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To further clarify what PinkPajamas said: Girl Scouts does not (well, has not for a very very very long time) had ranks in the same sense that Boy Scouts does.   Girl Scouts have "age levels"   D

That document does not say that a girl must participate in the cookie sale to earn gold award.   The requirment is that participation in both the cookie sale and the fall product sale is required in o

I guess I will have to retire from this thread and retire my dog. I do find humor in the fact that in the end I wasnt enough of a pompous, arrogant, pedantic, closeminded bookthumper to satisfy FOG. He does have tough standards to measure up to.

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No OGE you are all those things. You simply have not recieved your official FOG decoder book.

It is set up like a dictionary but each word corresponds to a letter. Here let me look it up for you.

pompous=R, arrogant=I, pedantic=G, closeminded=H bookthumper=T.

 

:)

Bob White(This message has been edited by Bob White)

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  • 15 years later...

Both Eagle award and Gold award are two different awards, both target the community as service projects. However, the means to reach each award is different, and so is its executions. Here is a side by side comparison using both national authentic websites.


Boy Scout- Eagle Scout as a Rank requirements (according to scouting.org)

- 6 month life scout 
- Serve position as life scout
- Must complete 21 merit badges 
- Scoutmaster conference 
- Completed the Eagle Scout service project workbook
- Plan, develop, lead a service project helping community not of Boy Scouts 
- Does not have to attack a root issue of a community, but benefit community 
- At least group of three people (two do not have to be in scouting)
- No time requirements since The hours point to level of excellence 
- no requirement a project must have lasting value


Girl Scouts- Gold Award requirements (according to Girl Scouts.org)

- have been a cadette 
- Have earned the Girl Scout Silver Award
- must participate in the Fall Product and Cookie Programs, and earn the participation patches for both programs.
- Attended the gold award workshop
- complete a senior/ ambassador journey book 
- Plan, develop, lead a service project helping community not of Girl Scouts 
- Must attack root issue of community and benefit community 
- Work alone only and must build a team to lead
- work a minimum of 80 hours in the service project 
- Must have lasting value beyond girl involvement

 

 major differences: 

- Boy Scouts must have 21 merit badges, girls must earn participation patches for fall product and cookie sales 

- Girl Scouts must work alone, Boy Scouts may work with two other people 

- Girl Scouts must attack a root issue, Boy Scouts have to benefit an organization/community

- Girl Scouts have 80 hour minimum, Boy Scouts do not have time requirements 

 

Comparison: 

Comparing the service project requirements between the Eagle and the Gold, the Gold Award service project is undeniably more rigorous to attain than the Eagle service project. To attain the approval, girls must work 80 hours alone, while boys work in teams with no specific hour requirement.

Although Girl Scouts do have ranks called “Dens” (daisies, brownies, juniors, cadetes, seniors, and ambassadors), there is no “Gold Award Ambassador” as a rank. The Gold Award is only a Award, and the girl becomes a Gold Awardee. Award for the service project requirements can be comparable, but only boys have rank requirements (award requires project, rank requires 21 merit badges). 

If we are comparing title, the Gold Award do have approximately the same requirements as the Eagle Scout Rank. Therefore, Girls do about the same work for a lesser label. 

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Without trying to dredge up an argument on a 6 year old thread, a couple things stood out to me. *Disclaimer* I am not an expert on either award (especially the GSUSA Gold Award). These points are based on my current understanding, please correct me if I'm mistaken (I'm sure someone will).

1. Because of the nature on how BSA rank works vs GSUSA's advancement structure, you must include all the BSA rank requirements (including Scout-Life requirements) in reflecting on the full process of earning Eagle.

2. Is there really a Cookie requirement to earn Gold? 

7 hours ago, Scoutero0 said:

Girl Scouts- Gold Award requirements (according to Girl Scouts.org)

- must participate in the Fall Product and Cookie Programs, and earn the participation patches for both programs.

 

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To earn the Gold Award girls must finish either two Senior/Ambassador Journeys OR their Silver Award and one Senior/Ambassador Journey

Girls and their troop leaders or parents must attend a Gold Award Workshop

Do their project

 

There is nothing about cookie sales. Furthermore those journey's can be signed off by any parent or troop leader there isn't a merit badge type person making sure they were done to any standard. We plan on re-signing our daughter up (if she wants it) for one year when she's older to get this award. 

