Come Celebrate 100 Years of Girl Scouting at Camp High Point

Many of you read my letter to the Girl Scouts USA a month or so ago. It gives me great pride to shout to the world that the persistence and full hearts of a few good women have persuaded the powers that be to allow a volunteer-led camp week at Camp High Point in Mena, Arkansas this year.  READ ON TO GET THE 411!

Packer is the beauty on the left...
she's also my sister BY LAW!

A Special Message from the Camp Director, Packer!

As March 2012 approaches, and we, as Girl Scouts, turn our focus on celebrating Girl Scouting's 100th year in the United States, I can't help but to think how excited Juliette Gordon Low must have been on that day when she phoned her cousin and said, "Come right over, I've got something for the girls of Savannah and all America and all the world and we're going to start it tonight!" Today, I feel that same excitement as I share with you the opportunity to experience Girl Scouting at Camp High Point 2012.

For 100 years, Girl Scout camp has been an honored tradition of the Girl Scout program; Camp High Point has been a part of that tradition since 1946! This year, I invite you to continue the tradition and spend a week at Camp High Point enjoying everything camp! Some of the camptivities (activities you do at camp) planned include exploring traditional camp skills, such as hiking, knot tying, fire building, tent pitching, and outdoor cooking. You will have the opportunity to stargaze, canoe, make crafts, play sports, sing, make S'mores 'round the fire, have a sleep-out "under the stars" in the Meadow or "with the stars" in one of the Sky Houses, and enjoy a campfire at Lone Pine. The pool will not be available, so the Creek that meanders through the camp property will be your source of water fun for the week! Oh, and I almost forgot to mention all the friends you'll make--silver and gold!

The camp staff for Camp High Point 2012 is unique because it is a group of Girl Scout volunteers who have a special place for Camp High Point in their hearts. Collectively, they bring more than 100 years of experience to camp. Many of the staff attended summer camp at Camp High Point as a girl, trained through the Counselor-in-Training program, and spent summers there as staff. Others fell in love with Camp High Point after sending their own daughters to camp. Still others "caught the fever" of High Point just by hearing of the wonderful things Girl Scouting has to offer in the program. The experience and interests of these volunteers will offer a comprehensive camp program--straight from the heart! Each volunteer must pass a background check through Girl Scouts-Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma, and Texas. So no mater if this is your first year, fifth year, or 25th year, come out and join us--let Camp High Point be the camp of your dreams!!! See you in June!

Packer--AKA Dana Moore

Tough Cookies--A Letter to the CEO of GSUSA

Dear Kathy Cloninger, CEO, Girl Scouts of the United States of America:

In your book, Tough Cookies: Leadership Lessons from 100 Years of the Girl Scouts, you wrote, "If we in the United States want our girls to be confident in themselves and make the most of their inborn potential, we need to wake up to roadblocks we're putting in their way as they try to grow up into their real selves." What if some of those roadblocks are being put in place by GSUSA? What if the voices of girls raised in the Girl Scout Way are being ignored by the very organization that's supposed to be their proponent? What if, in requests to the council CEO and board, the response to our requests is, "Tough Cookies?"

For more than a year, my sister-in-law, Packer, a leader in Girl Scouting, a lifetime Girl Scout, and lifetime member of GSUSA, has been pleading with the Diamond Council in Arkansas to hear her concerns for the girl scouts, the leaders and the properties that formerly made up the Conifer Council. The needs of these young women and their leaders are not being met by the newly formed Diamond Council with regard to programming at the council level. Nor has the usual training for their leaders been as thorough as it was with the Conifer Council (only three training sessions offered in Texarkana from September to December 2011). Now, as if to add injury to insult, it has been decided by a "Board," without inquiry to their constituents, that the Camp High Point Property in Mena, Arkansas, will not be offering summer resident programming for the first time since it opened in 1946. To me, this is unacceptable at any juncture but especially on the 100th anniversary of the GSUSA. 

Denise Stewart, CEO of Girl Scouts--Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas stated in an e-mail to Packer, "There was not a lot of discussion about this issue [not offering resident programming at Camp High Point]." Packer and I both admit that we have not been privy to the "facts and figures" that lead the board to make their decisions (in fact, the Annual Report that is supposed to be on the council's web site, is missing). Nevertheless, when such monumental decisions are made, shouldn't the voice of our girls and their leaders be taken seriously? Shouldn't we honor their opinions and give them an opportunity to find solutions? Shouldn't discussion be more than "not a lot?"

Packer has weathered the last three years during the merger and reorganization of GSUSA and continued to lead our troop of girls the way Juliette Lowe would have dreamed. I foresee her always being a girl scout because it is part of who she is. However, I am speaking up for her and our girls because no one should devote as much time to something they love as Packer loves Girl Scouting and feel like it breaks her heart and tears at her soul in return for her devotion. I have no suggestions for how to help Packer and the Girl Scouts of the New Boston, Hooks, and Texarkana area. I just wanted you to know that there are girls and women invested in Girl Scouting who are not having their needs met or their voices heard.

Sincerely,
Jaimee
Girl Scout and Mother and Sister to Girl Scouts

Tough Cookies...

Amazon.com

As her birthday present this year, I purchased this book for my SisterWhoChoseMyBrother, the consummate Girl Scout...in fact, I will use her GS Camp name for her from now on--Packer. Packer told me at Thanksgiving that she read it in a week and wanted me to read it too. Packer said, "It helped me understand why we did what we did." I finally started it last night, and only one chapter in, I am moved.

Background: When the Girl Scouts reorganized a few years ago, there were a lot of hurt feelings and deep concerns about what it meant for girl scouting in the US. Packer and I were among those who worried over our girls (at that time a troop of 23 Brownies). With life changes, I unfortunately left Packer to muster on without me, and it's one of the only regrets I have in life and wish were different. Nevertheless, Packer always makes the best lemonade out of lemons...always has, always will. She is an inspiration to everyone who knows her. I'll get back to my point...

I am moved to encourage everyone to read Tough Cookies. It is written by the CEO of Girl Scouts of the US, and the point that she hit home with me was this: our nation is split evenly between men and women, 50/50. Why then is the female CEO position only sitting at 3%? Why is our federal legislature only 17% female. This is not a manifesto of how the women should rule the world. Simply put, and anyone who is blessed to be in an equal partnership at home knows, men and women should work together equally to change our nation.

For a country that was founded in the throws of equal representation, I am a little concerned that it's taken this long to figure out that times may be different from the 1950's, but we are still not equally represented. I don't think that quotas are called for. I really don't know what we should be doing. It's like I woke up from a really inspirational dream this morning and am set to find a way to make a difference. First step! Encourage everyone to read this book, make your own plan and change the world.