go into a little more detail.  Covid-19 has created a catastrophic membership crisis in Girl Scouting in case you’re not aware of this fact.  Many troops are on life support due to being Zoomed out.  Some councils still do not allow in-person meetings, and after spending all day in virtual school, the last thing girls want to do is sit in front of yet another virtual meeting for another hour.  Leaders by and large do not like hosting meetings on Zoom.  Like I said in my last blog post, a few troops in my service unit folded because the leaders didn’t want to deal with the hassle on top of trying to manage the stressors of life in this day and age.  And for the troops that are allowed to meet in-person, some parents don’t feel comfortable with this arrangement, so they’ve pulled their girls. 

Recruiting is next to impossible in this environment.  Councils are doing the best they can with innovative ideas, but there’s only so much you can do, especially when it seems like this is never ending.  I’ve heard that membership is down in some councils by 60%.  Maybe 40% in others.  I don’t have validation of these numbers.  GSUSA is guesstimating that we’ll be down 20% by the end of the year, but I think it’ll be lower.

I’m saying all of this because councils are really hurting right now, and I believe camps will be collateral damage by the time this is all said and done.  Here’s why I say this.

Councils were already under stress before this all started due to various reasons with one being declining membership numbers.  And the less girls there are, then there’s less revenue from product sales.   I think it pretty much goes without saying that most councils rely on cookies to fund their operations.  And GSUSA doesn’t help matters at all by squeezing councils with pension payments and enormous fees for use of their IT system.

For example, when it comes to the pension fund, my council paid $284,784 toward it for FY2018 and FY2019.  Per the 2020 Stewardship Report, “Councils are contributing approximately $32 million on an annual basis to the Plan. As noted earlier, GSUSA is providing approximately $1 million in relief annually to councils for pension expenses from the spend rate on the Movement Growth Fund.”  Wow, thanks GSUSA!  $1 million!  Out of 32!  You’re awesome.

By my estimates, I’m guessing my council is paying somewhere between $75k and $100k a year for the use of CEI.  In case you’re not aware, CEI is basically GSUSA’s collective IT system.  I’ve highlighted this in other blog posts, but councils are forced to use CEI as part of their charter obligations.  But yet GSUSA charges councils outrageous amounts to use it.  That sounds like a monopoly to me.

We’re a small council, so the figures I quoted will be much larger as you increase the scale of council size.  That’s almost $220k (on the low side) headed up to NYC every year just from our council.  That’s a lot of cookie money.  And frankly, it makes me mad.  A lot could be done locally with $220k a year.

So let’s play this out.  Membership numbers have catastrophically dropped.  So even less girls will be selling cookies.  And what girls there are will be hampered by the lack of booth sale locations – if they’re even allowed in some councils.   Additionally, since there are less girls, there’s less programming revenue coming in.  You can see where I’m going with this.

Then there’s the question of what GSUSA is going to do.  It’s in a financial pickle because for some inexplicable reason, the National Board approved a deficit budget last September.  Yes, pre-covid.  And now here we are with membership numbers the way they are.  So I think it’s a pretty easy bet to say that membership dues are going to go up before 2023, thanks to the 970 National Delegates who thought it’d be a good idea to hand the keys to the bank over to the National Board at this past NCS.  GSUSA will solve its money problems by charging more for less girls.

But that leaves councils in a lurch, because they’re going to have to make up some of that dues raise in the form of financial aid.  Which means even more council money is headed up to NYC.  I’m still a little confused by the slew of council CEOs who breathlessly rushed to GSUSA’s defense during our GSG Town Halls, because from the looks of it, they’re going to be in a world of hurt here pretty soon.

I’m not going to beat around the bush.  I believe there will be a camp selloff across the board in the next few years because councils are going to be desperately trying to survive, and they’ll have no choice but to sell off assets in the form of camps.  There will be some mergers too and that always brings property decisions to the forefront.

So a few of us here are in the process of setting up a Friends group to hopefully take some of the pressure off of our council when it comes to our main resident camp.  We’re still in the beginning stages, but we have so many positives to work from that there’s absolutely no excuse why this can’t happen.

If there is a camp in your area that you care about, it’s probably time to take some proactive steps to see what can be done before hard decisions are made.  Hopefully your council is open to the idea.  Once we get some things nailed down, I’ll share what we’ve done in addition to what I’ve learned from speaking with others.  If you have any ideas, please share them below.