Posted on 06/17/2013 6:43:32 PM PDT by ctdonath2
My little girl is 5. Perfect time to start Girl Scouts except ... well I suppose y'all will fill me in on that. Thoughts?
We have a young neighborhood girl who tries to sell cookies at our house every year. Three and two years ago I wrote a small check to her troop. This last year she said they were not allowed to take contributions, only money for cookies and if I didn’t want them for our family, I could designate that they be sent to the military. So said no thanks. I have already told mom at length about why I won’t buy them on numerous occasions.
Because GSA now offers up the military as a solution it would appear that they have run into their problem enough to provide an option but that’s not going to work for us either.
Our Republican Women’s Group has several guys in the military in Afghanistan that we send a package to every month. And it does not include Girl Scout cookies.
They are still around but are now called Camp Fire USA. They went co-ed back in the 1970s. Today they are PC - even have a membership policy that does not discriminate against sexual orientation.
OCT 1991 – GS-USA national stated in a letter: ...
“As a private organization, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. respects the values and beliefs of each of its members and does not intrude into personal matters. Therefore, there are no membership policies on sexual preference. However, Girl Scouts of the U.S.A. has firm standards relating to the appropriate conduct of adult volunteers and staff. The Girl Scout organization does not condone or permit sexual displays of any sort by its members during Girl Scout activities, nor does it permit the advocacy or promotion of a personal lifestyle or sexual preference. These are private matters for girls and their families to address.” 2/09/1993 – In Lansing, MI, the GS-USA fired heterosexual employee Brenda Mailand after she refused to sign the following pledge: “As an employee of the Michigan Capitol Girl Scout Council, you may not proactively inform members, parents of members, prospective members or parents of prospective members, or members of the general public (including media) of the Council’s and GSUSA’s position on sexual orientation.”
10/23/1993 – Delegates at the GS-USA national convention in Minneapolis, MN, voted 1,560 to 375 to allow girls to change their pledge of service to the spiritual power of their conscience - or none at all.
1997 - Nancy Manahan’s book, On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experiences, was published. On My Honor included an essay titled “All I Really Need to Know About Being a Lesbian I Learned at Girl Scout Camp.” In a 2000 “National Review Online” editorial (10/23/2000, National Review magazine) titled “The Cookie Crumbles,” author Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote that the book was “filled with coming-of-age stories sparked by gay encounters in the Girl Scouts.” Lopez further reported that “staffers contributing stories to the book claim that roughly 1 in 3 of the Girls Scouts’ paid professional staff is lesbian.”
In 1926 the Indian Guides program was started in the YMCA. Later, the Y became interdenominational (many would say secular) and more concerned with promoting morality and good citizenship than a distinctive interpretation of Christianity. The Indian Guides program declined until it was dissolved in 2001 and reformed as the YMCA Adventure Guides. Today the YMCA is more focused on inspiring youths and their families to exercise and be healthy.
I do know the Toronto YM(W)CA has co-ed nude swimming. “Roaming Bares”
Imagine that.
Keep the kids where you can see them!
My older daughter was a Girl Scout for several years but my younger one never was. The reason: The Scout Leader. My older daughter’s leader started in Brownies with my daughter’s age group (her daughter was this age) and she stayed with her through sixth grade when my daughter chose sports over scouts (scheduling conflict). This GS leader was “old school”. Her husband was military and they had meetings at their horse farm. My daughter loved it.
My younger daughter’s choice for Scout Leaders were TERRIBLE. Mean, opinionated, sarcastic, we looked at four different troops. No way. This has all happened in the last 5 years.
If you can find a leader that has conservative values and ignores or even fights against some of what the national organization is now pushing, it’s still a worthwhile experience IMO.
I know.
That’s why I asked for alternatives, and deeper insights into the problem.
Now either contribute or get off my thread (ie. take the insults elsewhere).
The OP clearly was looking for alternatives to GSA, never once saying the 5-year old was going to be enrolled. Yet you tell them that they are sending their kid into a cesspool. I point this out, and somehow I am now advocating sending girls into the GSA.
