April 27 2022

I Wrote a Sternly Worded Letter

National Governance, National Operations    6 Comments    , , , , , ,

Yesterday, I opened my mailbox to find a letter from GSUSA Headquarters! I thought at first that it was the long-expected Cease and Desist, but then I spotted the words “Invest in Girl Scouts. Change the World” on the front, and I realized it was a solicitation for donations.  A business reply envelope was included.  I decided then that this would be a good opportunity to send a sternly worded letter up to NYC. I’ve tried to communicate my message via this blog and email, so why not snail mail?  Maybe I’ll attempt sky writing next.  I realize this letter will probably go no further than the intern who opens up the envelope, but perhaps they’ll enjoy it at the very least.

Notice that I didn’t write a strongly worded letter but a sternly one.  There is a difference.  Sternly isn’t quite as high on the nuclear scale.

Here’s my letter.  If you’re a regular reader of my blog, there’s nothing new in it other than some legal dollar amounts. Continue reading

April 18 2022

The Emphasis on Network Alignment

National Governance, Opinions    2 Comments    , , , , , , , ,

When I first started writing the Tough Cookies Revisited paper, it originally contained much more integrated commentary throughout the text. I eventually decided to go a more formal route and instead presented an objective timeline and survey results with a small section dedicated to my personal thoughts at the end. So now that a few months have passed since I published it, I wanted to flesh out a couple of topics.  Because you know, forty pages wasn’t long enough to explore everything. 😉

If you haven’t read the paper yet, you may want to in order to give this post a little more context. But I know not everybody is down with reading a forty page paper, so I’ll try to summarize things as I go.

The Core Business Strategy was a plan to completely overhaul and redefine Girl Scouting from top to bottom and included parts such as council mergers, a streamline of governance, a new volunteer onboarding and support system, and a major shift in the national programming model. Its development began in 2004 with implementation starting soon after that. Changes happened quickly. Continue reading

March 27 2022

A Smorgasbord of Updates

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    No Comments    , , , , , , ,

LUCKY SEVEN YEARS! EXACTLY EIGHT

In April of 2014, I started this blog, and here we are seven eight years later!  Happy birthday GSWAC (Not a Council)! It’s been a fun ride.  Frustrating at times, but overall, it’s been entertaining and educational on my end. Like finding out that it’s spelled “smorgasbord” and not “smorgasborg.”  Addendum 4/16/22: Apparently I can’t do math and nobody else picked up on it either! It hit me while waking up this morning.

It’s been pretty slow around here since I published my paper, and I have a feeling it will stay that way for a while. I feel like I’m slowly transitioning to a different phase of my GS volunteer “career,” so my perspective is changing. Where this leads to – who knows! Continue reading

March 12 2022

Flashback to the 75th Anniversary!

Traditional Stuff    2 Comments    , , , , ,

In light of the 110th anniversary of our organization, Ann Robertson has been taking a look back at past decades of Girl Scouting on her GS History blog. Recently, she published one for the 1980s, which brought me back to my childhood and the era of when I was a Girl Scout growing up.

This made me wonder what I was going to do to celebrate our 110th anniversary on this blog since I make it a priority to publish something on March 12 and October 31 for obvious reasons. Admittedly I hit writer’s block even as I scoured through past Leader Magazines and handbooks to figure out what the heck I was going to cover.  Eventually I decided to do a look back at past anniversaries, but I wasn’t having much luck with inspiration. Maybe I am still burned out from celebrating the 100th back in 2012! I was still a relatively new leader at that point (started the Fall of 2010), and I have to admit the 100th celebration was a little overwhelming because I was still trying to navigate my way through this new world of Girl Scouting that was challenging from the vantage point of being a leader and one where the programming was very different than what I remembered. Oh, who am I kidding?  I am still struggling navigating it and figuring out where to go from here. Continue reading

January 23 2022

Tough Cookies Revisited

National Governance, National Operations, Opinions    5 Comments    , , , , , , , , ,

Back in 2015, I became curious about what on earth happened to Girl Scouting because when I started as a leader in 2010, I felt like I had walked onto a battlefield. Compared to what I had grown up with as a Girl Scout, the programming and “feel” of the organization seemed foreign to me. I decided to do a deep dive and began to research the Core Business Strategy (CBS) which, in 2004, prompted the transformation of Girl Scouting. Someone pointed me toward Kathy Cloninger’s book Tough Cookies to see where it all started. Cloninger was the National CEO from November 2003 to November 2011 and is unofficially known as who kicked all this off. Well, there’s more to the story.

