After publishing my posts regarding surveys I did about the Daisy and Brownie programs, some people asked "What about the older girls?" thinking that as often happens in Girl Scouts, the older girls were left out. Well, it took a while but I finally did an older girl survey and here are the results.
Who Responded?
Of the 240 responses I got, 13 were from current Girl Scouts. 207 were from current leaders of older girls. 60 were from adults who were Girl Scouts past Juniors. 114 were parents of current or former older Girl Scouts.
About 68% of people picked one of my reasons why they or their girls are still in Girl Scouts. The others 32% had a variety of answers. The choices I gave were:
- Its what they do with that group of friends (13.9%)
- The outdoor activities (19%)
- To work on the Gold for college/career prep (8.7%)
- It's fun (32%)
- Travel (3.9%)
What Are Troops Like?
I received 229 responses when I asked what type of troop current older girls and leaders were involved with. 44.1% said a single-level Cadette, Senior or Ambassador troop. 23.1% were in multi-level troops that were older girls only, and 26.2% were in multi-level troops with younger girls. 2.2% were Juliettes and 4.4% belonged to Mariner or Trailblazer troops.
28.6% of the 234 who responded said their troop started together in Daisies or Brownies and had taken few if any girls since then. 35.5% started in Daisies or Brownies and had taken in a lot of girls since then. 6% started as Juniors or older. 27.4% characterized their troop as a permanent troop that had girls joining and leaving all the time.
The last year plus has been wonky because of Covid, but I listed several activities and asked if their troops had done them in the last year. 29.8% had done an online STEM program, 48.8% participated in some other type of online award earning program, 87.8% did some sort of outdoor activity besides a meeting and 52.2% did some sort of overnight.
About 1/6 of the people who responded to my question about what they do at meetings wrote in an answer. Many boiled down to "a lot of different things". The responses I gave got these these votes:
- We spend a lot of time socializing but work on a few badge requirements (14.8%)
- We pick activities we want to do and spend our meeting either doing them or preparing to do them. We are over badges and patches (20.8%)
- We are always working toward something we can put on our vest, be it a badge, Journey, pin, higher award or fun patch (31.8%)
- Meet at least twice a month (202/35)
- Camp at least once a year (191/44)
- Do outdoor things outside of camping (193/45)
- Travel out of town at least once a year (137/98)
- Do cookie booths (217/20)
- Help with younger girls (186/49)
- Do things with other older girl troops (98/136)
- Take a large trip every few years (94/137)
Money
- We earn at least one of the badges relating to business skills and cookie sales per year (49.6%)
- We talk a lot about business skills and cookie sales but don't necessarily earn badges (16.2%)
- Other than signing up for booths, we don't talk about cookies at meetings---been there, done that. (34.2%0
We are a multi-level troop, K through 9th. We are also a badge earning troop, and we meet weekly. Our troop is funded through patrons and cookie sales, and due to our girls' situations, cookie sales are almost entirely through booths. So, we HAVE to promote the cookie sale, and the badges are the best way to do that. However. The new older girl cookie badges push the whole digital platform, and that is not an option for most of our girls. Between poverty of themselves and their families, not eating sweets in their culture, and lack of internet access, they won't be going digital. So, older girl cookie badges are now out of reach for all but one of our members. Oh, and the family pin? Requires earning one of the cookie badges, at least for Cadette. So that's now out of reach, too. I don't mind a few badges that are out of reach due to budget, but COOKIE badges should be accessible to all.
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