Happy 100th Birthday Girl Scouts!

For a several months I've been trying to wrap my head around this:  I've been a Girl Scout for 50 years.  That's half the life of the organization.  Wow.  I'm now the Training Peep for my area Service Unit, and I've been spending more time with troops lately!  I really miss being with kids when I'm home.  I'm up to my eyeballs in kids at Yellowstone, but since my sons are now young adults, running amuck with the little tykes has been missing in my life.  I think I've found my new at-home niche.

And what a grand time to re-up with the group that shaped so much of who I am now. All over the country today, and in many parts of the world, Girl Scouts are getting together in Promise Circles, Sing-a-longs, and Scouts' Own to celebrate the fun of being a girl and a Girl Scout.  In Savannah Georgia, Julliette Gordon Low's hometown, there are ceremonies and parties galore today.

Here in my Service Unit, we held a Scouts' Own and Sing-a-long at a historic movie theater on Saturday.  I was privileged to be the MC of this deal.  It's what I do, after all.  I found a Promise and Law Candle ceremony and found girls to be the readers.  While they were reading, I had a PowerPoint program going that coordinated with each part.  After this solemn part, it was time to start the singing!  We sang some oldies but goodies, and some new songs including one called Ignite which was written for the Rock the Mall event in June in DC. (I sooooo wanna be on that stage!!!  Don't you think they need a singing Ranger/Girl Scout from Yellowstone National Park as part of the act?  If I had any clue how to get a gig in the form of a detail from NPS, I'd be there in a heart beat!!!!!) The biggest hit of the afternoon was probably a 'song' called Chicka Boom.  It's a nonsense thing and each time we 'sing' it, we take on a different persona.  I do the usual versions, like super loud, then in a whisper, under water, and then I sort of let the kids shout out suggestions.... this time we did the Queen, Valley Girls, Elvis, and Scooby Do.  I never know what the kids will throw at me. It's not much of a song, but it is a ton of fun!

Maumee Indoor Theater

Dancing in the aisles!

More spontaneous dancing!

We ended by having all the girls sit together in the center section, and we grown-ups circled them and held hands, creating our own version of a Promise Circle.  We promised the girls that we would lead them and love them, no matter what.  In return they recited the Girl Scout Promise and Law for us.  Win win.

On my honor, I will try

to serve God and my country,

to help people at all times, 

and to live by the Girl Scout Law.

I will do my best to be
honest and fair,
friendly and helpful,
considerate and caring,
courageous and strong, and
responsible for what I say and do,
and to
respect myself and others,
respect authority,
use resources wisely,
make the world a better place, and
be a sister to every Girl Scout.

Happy Birthday, Girl Scouts and Girl Guides! Part 2

99 years ago today, the first meeting of the Girl Guides, soon after to be re-named the Girl Scouts, met in Juliette Gordon Low's home in Savannah, Georgia. Mrs. Low was a friend of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, founders of the Boy Scouts. It occurred to Daisy (her camp name, a tradition that continues to this day) that girls also could use emergency preparedness studies, outdoor skills, and the opportunity to give service back to their communities. Two days prior to this meeting, she called her cousin with this wild idea. A group of 18 girls met that day, forming two patrols~~the Carnation and the White Rose patrols. The idea spread quickly, and ever since that day, girls have been having marvelous experiences as Scouts.

I started in Girl Scouts when I was in second grade in 1962, at Clay Elementary School, in Oregon, Ohio. From the time I put on my first Brownie Beanie, I was hooked. I still cherish my first Brownie pin. From there, our family moved to West Toledo, where I became a Junior Girl Scout, at DeVeaux Elementary School. My Mom was an assistant leader, and very quickly became a leader and neighborhood chairman. It suited her perfectly. We found ways for everything we did as a family or in school to become Scout stuff--way more fun than calling it homework. After 2 years in Toledo, we moved to Perrysburg, where I joined a new and great Junior Troop, and then moved up to Cadettes. How I loved the grown-up look of the Cadette uniform--sleek A-line skirt, crisp white blouse with 'stewardess' cross-tie and a new cockade for my hat. My troop, which was down to about 4 of us, fell apart when we started High School, as do most GS troops. Which brings me to this:

The Girl Scouts have changed. Some for the better, put most of the changes have been to save/make money. Plain and simple. The Scout organization I knew was about service and skill development. The organization today is just for career exploration. A few skills are picked up along the way, but only as they relate to a future paid-job-related employment. Service is a part of Scouts still, but not nearly to the extent it was. And this from a woman who has always known she'd have a career outside of the home. And who loves her chosen career. Passionately.

I hate to be the person who says, "Back when I was a kid, we didn't need video games, we had marbles to play with." True that. I try to keep up with the latest techie stuff, not because I need it, but simply because it's coming~~it's here. I don't want to be left behind just because I didn't have/need something when I was a kid. I get it: Things change.

But there are some basic tenets to which we need to hold. Service above self (thank you, Rotarians for saying it so simply) is one of them. The other is being able to care for yourself and others. Yes, having a career is indeed critical. But there are kinder, gentler ways of getting there than the new GS Program. It lacks continuity, creativity, and fun. It looks good on paper, because the "Journeys" say go be creative and have fun, but it just isn't for most troops and girls. And (and here's the biggie) it's not fun for leaders.

Without fail, if you ask a GS leader now what she thinks about the Journeys program, she'll say, well, it was nice, but the girls got bored with it. They want more variety, short term projects, better 'rewards.' In short, they want to earn badges, which cover particular skills, not a long, drawn out things about what they can/should be as adults.

And now I'm going to say something out loud which I thought I'd never hear me say:

Girl Scouts need to adopt a new membership model much more like the Boy Scouts or 4-H.

You have no idea how hard that was for me. Whew, I'm exhausted just putting that on paper, er plasma, er whatever. So exhausted that I'll have to lay out my idea in a later post. Not to mention that the laundry still isn't doing itself, so I have to.

It's a skill, you know.