Today was the first meeting of our new year and we had a blast, and I'm really discouraged about what national is doing to our organization.
Last year I had 29 scouts -- 3 daisies, 8 brownies, 9 juniors, 9 cadettes, with 3 adults (2 leaders, one troop volunteer) and one juliette ambassador who was able to help out for 3 or 4 meetings. I was the only one able to go to journeys training. From the training, I hated it.
Of course there is no way that we could actually DO the journeys even if it wasn't aweful -- you need an adult teacher to drag each level of girls through their totally separate [s]schoolwork[/s] journeys work. And with 4 age levels and 3 adults it's simply impossible.
I get so sick of national and council who think that every troop is a single grade level (all bridging together each time) and all from a single school. I'm the SU cookie manager, and for years I couldn't get council to give me a list of troop numbers, leaders and numbers of girls for each troop in my service unit. First of all, they seemed shocked that I expected them to know the information, and secondly, they seemed bewildered as to why I would need it to run a cookie sale! And I was constantly dealing with staff people saying, "oh what school is that troop?" In my service unit virtually all of the troops (except mine, in fact) meet in the evenings and have girls from multiple schools. And what the heck, we are scouts, and scouts are organized into [i]troops[/i] and troops have [i]numbers[/i]!
I've read other leaders' discussions of why they hate Journeys, and I agree with all that -- it's "edu-babble", the same [censored] that has eaten out the intellectual foundations of our teacher education system in the US. My troop is after school, and the last thing that girls (especially the littlest ones) need after 7 hours of school is another hour-and-a-half of school.
But a factor I haven't seen mentioned -- have any of the people who wrote this [censored] ever [i]been[/i] to a girl scout meeting?!? We have a great time and get a lot done, but we are loud, rowdy, and always on the edge of complete chaos. The only thing that keeps us together and focused is [i]doing[/i] stuff! When we do have to discuss something, we quickly decay -- off-topic digressions, multiple people talking at once, etc. When my juniors and cadettes chose a troop crest, it was 45 minutes of spirited politicking and 4 ballots!
We are doing [url=http://www.arrl.org/scouts/jota/]JOTA[/url] this year with the Boy Scouts, and I'm embarrassed to be a Girl Scout. The ham operators are doing badge workshops for both the Boy Scout ham radio badge and the Boy Scout electronics badge. There is a whole chapter on "Communications" badges in the CSA badge book, and nothing at all about radio or electronics. I'm thinking that we will put the girls through the Boy Scout badge workshops, and then I will get them radio and electronics patches of some kind, even if they have to wear them on the backs of their uniforms.
And it's not the first time I've been embarrassed to be a girl scout. My daughter and I went to the Scout mass at our cathedral last February. All of the girl scouts getting awards were either brownies or juniors, no older girls. There were a couple of older girls (in CSA khaki) who processed in with the flags, and they were in proper uniform, but other than them, my daughter (a junior) was the only girl scout of the juniors and brownies who was in a proper girl scout uniform. Half of the girls had no sash or vest at all. And what is it with adult "uniforms"? Nothing in my "uniform" in any way connects me to my troop or my council. And the whole sweater set or suit jacket [censored] -- that's totally inappropriate attire for any of the activities (camping, horseback riding, hiking, cooking, messy crafts) that girl scouts DO! Compared this to Boy Scout leaders, who have uniforms appropriate for scouting activities, with council insignia and troop number patches on them.
What someone on one of these threads said about the Journeys program -- if this is the future of Girl Scouts then Girl Scouts has no future -- Amen, sister!