For example, here is a Council event coming up next weekend my daughter is going to. This registration went FAST and was full by about 10 am that morning. It is cosponsored by Booz Allen.

Make the Connection Jr. Science, Technology, Engineering & Math

Level: Juniors

REGISTER NOW

Focusing on science, technology, engineering, and math (STEM), 4th & 5th grade girls will perform hands-on challenges to practice problem solving skills. Booz Allen mentors will also share their experiences as professionals in STEM related jobs. Girls will leave the day more aware of the opportunities for women in STEM professions and encouraged to choose careers in these male dominated fields.

Do any of you GS parents read the Rallyhood emails or the Council-related emails, and take advantage of all there is to do, beyond what your troop may be doing? This is what really makes the GS experience for us. Also, maybe my daughter can concentrate on the activity more, because it is she and she alone who is going to these things, and it's not a social hour with her friends. I bring her and it's just made up of other individual Scouts who have signed up as individuals too. Just a thought. .

It's an amazing resource if you haven't looked into it.

My kids were in GS in elementary (now high school and college), so my information cpuld be dated. The badges all seemed to be more about subject appreciation than skill mastery. The only skill they really seemed to stress was selling cookies. They did some fun activities, but we would do similar activities at home. Aside from the socializing, there was little draw. The two different troops fell apart and my girls weren't interested in finding new troops.

What's always seemed appealing to me about boy scouts is that they actually learn how to do things. I heard once (and I may be wrong) that in the early days of GS to get a badge you had to:

1. Watch the skill
2. Do the skill independently
3. Teach the skill

I think if GS had been more skill focused, my girls would have found it more meaningful. Instead it was about spending time with friends (which they could do outside of scouts) doing fun activities (which aside from GS events could be done outside school as well). There just didn't seem to be much point to it for them.

Anonymous wrote: The problem the Girl Scouts are seeing is that girls want to move over to the Boy Scouts. Suing because of the name it’s not going to make a difference. The Girl Scouts needs to change their image. Right now they are seen as cookie sellers, cookie pushers, Girl Scouts is synonymous with Girl Scout cookies ( and every single connotation that being in the kitchen with cookies evokes).

Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are known for doing stuff, being outside, camping, wilderness, woodworking,, and the very prestigious Eagle Scout award.

The Girl Scouts should be suing the Boy Scouts but rather revamping the system to change perception for what the program is .

Yes! It’s a kiddie-MLM. You don’t “have to” sell cookies. You don’t “have to sell” nuts and chocolates. But then you won’t have money to pay for any activities. It’s all about those damn cookies.

Anonymous wrote: The problem the Girl Scouts are seeing is that girls want to move over to the Boy Scouts. Suing because of the name it’s not going to make a difference. The Girl Scouts needs to change their image. Right now they are seen as cookie sellers, cookie pushers, Girl Scouts is synonymous with Girl Scout cookies ( and every single connotation that being in the kitchen with cookies evokes).

Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are known for doing stuff, being outside, camping, wilderness, woodworking,, and the very prestigious Eagle Scout award.

The Girl Scouts should be suing the Boy Scouts but rather revamping the system to change perception for what the program is .

This.
When I asked my daughter if she wanted to join GS, her immediate reply was, "No. I don't want to sell cookies." That some of her friends were in a troop made no impression upon her. They are known for cookies. When you think Boy Scouts, you think camping and tying knots. Not popcorn or whatever else they might sell for fundraising.

When I was in Boy Scouts, we had a week long camp. That’s where I learned to swim. I also learned to shoot a rifle there. Eagle Scouts start higher in the army. They shouldn’t let girls join amirite?

The problem the Girl Scouts are seeing is that girls want to move over to the Boy Scouts. Suing because of the name it’s not going to make a difference. The Girl Scouts needs to change their image. Right now they are seen as cookie sellers, cookie pushers, Girl Scouts is synonymous with Girl Scout cookies ( and every single connotation that being in the kitchen with cookies evokes).

Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts are known for doing stuff, being outside, camping, wilderness, woodworking,, and the very prestigious Eagle Scout award.

The Girl Scouts should be suing the Boy Scouts but rather revamping the system to change perception for what the program is .

Here's an article from 2012 on the Girl Scouts dot org website: "More Dads are Taking Girl Scout Volunteer Roles"

http://blog.girlscouts.org/2012/09/more-dads-are-taking-girl-scouts.html

The Girl Scouts began 100 years ago with a goal of bringing girls out of isolated home environments and into community service and the outdoors.

In Texas, the San Angelo Standard-Times reports that today, Girl Scouts is a diverse organization, providing leadership opportunities to its membership of 3.2 million girls and adult volunteers, with more than 59 million alumnae in the U.S.

While the organization is predominantly female, the organization has a few male volunteers and employees.

San Angelo's Joe Grossheim started as a volunteer for the Girl Scouts 17 years ago when his oldest daughter, Gina, was in her first year as a Girl Scout Junior. With two daughters in Girl Scouts, Grossheim knew he was not making a short-term investment. But when his third daughter, Bailee, was born eight years ago, he realized he had a few more years of Girl Scouts ahead of him.

"I thought I was going to be done; then Bailee came along," he said.

Having his daughters be part of an organization has been beneficial, he said.

"Kids are going to make mistakes, but if they've had some leadership experience, it can make a difference," he said. "If you can make a difference in even one girl's life, to me, it's worth all the time and effort."

A fairly new volunteer, Tom Hahn, has been helping the troop his daughter, Emily, belongs to for the past several years.

As the troop's cookie coordinator, he likened the selection of cookie booths to the NFL draft, said James Pidgeon, community development executive (west) for the Girl Scouts of Central Texas.

