Issues/The Board Violations
- To the GSNEO board, the camps are excess wasteland to be disposed of to the highest bidder.
- For Girl Scouts, camps are a portal to discovery and growth. They are the homelands of our sisterhood. They are places to learn both freedom and responsibility.
- The world is changing. The board believes that classes in leadership, financial literacy, and robotics competition are what girls need. Camp supporters believe that leadership is learned through the experiences of real living for which camps are a training ground. In our world of instant and constant electronic connection, children need camps as places of quiet, of basic challenges, of connection to nature.
Differences of opinion happen in any organization. They can lead to creative resolutions.
- But in GSNEO, the issue is no longer merely about the camps. It's about whether there are any honest values left in the organization. If management (board and senior staff) can do whatever it wants and disregard Girl Scout law, standards, charter, and any resemblance to democratic principles; then what is the point?
Although the new program emphasis is on Girl Leadership, GSNEO management is not qualified to teach it.
Here's why:
- Democracy? What Democracy?
GSNEO board completely ignores the resolution passed by 60% of the General Assembly
- Going out of the way to Squelch Democracy Before it Happens
- The 30 Million Dollar Lie
GSNEO and the magically bouncing estimates: $ 2 million / $ 30 million / $ 19 million / what's next?
- Set Up to Fail
GSNEO procedures in the first 2 years guaranteed low camp usage results.
- How Do You Lose That Many Girls?
Council management misplaced 40% of girl programming: simple incompetence, or hoping that no one would notice?
- Camps flushed down the toilet
lessons in data manipulation
- Throw Them a Bone
What was the point of the Vision 2012 committee?
- "Bullies", "Dissidents," & "Aggression "
The finer points of propaganda - How to re-name "Discover, Connect, Take Action" when you disagree with the people doing it.
- Girl Scouts: Do the Math
GSNEO bloopers when it comes to camp capacity and "silent majority"
- Plan? What plan?
The point of the camp sales was to build PLCs. Except now we're not. Maybe.
- Outright Fairy Tales:
The myth of the "portable observatory" and other stories
- Customer Dis-Service:
Pathway Passes to Nowhere and other horror stories
Disclaimer:
I am a Girl Scout.
I love the Girl Scouting program. I have seen what it's done in the lives of countless girls and women.
It's a foundational program, a sisterhood, an adventure, a treasure.
Which is why I won't stand by silently and watch as it's trampled to death.
I am not against the GSNEO staff. I know and like many of them.
As for the GSNEO board:
- In 2010, I spent hours on the phone and online helping one of the current girl board members get on the ballot as an alternative candidate.
- As part of the Vision 2012 committee, I grew to know and respect the three board members who led the committee. (None of the three are current on the board).
- I do not think that the individual GSNEO board members are terrible people. I recognize that they are volunteers. It is mostly three board members who seem the most determined to push liquidation of the camps. Dan Bragg (former chair), Joan Villarreal (current chair), and Brent Gardner (property committee chair) Coincidentally, all three are from the west region of the council.
- My guess is that many of the board members may have simply trusted whatever flawed presentations they were shown. Since most were not recent Girl Scouts, they would have had no way of knowing that the statistics were not making sense. There was dismay when the board plan was met with such vehement opposition. The spin doctors tried to play the opposition off as nostalgic, emotional, traditionalist, out of step with the times. And then maybe it was pride that kicked in. Maybe they wouldn't listen to the members because they had dug in their heels and didn't like their authority questioned. But that's just conjecture. I don't know. What I do know is that the GSNEO's recently elected chairperson of the board made it clear that as a board, they speak and act as a unified entity. So that is how I will discuss their actions.
- If the board had voted to sell Crowell/Hilaka, I would have disagreed with them, but I would have let it go. But when the board announced their outrageous plan on April 16, 2011, and buttressed it with lies, condescension, and disregard for the members, everything changed. The integrity of Girl Scouting in Northeast Ohio is at stake.
