Leaderboard

Last year, Sophia a Girl Scout reached her goal of selling official Girl Scout cookies in all 50 states. However this year she has reconsidered because of one of the ingredients - palm oil. “So, palm oil causes 2 percent of major deforestation and climate change,” Sophia said, reciting from memory what she found through online research and books. “Because of palm oil, 1,000 to 5,000 orangutans are killed every year. There are also ties to child labor, human trafficking, and slavery in the harvesting of palm fruit.” Learning all this spurred Sophia to action: “One of our main thi

To be fair, most of the merit badge workbooks are 3rd party items. But yes I agree that they are awful.

That workbook, etc... is awful. Just this week I was helping a scout with it. What a disaster. I recall writing a project report not trying to fill in boxes. If I could do one thing at BSA it would be to 86 all workbooks. Scouts is not school. Even in school we don't use workbooks. It isn't 1982 anymore.

Good for her. I don't think I'd worry so much about her GSUSA local council so much as the county health department. I know around here, they take a dim view of selling food stuff in even a "semi professional" manner. Church bake sale, not so much. Cake table auction, mmmmm okay. Publicity, garnering future delivery orders...

It sure is. I just did a little back of the envelope math. We are headed to WDW in Florida this summer. For an 8 day trip its gonna run us about $1700 per person. Disney resort hotel, tickets, food estimate.

Feb 28, 2023: A very interesting letter to the Civilian Marksmanship Program from a archery and firearms instructor regarding building a firearms program with local GSUSA Council. "...I have six girls that have stuck with it, and I have many more wanting to join. We have tryouts in April where we will try to grow the team to 12 girls. We have funded this by each girl paying $5.00 (now $10.00) each practice to cover the cost of ammo and targets. Council did invest to purchase 12 Daisy 599 rifles, and the girls parents purchase them directly from us, at cost, to be on the team. We

Key notation in the ESSP Note that you are not required to provide more details than are necessary for the accomplishment of your project. While the written plan is important and can be useful, again, the requirement is "PLAN". This does not specify how or what is required.

I personally think they should if only to get it to the board chair before the meeting, but the sign off on the project completion only requires the unit leader, not someone from district. And the more physical paperwork moves around, the more there's a chance it'll get lost.

I have also had similarly frustrating run ins with my district advancement chair about excessive forms for eagle, for example that the statement of ambitions and life purpose essay thing must be part of the scoutmaster conference for eagle because it is listed after point 6 and before point 7 in the rank requirements so it must be a part of step 6. Looking at the differences in documentation between the proposal and the project plan, there are questions there that regardless of if the project plan form was used should have an answer. Contingency plans, more detailed budgeting process, job

Normal. Beneficiary usually never sees the "plan". If the beneficiary wants to see more, that should be in the proposal. Now, the proposal might result in "we want to be involved in ... " That's the scout's right, but it's also the EBOR's right to then grill the scout to get the planning details. I've told scouts to fill out the plan to create evidence of planning. That's part of the rank requirement: develop, plan and lead. Without it in the workbook, the EBOR at first-glance sees no planning. That will be motivation to dig in to confirm the scout's planning. That's the E

The Little Guy Stuff refers to the children who are just too young to be Boy Scouts. Here's how I need it, a little guy joins Cub Scouts and is part of an inactive pack or den. Thats clearly the fault of the leader and in a couple of months they quit and never make it to Boy Scouts or Venturing. That's it, done, finished. Or perhaps they are part of the best Pack or Den in the world. They learn to camp, use a map and compass, even build a fire and cook. Great, after a few years of that they move into a Troop and stick around for a couple of years and get board with the Scout stuff and qu