How Many Girls Earn the Gold Award?

Every so often a topic that makes the rounds on Girl Scout Facebook groups is our higher awards--the Gold, Silver and Bronze awards--and how they compare, at least prestige-wise to BSA's Eagle.  One thing I've noted over the years both by observation of my parish's troop and by on-line conversations, is that a reasonably high percent of boys (now youth) who stick with BSA through high school seem to earn the Eagle, whereas it seems that few girls earn Gold.

Today I got my council's Annual Report, and I decided to do some math.  For the record, I'm a word person, not a numbers person.  I have made a lot of assumptions in my figures and the post will tell you what those assumptions are, but I'll tell you right now I know they aren't super accurate. They are easy, and I think get me close to where I want to be without needing to borrow my daughter's graphing calculator.

Girl Scouts Louisiana East had 10,281 girl members during the covered year.  Of those 24% were Juniors, 12% were Cadettes, 3% were Seniors and 2% were Ambassadors. 

My Virtual Meetings

I have a troop of 16 girls--6 Daisies and 10 Brownies.  Generally I have very good attendance--usually no more than 2 or 3 girls absent per meeting.  This is our third weekend under a "stay at home" order and we've missed one meeting so far and will miss another this week.  We will also miss one more this month.  Our camping trip was cancelled and who knows when or if we'll have a summer cookie event.  On the plus side, our cookies were gone before this all got going, so we didn't have that to worry about.

I'm used to going places and doing things, not sitting at home all the time.  In some ways I like working at my kitchen table--though I admit it would be hard to do if I had small kids.  Since all I have is a teenager who does her own virtual schoolwork, I don't have a problem getting my work done.  The commute is great and I love the dress code.  On the other hand, even though (or maybe because?) I'm an introvert, I miss the people.  I have my own office and like it that way, but it is nice to say hi to people as I head to the restroom or kitchen or to get something in another part of the office.  Here, it is me and my computers.