Why This Troop Leader Quit the Daughter Scouts

Past Kristin O'Keefe
Daughter Scouts of the USA

Forget the turkey; it'due south Girl Scout cookie time! Notwithstanding each year I'one thousand finding it harder to runway down my Sparse Mints, and not just in my neighborhood. A contempo Associated Press article notes that national membership in the Daughter Scouts has fallen 27 percent from a summit of 3.8 1000000 in 2003.

Why accept nearly one meg youth and adult members left in the last decade? I'thou certain information technology's complicated, but I take one answer from the trenches. Every bit a former lookout leader, the Girl Scouts' forms overwhelmed me. The Girl Scouts organization has a grade and a requirement for everything, and in an era of crazy decorated family life, parents do not have fourth dimension for this. When it comes crunch time, we will choose the simpler option, similar coaching a soccer team of daisy pickers.

My first encounter with Girl Lookout man form civilization came at a meeting for potential new troop leaders. A table of eager parents faced a very serious staff person from the Girl Sentinel Council of the Nation'southward Capital letter.

"I want to first with a story," she said. Great, I idea. This will exist the mission story about how Daughter Scouts transforms lives. Perhaps it would exist the story of a shy girl who earns her acting badge and goes on to Broadway, or the starting time-time camper who becomes a naturalist. The possibilities were endless!

Nope. We were instead treated to the story of the Girl Spotter who went on a troop field trip and was in a horrific car accident and the only thing that saved the troop from fiscal ruin was the fact that they had filled out the appropriate forms and thus were covered past the Daughter Scouts' action accident insurance. The end.

We all saturday in that location open-mouthed. I exchanged looks with another parent, who clearly also had expected a more than upbeat scouting tale, like building a minor stand-alone shelter and having a thousand time camping, rather than the death and dismemberment lecture.

It was the outset sign that the folks who run the Girl Scouts have their forms extremely seriously. The website was the 2d sign. On my local quango's website, in that location are currently 16 categories of forms. That'due south right. Not 16 forms, but 16 categories of forms.

One await at the cookie forms gives another reason why it'southward harder to discover cookies these days. I'k guessing information technology's because no one was able to fill up the Service Unit Cookie Booth Coordinator Appointment. This chore has fifteen requirements, including attending required council trainings and monthly meetings from October to Apr, conducting business outreach, monitoring booth sales, running excel spreadsheets and so on. It sounds similar a full-time administrative job, not a volunteer role.

Right, thinks the potential Daughter Picket volunteer. I'll stay abroad from cookies. I'll lead a troop of 8-year-olds. Great idea. Just know this: there are over 50 "troop leader forms."

I've got a confession. After a while, my fellow troop leader and I ignored many of the forms. We had a choice: spend our time trying to effigy out which forms to utilize (and nagging parents to fill them out) or doing stuff with the girls. Our last hurrah camping trip? It took place in a parent'southward backyard. We did non tell the serious Girl Scout staff person most our unsanctioned outing. Despite the lack of forms and a "living on the edge" south'mores activity, all the girls emerged unscathed. And and so, our troop disbanded. At a certain point, there are besides many competing activities. We left the one with the most onerous requirements: the Girl Scouts.

I adore the families who continue with Daughter Scouts. Scouting offers friendships, mentoring and a host of meaningful experiences for girls. The teenagers who conduct major service projects and earn Gilt Awards demonstrate leadership and tenacity; some receive scholarships and special recognitions as a result.

You know who else deserves recognition? Their parents, who withstood all those requirements. I didn't accept it in me.

Some communication for the Girl Scouts system: Whatever drives the excessive forms — hyper-organisation, fearfulness of lawsuits or the unknown that results from less structure — you have to allow it become. And if yous want to stay relevant in today'southward busy, overwhelmed culture, if you want to get back some of the families who left scouts? Two words: Grade Reform. A few Thin Mints can't hurt either.