Yes, the Girl Scouts are run by lesbians who hate American traditions. That's a fact. It's also a fact that you're a nut.
Today, each GS-USA council operates its own cookie sale. Approximately 70% of the proceeds stay in the local GS-USA council to support Girl Scouting in that area, including a portion that goes directly to the unit selling the cookies. The profits are divided by a formula, with local troops receiving about 10-15% of the retail price, the council more than 50%, and the manufacturer the remainder. GS-USA is paid a royalty for use of the licensed trademarks by its licensed bakers based on gross annual sales volume. It also provides contractual services and approves all program, marketing, and sales materials developed by the bakers. GS-USA also provides coordination and training for national media, safety standards for girls and volunteers, and full support during cookie season.
... Their headquarters is a very large office building which is contrary to the BSA. ...
The BSA National HQ in Irving, TX ain't no shrinking violet, either.
... I know every club has fund raisers. BSA relies on heavy donations from former scouts.
True, but BSA has its annual popcorn sale ...
1986 – BSA National entered in an agreement with the Weaver Popcorn Company to sell its popcorn products as a fundraiser for scout units. The Weaver Popcorn Company, a family-owned business based in Indianapolis, IN, is the world's largest manufacturer of popcorn and supplies roughly 30% of all of the popcorn consumed in the world. Their popcorn is grown in the U.S. and Argentina and sold in over 90 countries. The Trails End Popcorn brand is manufactured by the Weaver Popcorn Company. It is not sold by any other means and is not available in stores. The unit commissions (the part of the retail cost that a unit gets to keep) varies per product, but is ~ 30%. The local council gets about the same commission for handling and distribution to the units. Trail's End gets the rest as payment for the popcorn. Cub packs proved to be the biggest sellers of the popcorn products.
Tiy titled the thread as follows
“FReeper comments on Girl Scouts and alternatives?”
I gave you that. Don’t complain.
My wife is meeting with the administrator at our Christian School on Thursday to discuss starting an American Heritage Girl chapter in our town. She can’t wait - what a GREAT organization!
Co-ed?! Just wow. I strayed north of the Mason-Dixon to Pittsburgh on business in 1981. Went to the local YMCA for a dip in the pool that had posted pool hours for male nude swimming. That was a bit of a culture shock back then.
On 10/01/1998, the book, Take the Young Stranger by the Hand: Same-Sex Relations and the YMCA, was published. Founded in the mid-19th century, the YMCA fostered close, spiritually sustaining relationships between young men. By the century's end the "Y," as it became known, had implemented a wide-scale program of physical exercise and sex education, in part to combat the increasingly visible specter of physical intimacy between men. But this emphasis on the perfected male body only increased the institution's reputation as a haven for homosexuality. Drawing upon diverse sources, including YMCA records, social histories, urban and economic studies, "physical culture" physique magazines, and gay memoirs, author Gustav-Wrathall explicated not only the hidden sexual subtexts of the Y's social history but examines how changing attitudes about sexuality, male friendship, gender, marriage, and privacy all contributed to shaping the nature and both the overt and covert purpose of the organization.
Into lesbianism.
I loved being in the Girl Scouts . That said I did not let my daughter participate . To much changed between the time I was in and the time she would have been in . I did not want her exposed to the mess that infiltrated scouting in my area .
My daughter is 6.
American Heritage Girls or if you are Catholic there’s Little Flowers.
I wouldn’t touch GS with a ten foot pole. Some FReepers claim the local troops aren’t tainted by the radicals at the national level. To me, they’re one in the same. Selling cookies enriches those fruits at the national level & joining any troop gives them #s & therefore street cred.
Try 4H instead. It’s project based and the kids get do some really cool things. It’s not just for farm kids, btw.
What is the name of the Father-daughter program? I have known men to enjoy that with daughters.
You gave me insults. I assumed there wasn’t a need to prohibit them in a one-line post.
Dear God...
you want conformation on a conservative website that it is OK to put your child into the hands of a gay/anti christian/anti morality group and you are offended someone pointed that out?
OK. I think it’s a good idea and I apologize for myself and everyone who isn’t into sacrificing children on the alter of groupthink.
american heritage girls.
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