Edited to add that you don't "earn" advancement in Girl Scouts, you age into it, so if you sign an 11th grader up for girl scouts they're at the highest level. In my opinion this is the difference between Eagle and Gold. You have to meet the requirements for every level before applying to be an Eagle Scout not just sign your kid up at Life Scout. 

 

Edited by PinkPajamas
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2 hours ago, PinkPajamas said:

Edited to add that you don't "earn" advancement in Girl Scouts, you age into it, so if you sign an 11th grader up for girl scouts they're at the highest level.

To further clarify what PinkPajamas said:

Girl Scouts does not (well, has not for a very very very long time) had ranks in the same sense that Boy Scouts does.   Girl Scouts have "age levels"   Daisy, Brownie, Junior, Cadette, Senior, Ambassador.  What age level a girl is in depends only on her age/grade.  They should not be thought of as "ranks".  Moving from one to another is based solely on age/grade.

2 hours ago, PinkPajamas said:

You have to meet the requirements for every level before applying to be an Eagle Scout not just sign your kid up at Life Scout.

So, for a fair comparison,  you should compare the sum of Scout+Tenderfoot+ . . . +Life+Eagle requirments with the Gold Award Requirements.      

In my ignorance (am still learning about the path to Eagle,  and have not looked in detail at Gold Award requirements for decades)  it seems that for Gold Award,  the project is the main thing, with a little warm-up in the way of two Journeys with their smaller projects.   But for Eagle, the project is the finishing touch on a long path of skill building and service.

Edited by Treflienne
A postscript: so comparing Eagle to Gold is a little like comparing apples to oranges.
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Participate in the fall and spring sales is required for earning the award. Something has to be sold to get the participation award. However, It is not required to sell hundreds of boxes.

https://www.girlscoutsla.org/content/dam/girlscouts-girlscoutsla/documents/product-sales/cookies/Cookie Program 2018/FAQs Participation Definition FINAL 2.pdf

Earning the silver award is not mandatory. To compensate, Girl must complete double the mandatory book amount. 

https://www.girlscouts.org/gogoldonline/

You do earn patches for completing journeys. They look like this: 

https://www.girlscoutshop.com/search?keywords=Journey patch

Going to the workshop is still mandatory to complete the gold award:

https://www.girlscoutsla.org/en/events-repository/2017/gold_award_workshop_246401942.html

 

Comparing service projects solely, the Gold Award is more rigorous.

Comparing the award, is more difficult with differences in the structure of the programs. 

 

Unanimously, however, It it is a shame that the Gold Award is not highly recognized as the Eagle award. In some scholarships I had applied to, I could only check off “Eagle award” as a characteristic with no Gold Award to check out. It’s somewhat disheartening. Keeping its name now hopefully will grow its recognition.

 

3 hours ago, PinkPajamas said:

We plan on re-signing our daughter up (if she wants it) for one year when she's older to get this award. 

Congratulations to your daughter who will earn her award in the future. Please encourage her since the award is definitely one that allowed me to gain qualities I wouldn’t have otherwise. 

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My daughter's experience along with many others is that the approval board is a bunch of women who are very political and catty.  They provided almost zero feedback and where the bottleneck continually refusing her project with no clear communication and gaps of 4 weeks in between communications.  My daughter just stopped because she had more important things to focus on like school and is now very happy at a top tier engineering college and mentors girls.  She also based on her experience mentors them to not join girl scouts.  In her opinion they are an organization around to make the girls sell things, leaders have no guidance and do whatever they want, and do not provide opportunities to girls.

 

And frankly from my point of view of her experience and others locally, she is right on target.   And I should mention that the scout earns 10% of the cookie sale vs. 33% for popcorn.  Anyone know the numbers that go to the girl scout organization for that same box?

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7 minutes ago, mashmaster said:

She also based on her experience mentors them to not join girl scouts.

Some girls definitely have a harder time than others in Girl scouting and each council is very different. Whether it’d be precedent, culture, unanimous issues, there must be a reason that council is acting differently than they should— I would have reported an issue. Communicating four weeks apart is merely unacceptable. 

My experience has been different— my councilor and I keep in touch daily. I do understand that selling cookies is meant to grow leadership and money knowledge. I have always kept track of the money I sold and how to maximize the sell of cookies as a learning experience. 

