Recruitment of Leaders Comments
Comments to the question: "Does your council have difficulty finding leaders to serve all the girls that sign up through recruitment activities? If you answered yes to the above question, what do you think are the main reason(s) for this?"
Comments are presented "as is" from the survey. They have not been edited for spelling or grammar.
Comments are presented "as is" from the survey. They have not been edited for spelling or grammar.
- The program isn't what parents had--and they don't like the lack of traditions. Also looks like it will take MORE time to plan than the old ways.
- two wage earner families. Single parents. The message of GS..it's not cool (very untrue). The propaganda coming from Heritage Girls and other media. Not giving support to leaders and training properly...word spreads you know.
- It is difficult finding engaged adults in our area.
- Not enough volunteers to go around. No one wants to be a leader. I admit myself I just wanted to find a troop for my daughter but when no troop was found after 3 months, I and another mother stepped up.
- We have a huge wait list. Lack of support for leaders. Poor recruitment and training plans.
- the training needs to come from national not council so we have continuity I think this is a huge issue..
- Really hate it when Council cancels activities. Find that the path to get new leaders to sign up and on board is not well documented and rather hap-hazard.
- I don't know.
- Lack of communication. Willing volunteers wait over a year or two to get a troop.
- Not enough effort to try to recruit leaders. Emphasis put on girl numbers and then forced to overfill troops when no parent steps in to lead troop.
- The mentality of the parents that someone else will do it. All the GS paperwork doesnt help the issue
- Council chased most of the seasoned leaders away
- We reduced staff post March 2012 and the impact of that is very difficult. Particularly in rural portions of our council, a staff member must cover far too much geography to be effective and helpful to anyone. We reduced our program staff. Such a shame. We once had stellar program, especially for Cadettes and up. No longer. Our staff are being pushed for numbers of girls, numbers of girls, and numbers of girls. We've got to have attractive program to offer as well. Need to keep the girls we attract and their adult volunteers.
- Confusing program, poor communication and support from the council.
- Trying to satisfy the wants of people who will never belong instead of listening to the wants of the members.
- We need adult recruitment events and marketing more directly focused on being a volunteer.
- I am a leader of two troops. Most parents seem to want their daughters to do Girl Scouts, but almost see it as an extension of babysitting. It is frustrating. It seems that many parents want someone else to teach their child.
- Recuitment in our area is left to the service unit. We are small. The daisies keep coming, but leader pool is fairly stagnant.
- Council is no help in getting adults to volunteer. They just push recruitment of girls, but don't get up here to help find adults. The emphasis of the volunteer doing more so that staff doesn't has gone too far. We have f/t jobs and recruiting volunteers is a f/t job in and of itself.
- Because everyone is under the impression that you have to be a leader to serve the girls and that is just not true. I really play up the episodic volunteer position. I we need troop leaders, but after grade 5 most girls would benefit from another pathway.
- There is so much paperwork. It has a stranglehold on my time. How many more trees can I kill? We take 20 plus trips a year - I have to print 12 permission slips for each one. Trip Approval Forms. Health forms. Can't these things be saved in an online database and be submitted electronically? Sometimes it takes more time to fill out all the forms than to create 1 hour of meeting activities. That's not right!
- No one wants to add anything else to their plate.
- lack of strong mentoring of new leaders - they should be paired with experienced leaders
- More potential leaders are finding themselves more stretched with more moms going back into the work-force once the kids are in school. There is a fear of the time commitment required to lead a troop. I'm not sure there is anything that can be done about this on the council level.
- Our recruitment methods are not effective. Our training (TPO) for new leaders is so jammed packed with "CYA" stuff it simply scares people away. We need more face to face trainings that help a new adult actually do what they need to be doing with girls, not just on bank accounts, safety considerations, rules, paperwork, and cookies.
- need to learn how to recruit volunteers and do that BEFORE recruiting girls
- I don't think volunteers receive enough support from staff in our area and others. Many responsibilities now fall only to volunteers, who are already stretched thin. Communication has suffered with the Realignment as well. Taking away official Outdoor Program has also resulted in Member-Volunteers leaving for other Girl programs or quitting.
- Mom's don't think they have enough time to put into running a troop. When I'm recruiting leaders I don't lie I tell them yes it take time besides just running a meeting. You also have to put time into planning too. It would be much simpler for leaders if we didn't have to ask the girls, if we could just plan everything at the beginning of the year it would make for simpler times.
- Lack of personal support for new volunteer leaders. Lack of a sense of community at schools and places for recruitment.
- Too much responsibility. Constantly changing responsibilities. Not making leaders able to do banking in an easy manner
- As soon as a leader signs up they are given a ton of paperwork and online training. This is overwhelming for some people.
- A lot of parents do not want to be leaders.
- There is no real communication about how many girls are actually on a waiting list. I work with our local troop placement leader for 6 months in trying to get my two children into a local group and we NEVER heard back from the troop leader, so I had them Juliette/independent over the summer and then I made a virtual troop opening it to all homeschoolers and those using the Oak Meadow Curriculum.
- You get girls fired up about GS, and then they don't get a leader for a long time. Leaders who have been around awhile could mentor these parents to help them get started in leading, but often older leaders are not respected for what they know and the time they have given to the program.
- Parents don't know what's involved.
- It is difficult to get parents to volunteer. I was "encouraged" to become a leader only because if I didn't, then most likely my daughter wouldn't have been able to join because there wasn't a troop for her. I was "told" that there would only be a commitment of troop activities and 1 leader meeting a month. I was NOT told about all the training and additional meetings I would have to attend in order to be allowed to be a leader. Also, there are many "hoops" we have to jump through making becoming a troop leader a heavy responsibility.
- Too dependent on parents to become leaders. And the parents themselves are either already overcommitted, or scared to commit, or just plain lazy. Human nature hasn't changed.
- Parents/adults do not want to commit to the time.
- I feel that it is a numbers game and the focus is not on giving the girls programing now but just getting girls to sign up. We should focus on finding leaders before there are 20 girls signed up with no adults willing to participate.
- For the recruitment question I put I don't know enough. That's not accurate. Our council hardly does anything in the way of recruitment. Sometimes they send flyers home through the elementary schools but that's it.
- They don't share with us about leaders, troops, etc. We have SOME great leaders, but the support isn't there to allow them to feel empowered. Most feel let down by the support at the council.. We tend to support ourselves.
- Same reasons as always ... lack of time, already overcommitted, lack of confidence in ability, unwillingness to do the work involved, lack of interest
- Recruitment is the talk but they do not go to the schools to recruit. No girls , no leaders. They want to much for volunteers to do everything. I am conflicted as to girls and pathways. I think it is good they can go to one or more events but would rather they get into a troop. Troop is the most beneficial. Girls don't like the Journey so they can jut do events and defeats the purpose. Think council should sponsor Journey series a lot more for troops to sign up and pay for others to teach our troops.
- Too much emphasis on numbers, forgetting about having a place to put them
- In every council, there is ALWAYS a severe lack of adult volunteers. I've observed at our council the number one reason why is because new volunteers are often scared off by training time once they find out how much training/time/effort is initially required of them. I have suggested to my Service Unit for years that newly forming troop need an active "big sister/mentor" troop to be available for help that first year. I have done this myself for 5 years now with newbies who are willing to accept the help, and this has worked out wonderfully. Less turnover, less complication, etc. Second, every single year with our council, adult recruiting is done with girl recruiting. Parents come to the girl recruiting assuming there are already troops in place for their girls to be placed into. Unfortunately, this is never the case and we're recruiting the parents as much as the girls. 1. Parents always leave the girl recruit meetings feeling low because they know the chance of their girl getting into a troop is hit or miss. 2. The one or two parents who actually say "I'll volunteer" at these meetings often times deck out after they see the process involved in starting a troop. I have suggested to my Service Unit many times.....do adult recruiting the SPRING BEFORE so adults can get all their training in during the summer months so by the time fall girl recruiting comes around, we have troops waiting for girls - not visa versa.
- Our council is broken down into 4 areas and each area has 1 staff member for recruitment. The divided the areas by numbers but didn't consider area. From one side to the other would be a 3 hours plus drive. There is no way a single person can handle this much space. I realize we have less girls (rural) but that is too much area. It feels she is only able to be there for questions but not for help. Almost all recruiting in left to the volunteers.
- People are too busy to commit
- Parents don't want to be bothered. PTA's exoerience the same problem. Parents want the opportunities but are not willing to be personally inconvenienced.
- Able to tell potential adults exactly what is required and provide an accurate estimate of time commitment.
- They recruit for special interest groups - without knowing if there are adults with those special interests to lead the groups. They are more concerned with filling out the demographics than in providing opportunities for the existing girls.
- I think it is really 2 reasons: 1. There are women who would lead but work or have other large time commitments that they don't feel the can work around. 2. Many women are intimidated by the thought of leading a troop. I say women because even if a Dad volunteers to lead, he still has to have a woman co-leader.
- People are busy, communication on how to enroll/sign up is poor and needs improvement. Once communication is solved I think it will trickle down in other areas that were suffering.
- With our community it is not council as much as it is the CLT and the Mentor team that is chosen for ladies that are terrified of coming in and taking on all this responsibility and then to have so much negativity from them, wow. It is hard to retain and keep this one we get to lead if they are so baffled by the team that is so negative. I am the registrar and the placement leader for my community and find that I can place all the leaders and co- leaders and the girls have them ready to go, to get trained, then bam, I lost 8 leaders and co-leaders as soon as the mentors were released on them. Right now I am in a tight spot with the Mentor leader and I have to have a meeting with her and a council member because it seems like she knows more than anyone else and loves to micro manage the volunteer job as the registrar and placement leader, I am doing. I have had her tell me I need to break up troops because they were not to her liking... It is not to my liking that any girl go without a troop for anytime so she thinks just the opposite. I feel each girl should be placed immediately, even if it is not with her school as long she wants to go to this troop what is wrong with this. If i do not five girls from the school or the grade I mix them in together if needed. Another subject this same mentor, If asked to take girls into her troop she says send me the girls name and number so she can choose which she will take and then if she does like them she will not take them. This is not how I imagine the girl scouts work. I know I have filled your minds with so many negatives and I am sorry I just would like you to know why we do not have the recruitment that we need for the community... I have offered to do the rallies as long as someone was to set them up and they not be on Tuesdays but they refuse to do so. The council has put on many rallies and Ihave been to most of them to make sure that council was with help and she should not have to this if it is the CLT's responsibility to help with this??? I work 60 hours a week and I am a single mother and I am able to a few things during work time but as I have mentioned I am not able to make calls during 7am-6pm and I cannot put out flyers at schools like I would like to do even for the Regions Team for recruitment. They refuse to do this part because it is to much for them. If I could help more I would but I have told the CLT what I would need to help them with recruitment but they really dont want to hear it. I also have been told by many that I signed up last year and never was placed in a troop and now I know why. I ave a folder full of girls and this folder says not placed on it... I am not for this at all... how do you expect to get good or decent words about girl scouts if there is nothing but negative and not being placed into a troop, or being screamed at by a mentor. I am not into clique's and I will never be, I am not into politics with girl scouts it is not needed... GIRL SCOUTS is a team sof ladies young and old who like to have fun with each other learning to be leaders and friends.
