If you know me, you’ll know that I’m a rabid Georgia Bulldogs fan. One of our historical rivals is Clemson University, home to one of the more unique color schemes in college football consisting of orange and purple. Clemson’s athletic department has a donor program called IPTAY which stands for “I Pay Ten a Year.” Since Clemson was a hated rival of Georgia, I grew up with the joke that IPTAY really stood for “It’s Probation Time Again, Y’all!” referencing Clemson’s bout with NCAA probation in the early 80s. Hence how I came up with the title of this post. And now you’ve caught a glimpse of the strange inner workings of my mind.

And now on to why you’re reading this post! A few weeks ago, I realized I hadn’t received a Lifetime Membership newsletter from GSUSA in quite some time. I must have sensed a shift in the Girl Scout Universe, because a couple of days later, an announcement from GSUSA to LTMs showed up with this news: Continue reading

Last Girl Scout in the Woods

Opinions No Comments badges we don't need no stinkin badges, camps, core business strategy, councils, gsusa, outdoors, patches, volunteers

Right before my seventh birthday, my family moved from Tampa, Florida to Athens, Georgia. I remember my parents telling me about our new house in a subdivision called Cedar Creek and how much bigger the new house would be compared to our current one, but it didn’t make much sense to me. I remember pulling up to the house in the van for the first time after the very long drive from Florida, stepping out in amazement, and then promptly puking in the yard due to car sickness. Continue reading

June 3 2024

Summer of 2024 Patch Programs

Troop Leader Resources No Comments patches, volunteers

As SUM for my new SU, I recently put together a list of patch programs that girls can earn over the summer and thought I’d share it here too. If you’d like to download this list as a PDF, you can find it here. You don’t need a Dropbox account to download it. Just click on the X for the pop-up box and then click on the download icon next to the Share button. If you have one to share, feel free to add it below! Continue reading

May 7 2024

My Adventure with the Adventurers!

Experiences as a Leader, Hikes & Outdoors 6 Comments gsusa, mrs. vickers, OFFICIAL scarf, outdoors, swaps, trailblazers, volunteers

If you’ve followed me for a couple of years, you’ll know about my journey with getting a Trailblazer troop/program underway. To give you a brief recount of this story, in the summer of 2019, GSUSA relaunched the Trailblazer and Mariner programs to much fanfare among those of us who were hoping our national organization would invest more in the outdoors. A guidebook and a Trailblazer membership pin were released at the time, but since then, there’s been no further acknowledgement from GSUSA about the program. With all of the turnover and turmoil that’s happened at GSUSA since 2019, I have to wonder if the folks up in NYC even realize that it’s still out there? But really, it doesn’t matter, because volunteers took the idea and ran with it – and I’m one of those folks. Continue reading

April 19 2024

10 Years of GSWAC (Not a Council)!

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me 5 Comments 2017 NCS, 2020 NCS, 2023 NCS, blue book, camp mary elizabeth, camp wabak, democratic process, farthest north council, friends of camp wabak, governance

When I first started as a leader back in the fall of 2010, I told others about the crazy adventures I had as a Girl Scout growing up. At one point, someone suggested I write these stories down and perhaps they could be in the form of a blog. I gave the idea some thought, and eventually I took the time in April of 2014 to set up a WordPress site on my web account. I would love to give you an inspiring explanation of why I picked the name “Girl Scout with a Cause,” but honestly, I don’t remember why I chose it.

Initially, I wrote about very random subjects that suited my mood at the time, but as I started getting more involved in Girl Scouts, I became curious about why things were the way they were. Meaning, why was everybody so up in arms and why was our organization so out of sorts? I participated in Facebook conversations with folks all over the country and began to piece together the upheaval that Girl Scouts went through right before I started my volunteer journey. And in October of 2015, there was a big online hullabaloo due to a white paper that Suellen Nelles, CEO of the Farthest North council at the time, published and sent to the National Board. I read the paper and became even more curious about the thought process of what was known as the “Core Business Strategy.” To try to make sense of it from the viewpoint of a volunteer, I wrote a summary of the white paper with my thoughts on it. I published it and went about my day. Later that evening, a volunteer in my service unit stopped me at church and said that my blog post was going viral on Facebook. When I got home, I couldn’t believe the response it was getting. Continue reading

March 2 2024

Toxic Leadership

Opinions 4 Comments board of directors, core business strategy, councils, delegate, governance, gsusa, volunteers

I haven’t written much lately for a variety of reasons. For one, it’s been a busy few months for me with a handful of big projects that are just starting to get off the ground. For another, some of my focus has changed, and I’m not as plugged in and engaged as I used to be. I also think I’ve said my piece when it comes to where things stand with the state of Girl Scouts, so there’s no use rehashing it. However, there is one topic that I’ve wanted to write about for quite some time, but I wasn’t sure where to start or how to discuss it. And that subject is toxic leadership. Continue reading

February 15 2024

A Grant for Camp Mary Elizabeth

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me No Comments camp mary elizabeth, camps, money, tina, wildflowers

Back in 2016, I researched the history of Camp Mary Elizabeth (CME) in the GSSC-MM council and wrote a series of blog posts about it. CME is located on 56 acres in the middle of Spartanburg, SC’s urban sprawl and was originally dedicated in 1947 as a memorial to Dr. W.S. Zimmerman’s mother, Elizabeth Simpson Zimmerman, and her daughter, Mary Zimmerman Ward (Dr. Zimmerman’s sister). As an entry in this series, I wrote about CME’s wildflowers. Most of CME’s wildflowers are found along a trail that runs throughout the camp while partially following Holston Creek which splits the camp. There are a few very rare varieties found at CME including the federally-threatened Dwarf-flowered Heartleaf and Oconee Bells. Both of these wildflowers are only found in a few areas within the Upstate of South Carolina and Western North Carolina. Continue reading

It’s OFFICIAL Scarf Time Again, Y’all!