How does Girl Scouts work?

[Anonymous]

You sell cookies. They send you an absurd number of emails. YMMV, but that was my experience.

[Anonymous]

I’m a Girl Scout leader of a casual, multi-age troop at a prek-8th grade school, and it’s really difficult. Unlike Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts, there isn’t a pre-existing organization that you just add yourself to. Each new troop is totally freestanding with very basic support from Council, which is the regional organization that deals with background checks, registration, cookie sale management, etc. Daisies and Brownies are the most difficult, because they don’t have the independence to plan their activities or sort through badge options, and parents will all have different opinions about what activities should happen.

You will need to start a troop yourself. It is very unlikely there is a preexisting troop you can join, and even if there was, many leaders are reluctant to take on new girls, regardless of if that is right or wrong, for the anecdotal reasons I’ll give below.

This year I am trying to get every parent to register as a volunteer so that we can easily meet required leader:scout ratios. No one wants to do it. New girls want to join, but I won’t approve their registration without parents registering this year. I need myself and at least one other Girl Scouts background checked volunteer at every event we have. It is often just me and we essentially have to run things illicitly. Girl Scouts is supposed to be girl-led and parent/leader supported, but many parents expect it to be more like soccer teams or dance classes. It is not an activity where you just drop your child off and a paid coach/teacher makes things happen, and that causes a disconnect between parent and leader expectations. The volunteer aspect of it means that a lot of troops of formed by people who know each other or existing friend groups, because it is a big job to plan meetings and activities and be responsible for a group of 10-12 girls who you don’t know. Troops are also financially independent and largely self-funded by optional troop dues and cookie sales, so starting a troop up is difficult because you don’t have cookie revenue until late spring/summer. It requires being on top of asking for dues at the start of the year or making sure parents are reimbursing you throughout the year. Many new leaders get stuck holding the bag financially until cookie sales.

The Girl Scout subreddit has a lot of good advice this time of year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i thought i would have wanted to be a troop leader, but the amount of training and rules you have to follow is unsustainable for me.

the way troops are usually organized is that they have a round up at the school at the beginning of school. you are seated by grades. they then say, look around. this is your troop. which one of you wants to be a leader? of course we all know there needs to be a leader, but i didn't really like how they did this.

parents are barely willing to help at all. it is annoying.

I have boys and they did cub scouts. We met at the school once a month and then had individual den meetings once per month at the school, park or someone’s home. We had both all ages outings and activities like camping trips, pinewood derby, hikes, etc and also grade level outings.

Girl Scouts seems to be very different and by grade only.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I’m a Girl Scout leader of a casual, multi-age troop at a prek-8th grade school, and it’s really difficult. Unlike Cub Scouts or Boy Scouts, there isn’t a pre-existing organization that you just add yourself to. Each new troop is totally freestanding with very basic support from Council, which is the regional organization that deals with background checks, registration, cookie sale management, etc. Daisies and Brownies are the most difficult, because they don’t have the independence to plan their activities or sort through badge options, and parents will all have different opinions about what activities should happen.

You will need to start a troop yourself. It is very unlikely there is a preexisting troop you can join, and even if there was, many leaders are reluctant to take on new girls, regardless of if that is right or wrong, for the anecdotal reasons I’ll give below.

This year I am trying to get every parent to register as a volunteer so that we can easily meet required leader:scout ratios. No one wants to do it. New girls want to join, but I won’t approve their registration without parents registering this year. I need myself and at least one other Girl Scouts background checked volunteer at every event we have. It is often just me and we essentially have to run things illicitly. Girl Scouts is supposed to be girl-led and parent/leader supported, but many parents expect it to be more like soccer teams or dance classes. It is not an activity where you just drop your child off and a paid coach/teacher makes things happen, and that causes a disconnect between parent and leader expectations. The volunteer aspect of it means that a lot of troops of formed by people who know each other or existing friend groups, because it is a big job to plan meetings and activities and be responsible for a group of 10-12 girls who you don’t know. Troops are also financially independent and largely self-funded by optional troop dues and cookie sales, so starting a troop up is difficult because you don’t have cookie revenue until late spring/summer. It requires being on top of asking for dues at the start of the year or making sure parents are reimbursing you throughout the year. Many new leaders get stuck holding the bag financially until cookie sales.

The Girl Scout subreddit has a lot of good advice this time of year.

