March 12 2023

Who Were the Other Seventeen?

Traditional Stuff    5 Comments    , ,

Today marks the 111th birthday of Girl Scouts! If you’re a die-hard Girl Scout, you know the story of Juliette Low making the famous phone call on March 12th:

I’ve got something for the girls of Savannah, and all America, and all the world, and we’re going to start it tonight!

And the story goes that local girls were gathered for a tea party and told what they could be doing as Girl Guides (the name Girl Scouts didn’t come into play until 1913). Eighteen girls were signed up that night, but the first name on the list, “Daisy Doots” Gordon, who was also Juliette’s niece, wasn’t in attendance. Continue reading

March 7 2023

I Finally Made It!

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    4 Comments   

Unless you’re a new reader to GSWAC (Not a Council), you’re probably aware that I have a long history with the Farthest North Council headquartered in Fairbanks, Alaska starting when I first stumbled across their website back in 2015. A few years later, I fell down a very deep rabbit hole while covering their lawsuit versus GSUSA. And then this happened recently:    Continue reading

March 1 2023

The Late Alert is Released!

National Governance    3 Comments    , , , , ,

The 1950 National Council

The Late Alert has been released!  What’s the Late Alert you ask?  It’s really called the Early Alert, and it’s a document that lists the preliminary proposals that will be included at the 2023 National Council Session. The proposals’ text and rationale and the National Board’s rationale as to whether or not it supports the proposal are included. The Early Alert also states what the discussion topic will be.  I’m calling it the Late Alert now because normally an Early Alert is released about 8 months before a NCS, but this one came out with only 4 months to spare. You can find the Late Alert along with a corresponding memo about proposals that weren’t selected  here on GirlScoutGovernance.com.  Continue reading

February 2 2023

Welcome to Our New Girl Scout Overlord

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

I recently started a part time job. I don’t get a devoted break, so I keep my phone in my pocket and check it briefly from time to time just in case I get a call from the school or my husband. Last week, my phone started blowing up. I was right in the middle of something and couldn’t check it. The phone kept going off, and finally I stopped what I was doing because I was afraid something had happened and there was an emergency. Lo and behold, many friends sent me this news: Continue reading

January 12 2023

Volunteer Systems: D’oh!

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

On the heels of my last blog post, I have an update regarding Volunteer Systems 2.0. I’m not going to rehash the previous post, so if you’re confused as to what I’m referring to and what I’m about to share, then head back to January 1st to be filled in.

Near the end, I wrote:

It was built on the wrong architecture, and it’s filled with shoddy and patchwork coding.  So in my opinion, we’re stuck between a rock and a hard place. Either ditch the whole thing and look to another solution which will cost even more money, or continue to limp along like we are now and toss money down the drain. Neither one of these decisions is palatable, but one needs to made, and soon.

Little did I know that a couple of days later, my question would be answered via a coincidental statement by GSUSA, and it wasn’t the one I was hoping for. GSUSA basically said what we already knew — that VS 2.0 is made up of many out-of-the-box IT solutions all cobbled together for a custom IT platform. They made an analogy to a car and said that parts from all sorts of different models were hammered together, and well, the car doesn’t run very well overall. Ya think? And when attempts are made to fix things like the engine, it causes problems in other areas. Hmm, where have we read something like this before? Continue reading

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