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

September 8 2022

The Three Little Pigs and a Contract

National Operations    2 Comments    , , , ,

Once upon a time, there were three little pigs. Each one built his own house to protect himself from the Big Bad Wolf. The first piggy built his house out of straw. The second piggy built his house out of sticks. The third piggy built a custom house made out of many different materials with no blueprint.

One day, the Big Bad Wolf came to the first piggy’s house built out of straw and said, “Little pig, little pig, let me in!” The first piggy yelled out, “Not by the hairs on my chinny chin chin!” The Big Bad Wolf replied, “Then I’ll huff, and I’ll puff, and I’ll blow your house in!” The Big Bad Wolf took a big breath, and the house built out of straw fell apart quickly when he exhaled. The first piggy grabbed what he could and ran to the second piggy’s house, which was built out of sticks. Continue reading

September 6 2022

UNOFFICIAL Memory Books!

Troop Leader Resources    10 Comments    , , , , , , , ,

A few years ago, the Greater Iowa council came up with Memory Books for girls (and leaders too, I suppose). I vaguely remember what they looked like, but I thought it was a great idea, especially considering girls don’t have their own handbooks these days due to the way GSUSA has arranged national programming.  GSUSA took the idea and ran with it, and soon afterward, published its own version in 2019:

Continue reading

August 21 2022

Two New OFFICIAL Scarves and a Surprise!

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    2 Comments   

A few months, a couple of OFFICIAL scarves were put on sale on the GSUSA online shop which means they’re being retired. You can count on all OFFICIAL scarves being eventually put out to pasture, so if you see one you like, don’t wait to get it (unless it’s $150 and you want to wait it out for the inevitable mark down).  But OFFICIAL scarf retirements mean that new ones will arrive! And arrive they did!  Continue reading

August 16 2022

2022-23 National Programming Summaries

Troop Leader Resources    8 Comments    , , , , , , ,

Addendum 8/6/23: You can find 2023-24’s summaries here.
Example pages

A while back, I wanted to streamline the Badge Explorer (which has a lot of wasted space for printing) and include all of the awards that aren’t featured.  So I put together these summaries of each level, and I update them every year. I’ve made them every year for the past few, and I recently realized I had never published them on my blog!

Updates for 2022-23 include:

  • Retired financial planning badges removed
  • New badges added
  • Global Action & World Thinking Day Awards added
  • Daisy petals updated

Continue reading

August 14 2022

Wherefore Art Thou, Journeys?

National Operations    12 Comments    , , , ,

If you were around between 2008 and 2011 when the new national program called the Girl Scout Leadership Experience (GSLE) rolled out, you’ll know that a new type of content called Journeys was considered the new backbone of it.  Badges, the staple of Girl Scouting throughout its history, took a back seat. Some might even say that Journeys were shoved down everybody’s throat. It took a while, but I think GSUSA reluctantly realized that you can lead a volunteer to a Journey, but you can’t make them do it. So through the years, some changes were quietly made.

All this time, I was under the impression that our national programming was still Journey-driven, but after writing my Tough Cookies Revisited paper, I realized this wasn’t the case. I think it’s OFFICIAL that we’ve moved back to a badge-centric national program. It seems obvious now, but I guess it just didn’t click with me until recently because Journeys were so heavily pushed when I began as a volunteer, and it stuck with me. They’re still required for the higher awards, but there’s not an emphasis on them like there used to be. The following is a rundown of the Journeys’ journey through the years and how they’ve faded into the background. Continue reading

July 29 2022

Online Smithsonian Collection and Archive List

Traditional Stuff    2 Comments    , ,

It’s listed as a uniform belt but the image meta says it’s a hat.

If you’re like me, you love browsing through Girl Scout history. The Smithsonian has catalogued its Girl Scout items online and many of them include pictures!  Here’s a link that will take you straight to its items, and I’ve narrowed it down further to only show items with pictures.  Some of my thoughts:

  • Many of the items are identified incorrectly (like labeling badges as patches and mixing up BSA and GG items for GSUSA), but they’re still fun to look at.
  • You can stop at about page 11 because a bunch of non-Girl Scout items show up at that point.  There might be a few things scattered after that, but I didn’t go much further.
  • It’s always a little disconcerting when you see things that you wore growing up labeled as vintage and historical.
  • I am not sure why this Girl Scout Glove Make-Up Kit got my attention, but I need to research it in the GS Catalog website to find out what exactly it is.
  • Alas, no OFFICIAL scarves were featured. If you want to see a display of them, check this out!

Continue reading

July 14 2022

GSG Survey about NCS Proposals

National Governance    No Comments    , ,

I’m cross-posting this here to get the word out. Please send this out far and wide!

YOUR voice is IMPORTANT as a part of the MEMBERSHIP of the Movement! GirlScoutGovernance.com is hosting a survey to hear what the membership has to say about potential 2023 National Council Session (NCS) proposals that were submitted to the National Board by councils for consideration of placement on the NCS agenda. Please share this survey with your National Delegates, service units, other volunteers, Girl Scout Seniors or Ambassadors, and staff so that the membership’s voice can be heard. Voting ends August 31, 2022. Results will be posted in early September on GSG and submitted to the Office of the National Board before the National Board meeting in late September.

Addendum 9/12/22: Results can be found published on GSG. Continue reading