Thinking About World Thinking Day

In case you’re new to Girl Scouting, let’s revisit February 22 – one of the most important Girl Scout holidays – and known to everyone as World Thinking Day. To summarize from GSUSA:

World Thinking Day was first created in 1926 at the fourth Girl Guide/Girl Scout International Conference, held at Girl Scouts of the USA’s Camp Edith Macy (now called Edith Macy Conference Center). Conference attendees decided that there should be a special day when Girl Scouts and Girl Guides all around the world think of each other and give thanks and appreciation to their “sister” Girl Scouts. The delegates chose February 22 as the date for Thinking Day because it was the mutual birthday of Lord Baden-Powell, founder of the Boy Scout movement, and his wife Olave, who served as World Chief Guide.

In 1932, at the seventh World Conference, held in Poland, a Belgian delegate suggested that since birthdays usually involve presents, girls could show their appreciation and friendship on Thinking Day not only by extending warm wishes but by offering a voluntary contribution to the World Association. This is how the World Association’s Thinking Day Fund began. The fund helps offer Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting to more girls and young women worldwide. Girl Scouts of the USA, through its Juliette Low World Friendship Fund, gives to the Thinking Day Fund.

And I was today years ago when I found this out: “To emphasize the global aspect of Thinking Day, members at the 30th World Conference, held in Ireland in 1999, changed the name Thinking Day to World Thinking Day.” I always wondered why some call it Thinking Day (TD) while others refer to it as World Thinking Day (WTD). Even we “older” leaders can learn a thing or two!

But to be completely honest with you, I have to admit that WTD was a somewhat shallow concept to me when I started as a volunteer even though I was a Girl Scout for 8 years growing up in the 1980s. I don’t ever remember going to any WTD (or I guess just Thinking Day back then!) programs or events during my early years. I learned about TD and what it stood for, but that’s about as much as I could recall, and there was nothing else to it.

When I started as a volunteer in the fall of 2010, I was soon introduced to the traditional WTD event where within a service unit (SU), each troop chooses a WAGGGS country, and by way of a presentation, shares facts and other interesting tidbits about it. Usually held in a large church gym, groups of girls rotate around from presentation to presentation and get their “passport” stamped at each station and collect SWAPs. The SU that my troop was assigned to for many years put a spin on this type of WTD event and chose a different topic each year. Some topics included bodies of water, states, National Parks, and famous women in history. I didn’t disagree with changing things up to keep the annual event from getting stale, but oftentimes I felt like we strayed from the original purpose of WTD.

Since I’ve been a GS volunteer, things have changed on the national level when it came to WTD. Leading up to 2012, GSUSA offered an UNOFFICIAL WTD patch that centered on a theme chosen by WAGGGS. But in 2012, GSUSA turned the WTD patch into an OFFICIAL award which would be worn on the front of the vest or sash along other earned badges and awards. During the same year, GSUSA also introduced an annual Global Action Award that somewhat goes hand in hand with the WTD Award. GSUSA eventually codified both awards into something that resembles badge requirements which is where we are today.

So what’s become of WTD in the year 2025? This past membership year, my troop moved SUs, and I became Service Unit Manger (SUM) of a SU that hadn’t been active in quite some time. Renewing a traditional WTD event was one of my goals for a SU that hadn’t held one in who knows how long. I published the flyer only for no troops to register. After surveying other SUMs in my council (and some folks outside of it), I found that the majority of our SUs do not put on any sort of WTD event, and of the few that do, some still host a traditional one featuring WAGGGS counties, while others hold an event where girls earn the OFFICIAL GSUSA WTD award. I wonder if the latter type of event is what we’re moving towards. That’s what I’m going to try next year in my SU because I’ve found that leaders want badge and award earning events when it comes to programming. I got the feeling that too much time had passed since this SU had held a traditional WTD event, and the concept was foreign to both new and seasoned leaders.

I realize times change, but I have to admit it would make me a little sad if the traditional WTD event becomes passé. I believe it helps Girl Scouts to meet other girls outside of their own troops, allows them to work on presentation skills, and facilitates GS traditions such as SWAPs. Even though it was overwhelming at times for me as a textbook introvert, WTD in its heyday at my former SU was one of my favorite GS memories as a volunteer. Almost every troop in our SU participated, and it was a way for girls AND volunteers from different troops to bond. I also liked seeing the creativity on display by girls in their presentations and SWAPs.

I believe two things have contributed to WTD taking a backseat. One is the emphasis placed on cookie season. Depending on the council, there could be anywhere from four to eight weekends of booths leading to a possible three month cookie season. WTD falls smack in the middle of this, and leaders have little bandwidth and energy left for other programming after attending cookie rallies, organizing and keeping track of cookies, wrangling parents, and managing lots and lots of booths.

The other factor affecting WTD is related to the negative impact to service units throughout councils over the past 20 years. They were collateral damage in many areas after the massive upheaval caused by the mergers of the late 2000s. Due to the large size of many newly merged councils, staff could no longer sustain consistent services to outlying areas, and as a result, service units and their teams suffered. Also, longtime volunteers that held roles on SU teams were pushed out of service during this time in some councils. Without help from “retired” leaders, service unit team roles go unfilled, or they’re held by volunteers who are also leading a troop at the same time, and these leaders risk burnout by trying to take on too much. When the event planning role on the SU team goes unfilled, local SU events fall by the wayside, which includes WTD. I believe this is what happened to my current SU over the past decade.

I don’t think WTD will ever die out because it’s too important to our organization’s history. Some SUs around the country have kept the tradition going. Other councils have taken over what SUs used to do and host WTD events to earn the GSUSA WTD award with varying success. Another solution would be for alumnae groups such as The Green Hat Society and the Order of the Silver Trefoil to host WTD events for local areas, but they aren’t present in every council area. Whatever the solution is, we need to remember that we’re part of a bigger movement and ensure that WTD programming is still being carried by SUs, councils, or individual troops.

Some pictures from memory lane from my previous SU: