It's been nearly six months since I left Girl Scouts. I generally try to stay away from posting heavy personal feelings and emotions, but I've had enough. This wonderful organization that I grew up in, respected, and loved has turned into nothing more than a business. The slogan years ago was "It's all about the Girl"...today's slogan might as well be "It's just about the money"! I had wonderful experiences as a girl, traveling to many different places, visiting many sites around Minnesota as well as going to a World's Fair in 1982 in Knoxville, TN. On that trip we stopped at the Sear's Tower in Chicago, going to the top, then touring the Little Brownie Baker GS cookie factory, then the Smokey Mountains, Cumberland Gap etc. A very wonderful and timeless memory I have, among others. I absolutely loved meeting other girls as well, at camp, area activities, trips etc. I became a lifetime member courtesy of my mom as a birthday present in '98. As an adult volunteer from 2002-2006 in St. James, MN I met some extremely awesome ladies, with whom I still keep in touch with! It was such a great time there. One highlight when I was there was earning the Outstanding Volunteer Award in which you are nominated by your peers. Truly an honor! The other thing while I was there was being selected as a National Delegate, as it turns out, my application essay blew away the nominating committee by storm and put myself at the top of their list to go. Attending the convention as a delegate vs. a non-delegate, which I was in LA in 2002, was incredible because it was an historic convention, altering the mission statement and so on. I absolutely loved being an adult volunteer in St. James, MN those years.
It was during those years however, that National began their quest to change/update the organization. In 2005 it was made official that councils will be realigning. All but one did. The one council that kept their same boundaries as before is in WI. I had an early scoop on what was going down and I was not happy about it in any way. My opinion was when this happened the rural would be lost in the urban.....and guess what....IT HAS! No one I talked to was in favor of this merging of councils...and I do mean no one!
So now fast forward to 2009. I read about an opening for a Membership Outreach Specialist for the council I was in here in South Dakota. I applied and I was fortunate enough to get the job. I was on cloud nine because finally, the organization that I loved so dearly I was now working for. Keep in mind I had a break from volunteering for nearly three years, so I wasn't quite aware of how the changes were made with the realignment. Some things, few things, were still the same as pre-merger, but many things had changed. The position of Membership Outreach Specialist was half membership and half outreach, but in reality they were both full-time positions. I was in an 80 hr/wk position with only 40 hrs/wk to get the job done. I will admit I did struggle on some things and I didn't do my job 100%, I did try, but seriously, who could do a job 100% when you have to get the job done in half the time? Something is going to lag behind no matter who is in the position. The gal before me even struggled! I know I did succeed at things too. I increased by double the outreach membership from the year before as well as increase membership in my membership area's. One thing I noticed though, when I traveled to my area's there were more volunteers, a lot more, that were so disgusted with the merger and refused to participate in council events etc. One volunteer was so pissed off she quit after she heard our CEO in a conversation with other staff tell them that we cannot be concerned about those smaller towns because they don't give us the numbers we're looking for...we need to focus on those larger communities where we can get higher numbers. Well that put me in a situation. How do you try to explain that when the volunteer calls bitching at you about it. Our own CEO! And I heard this quit often...numbers numbers numbers because that means more MONEY!!!!! No mention about the girl, just the numbers and money!!! Hmmm, I began rethinking what this organization was all about and what it was all about...the girl...was no longer it. It was all about numbers and money now.
There was so much inconsistency working there as well. We need to be doing recruitments in the larger communities 'where we can get the numbers' and leave those 'smaller communities alone', 'those communities can 'travel' to the larger ones is what we heard from out boss. So I didn't do a recruitment in a town of 2000 bc we were told not too and it's so close to Sioux Falls. We were told this weekly throughout the summer and through August. So my boss comes up to me in late August and questions me about why I wasn't doing a recruitment in this small town? Ok, so really, how the heck are we supposed to be doing our job when you keep changing everything? Another thing, we have what we called a 'shop in a box' where we would have basically novelty items from our shop to sell at recruitments etc. We were always told not to take this to locations within 20 miles of the office bc they could just come to the office and get their stuff. Again, this was told to us many different times. So on the day of my recruitment in Harrisburg my boss asks me if I'm taking the 'shop in a box' there. I said no bc of what we were told time and again by her and she then says 'well you need to take one' and later grips bc I got it together so last minute. GRRR! And yet again...how are we supposed to do our flipping jobs? And living by the Girl Scout Law was non-existent. There was no role-modeling of the Girl Scout Law there. I mean it was such horse crap and quite frankly my supervisor was the worst boss I have ever had, so inconsistent and very little direction, very little leadership, and she lies! She lied right in front of me to the Chief Membership Officer...her supervisor. I know this bc it was a situation that involved me and driving. She wasn't a supervisor at all!
Once I left there I asked to be removed from the mailing lists, land and email. For the most part I have not received anything from them, but today in the mail, in an 8.5" by 11" manila envelope I get one, yes ONE sheet of paper expressing their "appreciation" of being a volunteer. It cost them $.88 to mail the dam thing and for constantly hearing about how tight they are with their money I didn't get why it was even mailed? And I'm just one of thousands of ppl registered as a volunteer. Crips, it took them a whole year just to get my membership transfered from the bordering council I was in prior to moving to this one.
I honestly have no ambition to do anything ever again with the organization and neither does my daughter, who never liked it over here ever. What a completely different and horrible experience than what I had in MN! Very disappointing!
Ok, that's my ranting/venting. I have had enough about the organization and no longer wanted to remain quiet about it. Their whole purpose has totally changed and I didn't agree with it. To me it was still about the girl, not the numbers or the money as it clearly is now!