- People are busy, most women work, guys don't feel able to lead GS. It's very expensive to start a troop. Yes, once cookie money comes, it's better, but the initial start up cost for a leader is significant. I'm more concerned that we chase away good leaders because of incoherent curriculum and a lack of support. There's no single leader guide, there's no good training (online or through council). In fact, the trainings I have attended from council staff were horrendous and enough to chase anyone away. We don't remunerate our non-employee trainers, who obviously vary in skill for not so good to great, so it's hard to ask them to do as many trainings as need to take place. Cookie competition is tough too. Cookies are almost enough to make me want to quit! NOT FUN. GS should find a way to take back unsold cookies up to a certain amount. Being stuck with cookies because of unforeseen events (illness, weather, etc. prohibited planned cookie booths one year) is terrible. SU/Community leaders are often closed to newcomers and very cliquish.
- GSs makes it very difficult on leaders.
- There is little support for volunteers and this can be very overwhelming for someone who has no Girl Scout experience but wants to help.
- Lack of training in my area. (again, 45 minutes from the nearest office, it's a pain to get to the limited number of trainings).
- When we had a small council it was a community. Now who know what it is?
- The Member Recruiting Manager. She has ran off many new leaders. If you can stand her questioning your every word or paper you turn in, then you can maybe get a troop started but most cannot stand to deal with her. She has had many letters and phone calls to upper management that rarely gets a response. If they do respond, they don't do anything.
- Leaders are hard to retain at the older girl levels.
- I don't think our council does enough recruiting of girls or leaders. I think councils need to tap into every resource (colleges/universities, schools, churches, etc). I work in an inner city school and every year the Boy Scouts schedule an assembly to recruit boys and they also come to the beginning of the school year open house, while Girl Scouts has never done this (and I have e-mailed the local office to suggest it)
- Lots of girls want to be Girl Scouts, but there parents don't want to be leaders, because they are too busy, too old, work full time, work part time, don't work, have little ones etc etc etc etc etc
- They work so hard to recruit girls and build new buildings. Lot of times this is all I hear about unless it is cookie season.
- Not honest with people Demanding they take girls lack of useful training
- Lack of support, communication
- With the standard troop, people often assume there has to be one troop leader in charge of everything. It needs to be made clear and apparent that a group of parents can lead a troop together and share responsibility. it also needs to be clear that male parental figures are welcome to lead GS troops.
- most parents are overwhelmed by work and home obligations and taking on a troop if I was not a GS already it would have been too hard to commit the time and energy to starting our troop. We worked best with three co leaders and 2-4 adult parent members who were cookie or fall sale chairs
- The employees of the corporation are given goals for the NUMBER OF GIRLS SERVICED, not the number of girls in troops. A girl can "sign up", her parents pay dues and "she's a Girl Scout" on the corporations' books. But is she really? is she getting the Girl Scouting experience? Then again, there are often events for NON-Girl Scouts that girls who are already members are not told about, and do not participate. The focus of ADULT MEMBERSHIP has been lost. And there is at times and in some places an OVERT discrimination against adult members without a girl in the program (no kids, only sons, kids are grown or not interested) or who are not in a "targeted" demographic. There has also been a "stove piping" of where "leadership" within the organization comes from, and it is NOT FROM WITHIN in many cases. We also forget that teens who are ACTIVE MEMBERS ought to be developed into our rising group of leaders and active membership. Not ignored until they have girls of age to join the Girl Scout.
- Some of it is the manner in which the recruitment is done, sometimes the people in charge can be a little harsh and unappealing. Some of it is that it seems overwhelming for new leaders - its a lot of info all at once.
- It's hard to recruit adults. People want a place to dump their kids and don't want to do any work. However, the effort must be made - vigorously, because their are also people who might be interested in volunteering, who are afraid - that they'll get stuck doing everything (happens), that they will be asked to do things they don't know enough about, etc. Whether it's an adult who's never camped or is expected to teach any topic she doesn't know enough about herself. GS volunteers are not given enough support. Leaders feel like they have to do everything. They are asked to be all things to all girls - leads to burn out.
- Parent's kids are involved in so many activities they are reluctant to be in charge.
- the time it takes between signing up & having background checks, fingerprinting & all the paperwork involved, plus I don't think there is a very strong support system for questions that arise about seemingly unimportant issues
- people don't have the time or think they don't have the knowledge or ability to do what it takes to be a leader
- To many barriers are in place. Primarily financial. In order to be come a troop leader your startup personal cost is in excess of $100 not counting travel expense, troop supplies, snacks, etc.
- Because people need to get our name out there
- Adults don't see that there could be time made to provide program. Grass root tips on balancing family and Scouts are still needed.
- There needs to be a more breakdown of leadership and not just on 1-2 leaders per troop. I don't understand why can't troops be more combined. Too many individual troops. The organization in Cub Scout works. Each pack can have several dens for each level. There is one to two leaders per den but they are only responsible for completing requirements with scouts. All parties, festivities, trips, events are planned and coordinated at the cub master and parent committee level, all parents get involve in one Way or another and the leaders are not burden to coordinate everything for their den (troop).
- Training needs to be online for GS102 and GS103; 4.5 hour in person training commitment is too much for many parent volunteers. Volume of paperwork and policies are scaring away many volunteers.
- LACK OF SUPPORT, LACK OF LEADERSHIP AT THE SCOUT OFFICE, LACK OF PROGRAMS HELD LOCALLY
- I think the council does not even try to engage girls that sign up for single day events.
- More households have two parents working and less time to volunteer. We need to actively seek out adults that may not have girls in grades K-12 who enjoy working with girls.
- To be a Girl Scout you need to know what the promise and law is and most of these girl do not even know there is one let alone understand they should try to live by them.
- parents are working and don't have enough time to be a leader.
- No one EVER thinks they have time.
- I've seen leaders have several troops and are tired of having meetings every night of the week. Council needs to find a way to get more parents active.
- They are asking too much of leaders - too much training too far away, charging a $15 fee to "volunteer", too complicated rules and systems (journeys, different kinds of badges, etc.) A new leader ought to be given a book of badges to choose from, information on resources and events as they come up, online training, and that's all.
- I think troops are too isolated and new leaders feel as though they're reinventing the wheel. It's intimidating. It also takes too long to get through the onboarding process, so the girls lose interest and drift away before the troop gets started.
- Parents don't want to volunteer.
- They know the work involved, or they know other leaders who are disheartened with the changes. In addition, many are full time moms working full time jobs.
- They make it too hard for these leaders and confusing. I wish they would help these new leaders.
- Today's young women feel they are too busy to do anymore to fill their days. They want to be paid - they have no idea how satisfying it is to volunteer. I find young mothers selfish.
- Everyone is busy and no one wants to help.
- They have a lot of programming for girls, but I think they need more recruitment of and training and support for leaders. Like instead of just "bring a friend" events, how about "bring a friend and her mom"? Or bring a friend mixers for adults?
- Adults do not gave enough time and girls are so busy girl scouts are hard to fit into schedule.
- Lack of interest from parents ect
- Parents do want to be leaders and often don't know how if they do sign up.
- Too complicated to sign up
- It seems overwhelming and no one has the time
- Adults are too busy today but I have been having that issue within my SU. I am really not sure what to do about it. If an adult wants their daughter in scouting, they will step up. It is an overwhelming process, I think that leaders are scared. It is not just an hour a week.....
- Our council treats volunteers deplorably. And our CEO is horribly rude to the volunteers every time we see her. She is hostile and unapproachable and frankly, her rudeness frightens our girls. And honestly, you seem to be delighted to grab all the daisies you can find but your journeys are so boring and not challenging that I don't know why older girls would ever stay in GS.
- Not quick enough followup lack of organization
- There are too many girls with no volunteers. As a leader we can only handle so much and its sad to see girls signed up and no one to handle them. Or lists so long that when you do contact them you never hear back from parents when you do get the info to contact the girls most parents think leading takes too much time and some are forced in and truely have no desire to lead aad troops either are poorly run or fall apart.
- I feel that girls get more benefit with being in a troop. They learn to socialize with others in their age group and learn how to work together. With the other ways, girls are more isolated and don't get the interaction that I feel they need. My daughter has been a Juliette the last two years only because she has not been able to find a troop in her area that will take her.
- Parents are not willing to volunteer. We have 3 troops worth of girls on our waiting list but no one wants to step up. We are trying to get co-op troops going so we can show them it isn't hard to do.
- A lot is parents don't want the responsibility, then the lack of support, and then go to the registration problems. At a young age, we are still doing glorified babysitting unless you have a truly exceptional leader - and they get burnt out because they do get taken advantage of.
- People don't understand that we need leaders
- Scheduling, people are afraid that if they sign up as a volunteer that they will end up being a troop leader
- lack of communication and support
- No one recruits adults...they only focus on girls. I think the main reason GSUSA likes to focus on other Pathways is so they don't have to recruit, work with, and support adult volunteers. It's their response to having girls without leaders.
- Not enough effort on preparing adults to take on a leadership role--they are thrown in with a brand new troop before training can begin. New adults should shadow an existing troop volunteer & branch off or move up when ready.
- Council is only focused on getting more girls and adults. It seems like anything else is secondary or farther back. Every time we turn around its "Time to have another recruitment event". Even if we still have girls n the waiting list because we don't have troops. Council had not helped us at all in finding leaders. They just want us to get more and more girls signed up. They must be getting very good bonuses for retention and recruitment.
- Not enough adult volunteers, too many households with 2 working parents or a single parent not able to help due to work hours or other children vying for their attention. Councils should focus on retaining girls throughout the high school years and making them lifetime members so that the can run troops upon graduating. Possibly waiving the lifetime fee if they sign up as a leader for at least a year.
- The requirements for becoming a leader are too time intensive and there is little flexibility in providing alternate avenues for training on a one to one basis.
- Families with two working parents; single parent families; not enough effort to recruit male leaders to help (by the way, I am a male leader).
- Parents are lazy about volunteering for Girl Scouts. Yes, they want their girls in a Troop, but at the same time they want other adults to step up and be Troop Leaders or adult volunteers for other Girl Scout events, so they can just drop them off and pick them up from activities and meetings.
- There is so much paperwork and red tape and training that needs to be done that people don't want to get involved
- The recruitment activities themselves are not publicized well and then there is disappointment when the attendance is low. And for the ones that are attended, the message to parents is that if they don't become leaders, then they might as well forget about Girl Scouts entirely since there won't be any leaders. This is not a positive message for new parents who want their girl to be part of the organization.
- Volunteers haven't felt valued, many leave dissatisfied or slip between the cracks with all the changes that have been made and that is passed on to others by word of mouth, stories, gossip, etc. I don't think council really understands the demands placed on leaders today. It is difficult to find meeting locations and would be beneficial to have new troop start up funds.
- Over-reliance on traditional leadership sources. Recruiting moms as leaders is all well and good, but what does GSUSA or local councils do to recruit non-traditional leaders: alumnae, community leaders, etc. ?
- I think as they recruit they are still recruiting for leaders instead of offering short term opportunities
- way too much emphasis on numbers and not enough on quality - need more scholarships for program activities - a girl is guaranteed a scholarship to register, but then there is not enough support for girls to go to programs that are expensive
- Too much is expected of troop leaders and they have to give up a lot of their time to prepare for scouts. No one tells you this up front. They also don't tell you about out of pocket expenses and the amount of time taken away from your family for trainings, meetings and planning meetings and trips.
