CMinor

Conspiracy theories not being in my line, I wouldn't call it a hidden agenda. If I believed that I'd have voted with my feet a while ago. I do feel that respect for the volunteer is lacking at the management levels, and that a world view that prizes political correctness over good sense and a false pluralism over genuine respect for spirituality seems to be commonplace at those levels. Then again, maybe it's just fear of bad PR and lost funding if the wrong people get the idea we're not PC enough or secular enough. I really did have a friend (not in my current counil) who was unsub

Ooookaayyy... To SagerScout: From what I'm told, you can purchase charms after completing the book, but they're apparently pretty casual about it so you could theoretically get them whether or not you did anything. This has been defended to me in that in some troops, it already happens. The splinter group is American Heritage Girls, which as I understand it was founded after a big schism in an Ohio council several years ago and promotes a "back-to-basics" approach and Judeo-Christian principles (although I think it is non-sectarian.) To ScoutNut: No, I'm afraid we're not very

Hi, thanks for the response. We Scouted at an overseas post for several years ourselves--in some ways it's a different world! I realize that Studio2b is optional, at this point, anyway. My personal suspicion is that there are some at the higher levels who would like to see it and perhaps other equally nutsy innovations as the standard. Problem is, they'd have to drag the rest of us along with them, and I just don't see many of your average Girl Scouters (certainly not in this area) going along with them. What perturbs me is the tendency at the upper levels to make decisions like t

I'm a gung-ho ex-Girl Scout and Scouting mom looking to get back into Girl Scouts after 4 years as a Cub Scout leader. Unfortunately, I now don't have any Girl Scouts to get back into as my Brownie's troop (as well as its Junior affiliate) has just jumped ship en masse and gone over to a splinter organization. The culprit (or last straw?) was apparently the policy changes that accompany the new older Junior/Cadette/Senior program, Studio2b. The main complaint is that the program effectively abolishes the practice of working to earn awards. Others object to the topics (c'mon-a da