This is good advice- Im one of the prior posters who is an active volunteer (camp mom who went through the trainings LOL) but not the leader. Our troops have always required the parents to register as volunteers and the leader basically laid it out- if you don't volunteer to lead activities/sessions/camp/cookies/etc. we will not do them. And collected dues at the beginning of the year. It's a very fair approach IMO but I can see if someone doesn't know about the structure of girl scouts they may be put off.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It's true that you need multiple parent volunteers. Parents of a Girl Scout should expect to at least help at a meeting or event from time to time, if not take on a role like cookie parent or bookkeeper. Most troops are 10-12 girls and there are like 4 or 5 distinct parent roles.

Welcome to school-age, PP. Every activity your child does will require parent volunteers. Find your niche, maybe it's being a Scout troop leader or maybe it's coaching their tee-ball team or teaching their Sunday school class. Don't expect all the other adults to provide your child with opportunities. And yes, we are all busy so don't claim to be a busy working mom as your excuse. But that's a separate thread.

Girl Scouts is managed from above so there's a ton of requirements and bureaucracy but at the troop level yes it's 2+ troop leaders and a troop typically around 12-14 girls in the same grade. Scouts move through Daisies to Brownies to Juniors etc every two years so it's easier if the troop is all the same grade and moving up together. Some troops are super active and meet a few times per month. In our experience, our troop has one monthly meeting after school and then typically one extra activity monthly or every other month. Often the outing is tied to earning a particular badge but sometimes it's something simply fun and team building.

When our girls were younger the troop leaders asked for signups of at least one parent to stay per meeting and possibly even help plan for the badge activity that month. We also had a cookie mom every year and someone who is the official treasurer and manages the finances of the troop.

Girl Scouts is also about what you make it. If you have troop leaders and families really into the outdoors expect a troop with lots of opportunities for hiking, camping and so on. Other troops may have families and girls more focused on arts and crafts types of activities. There are always tons of activities going on around the region that troops can take part in, but that again depends on the commitment of the leaders and the families.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:i thought i would have wanted to be a troop leader, but the amount of training and rules you have to follow is unsustainable for me.

the way troops are usually organized is that they have a round up at the school at the beginning of school. you are seated by grades. they then say, look around. this is your troop. which one of you wants to be a leader? of course we all know there needs to be a leader, but i didn't really like how they did this.

parents are barely willing to help at all. it is annoying.

I have boys and they did cub scouts. We met at the school once a month and then had individual den meetings once per month at the school, park or someone’s home. We had both all ages outings and activities like camping trips, pinewood derby, hikes, etc and also grade level outings.

Girl Scouts seems to be very different and by grade only.

Yes, they are different. The two organizations are not related, and they have different goals and approaches. While I think each does some things well, it's a [common] mistake to try to overlay the structure and meeting practices as if GS is trying to do the same thing BS is. GS is different from BS is different from 4-H is different from youth sports, although all require adult volunteers.

[Anonymous]

Somebody needs to lead a girl scout troop.
You can hold off and hope another parent volunteers to lead a K Daisy troop in your area, or you can volunteer to lead it yourself

I've been a leader for six years now and absolutely love it, but I understand it's not for everyone.

[Anonymous]

why don't you skip the nonsense and bureaucracy of Girl Scouts and just do a group that does all the Girl Scout stuff minus that. THen you don't have to be a part of the cookie sales nonsense either.

[Anonymous]

One of the biggest surprises dual working parent families seem to have when their oldest hits school age is that all these activities they hear about kids doing require huge amounts of parent volunteer time. Its not like daycare, where you pay a fee and drop off. Almost every single activity your child does will involve a small amount or a large amount of volunteer time.

I send emails for our rec league every season begging for volunteer rec soccer/basketball/softball coaches and every season, without fail, a parent emails me to ask why we don't just hire some coaches. Every season.

[Anonymous]

My D wanted to be a scout. The had a meeting for all interest girls and parents at a big meeting with all grades. At the end of the big meeting the called all K & 1st grade parents to another room. Then they told us that if we wanted to our kids to be in scouts that one of us needed to be a leader. A couple of us said we would be co-leaders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:One of the biggest surprises dual working parent families seem to have when their oldest hits school age is that all these activities they hear about kids doing require huge amounts of parent volunteer time. Its not like daycare, where you pay a fee and drop off. Almost every single activity your child does will involve a small amount or a large amount of volunteer time.

I send emails for our rec league every season begging for volunteer rec soccer/basketball/softball coaches and every season, without fail, a parent emails me to ask why we don't just hire some coaches. Every season.