In September of 2016, I wrote a blog post that questioned the justification of the CBS based on the claim that membership numbers were declining. The post went viral, but after researching it a little more after the fact, I realized I hadn’t dug down far enough. I always meant to go back and revisit it, but I never did — until recently. And well, because I have that type of Sheldon personality, I took it to the extreme, and instead of a blog post, I wrote a 40 page paper. It’s about the background and history of the CBS, its legacy, and my thoughts on all of it. If you had told me in school that I would have written a white paper and a thesis on Girl Scouting for the fun of it, I wouldn’t have believed you for one second. Continue reading

January 14 2022

It’s Gonna Be Meme

Cookie Memes    No Comments    ,

This past summer, I hurt my foot and had to wear a boot for about a month and a half.  Boots are the equivalent of a dog’s Cone of Shame for humans.  But nothing was going on.  No National Council Sessions or Farthest North council lawsuits to write about… what was I to do?  Well, I could have taken up a productive hobby, but no, I decided to check out the music of *NSYNC because I am a big Justin Timberlake fan. But I didn’t become one until his 20/20 tour in 2014, so I didn’t follow him during his rise to fame.  A fellow JT fan friend told me one time that she was originally an *NSYNC fan, and I scoffed because she would have been in her late 20s – early 30s when they were popular. I was in my mid to late 20s during *NSYNC’s heyday, and I didn’t pay them much attention since I assumed they were the stereotypical boy band.  I figured since I had the time, I’d check out JT’s early roots.

So I spent the summer watching *NSYNC concerts late at night. I may or may not have purchased their albums. I call it “The Summer of *NSYNC.” Continue reading

January 2 2022

Volunteer Survey About Pre-2012 Changes

National Operations    No Comments   

I’m in the process of writing a look back at the overhaul of the Girl Scout national program which was a part of something called the Core Business Strategy, and I would like to get the perspective of volunteers.

This survey is aimed toward those who were volunteers during the time period of approximately 2006-2011.  It’s completely optional, but if you choose to share it, your contact information will NOT be used NOR will any quotes be used.  If you could also send this survey to others (even if they’re no longer current volunteering with GS), it would be greatly appreciated. The more voices, the better.  If a question doesn’t apply to you, then leave it blank.

Link to survey:  https://forms.gle/cvkCbobHsFFdssR9A

This series of blog posts (which will probably end up as a white paper) is turning out to be an enormous project, so don’t be concerned if I don’t post anything for a while.  If you’ve got any questions about the survey or whatever, just post them below or shoot me an email at amy@dawgtoons.com!

December 19 2021

Calling All Fellow Pack Rats!

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    3 Comments   

I need the help of the GSWAC (Not a Council) readership!  I am looking for any documentation (handouts, presentations, booklets, etc.) between 2005 and 2012 having to do with the Core Business Strategy.  If possible, please send it via email to amy@dawgtoons.com.  If it’s something that’s in print and lengthy, then email me anyway, and we’ll see what we can work out.  I already have Stewardship Reports and Annual Reports.  Thank you!

December 13 2021

Circling Back Around to CircleAround

National Governance    4 Comments    , ,

In June of 2020, GSUSA surprised the Girl Scouting world by announcing its latest endeavor called CircleAround, with most people responding with a resounding, “Huh??”  Even now, few volunteers have even heard about it or understand what exactly it is. Is it for Girl Scout volunteers?  Or…?

Here’s a little bit of history.  According to the FAQ released by GSUSA a few months later after it launched, “…in 2018, our National Board challenged the Girl Scouts of the USA Management Team to come up with an innovative new way to bring in additional revenue and strengthen our Movement’s finances.”  As a side comment, shouldn’t the National Board members be the ones who are helping to come up with ways to diversify finances? But I digress.  Continue reading