A Plethora of Proposals
National Governance 6 Comments 
2026 NCS, councils, governance, gsg, membership dues, national board, national council, national delegate
Things have changed a little bit on the backend when it comes to the National Council Session (NCS) proposal procedure, and pretty much all of it has been out of my sight due to my not being a National Delegate and a change of inside sources. In case you’re wondering what I’m talking about, I’m referring to proposals that are submitted by councils for consideration on the NCS agenda. The way it works is that according to the GSUSA Constitution, council proposals that gain 15% (17) of endorsements from other councils automatically get placed on the agenda, unless it involves a Constitutional amendment, and if that’s the case, then the National Board makes the sole determination. You may not like that last bit, but it’s just part of the check & balance system of the Constitution. Note that a council endorsement doesn’t mean that a council necessarily is in favor of the proposal – it just means its leadership believes that the proposal should be debated at the NCS.
My council’s National Delegates recently shared the possible proposals to get feedback from Service Unit delegates, and there are an astounding 15 proposals and 8 discussion topics up for consideration. At first glance, you might think – wow! The democratic process is flourishing here in Girl Scouting! But when you actually take a closer look at these proposals, there’s something different about them compared to past years. Maybe I’m just getting all hoity-toity due to my parliamentarian training, but I was absolutely astounded at the lack of quality and how POORLY some of them were written. One word answers to questions, little to no editing, casual writing, wrong terminology, and overall, a lack of understanding and knowledge about governance sums up a lot of them. Once I read through all of them, I came away so discouraged that I actually started questioning the work I’ve done through the years promoting governance and the democratic process in Girl Scouting.
Councils had the opportunity to place their proposals up for review and feedback in a private forum before officially submitting them, but supposedly not many took advantage of that offer. And obviously some did not consult with a parliamentarian (or an English teacher, for that matter). The NCS should be taken seriously, and that means proposals should be crafted with a lot of care and thought. Some of these looked as if they were scribbled together in 10 minutes and submitted just for the sake of doing it.
I’ll let you judge for yourself. You can download the proposed proposals and discussion topics and take a look at them with your own eyes. Again, note that these AREN’T necessarily going on the NCS agenda – they are just up for consideration. It’ll be up to councils and the National Board (with the help of the NCS Advisory Team) to determine which ones are placed on the agenda. And then, of course, the National Board and GSUSA can submit their own proposals if they wish. Feedback for these proposed proposals has to be in by June 30, and this doesn’t require nationwide discussions like actual NCS proposals, so most likely you won’t be consulted for opinions by your National Delegates (and they may not even be consulted depending on the council).
In the past, I’ve published potential proposal drafts on GirlScoutGovernance.com (GSG), but I’m not planning on doing that this time around. There are too many of them, it’s too close to the deadline, and frankly, many are so poorly written, I don’t even want to serve them up as examples. Which is one fear of mine – that others see these proposed proposals and use them as a model on how to write future ones.
What happened? Was there not enough training on proposal writing? Again, I feel like I’m looking into a one way mirror, so I haven’t seen what’s being offered training-wise. But something obviously went wrong. Personally, I think this is due to a couple of reasons. One, institutional knowledge is at an all time low in Girl Scouting. Council CEO turnover runs high, and so council leadership starts at square one with each new hire, especially if the CEO doesn’t have a Girl Scout background. And you’ve heard me say this over and over for years on end, but I truly believe that the democratic process isn’t being practiced in local governance affairs in most councils. You can’t successfully model it on the national level when you’re not putting it into practice locally. We’re seeing this in real time now, and a lot of these poor proposals are just proof of that. While I greatly value and respect the work the MGAT and National Board Office has put in since the 2023 NCS, I just question whether it will bear real fruit when our foundation of local governance is unstable.
Some of you might think I’m being a little harsh when it comes to judging these proposals, but we need to start taking the NCS seriously, because the day might come when enough folks decide that the NCS is no longer important and serves no purpose, and we turn to another form of governance structure altogether. You might also be thinking, well okay Amy, then stop complaining and do something about it. Well, I tried back in 2022 when I wrote a NCS proposal proposing a task group to study governance on both the council and national level. It missed getting on the NCS agenda by one endorsement, but I’ve heard that it helped inspire the formation of the MGAT, so at least something came out of it. But the MGAT only focuses on national governance, and I feel that the cracks are on the council level. And GSG is another way I’m trying to help, but its reach and what I’m privy to is limited.
If you’re interested in my thoughts on a few of the proposals and discussion topics, here they are in a rambling, stream of consciousness form. Again, remember that I’m looking at whether I believe they should be on the NCS agenda and not if I am in favor of them or not.
