Recently, I checked my blog’s stats to find that for 2024, I’ve broken my previous record of yearly page views even though I published fewer posts this year comparatively. But the upward trend started before this year. I noticed in 2023 that daily page views had doubled, and after looking into it, I finally found the reason. It’s due to hits from Google searches to two specific blog posts: one being my badge and award summary from 2023 and the other of the same topic from 2024.

According to Google, here are the top 10 keyword searches for my blog in 2024:

The results for 11-20 are more of the same with a few “journey” keywords mixed in. Continue reading

Special NCS Roundup

National Governance 9 Comments 2024 special ncs, blue book, bonnie b, camp wabak, gsusa, membership dues, mountain magic, national board, national council, university of georgia

Another National Council Session (NCS) is in the books, albeit this one comes a little sooner within the triennium due to it being the first ever special session. Unfortunately, I didn’t get to listen to this 12 hour marathon from start to finish due to my attending and running trainings at our council’s leader weekend at Camp WaBak. However, I did get to hear a good portion of the NCS between sessions so I feel like I caught about two-thirds of it. I also had some friends take very good notes and catch me up on what I missed. If you’re interested in a high level play by play, be sure to check out GSG’s summary. But if you don’t want to read it, know that the National Council decided that girl membership dues will be raised to $45 for Membership Year (MY) 2026 (next year) and then $65 for MY2027, and adult dues will rise to $30 starting MY2026. Continue reading

September 24 2024

Worst. Survey. Ever.

National Governance 8 Comments 2024 special ncs, councils, membership dues

I usually don’t do things like this, but I just wanted to bring attention to the absolutely most low key effort survey out there when it comes to the membership dues proposals. As my daughter says, this is Beta Ohio. Dog water. Not demure and not very mindful. And they actually use the words “democratic process” on this form.

Edit on 10/14/24: Well, looks like they pulled the form. Basically it was obvious that the leadership of that council already made their mind up to vote for $85 dues for girls and asked one question so that they could twist the results to match what they wanted.

September 23 2024

Membership Dues Redux

National Governance 11 Comments 2024 special ncs, bonnie b, delegate, governance, gsg, gsusa, membership dues, national board, national council, national delegate, noorain, roberts rules, trailblazers, volunteer systems

A friend of mine recently called me the Girl Scout version of Cassandra of Troy. I can’t think of a better description, especially lately. So once again, I bring you my ramblings. This time over a topic of which I am well familiar. After the Farthest North lawsuit was finally settled back in 2021, I kicked back and felt like I could finally retire from discussing membership dues.

Wrong. Continue reading

September 8 2024

CME History: A Writer Comes to the Rescue

Traditional Stuff No Comments camp mary elizabeth, camps, outdoors, tina, wildflowers

The pen is mightier than the sword. — Edward Bulwer-Lytton

Back in 2016, I started a series of blog posts about the history of two GSSC-MM camps with one being Camp Mary Elizabeth (CME). CME is one of only a few camps left in the United States located in the middle of urban sprawl and is home to a very rare wildflower. Back in 1999, CME was in danger of being sold, but some folks in the community took action to save the camp from development.

I recently became reengaged with CME due to the wildflower restoration grant that we received earlier this year, and while working on the project, Tina’s husband and I started up a conversation about CME’s history and how close it came to being sold. Steve told me about John Lane, a poet and Wofford College professor who helped lead the charge to save CME through his writings. This piqued my interest, so Steve said he’d send me one of the essays Lane wrote plus an article about them. Here’s the article (click to see a larger version): Continue reading

August 27 2024

The Middle TN Lawsuit Has Been Settled… Or Has It?

National Governance No Comments 2023 NCS, 2026 NCS, blue book, governance, gsgcni, gsusa, membership dues, middle tennessee council, national board, national council, volunteer systems

On August 26, 2024, paperwork was filed to dismiss the Middle Tennessee council’s lawsuit versus GSUSA. I had actually gotten word that both sides came to a settlement a few weeks ago, but I am not one to publish things on GSWAC (Not a Council) without public references, so I waited for the paperwork on Court Listener to catch up. It finally did, and with that, another chapter on my blog ends. Kinda.

If you’re new to this and have no idea what I’m referencing, take a moment and read my original post about the lawsuit. I won’t rehash it here. Continue reading

August 18 2024

Updated UNOFFICIAL Memory Book Updates for 2024-25

Troop Leader Resources 1 Comment ambassadors, badges we don't need no stinkin badges, brownies, cadettes, daisies, gsusa, juniors, memory books, seniors

A few years back, I decided to recreate the discontinued Memory Books that GSUSA published years ago but using a different premise. If you want to read about the thought process behind them, you can visit the original blog post.

No new badges were released for the 2024-25 season, but the First Aid badges for the Brownie through Ambassador levels have been updated with a new design and slightly modified summaries. The Cadette PA Award has also been updated with its new requirements (no longer requires LiA).

Each level (except Daisy which didn’t have any updates this year) has three files to fit your needs. If you ONLY need the updated First Aid page, then download the “Updated” file. If you need the entire book, download the “Full” file. If you need retired badges, download the “Retired” file. Unfortunately, some badges had already been retired by the time I came up with the Memory Books, so they don’t include all retired badges (since 2010). I might see if I can hunt down the ones that I’m missing though and add them later. I did include the old First Aid designs in the retired files even though technically the badge isn’t retired. Continue reading

August 1 2024

Updated Badge, Journey, and Award Summaries for 2024-25

Troop Leader Resources 3 Comments ambassadors, badges we don't need no stinkin badges, brownies, cadettes, daisies, journeys, juniors, seniors

It’s that time of year! I’ve published the Badge, Journey, and Award summaries for all levels for the 2024-2025 membership year. These PDF files are a combination of what you’ll find in GSUSA’s Badge Explorer, except that I streamlined the designs to make them more printer-friendly and added the additional awards found in each level.

Note that these aren’t meant to be replacements for the badge requirements. These only give a brief summary of each step, and I created it so that girls and leaders could easily browse through the badges and awards all in one place to get an idea of what they wanted to work on. To find the actual badge requirements, you’ll have to reference either the badge pamphlets or Volunteer Toolkit (VTK) activity plans. Continue reading

July 9 2024

Mo Money Mo Problems

National Governance, National Operations 3 Comments gsg, gsusa, membership dues, money, volunteer systems

“Money is a mirror. It shows you a magnified image of who you are within. If you are good, it makes you better. If you’re not, it makes you worse.” – Anonymous

For the past few years, I’ve been putting together a very simple summary of GSUSA’s financials over on GirlScoutGovernance.com (GSG). Usually I don’t leave any commentary when I post the link and let those who are interested come to their own conclusions, but I felt compelled to comment with this recent one because there’s talk about raising membership dues out there. I’m not opposed to raising membership dues, but I do feel like GSUSA needs to answer for some of its recent decision making, and we need to make sure what’s been going on the past few years isn’t what’s in store for the future. Continue reading

July 1 2024

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

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me No Comments girl scout universe, gsusa, OFFICIAL scarf, university of georgia

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

Girl Scout with a Cause

In Search of… Badges