However, It is is also disheartening to know that there are people advising others not to join for a bad experience. Avoiding something completely prevents any type of endeavor to take place, and cuts any chances of possibility. If I were mentored to not join, I would be a completely different person since the program helped me grow in ways with my project. Delete the project from my life, I would probably not be in the same high tier I believe I am in. Sympathies to your daughter.

I hope you can find yourself taking action. Here are links that might help.

https://www.girlscouts.org/en/contact-us/contact-us/council-support.html

https://www.girlscouts.org/en/contact-us/contact-us/customer-support.html

https://www.girlscouts.org/en/contact-us/contact-us/report-infringement.html

 

Cookie percentages: 

27% covers transportation costs ($1.08 of $4 box)

21% goes directly to troop for supplies  ($0.84)

19% goes to train volunteers ($0.76)

15% upgrades camps and subsidize costs for needy scouts ($0.61)

12% goes to leadership programs ($0.49)

6% goes to local administrative offices and support ($0.22)

 

These percentages are found online. 

https://minnesota.cbslocal.com/2014/02/03/good-question-where-does-girl-scout-cookie-money-go-2/

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30 minutes ago, Scoutero0 said:

... Unanimously, however, It it is a shame that the Gold Award is not highly recognized as the Eagle award. In some scholarships I had applied to, I could only check off “Eagle award” as a characteristic with no Gold Award to check out. It’s somewhat disheartening. Keeping its name now hopefully will grow its recognition. ...

@Scoutero0 welcome to the forums!

I hope that you weren't discouraged about those check-boxes in scholarship applications. Just because an award isn't on the list doesn't mean it's not esteemed as highly. Eagle ranks are awarded in the thousands per month, and there has been an century-long campaign promoting it. That's why it gets its own box. Chances are, the old folks who are fronting the money for the scholarship were or knew of an Eagle scout. I talk to ex-military around town, and they tell me about how they watched the Eagle scouts in basic training excel. For some of these guys and gals they'd have only known First Class girl scouts. But, if a girl writes in her awards and can articulate the impact on her, she'll be on as good or better standing as any boy who checks a box.

I was very proud of my venturers who earned a Gold Award. Some of them really got us all mobilized to do some neat bits of good in the world.  If they had a chance to join a BSA troop, earn 1st Class, then transfer to my crew and earn Eagle, I don't know as I would have encouraged them to do so if they were active in a good GS/USA troop.

My daughter was not at all pleased with the GS/USA troop that she could join, and she was not allowed to join the troop that she liked. She enjoyed our crew and our council's venturing officer's association. I encouraged her to try for the venturing awards, but her mind was on starting college early instead.

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25 minutes ago, Scoutero0 said:

Some girls definitely have a harder time than others in Girl scouting and each council is very different. Whether it’d be precedent, culture, unanimous issues, there must be a reason that council is acting differently than they should— I would have reported an issue. Communicating four weeks apart is merely unacceptable. 

My experience has been different— my councilor and I keep in touch daily. I do understand that selling cookies is meant to grow leadership and money knowledge. I have always kept track of the money I sold and how to maximize the sell of cookies as a learning experience. 

However, It is is also disheartening to know that there are people advising others not to join for a bad experience. Avoiding something completely prevents any type of endeavor to take place, and cuts any chances of possibility. If I were mentored to not join, I would be a completely different person since the program helped me grow in ways with my project. Delete the project from my life, I would probably not be in the same high tier I believe I am in. Sympathies to your daughter.

 

We did report it with zero action from them.  In fact, they berated my daughter at the monthly meeting when they reviewed it next.    That is when I stepped in and called them out and spoke up.  They called me to apologize, and I told them to apologize to my daughter , which they didn't.

I am happy it worked for you and I won't tell my daughter to not mentor the girls in the way that she sees based on her experience.  The girls she mentors get to work with girls in engineering colleges to help make the world a better place.

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14 hours ago, Scoutero0 said:

Girl Scouts- Gold Award requirements (according to Girl Scouts.org)

- have been a cadette 
- Have earned the Girl Scout Silver Award
- must participate in the Fall Product and Cookie Programs, and earn the participation patches for both programs.

I've never heard that having been a Cadette was prereq for Gold.

There is an alternative to have earned Silver -- doing an extra Journey instead.

I've never heard that participation in Fall Product Sale and Cookie sale is a requirement.

Where are you getting these from?  Are they specific to your council?

Edited by Treflienne
typos
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