Report of the 2000 National Campus Girl Scout Conference

June 2-4, 2000
William Paterson University, Wayne, NJ

The first annual Campus Girl Scouts National Conference was hosted by the William Paterson Campus Girl Scout (CGS) group, on June 2-4, 2000. 36 Campus Girl Scouts and 6 advisors attended it. Dana Romatowski was the chair.

FRIDAY: Deconstructing the "Big Green Whale"

On Friday, we went to GSUSA National Headquarters in New York City, where Eileen Doyle, GSUSA Program and Membership Consultant for New Jersey, and Rita Niemeyer, GSUSA Program and Membership Consultant, welcomed us. Rita is responsible for CGS, Gold Awards, national Wider Opportunities, and the Kappa Delta collaboration.  Rita and Eileen supported Dana in planning the conference and helped arrange the GSUSA portion of the weekend.

Sharon Hussey, national director of membership and program, welcomed us to their offices and reaffirmed the national organization’s support for CGS.  She sees a need for a transition device to CGS, one which includes "meaningful programs" and a "support structure from GSUSA" to help overcome our "state of limbo." She also presented Dana, the conference chair, with a certificate of appreciation and a gift.

Sharon’s welcome was followed by a brief lunch with various GSUSA staff, and presentations from Claire Ferrarin and Janice Jacobs on career opportunities in Girl Scouting and networking/informational interviews, respectively.  Gretchen Mullin of the Woodhull Institute for Ethical Leadership for Women also spoke about Woodhull’s Leadership retreats, which focus on advocacy, conflict resolution, financial literacy, mentorship and networking, and effective and ethical writing. 

Then Dee Ebersol, Sports and Fitness Consultant to GSUSA, brought in a prototype kit of the new "GirlSports Basics" program that GSUSA is producing. She also brought in her intern, whom we got to meet. (The HR representatives told us that GSUSA is starting an official internship program, and that even if we don’t hear about it, if interested we should send in résumés anyway and who knows what might happen.)  Dee also told us about several patches for GirlSports, including one on two female cross-country skiers who are crossing Antarctica, and Outward Bound, a group of riders who are going from Seattle to New York.  Both patch programs are available on the web site, www.girlscouts.org.

Next, Judy Seagan told us about international Wider Ops, which sometimes have an age range up to the early twenties, which means CGS members are eligible. She said to contact your council in September for information on 2001 International Wider Ops. Judy also discussed the "Go Global!" resource booklet and patch program for Brownies and Juniors and suggested that we look at it for Thinking Day activities.

Chris Bergerson, who manages the Just for Girls web site, told us she is looking for Internet-savvy interns. She also is looking for material for the new Virtual Campus section of the GSUSA site, such as pictures of your group, activities that groups host, etc. The only issue with pictures is that in order to post any pictures of people (diverse subjects are encouraged), GSUSA must have a signed permission slip for each subject in the picture which includes a clause for electronic posting of any pictures; these should be mailed to GSUSA. CGS information might also be posted on the JFG "What’s happening" page or on the News part of the adult volunteer site. She also suggests that you email her press releases from your group and other news of events; however, there is an approximately two-week (MINIMUM) turnaround time before items get posted. Her email is [email protected].

Chris was one of the biggest hits of the day, fielding all sorts of questions about CGS web sites and getting them linked to the GSUSA home page with its CGS directory. We learned that the GSUSA logo and other trademarked pictures are available with a usage and consent form on the www.girlscouts.org website. Also, GSUSA cannot link to pages which in turn link to personal sites. This is in order to avoid any objectionable content, since the primary users of the GSUSA site are children. Before creating a link, GSUSA must test links "three-deep" on a page. CGS groups are asked to keep this in mind when constructing pages; Chris suggests that you ask your university or council to host your page rather than using a standard commercial service.

Rita went next, presenting the definitions and various roles associated with CGS groups. CGS groups are "a group of young adult volunteers who belong to an officially recognized organization, believe in the Girl Scout movement, [and] are committed to helping girls grow strong through Girl Scouting." She stressed that this definition makes no reference to specific ages, school status, or gender.

We also learned about the roles of each of the parties involved in CGS activities. GSUSA Staff are there to support councils in maintaining, promoting, and supporting CGS groups, through providing national registration of CGS groups, creating and distributing a directory of groups, and providing consultation to both councils and groups. The Council’s job is to promote CGS at institutes of higher learning in their jurisdiction by: assigning a council liaison, working to involve the CGS group in the council’s activities, and supporting the CGS group’s projects. The group, meanwhile, should work in partnership with their liaison to promote Girl Scouting on the campus and in the community, and to support the work of the council in serving girls through Girl Scouting.

Ellen Christie Ach, of the GSUSA Public Relations department, spoke to us next about her role in advancing Girl Scouting. She is always looking for good material to publicize to help spread the word of the organization’s mission; she especially likes to hear about activities that go beyond a single council. For single-council activities, Ellen recommends coordinating the work of your group’s PR officer or university PR department with the work of the council’s PR staff member. She suggests that to make your event more marketable to the media, you should: wear some kind of Girl Scout insignia to the event to make yourself identifiable; hold joint events with other campus groups, other CGS groups, or other council units (there is a "strength in numbers" that attracts media people); or even hold distance-joint events, where several CGS groups hold the same event simultaneously at each of their schools. And above all, when speaking to the media, says Ellen, "Be ready for the dumb questions." She also suggests that we email "reporter’s notes," little mini-articles on our events and activities, to for posting on the web site.