- They do a lousy job at keeping the girls and volunteers involved after they leave Girl Scouts -- if they treated former members and volunteers as alumni, as colleges do, then there would be an incredible data bank of people who would contribute to Girl Scouts. Instead, when we are done, we are forgotten. Penn State has never forgotten me and I never forget them and write them a very nice check every year!!
- High commitment level
- perhaps because it takes over a year to just get the basic orientation done and then it involves another day of training for every additional thing?? Training is inconvenient in timing and cost the VOLUNTEER leader money to attend. We should not have to pay to volunteer!
- everybody is too busy (various reasons)
- Women are stretched too far. They don' have much free time and what time they do have they want to spend with their husband and kids
- Council too often doesn't pass along the names of volunteers to the cdm or service unit.
- The parents are not sure they are qualified to help. Need to have a mentoring efforts.
- Too many parents don't think outside the box- they could co-op lead a troop. Too many current leaders treat meetings like school- with meeting plans and everything planned in advance. It looks daunting to potential leaders- and it is not the way the GS program was meant to operate.
- Too much time consuming training required. Why not have just one large training once a month for those interested and get it all done in one day?
- lack of support, lack of good training. Now the cost of books. the Girl Guide to GS, should have been a 5x7 book that could be carried easily. Like the BSA handbooks. Hate to compare but even my daughter wishes GS was more like Boy Scouts.
- I find that it is difficult to get parents to help out at the troop level without taking on a leadership role much less convincing them to take on a troop of 15+ unrelated girls. There isn't much support for new leaders. One meet and greet then you're on your own. There are resources out there if you are able to take the time to find them but not much of a support framework to help new leaders get their feet under them much less for seasoned leaders to get new ideas or share their knowledge.
- I would have said yes to your last two questions. Looks like that's the reason why Girl Scouts are failing. Recruiting volunteers to serve as leaders was always a challenge. I know because I was a troop organizer. The legacy council I worked for went above and beyond to accommodate any volunteer. We used to provided day, evening and even individualized training. Leaders were appreciated and recognized.
- A long time ago girls who were not Girl Scouts yet would sign up for camp and pay an entrance fee and become a scout. They might not live in an area that has a troop, or camping might be their only connection, but they were true Girl Scouts anyway and benefited from learning the GS way at camp.
- Adults are not aware that they do not have to have a daughter in scouts in order to be a scout leader. Radio advertising would be a good outlet to get the word out that Moms, Dads, Young adults, Single adults, etc. can become a leader.
- People don't know enough about what being a leader is to know if they want to sign up or not. They don't know what is fully involved. They don't think there is going to be support - no matter what the current leaders tell them. It's hard to just tell them in one night while signing their girl up at the same time.
- The women at GSME are too wrapped up in their job security and power positions to listen to the volunteers in the neighboroods. When they are confronted they have a dismissive "right to know" attitude that frankly drives people away. Volunteers like myself aren't recognized for what they bring to the council or given their awards like membership pins, etc.
- People are afraid of the time commitment,
- Working women with limited time, fear of the time requirements
- People don't want to take the time to give back to their children's activities, they just want to drop them off and leave. Many people don't know what to do or how to be a leader and don't think they can. It is difficult to get parents to volunteer as they are already very busy. More effort is needed to recruit non-parent volunteers, such as young adults and/or college students.
- There are always waiting lists for girls and not enough adults who want to volunteer to lead troops. Obviously with more and more parents working and not being able to stay home has contributed to this problem. Kids have many more activities to choose from now and while people feel the programs are valuable people always seems to think that they are to busy and can't possibly help.
- Honestly. I have no idea what our recriter does.... I haver personally passed along two summer fairs at events thay where youth wod be present and she never contacted either institution where we were invited to attend and promote girl scouting. Others in my servive unit have done the same and no one attended the event. Pto for schools.
- We seem to be too busy chasing the girls we do not have to concentrate on the ones we do have. If we buildt a fun and compelling program to allow girls to try new things and do things they can't elsewhere then we would have a strong program which would attract and keep girls. But when we are the same as school then girls will find extra curricular activites that allow them to do things other then what they do in school already all day long. Also before we recruit more girls we need to find and also keep the adults to supervise the troops and volunteer to run the activities and be willing to spend the time it takes to build a quality program for the girls.
- Lack of outreach beyond parents
- Time, and NO MEDIA about this. I think more would volunteer if they knew there was a need. New leaders need to be supported and mentored more. So many drop out after only a year!
- I think the "idea" of becoming a leader is overwhelming. We need to look at better ways of getting parents involved- most families have both parents working these days- It's not like it was 40-50 yrs ago when most mothers stayed home. two income families do not have a lot of sparetime- I make my troop work, for the girls- but it isn't easy. I'd like to see some kind of Co-op options for troops
- Girl Scouts is about more than just participating in one outing or event. It's about a sisterhood of girls and the journey to self discovery. I think if a girl is only able to participate in a minimum capacity, they are missing the whole point of scouting. It's about growing together and trying new adventures.
- Not enough parents that care to take an active role. I remember it being an issue when I was in scouting, my brownie troop was 25+ girls due to parents not wanting to form troops.
- Parents think they are too busy to step up and help.
- Most parents work. It is hard to recurit execptional female rolemodels who are not otherwise tapped out. There are a lot of competing opportunities and with mediocre leaders, girls are drawn to other activities. Parents are willing to pay more for an activity lead by paid staff (dance, swim club, etc).
- Not enough commitment and time.
- I'm not sure I'm answering this question properly... but I feel there is a lot of pressure to recruit, and then the parents/SU needs to volunteer to run the troops/SU. There is little input from council. All they do is provide programs and cookie/nut requirements so they can make more money. In boy/cub scouts, our leadership provides round tables on a monthly basis. We get training EVERY MONTH to help support us with what we are doing. Anytime I have a question, I know exactly who to ask and get the help, ideas I need. We are all following the same program. And our Packs meet together monthly so all of the boys in each den get to see each other. We are all unified and on the same page. Why can't girl scouts do something like this?
- Parents cannot make the time to serve as leaders, they think it's too much work.
- quotas
- Lack of information and support for troop leaders they have now.
- I feel that more emphasis should be placed on actively seeking adult leaders for young ladies on the wait list. Let's place the scouts waiting for troops to join and THEN try to recruit more scouts.
- I think that since the merger there are negative feelings out there from former members and others, that keep people away. I personally feel GS is no longer fun.
- Lack of support for volunteers and families not being aware that 99% of the people who will support their daughters in scouting are VOLUNTEERS who are not only giving their time, but also their money (registration fees, etc) to lead troops.
- I feel there is emphasis placed on recruitment then there is no follow up with those that want to find a troop. The only reason I am a leader is that no one would call me back about a troop for my girls despite repeated attempts. Over the years I have encountered many other mothers stating attendence at recruiting events and no follow up. Therefore at one time I ended up with over 30 girls all at different levels which is hard to handle but didn't want to turn them away. Not sure how it is working since the realignment
- more working mothers than ever
- Adults don't want to get involved and spend their time with programs. They want the programming for the girls as long as someone else will do it. There is no consequence for not participating. It seems "somehow" the programming goes on. The adults know this and won't get involved. This is burning out the "old" leaders and again the girls and programs are suffering.
- Many times parents show up to these events with the idea that there's a troop already in existence with room for their daughter. (Surely we wouldn't be recruiting girls if we didn't have leaders, right?) Parents want their daughters involved, but don't want to be involved themselves.
- Our council has very high paperwork and enrollment hurdles for new leaders coupled with inadequate systems for processing the paperwork quickly and efficiently. This turns many potential volunteers off right from the start. Nobody questions the need for background checks and appropriate health/safety/emergency contact information gathering and documentation. But when GOOD girl scout program activities are denied because somebody's name was spelled wrong or the registration database didn't show someone as registered, even though their leader and others in the Service Unit know that they DID register (just for two recent examples), then it has gone TOO far. If they are going to have the rigid paperwork requirements in place, then they need to have a super efficient, speedy and ACCURATE system for verifying said paperwork. Otherwise, the staff in the organization become a barrier rather than a facilitator for good Girl Scout program and that is what has happened to us recently.
- YES BECAUSE THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT NUMBERS AND SOME OF THEM BULLY PEOPLE CAUSE THEY DONT LIKE THEM MEMBERSHIP SPECIALIST
- I assume that there are problems finding people to lead troops. To be honest, if I had known how much work it would be I wouldn't have signed up. It's only because my troop is 5 years in and we have a good thing going that I continue to stay on as a leader. There are WAY TOO MANY requirements to follow and very little support for a new leader. I think our Council needs to be more directive for a new leader about what they need to do with the girls..
- Fear of time needed. So many women feel too busy or inadequate to take on this task. I try to recruit grand mothers as they often have more time and it's something to keep them connect to their grand kids. So far I don't believe I've succeeded.
- A lack of clear "job description" and clarification of what support is available for the volunteer roles. Also, there needs to be more opportunities for micro-volunteerism.... our family current work/school schedule doesn't have any gaps allowing for us to volunteer as a troop leader or long term commitment- but we could be available to stuff envelopes, prepare girl packets or other simple projects- if such opportunities were available, we were asked or notice was given of the opportunities.
- Parents want their girls involved, but no one wants to take the time to volunteer as leader or troop helper. Therefore there are not enough leaders for interested girls. Sure the girls can be put into an existing troop, but then the troops get so large the current leaders become overwhelmed and give it up...it's a vicious cycle.
- No one wants to volunteer and invest their time. It's like pulling teeth to get parents to help with my troop. Very sad because parents are REALLY missing out on a great opportunity to create memories with their daughters.
- People are busy, and taking on a troop seems a huge commitment. The earliest training for new leaders is painly focused on avoiding legal liability as the core goal. I know that when I was a new leader, the training nearly scared me away from any activities outside of our meeting room. We have no real mentorship for new leaders. Service Units try to help, but I've never had support from my Council outside of official trainings...the interactions I've had with Council representatives have mainly been about paperwork issues.
- I have heard that we have alot more girls interested in being in a troop than we have troops or leaders.
- Not enough information on what it is like to be a leader and actually run a troop, time commitment and scheduling with family and work, over whelming regulations and useless training.
- Most parents don't want to be leaders, they only want to find a place to drop their daughter off for a few hours. I am the district troop organizer coach (recruitment) and it is easy to get the girls, but difficult to get/keep leaders. Especially when there is no support. We have new leaders that had no idea they had to take cookie training because they did all their training online and NO ONE followed up with them once they passed their background check.
- People think they need to invest a lot of time and money into leadership. They also get intimidated by the training and the "I am not worthy/ good enough/ have not been a scout as a child" cycle of excuses. Occasionally, I meet some one overwhelmed by the journeys
- it's not a problem unique to girl scouts, it's hard to get anyone to volunteer for anything.
- Our council spends a lot of time recruiting younger girls, but fails to provide enough program opportunities to keep the older girls interested and involved.
- Council just wants the girl numbers and is not too concerned about whether there is a troop to place her in or not.
- I think there is always difficulty getting volunteers --- people are afraid to step up. I also think that some people volunteer are not really prepared/organized and things fall through the cracks. There is excitement at the beginning of the school year -- recruitment activities are sometimes delayed and then it takes a while for leaders who sign up at recruitment nights to get organized so it takes a while for troops to get going. The online registration process was another challenge because some parents had difficulty with the system and the help desks were very busy/unavailable to help at the time of call. It took several weeks/months before our troop roster was correct. I think people who volunteer would continue to volunteer if parents were more appreciative and helpful. I think it is sad that young troops disband because leader burnout.
