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North Face to develop GS outdoor adventure program


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Jun 13, 2018 Outside Magazine and gsblog

Girl Scouts recently announced a new adventure-oriented collaboration with The North Face. With 12 new adventure badges, it will be the largest national organization to offer skills like trail running, mountaineering, rock climbing, and backpacking specifically for girls.

Still in the development and piloting phase, the badges will be available to earn as early as summer 2019 for girls from kindergarten to senior year of high school. The North Face is developing the programming alongside GSUSA, offering its outdoor expertise to the 106-year-old organization. The partnership bolsters The North Face’s Moves Mountains initiative, which aims to elevate the stories of female role models in the outdoors and beyond. GSUSA, for its part, seem to be responding to continued requests for more adventurous and skill-based curriculum.

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At Girl Scouts, we believe there are never too many opportunities for girls to experience the great outdoors and all the wonder and adventure it offers. The research is clear: outdoor experiences are imperative to fostering leadership skills in girls. 

And we’re the experts in this space—spending time in the outdoors is a cornerstone of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience and has been since Girl Scouts’ inception. Our all-girl environment and proven programming show girls the benefits of spending time in the world beyond walls in ways that encourage them to take healthy risks and overcome their fears.

https://www.outsideonline.com/2317301/are-girl-scouts-getting-more-adventurous

http://blog.girlscouts.org/2018/04/the-north-face-and-girl-scouts.html

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My GS/CS daughter won one the national competitions associated with this collaboration last week. She will get a prize package from The North Face worth up to $500.   https://www.girlscouts.

Heh, SOMEONE has to try and live up to Mike Rowe's safe space challenge.  

OH. HECK. NO! He needs to get his butt out and practice, practice, practice. He will be a hindrance, and can cause major problems if he cannot pull his own weight. Been there. Done that. got hypo

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... why do they need North Face to help?

Oh, I know I know! 

Because they are urgently and increasingly desperate to portray their program as equal or superior to those coming from the BSA, and are grasping at whatever straws they can to preserve their membership? :o

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16 minutes ago, MattR said:

Good. Competition will float all the boats.

But it's rich that they say they're experts at it. If so, why do they need North Face to help?

You must have missed the all girl qualifier on that expertise. On a national basis their only real competition would be the YMCA.

The Girl Scout Canoe base started in the 60's in a rented building at Northern Tier. My wife, did bike touring trips across both VT and Cape Cod as a GS. The GS offer a lot of "high adventure" trips and in contrast to Scouting BSA these are open to either individual girls or troops as a matter of course.

To take the Boundary Waters as an example. Northern Tier runs something like 750 crews into the BWCA,  a few years ago when I talked to the GS at our outdoor expo they were running a 100+, and YMCA Camp Widji was running around 150 crew evenly divided between genders. YMCA Camp Menogyn runs plenty of single sex canoe and backpacking treks from the North Shore. YMCA Camp Manitowish runs plenty of girl canoe and backpack treks from within 6 miles of the old Region 7 Canoe Base.. Presumably YMCA camps have similar gender divided stuff else where, but they are the only national competition for the GS and I can completely believe that the GS have a much stronger national portfolio. 

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2 hours ago, RememberSchiff said:

it will be the largest national organization to offer skills like trail running, mountaineering, rock climbing, and backpacking specifically for girls.

That will be correct. BSA does not yet have a program covering those topics “specifically for girls,” and won’t until Feb. 1, 2019. Once that date rolls around, BSA will be the “largest national organization” to do so.

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40 minutes ago, oldbuzzard said:

Presumably YMCA camps have similar gender divided stuff else where, but they are the only national competition for the GS and I can completely believe that the GS have a much stronger national portfolio. 

That’s great that GSUSA has those high-adventure opportunities! Can I ask what you mean by “a much stronger national portfolio”? 

The key difference between GSUSA and BSA to me is that outdoor adventure is not a central and universal part of the GSUSA program nationwide. Whether a Girl Scout goes camping, and the quality of her experience doing so, is entirely in the hands of the adult leaders. My daughter was in it for three years and never even went day hiking. By contrast, you can’t advance in the future Scouts BSA without going camping.

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14 hours ago, shortridge said:

Whether a Girl Scout goes camping, and the quality of her experience doing so, is entirely in the hands of the adult leaders. My daughter was in it for three years and never even went day hiking. By contrast, you can’t advance in the future Scouts BSA without going camping.

"entirely in the hands of the adult leaders"?  Actually no.   If the majority of the girls in a troop don't want to camp, then they can vote down any camping plans,  even if the adult leaders are willing to camp.  (Happened to my daughter.)

However I basically agree with shortridge.  If the adults are unwilling to camp then the troop does not camp, no matter what the girls want.  

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On 6/13/2018 at 10:04 PM, RememberSchiff said:

Girl Scouts recently announced a new adventure-oriented collaboration with The North Face.

My GS/CS daughter won one the national competitions associated with this collaboration last week. She will get a prize package from The North Face worth up to $500.

 

https://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/ways-to-participate/camp-and-outdoors/gs-outdoors.html

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2 hours ago, Hawkwin said:

My GS/CS daughter won one the national competitions associated with this collaboration last week. She will get a prize package from The North Face worth up to $500.

 

https://www.girlscouts.org/en/our-program/ways-to-participate/camp-and-outdoors/gs-outdoors.html

Nice page, it's a shame that several of the photos illustrate putting kids at risk, and probably not healthy risks.  The horse ones in particular, shorts, tennis shoes in the stirrup, no helmet.   

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18 hours ago, RichardB said:

Nice page, it's a shame that several of the photos illustrate putting kids at risk, and probably not healthy risks.  The horse ones in particular, shorts, tennis shoes in the stirrup, no helmet.   

Why? Are they jumping?

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On 6/22/2018 at 3:48 PM, RichardB said:

Nice page, it's a shame that several of the photos illustrate putting kids at risk, and probably not healthy risks.  The horse ones in particular, shorts, tennis shoes in the stirrup, no helmet.   

Heh, SOMEONE has to try and live up to Mike Rowe's safe space challenge.

 

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1 hour ago, qwazse said:

What GS/USA does not offer that would really help young women get a good footing in the male workspace: interaction with young men.

 

Oh, I disagree.  I think girls can get a lot of confidence and practice in gaining skills that they would often defer to boys.  They then enter the workplace with the confidence needed to succeed.  

I had a great Girl Scout experience that included a ton of camping.  Our leader was a single mother who was pretty overwhelmed— she was incredibly hands off.  We were just able to do what we wanted.  We planned it on our own, camped on our own, went on several large trips on our own.  However, I agree that Girl Scout camping is much more dependent on the specific group.  It’s not a universal thing.

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On 6/14/2018 at 12:27 AM, shortridge said:

That will be correct. BSA does not yet have a program covering those topics “specifically for girls,” and won’t until Feb. 1, 2019. Once that date rolls around, BSA will be the “largest national organization” to do so.

You need to get on-board with the expected offerings, the BSA program will not be "specifically for girls"...the BSA program will be the same for Boys and Girls and there will be NO CHANGES to the current program with the addition of girls to the program

The FAQ (15+ pages I might add) on Family Scouting states that and if it says it is so...it is so

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