Happy 100th Birthday, Girl Scouts

We had nothing special planned for today, the actual 100th birthday of Girl Scouts. But Violet and I did wear green. We've done some other celebrations with our small groups, but chose to skip all the big area events. It was more fun doing things with our friends, not with big groups that the only thing we have in common with is membership in a national organization. Maybe we are just introverts.

What would Juliette Low think of the changes to her program over the years. I know she was in favor of the program evolving as girls did. So the fact that it has changed wouldn't bother her. But I wonder about the diminished focus on girls doing things for girls being leaders. The new badges and journeys sure do have a lot of sitting around and talking involved. Yawn. That's a far cry from the controversy of girls playing basketball and hiking in dresses!

And cookie sales. Let's get real for a minute. Do we really think that girls learn leadership and business skills from selling cookies? Are we that naive? The parents take the forms to the office and hit up their co-workers. Or the girls sit at tables outside of businesses and harass shoppers. The leaders and adults handle the money and the paperwork. The adults often steer the girls into how to spend the money. Not that I'm against that. I don't think a 6 year should be in charge of cookie sales and as the adult who has to do all the paper work and driving, you bet your thin mint I want a say in what they do with their earnings. But let's call it what it is...fund raising.

Three new badges at each level for cookie sales!!! Come on, people. 'Nuff said.

The new badges are long overdue and incredibly disappointing. Gone are the days of working hard and learning something. So much for mastering a new skill.

Yep, the new Girl Scouts is definitely all about the corporate entity and the adults. They've totally adopted the public school formula (I once laughed out loud at a training session when the trainer tried to claim it had nothing to do with schools - come on, get real, it is completely public school-focused). And since we know public school has nothing to do with the children, why should Girl Scouts have anything to do with girls?

So why do I stay in it? Because I think you can work within their rules, embellish it, and make a nice little program for a group of friends to have fun together every other week. Sad that you have to change it to make it work. But maybe Juliette would want us tailoring it to the girls. When asked what the girls should do, Juliette responded "What do the girls WANT to do?" That's what we should all be asking ourselves before every meeting.

Happy Birthday, Girl Scouts. May you survive the current corporate nonsense and live on for another 100 years!