- Well the pathways just formalized the things that were already happening. They would do GS during the school day and it was "a lets get girls registered using this grant money". It was all about getting the numbers and using grant money that fit. Program was not always the top priority, nor was it really GS. (At least the one that I was involved it). Was so turned off that I never did it again.
- YESSS. It is extremely difficult to find good ones because of all that training and classes and whatnot that they must participate in to be a leader. You will LOSE people that way.
- To much is put on the volunteers. They get into it to help out and have fun but quickly become overwhelmed.
- Not enough follow through and support
- Parents are too busy or don't want to be involved. Some think it's too much work.
- our council does not really help finding leaders, we are asked to in our service unit. Would be great to get support and help. We should not be asked to take 25 girls when we do not have the support to be an effective troop. And it is a high cost to the leaders.
- I only know our Service Unit is doing well with recruiting leaders, but I don't know what's happening in the rest of our Council.
- Council staff treat volunteers poorly. Lack of training. (Outdoor skills training offered ONLINE? Really??)
- Too much work. Not enough support from service unit. The job is big enough to do without knowing before you sign up, that there are a ton of kids looking for troops... guess who is going to get them??? GSUSA needs to start focusing on what they are going to do about getting enough leaders... if they don't do that, it won't matter if we get hundreds of girls. On another note... what recruitment???? I have seen a GS table w/ reps there at our school maybe 3-4 times over the course of8 years... at best. On the flip side.. I have seen a lot of people want to gin their girls up and not get a call back from anyone! Maybe this needs to be looked into.
- 1. People are too busy. 2. Most adults don't realize that GS is a volunteer organization. They think we are paid staff members.
- *** Council is NOT involved in getting leaders it is the SU level consultants that work with the parents who want to sign their girls up for scouting. Our council reps have not shown up at ANY of our recruiting efforts. They say they will but it's always an excuse.
- To many requirements of the troops - nut sale, cookie sale - then manditory service hours - too much to do in too little time.
- Fear of time commitment from the volunteer, lack of team concepts or successful implementation of a team. My own older troop parents constantly offer to help and then have no time. Making the time is a concept I am thinking people have yet to figure out. Just how much does a parent want to support the girl. If it was sports they would be at every game, why not apply something like that to Girl Scouts?
- Too much time commitment. Unsure of what to do. When I started 12 years ago my council staff person helped me out so much and that is not there today.
- I would say the main reason is the fact that parents have so many competing priorities therefore they feel like being a leader is too large of a time commitment that they cannot manage with other responsibilities.
- Lack of effort and support.
- I think adults feel being a leader involves too much of a time commitment and too much effort.
- I don't feel that the council listens to and respects the ideas and opinions of the leaders, parents and girls involved in the troops. While it is very important to recruit new members it is equally if not more important to retain the members that you already have. To do this, council needs to go back to the core values that Girl Scouting benefits the Girls and not a corporate machine.
- There isn't enough marketing for this or any other activity/event. No one ever knows when anything is happening unless they hear about it through a person who does not work in the office.
- I think it's very hard to find enough parents willing to lead their daughter's troop and be the leader or co-leader or adult volunteer.
- Lack of support from council. All they care about are numbers - not quality of people.
- I suspect our council does have trouble finding leaders to serve the girls. This is because there is virtually no support for new leaders and seasoned volunteers are not appreciated and are frustrated and angry with council.
- Not enough follow-up by the recruiter and not enough encouragement of help for the new leader.
- Girls want to be in the program. Parents are put off by the difficult vetting process. Many times they want to lead and give up because the process is so slow, they get their daughters involved in other programs. Slow getting applications processed. Such a geographically large area with not enough staff to process the paperwork efficiently
- Councils are using a business model a quota they have to meet for membership girls. Girl Scouts is not a business but a Youth Development organization.
- I think the problem started with the shift away from neighborhoods and the support that was provided with them. The idea that more experienced leaders that were in a smaller community group and that could be reached easily (consultants) gave a strong reassurance to new leaders. They were people they were familiar with. I see the new GSUSA using what is definitely a corporate model that doesn't provide the same intimacy. It has become rather like a mega-church. I'm not sure that is the right way to go. And the paperwork has become intimidating.
- Because they don't actually care about the girls once they're registered/. All they care about is boosting their "numbers" so they can maximize their grants from United Way and other organizations. They provide no support whatsover to the girls at the troop level, especially if, like us, you happen to live more than an hour from the central service center. The consolidation took all of our local resources and left us with NOTHING to show for it.
- Potential leaders feel they don't have time.
- It's getting harder & harder to get people to volunteer to help out in any organization. I think people in general are getting more lazy & developing more of an attitude of entitlement. But I also feel that there are so many more opportunities outside of Girl Scouts, for girls these days then there used to be, so there is not the "need" for girls to get exposed to different fields, experiences or activities.
- There is no effort to recruit leaders. There is no effort to maintain former members.....alumni associ/supports?
- I don't think there is enough new leader support at the troop level. GS could really learn from the BS cub pack model. That model has built in mentors and leader support.
- Leaders don't want the paperwork or the responsibility that my council puts on them. Too many stupid rules. Too much liability issues. Not enough challenge for the girls.
- If you don't attend SU meetings in my area the SU feels that you don't need to know what happened during the meeting or what was talked about. The only time emails are sent out is when there is something beng sponored by the council or they are planning an event.
- Not enough recruitment of adults- not enough care of current volunteers which perhaps does not encourage them to recruit others. Most parents work these days and it is difficult to add troop planning, etc. on top of other responsibilities.
- Troops are too small so more leaders are required. We haven't yet figured out how to recruit the non-parent leader. I'm the grandmother of a troop member after leading troops for my daughters and I have actually enjoyed this one more.
- The extensive training and potential leaders thinking it is going to take too much time.
- Time, training
- I think they find the volunteers first. Wouldn't that be logical?
- Staff is under tremendous pressure to achieve membership numbers. However, offering a girl a one shot recruitment is not the answer. That girl is being cheated out of a true GS experience. Studies show that the longer a girl is in Girl Scouting the greater the benefit to her. The only beneficiaries of these events is national, who receives the registration fee. Then the problem is compounded in subsequent years when recruitment goals go up.
- I really don't know about the whole council, but in our GS Community (which was 4 Service Units last year) it seems... 1) We all need to be 'recruiters' and by example. It's fun! It's a growth and learning opportunity for adults. We need a Spanish speaking staff person in our area. We need to quit thinking this is 'just for the girls' - heck, I do it for myself as much as I do it for the girls - and that's why I'm STILL in Girl Scouting. I love it. I want to help fix it, not leave it. 2) Getting leaders set up and trained quickly so we don't lose them 3) Quality training - so there are great compliments...rather than groaning... "I don't know what to do" .
- Demographics - more parents working, less are willing to lead. This is true with every youth organization right now. As a result, council needs to provide programming for those girls if they are going to recruit them. They can't just recruit and let them hang on a waiting list indefinitely. I say this as a leader with 45 (!!!!) girls in my troop.
- Council is making it too complicated to become a leader
- I went from a small troop to a large multi level troop due to no volunteers to take the girls. 5 girls to 22 girls.
- Bad reputation. Unwilling to listen to experienced volunteers. Exclusionary only allowing a few select to help.
- Most leaders on the council are retiring and their seems to be no one to replace them. My mom was a leader until last year when she stopped being a Girl Scout leader. The program has changed so much since she started being a leader when I was a Junior. My mom got me through to my Gold Award and many other girls to earn the Girl Scout Gold Award. Being a leader was a lot of work and time consuming for my mom.
- I don't think the leaders are recruited at all. In our council, membership staff have a numerical goal for recruitment of girls--period. So the emphasis is on short term event participation like day camps for non-Girl Scouts. The girls are not invited to continue in Girl Scouts and why should they? If these girls do not renew their membership, they can be counted again as new recruits if they come to the same program again. Also, once the membership goals are met, it's a very rare staff member who is motivated to exceed the goal. In other words, once they get what they need, they through the recruitment back on the volunteers, with virtially no support. I think we should work on making all girls feel welcome in Girl Scouts however they are recruited and they should feel they are an essential part of the program.
- We have struggled with this issue a lot and not really sure. I believe that they are afraid that they would not be able to provide a good experience for the girls. (intimidated)
- My su rarely does anything together. This diminishes creating a strong girl focused program
- Once they sign a girl up (and convince her parents to spend $50 plus at the council store) they think they are done with her. Where's the leader support? Where are the quality programs? We have to sign up for camps and programs from a neighboring council!
- staff doesn't help us find leaders at all
- They are recruiting girls and getting them without first finding out if a troop has space for them. In my case we have 8 girls (7th grade) and do a lot of trips. My co leader and I can only transport 8 girls.
- the training for leaders keeps changing.
- Lack of communication, training opportunities and the slow turn around time from the council. I personally did not get asked to volunteer at events when the councils merged. The merge was the WORST thing that has happened to GSUSA.
- Parents don't want to take responsibility. Many of them just want to drop their kids off and pick them up later.
- parents do not want to step up, too busy, ot sure what they would be getting into.
- PARENTS! The girls parents do not want the responsibility or taking away their "me" time. They would rather have their daughter sit on a wait list for 3 years then volunteer to be a leader.
- The way they treat the older volunteers and the people that have different opinions then the board.
- No one wants to volunteer, but the parents All want free babysitters each seek. Totally unwilling to help out, however.
- age level programs or not enough girls interested.
- It's a volunteer position yet we are required to pay to volunteer & have to pay some required trainings.
- I think most don't have any idea what the program entails and when they see the journeys they become completely lost.
- I very more does need to be the focus on affordable programing to help girls earn awards, journeys, and badges.
- I don't know.
- People are not willing to help. Many would rather someone else do the work. Sad but in many areas of so true.
- People are unsure how to be a leader and there needs to be a program geared toward recruiting leaders as well.
- Too many families are stretched too thin. It becomes a question of priority for the families that ultimately choose scouting. Those that value the program are the ones that make the effort.
- Leaders are leaving because of dissatisfaction with so many negative changes. Signing up so many girls with no plans to increase adult leadership is irresponsible.
- People are afraid to commit to something in which they do not know the expectations. If we had a mentoring program I think more people would be willing to step out of their comfort zone and commit to leading. In addition, the paperwork for Girl Scouting in vast. It is difficult to know what paperwork to complete for different activities. It is also confusing on who should receive the forms.
- I believe that a lot of people just don't have the time to be leaders.
- Poor training. The program needs to be out of the box. A leader should not have to spend hours and hours reading books trying to figure out what direction to head with a journey. What resources are available in my area? What will be interesting to my girls because it will be different and more fun than what they have already done in school.
- Adults are not willing to sign up because they fear it will be too much work
- I know that before the realignment we served more girls, served our volunteers better, and now there are just a lot of frustrated adults and girls who are not getting the services and programs they used to.
- Poor communication, volunteer process too impersonal
- Not enough parents willing to lead because they do not know that all the help is there. Plus the focus is too high on girl enrollment and not enough on leads
- There are not enough training programs and opportunities for adults who want to become leaders. We are taught basics and then expected to go it alone.
- Excessive beaurocracy (paperwork, etc.) for volunteers coupled with generally shrinking time for everyone to spend time volunteering.
- No advertisements or council help with training of volunteers. No follow up with them after sign ups from council.