"It was fun to watch him," Pidgeon said, "watching him come to understand the strategy of picking the right location for cookie booths, at peak times."

I don't know. Could be. I just started googling around and I found this site which says, "Dads are awesome! We are proud to welcome them into our volunteer family. Often, dads don’t realize they too can participate as leaders, cookie coordinators, and outdoor instructors. There are many options for volunteering!"
This is from the Girl Scouts of Northern Illinois Council.

We are in the GSCNC and we are the ones who have gone camping with the dad who teaches the girls about a lot of things like rope knots, geocaching, leave no trace, etc. I know he is our official "camping certified" parent so he had to go through the GS training, and obviously they did not stop and say to him, "You are a male, so therefore you cannot do this," ???

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are your girls honestly and truly taking away anything from GS other than that it’s basically an elementary-level sorority? I don’t think my Brownie cares what patches or badges she earns, she just likes going twice a week to be with her friends, and taking the occasional field trip. She is super excited about camping this year though.

The absolute only benefit and difference between the GS and BS that I can tell is becoming an Eagle Scout, and the long term benefits of becoming one. Most GS and BS don’t stick with it that long anyway, so comparing the two at elementary level is pointless. It’s a bunch of kids getting together to essentially socialize, and that’s just fine and a healthy part of development in and of itself. I do wish their were equal incentives for GS to stick with it in middle and high school though. That’s the only benefit of BS that I can think of, of course, if your girl sticks it out for the long haul.

My daughter loves GS but for the reason that you mentioned above, she enjoys hanging out and playing with her friends. I don't think she has really gotten much out of it. From what I have seen Boy Scouts, even at the elementary age seem to be much more active than Girl Scouts. I think this is because Boy Scouts encourages more active family participation. It is common for both moms and dads to be actively involved in boy scout troops. Girl Scouts seems to be more discouraging of men participating. There have been a few times where my DH has taken/picked up my daughter from girl scout events (not troop level but council wide) where the woman in charge was very discouraging of him being around. When he picked up DD from Brownie Encampment, he wasn't even allowed to go near the cabins!

Not my experience at all. My dad (and Eagle Scout) stepped up and was basically another leader in my GS troop. My mom was the head leader, but there were 3 female leaders. None of the other moms knew about outdoorsy type things, tying knots, archery or survival skills, so my dad stepped up and taught all of that. He made our campfires and taught us how as well. He was never alone with girls and made sure there was always an adult female present, but he was much loved in our troop.

But I do agree that GS camp was only for females.

Anonymous wrote:So what name would be more fitting and less confusing?

I would love to know as well. My gut feeling is that they would be sued no matter what name they choose because whatever name they choose will need to be all encompassing for boys and girls.

Ideas:
Youth Scouts
Kid scouts
B&G Scouts ( not really using girls since I’m sure that would be a no no )
Child and Teen Scouts
Kid and Teen Scouts


None of those ideas are very good . Actually, they are terrible .

Anonymous wrote:I know a girl in another troop (I am FB friends with her mom so I saw the pics) who just went on an overnight camping trip with her dad at Camp Potomac Woods at a GS-sponsored "Dads and Daughter" Weekend. It was all dads with the daughters, camping in the glen shelters. That doesn't sound like "discouraging male participation" to me.

Maybe this has to do with the philosophy of the individual council? Our council seems to be very into making events very girlcentric, I just always assumed this was part of the overall GS philosphy.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Are your girls honestly and truly taking away anything from GS other than that it’s basically an elementary-level sorority? I don’t think my Brownie cares what patches or badges she earns, she just likes going twice a week to be with her friends, and taking the occasional field trip. She is super excited about camping this year though.

The absolute only benefit and difference between the GS and BS that I can tell is becoming an Eagle Scout, and the long term benefits of becoming one. Most GS and BS don’t stick with it that long anyway, so comparing the two at elementary level is pointless. It’s a bunch of kids getting together to essentially socialize, and that’s just fine and a healthy part of development in and of itself. I do wish their were equal incentives for GS to stick with it in middle and high school though. That’s the only benefit of BS that I can think of, of course, if your girl sticks it out for the long haul.

My daughter loves GS but for the reason that you mentioned above, she enjoys hanging out and playing with her friends. I don't think she has really gotten much out of it. From what I have seen Boy Scouts, even at the elementary age seem to be much more active than Girl Scouts. I think this is because Boy Scouts encourages more active family participation. It is common for both moms and dads to be actively involved in boy scout troops. Girl Scouts seems to be more discouraging of men participating. There have been a few times where my DH has taken/picked up my daughter from girl scout events (not troop level but council wide) where the woman in charge was very discouraging of him being around. When he picked up DD from Brownie Encampment, he wasn't even allowed to go near the cabins!

Interesting. We do not have this experience at all. One of the fathers in our troop is extremely knowledgeable about camping and he comes on every camping trip (stays in his own tent or, if we are in a lodge, stays in his own room). He has taught the girls knot-tying, geocaching, many things about camping and leave-no-trace, etc. On these trips, he often wears a t-shirt that says, "Man Enough to be a Girl Scout," and we all completely think it's true and love his participation!

This is interesting, I was under the impression that it was a GS policy that men are not allowed on overnight trips with the girls, or if they are they would need to sleep far away.

I know a girl in another troop (I am FB friends with her mom so I saw the pics) who just went on an overnight camping trip with her dad at Camp Potomac Woods at a GS-sponsored "Dads and Daughter" Weekend. It was all dads with the daughters, camping in the glen shelters. That doesn't sound like "discouraging male participation" to me.

Found a link to the shirt I was talking about: https://www.girlscoutshop.com/core/media/media.nl?id=641728&c=317771&h=77d881aef00d0f521b96

Ha!