January 1 2023

Volunteer Systems 2.0 Tasks Me

National Operations    6 Comments    , , , , ,

VS 2.0 tasks me

Happy New Year!

On New Year’s Eve, I decided to knock some things off my To Do list with one being to register my daughter and I for an upcoming council event.  Fast forward forty-five minutes later, and all I had to show for my efforts were frustration and an epic email to my council’s Customer Care department documenting yet another major bug in GSUSA’s IT platform, otherwise known as Volunteer Systems 2.0 (and formerly known as CEI).  I’ve railed about it many times before and documented how much it’s cost so far in these posts:

I’ll reproduce the email to Customer Care here, and then afterward, I’ll update us on how much has been spent on this IT system over a period of NINE years (hint: $169 million). Sorry in advance for the blurry pictures.  I originally pasted them in the email but copying them back into a saved file didn’t help the resolution. The grammar isn’t great either but I was in a hurry to get this done because I had an appointment I needed to get to, and this took up way too much time.  Anywho: Continue reading

December 12 2022

One of the Greats is Gone

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    5 Comments    , , , ,

Frances Hesselbein passed away at the age of 107 on December 11, 2022. I could not possibly write a tribute worthy enough in my mind, so I’ll just share this one from the University of Pittsburgh and GSUSA’s.  You should also read Ann Robertson’s interview with her from 2017.

I never had the honor of meeting Hesselbein, but I feel like I’ve got a personal connection since I consider myself the product of a Hesselbein-led program. I started as a Brownie in 1981 and earned Gold in 1989. And I still believe we should model our current programming after the successful Worlds to Explore one that she implemented during her tenure as National CEO. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it. Continue reading

November 16 2022

Experiencing Experience Centers

National Operations    9 Comments    , ,

Recently, the 2022 Stewardship Report was published on the GSUSA website, and it features a little blurb about the National Property Plan that can be found on pg. 30:

Council Property Portfolio Rebalance Reports

The Property Team is also supporting councils’ immediate real estate decision-making. GSUSA contracted and funded Newmark to complete a property portfolio rebalance report that provides data-informed recommendations for every interested council. The reports provide current assessment and takeaways from a working session, as well as demographic projected population, and density maps to understand how well each location is positioned. The report also includes “scorecard” assessments of each service center and office based on key criteria, as well as a series of high-level recommendations and suggestions to optimize each council portfolio. This work began in fall of 2022 and will be complete in September of 2023.

You might be wondering – there’s a national property plan?  Yes, there is. I’m not going to go through it here, but if you want the background on it, you can read this article from GSG and view the webinar that GSUSA hosted in 2020. When you boil down to it, there’s not really a “plan” per se like you hear about council property plans – or at least I don’t see one that’s forward-facing. But obviously I’m not privy to much, so don’t take what I say as gospel. It looks to me like it’s basically just GSUSA providing councils with real estate assessments via a third party (Newmark). This service is completely optional, and it’s up to councils to decide whether they want to participate or not. I don’t know how many have taken GSUSA up on this offer.  Continue reading

November 11 2022

Changes to the Blue Book and NCS Chairs

National Governance    6 Comments    , , ,

A new Blue Book of Basic Documents has been released, and in it is a change to the Bylaws enacted by the National Board at its last meeting. Wait – can the National Board amend the Bylaws without National Council approval?  Yes, they can. But not the Constitution. The GSUSA Constitution and the Bylaws are two different documents, and the National Board has authority to amend the Bylaws of its own accord (see Article XVI/Bylaws in the GSUSA Constitution – pg. 13).

So there’s a little addition in the Bylaws/Article II/Officers/President (pg. 14) section in the latest edition. The following text in red was added:

ii. preside at all meetings of the National Council, the National Board, and the Executive Committee, except at such meetings for which the duty of presiding is delegated to the First Vice President, the Second Vice President, the Secretary, the Treasurer, any member-at-large of the National Board of Directors, or, for any session of the National Council, the parliamentarian or any girl delegate in furtherance of the Girl Scout mission to educate girls to be tomorrow’s leaders; 

Parliamentarians and girl delegates serving as chairs during a National Council business session? I have an issue with this (surprise!). Continue reading

October 31 2022

The First Step

Traditional Stuff    2 Comments    ,

Since I launched this blog in 2014, I’ve always made it a point to post something on March 12th and October 31st for obvious reasons. Admittedly, sometimes the date sneaks up on me, and I scramble to try to find something at the last minute.  I usually look to copies of Leader Magazine or various other books and what not to see if something inspires me.  I came across this short blurb in the October 1931 edition of Leader Magazine, and I found it especially apropos, especially lately. Continue reading

October 19 2022

MacKenzie Scott’s $84.5 Million Donation

National Operations    7 Comments    , ,

The news broke yesterday about billionaire philanthropist MacKenzie Scott’s $84.5 million donation to Girl Scouts.  The money will be divided between GSUSA and 29 councils. One article makes it sound like the councils haven’t been chosen yet, but another one names the Southern Arizona council as a recipient.  The article doesn’t state how much each council will receive, but the Southern Arizona council is listed as receiving $1.4 million.

How much does that leave GSUSA?  Doing the math, $1.5 million x 29 councils = $43.5 million.  I’ve seen reports where some councils received more than $2 million (and even over $4 million), so if you bump that up to $60 million going toward councils, that leaves GSUSA with $24.5 million. Note that this is TOTAL conjecture on my part and don’t quote me. Continue reading

October 2 2022

Daisy Petal Plans from VTK

Troop Leader Resources    4 Comments    , ,

I’ve served as a mentor to new leaders in our service unit for a few years now, and to get right to the point, the Volunteer Toolkit isn’t for everybody as we all know.  It’s a horse that we’ve beaten to death, so I’m not going to go into its shortcomings and why some new leaders don’t use it. But they should have the opportunity to see the activity plans that are available as a programming option, so to help them out, I pulled them down and consolidated all of them into one document:

Daisy Petal Plans

It features the newly revised petal plans. It comes in at a hefty 61 pages, so get your printer in shape if you want a hard copy. I find it crazy that I received a 4 page document of petal ideas when I started as a Daisy leader in 2010, and now we’re at a 61 page scripted meeting plan. Times change, I guess.

If you see anything that needs to be edited, please let me know. Continue reading