- They try to meet or beat numbers and don't try to make the current troops successful or keep the girls interested
- Committing the time to be a leader is difficult, which you can't get around. But the financial burden can add to this barrier. Having to start a troop with no money, leaders find they are using their own money for crafts, snack, etc. Add to that the expenses of training such as first aider and outdoor training, those that might have the time, don't have the money!
- Time and commitment. With 2 income families it is hard to have the kind of time required to a good job as a troop leader.
- Mothers are too busy to volunteer as Troop Leaders.
- Time commitment for the volunteers
- Too much paperwork, too many rules, too time consuming
- Time and the lack thereof. Most people's reason is they are to busy to be a leader. They aren't sold on the program and its benefits to the girls as well as to themselves. Why should they make a commitment to something that will take over their life?
- We need more recruitment and diversity. Girl Scouts in my area is seen as something for privileged girls only. I'm trying to change that outlook. Get girls from low income areas involved and see a better future.
- Hard to attract leaders that end up staying, lacking ability to remove leaders that don't represent what girl scouts stand for.
- Adults think they don't have the time, or that the sign-up / training process is too cumbersome. Mostly, they think they won't have the time.
- Parents don't always understand the benefit of Girl scouting. They sometimes don't understand what is expected of them. They are often too busy with other activities and/or sibling activities. They want pre made program to follow.
- volunteer training process is cumbersome, potential leaders are often unwilling to take on the time commitment
- The majority of women work full time, have families and the demands on women are greater today than in the past.
- Parents would rather pay more money and have someone else do all the work,in this case be the leaders for their kids troops. They feel over whelmed by all the rules.
- Adults are busy with other things. Don't understand the commitment. I never wanted to be a leader, but am in my 12th year. Am looking forward to retiring soon.
- At the Service Unit level we have difficulty finding leaders to do recruiting at their individual schools.
- TOO MUCH PAPERWORK AND REDUNDANT TRAININGS!!!! For example: Why, if I am Red Cross Certified in CPR and First Aid, do I have to take GS's training? Makes no sense!
- To many other programs and activities.
- There aren't enough leaders for all the girls they recruit. Plus leaders drop out because there isn't enough support for the leaders we have. Parents are horrible to leaders and Council supports the parents not the leaders who volunteer their time so the leaders leave the program.
- Girl Scouts is too restrictive for leaders, and we are treated poorly. Our opinions do not matter. When we disagree, we are told we are being "sentimental" and are unaware of what girls want. We are the ones working WITH the girls. We don't do focus groups with specially selected individuals, we work with the ACTUAL GIRLS. And that doesn't matter one bit. I believe that GSEP and GSUSA are patronizing volunteers, and do not value us one bit. They have their own agenda, and are extremely defensive when that agenda is questioned.
- Parents who want their girls in Girl Scouts are not willing to volunteer to be troop leaders. They seem to want others to be troop leaders.
- Parents are afraid of the time commitment. Although new leader commitments are up from last year we need to push for more cooperative troop leading(multiple leaders in one troop) community troops (not contained to a specific school) and GSI options.
- Lack of support and communication from council staff
- Finding times when a working leader can meet with a troop. Too many parents are used to dropping a kid off at an activity and then picking them up later - no involvement. Being a leader is time consuming but sooooo worth it.
- The way the volunteers are treated. Not to mention once they get a volunteer there are many times that the volunteers quit because being a leader wasn't how they were told it would be. We shouldn't be lying to people to get volunteers. EVER.
- too much is placed on the leader--finding meeting places, times, planning meetings, geting training, unit meeting, cluster meeting,. troop meeting, when are you supposed to plan your own meeting or make arrangements for events--GSUSA seems to forget that many are in single parent homes and those in 2 parent homes have 2 working parents. There is not enough time to do all that GS requires as well as have a family and a job. 40 years ago, this may have worked when mom's stayed home, but most work now
- Parents are busy. Plus our school is a dual language school and requires programs at the school support both languages for parent communication. Also culturally GS is new for many families rather than a tradition past down from older women in the families. Plus there is no real support for Spanish speakers for programming. I was told I could not get a Spanish journey book for my Daisy whose family speaks only Spanish which would allow her to share the program with her family. I could buy the leaders guide, but not the journey book alone.(which doesn't help me as I don't speak Spanish) The council has Spanish forms for running troops, but they are out of date and in a different format than the English ones, so when you submit a financial aid form it gets rejected for not being current despite using the current form on the webpage after being directed there by ones membership specialist. Leaders are expected to deal with situations(like dual language schools) that there is no training, no model or little support for and no one wants to jump into a job that you can get help when you need it. Or that the help you get is wrong and you have to redo things repeatedly.
- Time and actual support once you say yes. I feel that I was wine and dined to become a leader, once I signed on the dotted line I was left high and dry by myself to figure it out. I was never a girl scout so I had no idea what I didn't know and what it was supposed to look like. I was told to ask any question when I had them, but I had no idea what I was even to ask about.
- I wish I knew! The people that I talk to who tried being a leader and quit say that communication is awful and they felt at a loss and everything is too impersonal..
- Many families have 2 working parents- this leaves little time for leading a troop. Also we have many immigrant families- often times those adults are not used to volunteering for things such as GS.
- Girl scouts are not visible enough, so probably potential leaders are unaware of the need.
- Because the GSUSA is making it harder and harder to be a leader. There is more paperwork and more program put on the leaders with less support from council. parents aren't willing to take on all the work it takes to be a leader.
- No help from council
- Potential leaders are concerned about the time commitment and that they will not have enough support to do a good job.
- Time, cost, training, apathy...
- People think they're too busy and aren't interested in the "it takes a village" model to raising well-rounded youth.
- They recruit far too many girls in an effort to boost membership numbers, but fail to focus on recruiting leaders. When they do focus on recruiting leaders, they do so in an extremely pushy manner or through ultimatums (no troop if someone in room doesn't step up right now.) This leads to leaders who aren't committed to the program.
- There is always a need for leaders. Working parents, the idea tat Girl Scouting is baby-sitting, and lastly, the "me only" self-centered attitude of adults and girls contribute to the lack. In addition, the "I only do this for my girl" affects the quality of leadership.
- Parents are not involved with their children as much. They use it as a babysitting service. Current council and adult volunteers need to help get parents involved for more Leaders and support in their community.
- Convincing adults to care. "Too busy"
- we dont have enough leaders in the area ready to do and the leaders that do join especially me arent prepared to shell out money all the time. Girl Scouts should be helping new leaders and old ones with all of this. I paid for myself and daughter to start a troop because there was none in our area and I am not working so there should be financial help more readily provided. I love being a leader and just dont have so much money avialable to do half the stuff you want to do with girls
- I think the biggest complaint I hear from New leaders is the lack of training they get. Most flounder around their first year trying to figure out what to do.
- It is time consuming to be a leader
- Working parents - no time to lead a troop.
- Women too busy.
- Bring a friend events are horrible. They up their numbers, but girls are seldom placed into real troops. Our council has a summer day camp for non gs. In the process of attending, girls are registered and yet, the same girls return year after year. SHARE money is used to fund these recruitment activity. That's immoral.
- A lot of parents just dont have time, or dont think they have time.
- Same as always, parents want a babysitter, don't want to be one.
- Personally, I would prefer a strong troop system instead of Pathways. However, the organization needs to interest more girls and this is a way to attract them. The problem lies in retaining girls and finding leaders. Generally, I have seen a decline in volunteers and many leaders leaving. Unfortunately, the organization seems to be concentration more on numbers than quality. This does not help in retaining girls or volunteers.
- Parents are busy, many families both work, and they have this idea that someone else should do it because they're busy. I suppose they expect it to be like dance class where you pay your money, drop off your kid, and someone else teaches them. It's like they expect baby-sitting for $15 a year.
- No support, current leaders unhappy, everyone too busy.
- A great number of the girls who most need Scouting come from low income families who are struggling to make ends meet. Their parents often don't have the time to add a volunteer position to their schedule. It can also be difficult to gain a clear understanding of what is required of a leader, and some of the program materials (the Journeys in particular) are not straightforward to administer.
- Lack of interest from council
- Volunteers are in charge of the Round Ups, and the quality of the presentations are appalling. I rarely see a volunteer who can even explain what Girl Scouting is. It's one thing for a girl to join a program one is not sure about (she can try it out) but harder to get an adult to volunteer when you sit there and watch someone speak who can't even describe what Girl Scout is all about.
- More working Mom's who just don't have the time, the spirit of volunteerism is not on at the top of the list for a lot of young moms.
- More adults that ever are working full-time and there is not enough support for new leaders. Not enough resources to show them that they don't have to re-invent everything, that there are great plans, programs and ideas for them to use.
- Poor communications
- New parents don't know enough about running a troop and do not get much support on getting a troop started beyond the you-are-it. Support in setting up a meeting facility, running the first meetings, and connecting with other troops to observe would be helpful
- Membership equals money. With the extensive money problems plaguing GS, they can't help themselves.
- For where I live, the economy is one issue. Families are concentrating on work and not volunteering. Young moms do not see the long term values of GSa d ate not willing to give up their time for their children.
- Training
- Our Council offers some wonderful events but so many are 'bring a friend' and our girls cannot participate in what could be some great programming unless we can come up with, again, yet another friend who hasn't attended. And, many of the girls attending as 'friends' don't receive follow-up to go into a Troop. So, it seems like a way to arbitrarily increase membership without the benefit of programming to the girls who visit as the 'friends'. I know this because a 'friend' we invited joined our Troop months later and I learned that she was on a 'membership list' but had not been contacted by anyone to see if she'd like to be part of a Troop somewhere.
- There seems to more emphasis on numbers-I sat in on a meeting in September and a Council staff member actually asked if anyone had 3 girls they could register for the year that was ending in 3 weeks so it would look like we meet our numbers. This has nothing to do with serving the girls.
- So much paperwork and training for an adult to get started. It scares them away.
- We still haven't been successful in recruiting women to take on a leadership role. We need to develop some specific activities where young women are paired with a girl or small group of girls for a short term program. After experiencing success in this, some adults (and some girl members) may choose to become more involved. At the same time, we need to provide specific activities for moms or other family members who become leaders because their daughter's troop won't otherwise be formed to get them through the first 8 meetings. We overwhelm them with required trainings, but they need help simply knowing what to do at the meetings to fill the time. (Some councils are very good at doing this other, but others are not...)
- The cumbersome system. Looking from the outside, the requirements for training, the amount of paperwork, and the presumed liability seem overwhelming. The explanations of the program requirements for girls are unclear. There are no examples of Journeys to look at unless you purchase the entire kit at great expense.
- Parents are too busy, or they have high expectations of a troop leader and they think they cannot meet that standard.
- Because I think people would rather write a check than actually spend the time volunteering. Being a Troop Leader to TWO Troops is a full time job some weeks. Especially during cookie season. Not everyone has time for that.
- Troops are already at capacity and leader can't take any more girls. We also seem to have a major problem retaining leaders for more than 2-3 years. This is probably because we are constantly changing area membership directors and have little support from council
- Parents are busier these days.
- I am a new troop member. I love teaching the girls planning meetings and am very excited to plan our first camping trip. My council was great at helping me find and get the information needed. But too many times i have been told to check the internet. i have to complete this on the internet, or i have to be trained in something, an example is camping, and first aide. but in order to get this i must attend a class in Montgomery. The first aide i must acquire on my own or as a troop. or when cookies come along yes there is cookie training. But behind the scenes is paperwork. Many times i have read organization is the key to having a well ran troop.There should be more training on this. More hands on. Not everyone has access to the internet. or means to travel long distances.