Laughing but I totally understand those parents. I am an active volunteer in scouts and other groups .. but I would love to put money in the hat to hire an expert leader for some activities DD does. Some people (me) just do not have the personality or talent for certain activities (sports and theater). So I get it. If $500 would induce someone to coach, me and 4 other parents would have our wallets out already.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the biggest surprises dual working parent families seem to have when their oldest hits school age is that all these activities they hear about kids doing require huge amounts of parent volunteer time. Its not like daycare, where you pay a fee and drop off. Almost every single activity your child does will involve a small amount or a large amount of volunteer time.

I send emails for our rec league every season begging for volunteer rec soccer/basketball/softball coaches and every season, without fail, a parent emails me to ask why we don't just hire some coaches. Every season.

Laughing but I totally understand those parents. I am an active volunteer in scouts and other groups .. but I would love to put money in the hat to hire an expert leader for some activities DD does. Some people (me) just do not have the personality or talent for certain activities (sports and theater). So I get it. If $500 would induce someone to coach, me and 4 other parents would have our wallets out already.

I have 3 kids. We pay a lot for tennis - clinic, private lessons and team.

The only activity that we know going in requiring time commitment is science Olympiad. We knew we had to coach.

I did not know or expect scouts was similar.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the biggest surprises dual working parent families seem to have when their oldest hits school age is that all these activities they hear about kids doing require huge amounts of parent volunteer time. Its not like daycare, where you pay a fee and drop off. Almost every single activity your child does will involve a small amount or a large amount of volunteer time.

I send emails for our rec league every season begging for volunteer rec soccer/basketball/softball coaches and every season, without fail, a parent emails me to ask why we don't just hire some coaches. Every season.

Laughing but I totally understand those parents. I am an active volunteer in scouts and other groups .. but I would love to put money in the hat to hire an expert leader for some activities DD does. Some people (me) just do not have the personality or talent for certain activities (sports and theater). So I get it. If $500 would induce someone to coach, me and 4 other parents would have our wallets out already.

I have 3 kids. We pay a lot for tennis - clinic, private lessons and team.

The only activity that we know going in requiring time commitment is science Olympiad. We knew we had to coach.

I did not know or expect scouts was similar.

Well, look at how much you pay for tennis. Then look at how much it costs to be in scouts. Did you really think the very low fees you pay for scouts, would cover the salary of a professional "scout instructor", as well as equipment and supplies, the way it covers the salary of your kid's tennis coach?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the biggest surprises dual working parent families seem to have when their oldest hits school age is that all these activities they hear about kids doing require huge amounts of parent volunteer time. Its not like daycare, where you pay a fee and drop off. Almost every single activity your child does will involve a small amount or a large amount of volunteer time.

I send emails for our rec league every season begging for volunteer rec soccer/basketball/softball coaches and every season, without fail, a parent emails me to ask why we don't just hire some coaches. Every season.

Laughing but I totally understand those parents. I am an active volunteer in scouts and other groups .. but I would love to put money in the hat to hire an expert leader for some activities DD does. Some people (me) just do not have the personality or talent for certain activities (sports and theater). So I get it. If $500 would induce someone to coach, me and 4 other parents would have our wallets out already.

I have 3 kids. We pay a lot for tennis - clinic, private lessons and team.

The only activity that we know going in requiring time commitment is science Olympiad. We knew we had to coach.

I did not know or expect scouts was similar.

Who did you think did all the work to run the troops? A paid employee?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:One of the biggest surprises dual working parent families seem to have when their oldest hits school age is that all these activities they hear about kids doing require huge amounts of parent volunteer time. Its not like daycare, where you pay a fee and drop off. Almost every single activity your child does will involve a small amount or a large amount of volunteer time.

I send emails for our rec league every season begging for volunteer rec soccer/basketball/softball coaches and every season, without fail, a parent emails me to ask why we don't just hire some coaches. Every season.

Laughing but I totally understand those parents. I am an active volunteer in scouts and other groups .. but I would love to put money in the hat to hire an expert leader for some activities DD does. Some people (me) just do not have the personality or talent for certain activities (sports and theater). So I get it. If $500 would induce someone to coach, me and 4 other parents would have our wallets out already.

I have 3 kids. We pay a lot for tennis - clinic, private lessons and team.

The only activity that we know going in requiring time commitment is science Olympiad. We knew we had to coach.

I did not know or expect scouts was similar.

It sounds like you do private $$$ tennis. Rec sports need volunteers to run everything.