Our final speaker was Judy Logan, who helped us to better understand GSUSA’s new approach to using brand marketing tactics to enhance the organization’s image. We had a brief course on marketing both brands and social goods, then had a quick but spirited debate about the new tag line, "Girl Scouts. Where Girls Grow Strong." The group agreed that the statement was correct, but we were divided over the issue of this being the most correct or applicable statement that one could make about Girl Scouting in the 20^th and 21^st centuries.

QUOTE OF THE DAY: "Many people think that GSUSA is a big green whale—it doesn’t go anywhere very fast. Today we’re trying to show you how it really works here and help you see past that ‘green whale’ myth." Eileen Doyle, GSUSA Membership and Program Consultant

Saturday saw a full day of workshops at the university.  Rita and Eileen came out to present workshops, and brought a fellow National Staff member, Olga Klemfuss, who is a fund development consultant.  Olga explained to us the various ways that councils develop a funding base that is not dependent on product sales, and showed us how we can get involved in making these council programs a success. We split up into small groups to discuss and present different key fund development messages. Olga gave away many valuable prizes to those who contributed "profound remarks" to the discussion, including Jennifer, who had the audacity to kiss up to the GSUSA staff by using the tag line "Where girls grow strong," in her presentation.

Olga’s chief messages to us were that any message needs to be tailored to its prospective audience, and that "If you don’t ask, you probably won’t get it." She also suggested that we look for grant-writing opportunities, which are numerous. Grant writing is a skill which takes practice, and you just may find you have a flair for it.

We had our second dose of PR for the weekend, when Barbara Martin, of WPU’s Office of Public Information, came in to give us a how-to workshop and pointers on publicizing ourselves. PR is the day to day management of an organization’s relationships with its various publics, and it’s all about providing information. We learned how to write a press release and what goes in a media kit for large events. Barbara also suggested we try to ask leaders to help us locate unconventional ‘news outlets’ for distributing information, such as church bulletins, company newsletters, PTA newsletters, and other local publications.

"Focusing on the 3C’s" was our next workshop. The three C’s, campus, community, and council, are the integral parts of the CGS idea, but we rarely stop to think about them as a unit. This session featured a panel of representatives from each category: Barbara Wichot, Service Unit Manager from Wayne, NJ; Robin Parr, Director of Campus Activities at WPU; and Thelma Barnes, staff member of Lenni-Lenapi GSC and the council liaison for the WPU CGS group. Rita also sat on the panel to moderate and also contribute as a GSUSA staff member. The general theme of the discussion is that all three groups must see the CGS group as enhancing their regular activities—so that life with the CGS group is markedly better than life without it. Suggestions from each participant:

Eileen conducted a session on recruitment. She reminded us that there is a difference between episodic volunteers and project volunteers, and that most people are wary of open-ended, broad commitments. They prefer to know specifically what they are volunteering for, how long it will take, etc. We learned about the "4 P’s," Position, People, Place, and Pitch, and how to apply those to a campus setting. She also suggested we consider using the Girl Scout image and tailoring our recruiting and volunteer-seeking activities and messages around that through strategic marketing.

At our banquet, we were privileged to have Ellie Ferdon, immediate past president of GSUSA, as one of our keynote speakers. Ellie’s speech is available here. Ellie also assisted Barbara Wichot, SUM of Wayne, NJ and troop leader, to present seven Cadettes with their Silver Awards. We also heard from Mary Ann Mullin, past president of Lenni-Lenape Girl Scout Council, who is currently a Senior Referral and Information Specialist at GSUSA.

Sunday was a day of conclusions and beginnings. We concluded the conference on a positive note, with a final discussion session with Rita and Eileen, several thousand group pictures, then a barbecue on the quad. People clapped for Dana enough times that she was threatening dire consequences if anyone tried to again.

Rita told us, "We [GSUSA] have a responsibility of working on communication with councils as to what the roles are." To this end, GSUSA will publish, possibly by the end of summer, a "Tip Sheet" (really a small packet) on CGS to be distributed to all councils. This may even be proceeded by a letter from a high GSUSA official, maybe even Marty Evans (GSUSA ED), to explain to councils what CGS is really all about and where we fit in the GSUSA Scheme of Things. However, she cautioned us Saturday on the difficulties of trying to make major changes at GSUSA, saying that "It’s like that story of two elephants mating. It’s done at a very high level, it’s a difficult and painful procedure, and it takes two years to get results!" To facilitate this communication, Rita informed us that there will be two articles in upcoming editions of Leader Magazine: one on CGS in general in the fall issue, and one on the conference(s) in the winter issue. There will also be an article in GSUSA News, which is an internal publication sent to all council staff members each month.

Eileen again reminded us to "COMMUNICATE—INFILTRATE" other campus groups, and the council as well. Bessie, who is a professor of math (and budding CGS liaison) at the Butler County (PA) Community College and Treasurer of Keystone Tall Tree Girl Scout Council, reminded us "There’s another thing out there called the Board of Directors!!," We need to remember that even if council staff aren’t particularly enthused with the idea of starting CGS, sometimes their bosses, the Board Members, are, and it’s worth it to try to contact them.

Beginnings tended to be a lot more subtle, with a couple of exceptions. A forceful debate has begun on a new CGS national logo, with camps forming for both the "Big Green Whale," to be embroidered on shirts where those little green alligators were on your shirts when you were little, and a pair of large elephants, representing the struggle ahead of us with both GSUSA and our own councils. Many new friendships began at this conference, along with what hopefully will become an annual tradition of CGS conferences. Planning has already started for the 2001 Conference, to be held at American University in Washington, DC, from Thursday, May 31, 2001, to Sunday, June 3, 2001, and several groups are already bidding on the 2002 CGS National Conference. We hope to see you all in Washington next year, and until then….

"Mmm-mm, I want to linger, Mmm-mm, a little longer, A little longer here with you…."