- Lack of support from council, lack of events close enough that it doesn't take an entire day and lots of money for gas.
- It's getting harder to find volunteers.
- There is a limited set of parents out there who are willing to spend their non-working hours as volunteers. In my area, it's the same few parents who lead troops, work concessions stands, serve on the PTO, etc. We can only do so much! More parents need to get involved in providing activities for all of our children.
- The council will tell you they have difficulty finding leaders but then they drop the ball when someone is interested. We have only half of the troops we had last year now and the troops are small. All leaders are willing to take more girls but the days do not work, and then the new leaders who want to start are left with no support, so they change their minds. I think their answer is to very quickly get the girls into a 6 week program to get them registered to help the numbers and then those girls fall through the holes in that system and are never placed in a troop.
- I say yes because the CDM are more worried about signing people up than they are taking time to talk with potential adult volunteers, taking time to explain our program, encouraging participation, promising good training, and then following through with that promise. This is not happening at all. Recruitment events I've witnessed lately is about 10 minutes, if that, talking about program, then rest is sign them up! Very little follow through.
- Need more imaginative recruitment strategies and more support of new leaders.
- I think parents already feel overwhelmed and don't want to take it on. You need to get them in at the Daisy level.
- Within my school...it because both parents HAVE to work. They dont have the time to dedicate to managing a troop. Too many extracurricular activities and parents dont see GS as being beneficial to their daughter.
- Women are busy! And their daughters are busy. We need to be able to demonstrate ways that Girl Scouts will be good for their daughters and friends. We need to have programs that coordinate witht he other activities that their daughters are already doing. Like, maybe, Girl Scout soccer teams, or cheerleading squads- so add to the things that parents find important by teaching Girl Scout ways through other activites too. I think neighborhood troops would be better than school based troops too- just need to find the right avenues to recruit and meet there.
- (1) There needs to be more education / marketing to the public so that families will understand that the program is run by adult (usually parent) volunteers. Many parents of potential new girls are shocked that we troop leaders are not paid. (2) Similarly the public needs to understand better that there is no "set" curriculum and each troop chooses its own activities based around GS program materials and outside offerings. (3) Moving the initial point of contact and the startup training away from the local level and over to the Council staff.
- Not enough leaders. While the pathways option was a good idea in our area most still want the traditional troop experience.
- I think the Girl Scouts is drawing on the same pool of volunteers that every other youth organization has and that there are only so many things one can do. I was a Girl Scout as a girl and knew more about what I was getting into when I volunteered as a leader. I don't think that the current recruitment really shows what we offer in terms of helping them be a better leader or what support we offer to help them with the running of a troop of girls.
- I think the problem actually resides in my local community; many of the moms here are only looking for after school activities for their children, not actually helping out with one.
- No transportation or interest.
- Parents don't understand what the time commitment would be. They assume right away that it would be far too much because they work full time. They may still have a preconceived notion that leaders are stay at home moms...and only those moms have time. We need to be gearing advertising for volunteers showing working parents, especially those that run their kids to soccer and dance in addition to scouts. The time commitment is not very intense at all.
- lack of commitment by parents these days,
- not enough program or support
- Many of the families have two working parents. Not having the time to give is a big concern. Not knowing what to do is another concern given. Getting adults who are not parents is difficult because nowadays people look with suspicion on anyone who chose to volunteer to work with children who are not their own.
- I didn't answer yes because I don't know the answer at the COUNCIL level; at a town level we don't have an issue.
- We keep focusing on girl recruitment. We need to focus on leader and volunteer recruitment. Getting girls is no problem for us here (grades K-5) - getting and keeping good quality leaders is a HUGE problem.
- The lack of communication leaves new leaders feeling left out in the cold. The about of paperwork is becoming an intimidating prospect especially when you feel the help you need isn't there.
- Girl Scouts is a very time involved volunteer program. Not enough parents or people are interested in giving up that amount of time to do this with the girls.
- Volunteers don't have the time necessary to do all the training and learning about the program. There is a lot of information to process to be an effective GS leader.
- It's a big responsibility to take on a troop at the Daisy level, you are basically commiting to all the years they will be in Girl Scouts. It's a big undertaking and a lot of responsibility. It's overwhelming, especially when there isn't someone telling you they will be with you step by step. It's a jump in and figure it out sort of thing, which makes it difficult to get someone who is new to Scouting involved.
- People are busy. I find as SUM I can often find leaders/volunteers to take on a small job, but committing to a year long program is hard for most people. Our area was not supported for a long time, but as things change we are better able to find new leaders and volunteers. It's difficult as council does not put on many program events or activities within 90 minutes of our SU area, so leaders often feel they have to do far more than our 'city' counterparts.
- Adult recruitment for troops is much more important than girl recruitment. What's the point of adding girls if there are no adults to lead new troops?
- 1. Being a GS leader is hard and have a very long perceived commitment. You can say that a person can just commit to one year, but then they look like a bad guy when no one else steps forward and the troop folds. Also, there is a perception that volunteering is optional for parents. I don't agree--especially in affluent areas. (compare to Little League where potential coaches are turned away)
- Adult volunteers are extremely busy, they need a lot of training to deliver program, they cannot complete the training they need so they never feel confident in their skills, and the cycle goes on. I don't know that there is an easy answer to this problem. Second issue, and completely opposite of the first is a lack of critical thinking and individualization to training needs. For example, I stepped out of the trainer role for a while because of personal needs. When I tried to come back, I was told I had to retake the entire trainer program over again, not just the program content, but the whole adult learning and how to teach stuff as well - two full 8 hour days. I am a college professor and have written published articles on adult learning and teaching. It seems to me someone at the council level should have been able to review my qualifications and waive some of the requirements.
- It really is on a school-by-school, grade level-by-grade level basis. Most troops are formed with someone willing to volunteer as a leader. There are some troops that never get going because no one is willing to volunteer. We try to encourage a shared roll of leading in this case but it is up to the parents' availability. I don't see this as being a council issue.
- I do not have an answer, unfortunately. Perhaps because of the lack of call backs, etc at our council?
- There is almost no effort made to recruit leaders. Once they are recruited it takes forever to get approved and the retention of existing leaders is poor.
- Scouting can have a really high time requirement for volunteers. People don't know that they can shape the commitment.
- We get little to no support for recruitment - it all falls onto the volunteers!! The council needs to do more to help get a troop leader started - the ball gets dropped here often! And then, RETENTION is an issue!!!!!!!!!
- Many leaders feel like you have to be a lone entity for the troop (or just with one co-leader). There needs to be more of interaction between experienced and new leaders. Encouraging more multi-age troops or groups would help.
- While some of the problems lies with the difficulty in getting signed up through the new systems, signing up for training and other activities....a lot of the reasons that it is difficult to find and keep leaders is that there is not much support AND younger ladies are just not seeing the value in volunteering. We have felt at the service unit level that we have had very little support...with training and events falling back on us to perform without council support.
- The focus is on recruiting girls, not adults to lead girls we already have. Our service unit runs our own registrations and we usually manage to get parents to step up and lead troops, but never enough. Parents want their girls in troops, and then get mad that there are not enough and there are no registration refunds.
- Parents are busy and Girl Scouts seems like something nice for their daughters to do, but they haven't time to help. I hear it over and over. Families are so squeezed.
- sink or swim. Not enough information given to potential leaders about what they can do with the levels they have. Also what information they are given is not given in such a way as to scare or frustrate them right back out of the program.
- People don't seem to want to be involved in their child's activities but rather let someone else do it for them. I mean so many adults like to still use GS as babysitters. Schools don't obtain as many volunteers as in days past either.
- When parents bring their girls to recruitment events the majority of them are already bringing them to sign them up. The emphasis should be placed on recruiting leaders...not the girls!
- Adults suffer from the Not Me syndrome....somebody else can do it, but NOT ME.
- adults/parents think they don't have time. And maybe they don't. Adults/parents think it's too hard/they don't know what to do. Difficulty committing to monthly leader meetings. Adults/parents are intimidated by the need to take "all this training". (I think it's better now that there is an on-line component) Adults/parents in the training are confused by the journeys, For too long we have pushed the parents out of the picture and then we (the leaders and the councils) complain about parents using GS for babysitting. During new leader training we tell leaders to get the parents involved, but then we tell them to kick the parents out of meetings, because it's a distraction to the girls and makes it difficult to run meetings. I say let the parents in on a rotating basis, so you have spare hands to help teach girls. Need to establish troop leadership as a committee, rather than making a few leaders do the whole thing.
- Low advertisement to core Moms who are willing to help.
- certain area do not have all levels available
- I don't think we should be obligated to have 12 girls - 10 is more than plenty. I have been a leader for 10years with more than 12 and I am constantly reminded that if I have less than 12 they will add the girls to my troop.
- As I have already stated I believe my council has a greater emphasis on the number of girls in the council rather than the number of programs they provide. They're going for quantity of scouts rather than quality programming. Again this is because they would like to represent to business opportunities and grant opportunities the fact that 35,000 girls can be reached simply by doing business with our council. That was the whole basis for realignment: a numbers game to get more grant money or business opportunities. We hold many council events where the cost of admission is in reality the cost of registration. Girls attend this one program, pay their admission fee - which either covers the whole GSUSA registration fee or part of it - and the remainder of the registration fee is then subsidized by my council. So in other words, my hard earned annual giving money or the money from my Council's share of whatever product my scouts worked so hard to sell, is being used to subsidize the registration fee of girls who only participate in a single program and may not actually know they have,in fact, just registered for scouting. On the one hand I feel perhaps seeing this one program might make a girl want to join scouting But I think it probably will not because those programs are usually the broadest and least Scouting of programming. So basically we're wasting money trying to create cheap watered-down programming just to bump up the number of scouts in our Council so we can apply for grants or make some type of deal. As again I've already stated I think we should run a huge publicity campaign to promote the Quality of our programming with the success of our members and perhaps get spontaneous corporate donors without having to sell out our program in a numbers game. I'm not sure what we can do to get more leaders. Perhaps if we had better support and training for current leaders they would portray the job as something that is fun and easy instead of stressful and sometimes overwhelming And that would generate interest in other parents to help out or lead. I know there is a waiting list of girls in our community who can't find troops. Perhaps we should partner with some of the local colleges in our community to see if student teachers would be interested in becoming Girl Scout leaders maybe for credits or internships. Perhaps we could run a publicity campaign about the importance of being a Girl Scout leader.
- That has to do with parents, people want the girls to do GS but they just don't want to run anything.
- It's too hard to be a leader. Most leaders I know will not recommend it to a friend or family member. Make it easier for leaders and take care of the leaders you already have. Even the newest leaders I know seem jaded by the experience and I hear from each of them: "this is much harder and takes more time than I imagined or was told." It's like the bait and switch. The online video says you only have to give the time you have, but this is not true. As leader, you should spend more time WITH the girls than without...the planning, paperwork, rules, follow up takes an incredible amount of time. Yes, finding volunteers is hard. The best way to get new volunteers is to make it a better experience for the volunteers you already have. Take better care of the people you already have! I honestly feel that recruiting new members is more about getting more income rather than reaching more girls with a meaningful experience. Girl scouts is 100% dependent on qualified, engaged, invested volunteers. No volunteers = no girls.