Regardless of my thoughts on the matter and at the risk of stirring up a hornet’s nest, I don’t feel that any proposals or discussion topics regarding gender are appropriate for the NCS. It is a very delicate topic, and a safe space cannot be guaranteed during NCS discussion. I also don’t believe any topics regarding fundraising or fund development are appropriate for the NCS either and should be handled by a committee with members who have more specialized knowledge. The proposal regarding changing kindergarten to age 5 is outside the scope of the National Council because per the Constitution, the National Board sets standards, not the National Council. While I think there should be a conversation about it (somewhere… maybe not the NCS though), the last proposal from the Heart of Michigan proposing in-person discussion about membership dues is incomplete. It does not include the necessary amended language, and the Constitution would have to be amended, not the Bylaws. I also think the other Heart of Michigan proposal about discussion of proposals by GSUSA is written improperly (it should have been written as a resolution) and is questionable as a NCS topic, although I do like the sentiment, especially as someone who previously served as the resource team for a proposal that GSUSA didn’t support. But I don’t know how the National Council could enforce this proposal even if it passed. I do believe the 15% guardrail of membership dues should be discussed, but I think a set dollar amount would be a better substitute rather than a percentage so that we’re not constantly coming back to reset the percentage amount every time there’s a major dues hike. Anything regarding cookies is operationally based and is outside the realm of governance. Some of these proposals seem like they would be more appropriate topics brought up at a CEO/board chair conference, so I’m wondering if these folks feel like they have no other avenue to to be heard by GSUSA leadership, so they’re using the NCS proposal process instead.
At the end of July, I will be taking the Registered Parliamentarian certification examination. Perhaps in a few years, I can find gainful employment helping councils write their proposals. 😉 Meanwhile, if you’re curious about the rest of the proposal process timeline, it looks like this:
My personal opinion is that when it comes to what is governance and what is operational, ONLY the governing body itself can make that final decision. Otherwise, its function as a truly governing body is cut off at the knees — it only takes somebody (or some body) with enough authority to declare something operational, and then the governing body no longer can “govern” on that topic AT ALL. In fact, I would argue that the whole proposal process which guarantees that the NCS will discuss and/or vote on ANY topic is exactly the right way to determine what is governance and what is not. (It bothers me immensely that past NCS have given the board the sole authority to determine whether an amendment to our constitution is allowable on the agenda.) From our Blue Book: “The National Council at its sessions shall hold elections, amend the Constitution, establish requirements for credentials, and shall determine the general lines of policy of the Girl Scout Movement and program by considering and acting upon proposals directed toward the fostering and improvement of Girl Scouting, by receiving and acting upon reports of its National Board of Directors, and by giving guidance to the National Board upon general lines of direction of the Movement and program.” This is very general language that allows for the NCS to do a heckuva lot of things, if only collectively councils have the will to back proposals and force the issue to the NCS level. That said, I do think it’s important that the NCS not get too bogged down in the weeds of operational issues, but I suspect we’d never have gotten Studio 2B or Journeys if those had been considered governance issues. Instead, we got program that failed horribly (Studio 2B) and program that failed more generally (Journeys) because the NCS never was allowed (by somebody or some body) to discuss these “operational” issues. And, I’m not sure we would have EVER gotten back to outdoor programming except for the discussion topic on the place of outdoor programming at the 2014 convention. Just sayin.
When it comes down to governance vs. operations, it really doesn’t matter, because someone could write a proposal about something as inane as OFFICIAL scarves, and if a council sponsors it and enough councils endorse it, it HAS to go on the NCS agenda, period. Nobody can stop that without changing the procedure in the Constitution. It’s just my personal opinion that there has to be a line drawn somewhere (if I were in the position to actually endorse proposals), especially when it comes to cookies, because there’s a lot of intricacies involved such as contracts that a 900 member deliberative assembly is not equipped to handle. It could be argued that the assembly has the right and ability to send it off to a committee, but that’s still a lot of time and energy put toward a proposal that will only be shipped off for someone else to handle. And I feel that if you open the door for one cookie proposal, we’ll be flooded with them at future NCS. But proposal writers and councils need to be more aware of what can be realistically discussed at a NCS. And that goes back to institutional knowledge which we’re sorely missing.
As for the National Board having the authority over Constitutional amendments, I looked back and this change (at least a related one) was made in the 1932 Blue Book. I’m guessing they added it as a check against the National Council at the time, but as you can see, it’s been around forever. Personally I feel previous notice and a 2/3rds vote is enough of a check, but the National Council handed that over in the early 30s for whatever reason. This is when I wish I could teleport myself to GSUSA archives and look up NCS proposals from the past to see the rationales.
I collaborated with several folks across several councils to create a proposal and submit it to my council (and another one). I didn’t receive any training nor was I aware of any private forums that offered such things. There’s zero internal resources for creating proposals through the delegate website/app. I had previously reviewed your documentation but it’s really the only thing of its kind around. 🙁
I also hate that the proposals aren’t released to anyone except the delegate liaison. My council DL didn’t send out proposals to delegates at all, so I was thrilled to receive them from a friend in another council (so I could ask our board to sign on/support certain ones).
There’s so much secrecy and embargo of these proposals that I loathe. It’s a struggle in our area to get delegates to volunteer and participate in the process because the concept is so foreign. There must be a better way to do this work.
On the topic of gender identity, I agree that NCS isn’t necessarily a safe space but it wasn’t guaranteed for the topic of anti-racism either. The conversations that came from that topic were valuable and hopefully will have far reaching impact. Even now, some councils are not using anti-racism language in their materials (which is a vile stance). These are the conversations that need to be had, and they are important at this NCS given all that is happening RN for kids with expansive gender identities.
Thank you Amy for taking the time to share your thoughts. One of our delegates already shared them with our delegation. Last NCS our Council was in such disarray we gave no feedback and I can’t remember what we did the one before that. This time I am grateful we are meeting as a delegation to discuss the proposals and will send the groups feedback.
I’m a first time delegate this year, and I really wish my council would have shared these proposed proposals with us for review. I would have requested we sign on to one or more of them