- Parents don't have a good understanding of what is involved in becoming a troop leader, or helping to organize a troop.
- It isn't really clear how simple being a leader can be. If the training isn't made to seem too overwhelming there would likely be more volunteers. People just don't have enough time to devote and don't want to feel like they will be lacking in ways that would detract from the girls' experience.
- People do not volunteer as much and do not want to be the ones doing all the work.
- Not enough staff to treat volunteers with care And professional. Lack of support.
- Because being a leader is tremendous time commitment (which takes away from being able to earn a living) , and a big responsibility. My old council used to pay leaders to serve in low income areas, which many of us in more affluent areas found rather insulting.
- I think the changes in people's schedules and the availability of women and girls is making it more challenging to fit it in.
- If girls believe the program is relevant to their lives or fun you will not have problems in attaining membership.
- The way leaders are recruited - I do not want to be told that I can't have limits on my troop size, that I have to have girls from all one school/grade. As a developmental scientist, I do not agree with this approach.
- Too much work for working parents. No one has time to run a troop. Cookie sales are a ton of work. Although, online training is a step in the right direction.
- It's not the number of girls that are important - it's being able to have retention and support of local programs that will really enable the organization to grow.
- Time for participation and not enough leadership recruitment
- Social changes and poor training and support
- council rules, amount of time, frustration with girls and parents not commited to any follow through, busy lives with no time
- Many who would have volunteered in the past are working longer hours and don't have time. More moms are working and many are single moms.
- Many families have both parents working and they feel they do not have time to give to Girl Scouts.
- Too many parents are looking for a babysitting service and do not want to volunteer as leaders. I wish there were more incentives to become a leader.
- It is difficult for many adults to find the time to be a leader, but I think many of them are not aware of a realistic time commitment. Also, most of the recruiting comes across as bring your girl to find out about scouts and join, but says nothing about we hope we have a troop available, or would you be leader. There needs to be more recruiting for leaders, not just girls.
- follow through with the prospective leaders, overwhelming to new leaders. no mentor program
- Councils do not truly know what goes on at the troop or service unit level. They need to have more involvement in the real world and talk to the leaders and volunteers.
- It's too much about numbers instead of retaining
- Lack of initiative on the part of potential volunteers because GSUSA driven approaches, particularly STEM and "financial literacy" are not appealing to girls or volunteers.
- Adults who either lack the confidence to take on a troop or simply want to find a place to park their girls while they do "mom" things.
- Takes up too much time.
- Disorganization. Emphasis on numbers.
- Today's volunteers have full-time jobs and don't have the energy to spend hundreds of hours a year volunteering, even if they support the Girl Scout program. We need MORE volunteers than ever, and we need to make new volunteers feel welcome, however many hours they can spare to serve girls. Long-time volunteers need to work harder at welcoming new volunteers, and how to divide up each role into smaller parts.
- Our council does fine with recruitment of girls but we need more support for our leaders. Stop changing the program every few years. You're making the leaders have to relearn every year and it's exhausting. We are unable to learn from older leaders because things have changed way too much! Girl Scouts is supposed to be about TRADITION! We are supposed to be able to work on the same badges as our grandmothers did. Yes, we could have added a few new badges over the years but to revamp the entire program was a huge mistake.
- Parents are not willing to invest the time.
- Terrible treatment of volunteers. Poor communications. Inadequate training. Incompetent administration of membership and training records. Total lack of support for putting together new troops--from getting the training to having meeting places to assignment of girls.
- Moms think they are just too busy to give to their child's life!
- Lack of know how. Many people are confused, nervous or scared about how to set up an event and carry out. Top it off with all these stem requirements and paperwork, and journey involvements it becomes a scary process to newbies and even the experienced. Girl Scouts should be about simple, good fun. Easy for anyone to be a part of and enjoy.
- Individual school coordinators must find leaders. There is no help from Council to find leaders.
- You cannot call the local office and talk to someone about Girl Scouting. You have to know an extension or someone's private cell to talk to staff. People get frustrated and give up.
- our council is terrible -- see above. i like the multiple pathways, but it is not developed and not shared. NO ONE (girls) know about it if they are not in a troop. Seems that it missed the boat.
- I was a school liaison and 70% of our school were minority. Many of those children had parents who came from other countries and may not speak the language (at our school it's mostly Asia and Middle Eastern countries. Some cultures also don't believe in moms doing scouts or helping at school. They don't mind the girls being in scouts but they won't volunteer to help. Some of the moms are interested in helping but don't think they speak English well enough.
- Not enough time spent on leader recruitment(?) We always have waiting lists of girls and not enough leaders.
- ...they don't try to find the leaders. Other volunteers have to try and find the leaders.
- personal level of commitment from the parents. Nowadays more expect to have things provided to them easily.
- My troop is still not full for the year. I had to beg in a community group on Facebook to find girls to make my minimum of 6. But I do know in other areas of the valley there are not enough volunteers.
- Parents are resistant to volunteer because of family & work commitments already in place
- The numerous rules make it difficult for people to volunteer and provide great programs
- Time commitment, lack of appreciation from other parents. I want to "do" Girl Scouts with my daughters. I don't expect for someone else to take the lead on it all. When I was the primary leader for my oldest daughter's troop, I felt that many parents treated it as another activity for their kid, but never helped, or would expect me to arrange transportation. You burnout from being taken advantage of and really what's the incentive. I am going to do badges and activities with my girls whether or not I lead so let someone else take on the responsibility of dealing with parents who don't want to help.
- Staffing is so poor in our council that moms who express an interest in being a leader are hung out to dry. By the time someone gets back to them, they're not interested anymore.
- A lot of the parents I have spoken with just don't have the time. Council's focus on finding girls often overloads our other troops and we end up losing leaders in the long run.
- Lack of mentoring. Poor treatment of long time volunteers. Lack of support from Councils. Out-right lying to new leaders with regards to responsibilities and time commitments.
- There are no recruitment tools available. It is up to the service unit recruitment coordinator to try all on their own to get parents to become leaders.
- People don't want to give up the little free time they have.
- no one wants to get involved
- Adults feel they don't have enough time, or don't know how to do the leading. They are intimidated by the perceived difficulty of leading girls.
- Council is very difficult to deal with. They don't return phone calls, or handle paperwork swiftly (if they can even find it). They may talk a good game at events, but there is no follow through. I know potential leaders have been turned off by this, and dropped out of becoming a volunteer. A co-leader had to have a background interview 2x because they "lost" the first one. Because council does the initial interviews, the negative impression they have on potential volunteers impacts those who may consider volunteering. Instead of making it easy and fun for potential volunteers, they are unprofessional. This has been a big change. When I started 11 years ago, I was trained by existing volunteers who taught us the rules and then told us the best tips and tricks that worked for them. The council staff are not volunteers and know nothing about leading a troop of girls, while having a family and job, and perhaps other obligations. They are not at all receptive to a volunteers limitations and rarely work with potential volunteers to find a way to make a situation work, so volunteers just quit.
- I think they have difficulty finding leaders, because of the "unknown" factor. There isn't a clear description of what is expected of the leaders and how they should run meetings, complete Journey's, etc.
- That the council totally bungled the recruitment in our area. Mailings were not sent out until after our recruitment events. We rescheduled twice, and still didn't get a turnout, as the mailings hadn't gone out. Materials were picked up by other service units, as the council hadn't trained the Office Max staff. Emails and phone calls weren't returned for weeks.
- It is hard trying to get the parents to sign up to be leaders and to run a troop because they have a job or career and they say they don't have time. They are not sure that they can do it.
- Parents see leading a troop as too much work and don't want to commit. Current leaders have difficulty even recruiting parents to help them with small things.
- We have a adults not willing to give up the time - they believe someone else should volunteer... We often can coerce folks into volunteering.
- Poorly run recruitments with little effort to develop leaders. No one tells the parents when they sign up that there is no troop to place their child in. Then months go by and parents are not even willing to pursue GS anymore. If they would just look at recruitment like how community sports programs are setup - new parents are willing to help but not lead. Then in years 2 or 3 they are willing to lead.
- Lack of communication and follow through and very little training offered in the county I live in, which is ridiculous since the population is over 750,000 people. (Gwinnett County, in the Metro Atlanta area)
- I have been a parent and/or co-leader for my girls for over 10 years, and quite honestly, I have seen such an increase in paperwork requirements, "hoops" to jump through, and red tape over these last few years that I think more and more leaders can't handle the commitment and extra energy. I hear constant grumblings from leaders about all that is required from them behind the scenes, how "nothing is simple anymore". When did things get so complicated? I am fearful for our girls, that as time progresses, things will be too difficult for the leaders, no one will be willing to step up anymore, and we will lose the strength of the program.
- Our council is hard to work with, the amount of paperwork is way over the top, no good deed goes unpunished.
- My experience is that adults don't want to volunteer and take on the responsibility of the girls. We are loosing the spirit of service in the local community. People want to be serviced, not serve.
- We need to market ourselves as the premier organization for girls. More appreciation of the volunteers...make it fun. We are running our non-profits like corporate America. Becoming numbers and money driven and forgetting that people are why we are successful. Without volunteers, alumnae and donors that feel loved that love us back-- we will soon not exist.
- They are mainly reaching out to parents while there is a large GS alumna community and young professional women in college or recent graduates with the enthusiasm and passion to really engage the girls.
- The lack of adequate training for new enrollees and a lack of communication. I also feel like I am not fitting into a cliques because I am the new girl.
- Now a day parents do not have the interest in participating full time as a GS Leader. They want someone else to do the job. Or they want some reimbursement!!!
- Impersonal, poor training -- Too much stress to take more girls than you can handle
- People are busy, working. No time.
- unorganized entry into the system, you have to pay for your own training, overwhelming with little to no support, or intensive program like you have a troop what now?
- They treat us like crap & don't follow the GS law themselves.
- I think some are scared about how time consuming being the leader may be. Not having support from the parents of the girls in the troop. I think that some co leaders are deterred by being required to take the same training as leader as they usually do not participate to the extent as leaders.
- I mentioned before that we don't emphasize the value of troop leaders and volunteers. We don't recruit them. Most fall into it as a mom to a girl who wants to join...and then the paperwork completely overwhelms them.
- There is no easy pathway for interested leaders, and not enough recruitment outside of people's "comfort zones"
- We have gone away from the mentoring model of leadership and just put minimally trained adults in a room full of girls with materials that are boring and difficult to understand. They become overwhelmed and burn out in a year or two. I spent 11 years as a Daisy leader, after spending a year working with me planning and leading activities many went on to lead Brownie troops with confidence. They knew what they were getting into and also knew that I was a resource for them should problems arise. During those 11 years we never had Brownies on a waiting list and most of those leaders were involved for 5-10 years beyond the year spent with me. This is a wonderful position for the senior leaders who no longer have a daughter they want to travel through the program with. Unfortunately instead of feeling valued and needed, many of them have been pushed aside in favor of younger people without the vast knowledge and experience. It seems if you are a GS alumni you are mocked for your dedication to the program you loved and only seen as a possible source of revenue.
- I think the council and service units have difficulty finding volunteers (overall). Leaders are nervous about taking on additional responsibilities - over committed.
- Leaders needed all levels.
- Council staff, in the past, have relied on the volunteers to recruit other volunteers. I am seeing this change slightly this year though. Also membership staff works business hours mostly, except for service unit meetings. How can you recruit volunteers who are working, when they are working?
- too many working mothers: too many other girl activities like sports, lack of interest because they don't really know the program: even women who were girl scouts as child, only stayed in for 1-2 years, and did not get the full benefit of GS, so don't really have the will to be a leader; moms may want their girls in a troop but can't provide leadership because they are at work and barely have time to take care of their own kids.
- Need to recruit adults first - girls are easily recruited.
- Leaders already have to much on their plates.
- Too many adults state that they already have too much to do, but want other adults to take charge of teaching their daughters. Too many adults do not understand that volunteering starts at home first.
- The full-range of GS experiences offered has declined. The opportunity for many girls to participate in activities-beyond the troop meetings-has decreased with the realignment. The closing and selling of so many GS camps puts an added burden on leaders and parents who strive to provide camping/outdoor activities for girls. These camps are treasures which should be maintained and retained into perpetuity for girls and for the GS traditions and future.
- troops are too small
- Some parents are unwilling to "step up"; they seem to expect troops already to be formed with leadership in place.
- Our council is very under staffed. This was really apparent after I attended an event at a GS West Central Florida council (council north of ours). They have an amazing council & robust programming. Of course, the demographic make up in their area is different. We live in a very elderly area with pockets of affluent people. One city in our council was recently noted as the city was the oldest population in the US. Not exactly a good fit for GS & recruiting volunteers, especially since many are seasonal or don't care to be involved.
- More mothers in full time employment. Girls involved in other activities that require parent's time.
- Until recently, they treated many volunteers badly.
- Parents are apathetic.
- PARENTS DON'T WANT TO MAKE A COMMITMENT! I have heard every excuse: I have too many kids, I'm a single mom, I don't have time, I don't know how, I'm not crafty, I don't like to camp, I'm married, I travel for work, I work from home, etc. etc. etc. I have struggled with this question for all my 12-1/2 years as a troop leader. I finally came to the conclusion that there are just not many people out there who WANT to volunteer. I have told my story as a volunteer to so many people trying to encourage them, but it seldom gets results. I can't even get my own cousin to commit to a troop after volunteering to help her and her friend get started over the first two years of their troop. She'd rather have her daughter go without a troop than make the commitment. I'm at a loss for the answer. This was the single biggest source of frustration for me as a service unit manager.
- I know we have had new girls join our troop that have shown interest at recruitment events, but we also add girls via word of mouth - they tell their friends.
- Lack of understanding of the challenges facing working moms, homophobic reactions to a lesbian who would like to volunteer, and poor communication/interaction with potential volunteers.
- adults are less and less willing to devote significant amounts of time volunteering; however the pathways and new troop options allow for more flexibility for the volunteers.
- Council doesn't even attend recruitments, they are hardly involved
- Not enough people willing to give their time.
- We always seem to have more girls then we do have troops for them. It's harder to get adults to volunteer then it is to get them to sign their girls. We've also had a change in structure and change over in our area recruiter has left us with no one really recruiting to find leaders AND girls.
- Dear God, where to begin? First, not all of this problem lies with GS. It is increasingly difficult to find parents and other adults to volunteer in schools (or school organizations like PTA/PTOs, booster organizations, etc.), in houses of worship, in athletics (as coaches, referees), and even in Boy Scouts and other youth organizations. For whatever reason, we have generations of adults who just aren't volunteering in their communities, period. But I also think GS is not doing a good enough job of explaining that Scouting does not exist without leaders to provide programming to girls. Make girl participation incumbent on parent volunteerism (the way many private & parochial schools do). Does that mean you have to sign up to be a troop leader? No. But you can sign up to be cookie mom, or troop treasurer, or SU cookie chair.
- Volunteers are not trained well, nor are they supported. The shop where we have to buy items is only open during the day. Ummmmm.... We WORK. During the day! Pick up cookies or nuts? Yup, council insists it is done during the day. So many VOLUNTEER leaders have to take time off from work. We never see council, hear from them or, heaven forbid, get recognized by them even though our childrens slave labor sales force supports them.
- We can usually get Daisy and Brownie leaders. Starting older girl troops is difficult. Part of our problem is moms moving up with their daughters and not adding girls to the troop. We have Brownie and Junior troops with 5 and10 girls in them that will not take additional girls. It becomes a click. Leaders are complaining of having to learn new program...well! Girls do not get the variety of activities. Adults are limited in time and energy. They don't understand it is not cheap baby sitting.
- Because the adult recruitment should have more of a priority.
- We've recently done a huge recruitment drive in our area, but, as always, finding leaders was the big challenge. Council, and especially our local Service Team, provides great support and mentoring for new leaders and volunteers. I think the obstacle isn't Council's fault - the thought of taking on a troop of girls is intimidating!
- There are not enough individuals with time available.
- Parents are too scared to take on the role of leadership for a troop. Others just want a babysitter.
- It is difficult to get leaders involved because they are not sure they can handle the responsibility. Then when they run into registration issues they want to quit. Then the training seems burdensome and they loose some motivation. Training needs to be quick and fun. I know we need it but seldom does the material I learn in a 4 hour session seem worthy of that time commitment. If I had fun or made connections in the training, I might think differently. We don't seem to be able to get leaders that are not also parents. If we did, we might see some fun results. But I am not sure you could get a good commitment from a non-parent leader.
- Part of the reason that it is difficult to recruit leaders is the amount of time required. The paperwork is daunting. There are also financial issues. Any leader out there can tell you that she (or he) pays for things out of their own pocket on a regular basis.
- Everyone is very busy and they don't see that they do have the time. I am a troop organizer and I keep hearing from parents that they work full time and are too busy with their childrens' schedules to add another one.
- The volunteer roles need to be diversified and have a shorter time commitment. I'm not interested in being a troop leader anymore but would consider volunteering a few times per year.
- I think there is a lot of work in being a leader and the training takes too long.
- Parents do not wish to lead. Parents and kids are overbooked as it is. Parents are afraid of taking on the responsibility. Parents are afraid of failing.
- There seems to be a shortage of leaders, or, most certainly, a shortage of "good" leaders the local level. I can't help but wonder if the lack of assistance in helping new leaders starting out isn't a big part of this.
- Parents don't want to, and don't see the benefit of Girl Scouts. More should be done on the benefit of scouting.
- People percieve that they do not haVE TIME AND CAN NOT FIT ANOTHER THING INTO THEIR SCHEDULES
- We are currently paying program implementers to take program to the inner city again at a high cost. What is the dedication of these program implementers? What are they really bringing to the inner city girl? Is this the best way to reach these girls? I don't think so. Most volunteers are in this organization because we believe in the power of girl scouting and what it has done for us and what it can do for the girls of tomorrow. I know the girls of today are very different, but the "guts" of what they need is the same. The chance to become leaders, to feel good about themselves, to try things they could try no place else and feel safe trying them, to make decisions etc... This is still the same and it is where we excel... if we are going to make changes we still need to remember that this program is about the girls. Girls are not being consulted always about changes, or if they are the questions are phrased to get the answers the powers that be want, not the truth.
- The lack of respect the staff gives to volunteers. Staff tell new leaders, you have a weekly troop meeting-- they don't tell new people about all the prep time, trainings, that you can set the meetings to your schedule. Staff actually bully people into becoming leaders then drop them.
- I think people are unsure how they can help. Leading a troop is easy but being a good leader is difficult. There needs to be more mentoring and development of quality leaders.
- Parents say that they can't volunteer to be leaders because they are too busy. They want their daughters to be Girl Scouts but, unless they were a Girl Scout when they were younger, they don't realize the importance of getting involved with their daughter in a troop.
- finding leaders is one thing but keeping leaders is another. girls should be signed up when they are placed with a group, either a troop or a group who is interested in events
- People are too busy and do not want to commit
- The perceived time commitment and lack of support. Also, there is little guidance and new leaders are mostly left to their own devices.
- My council rocks! There was never a better group of women and our one guy!!!
- People are busy with jobs and family and everything else that goes along with modern life. Being a troop leader can be very time intensive.
- I think there should be more recruitment events for parents like we do with the girl scouts.
- It is difficult to get quality and thorough help from the council office. Communication is slow and disorganized. Finding parents who want to jump through the hoops to volunteer is difficult. Support from the council office is minimal. It seems all they want is registrations and checks and anything beyond that - survival of the fittest.
- It's not so much finding leaders. I think our council does a fair job identifying leaders. The concern I notice lately is the commitment and duration of tenure of the newly recruited leaders. Some barely last a full year.
- Adults new to GS don't realize volunteers lead troops. They think it's like gymnastics: sign up, pay up, and someone else will do it all...and they are incredibly resistant.
- The program sucks and it overwhelms even me, an experienced leader 8 years.
- Adult volunteer need to understand the opportunities Girl Scouts can provide them as adults - and the range of activities - and the various ways that time and involvement can be shared and managed.
- The programs aren't suited to the troop environment. If the parents aren't or can't fathom instituting the program what use is it?
- My council does not actively recruit adults
- Changing demigraphics
- Not particularly finding leaders to serve those that sign up through recruitment activities, because VERY few girls do, but difficulty finding leaders in general due to frustration with the organization and programming.
- Our council has a weak website. I often go to other websites to get the details for a patch program or a journey requirement. With mom's working it is hard to have time to put together a whole program without some ideas from others
- Girl Scouting as a whole has lost the personal touch with everything being delivered via a webpage. Recruiting and leading and working with young women and girls is an in person experience - so why do we keep trying to make everything clickable on a webpage?
- Plus they are hit and leave. Program for 1 day and then they don't offer to place them in troops. Then complain to local SU that membership is down
- It takes a lot of time, training and effort to run a troop. Most leaders are doing this while working a full time job.
- leaders don't feel supported. We are forced to accept girls into our troops even when they are disruptive, rude or create an emotionally unsafe environment for fellow members. Further, leaders have to deal with parents who treat leaders as babysitters or employees.
- They jump the gun and recruit girls, promising them troops. They take their money BEFORE they even have a leader or a troop for them. This is WRONG!
- volunteers that have been with Girl scouting for some time feel they are not listened to and at times not needed. Recruitment of newer leaders I have noticed that many don't know anything about the history and or traditions of Girl scouting and often over look safety issues.
- Our council does not offer enough for the girls, our neighbors in Orange County, Ca seem to offer much more.
- We do not have a service unit director and have not had one for years.
- The focus is on recruiting and then there aren't enough leaders to handle the girls coming in. That's like advertising for help and then not having a place form them. We also need to focus on keeping the girls we have.
- There is no appreciation to being a volunteer. Trainings are "required" yet rarely offered in my area of the council. When I complained, I was told, "Well there's one here on this weeknight." I'm honestly expected to drive 3-hours round-trip for a 2-hour long "training" meeting on a weeknight! I'm not being paid for this, so why should I waste MY money on gas, leave my family for hours, not get home until well after my children's bedtime, etc. Council employees expect us volunteers to give and give and give as if we have nothing else going on in our lives. We're all told "Being a leader requires just one hour per week of your time!" It's a complete lie.
- Not enough time spent recruiting volunteers!
- Parents are busy and feel that one more thing will be the chip that breaks the ice.
- Quality volunteers (those that have the true interest of the girls) are difficult to find, and maintain. Girl Scouts does not make it easy to stay motivated. There are a lot of rules, and guidelines, all with their own value, but it makes it difficult for that mom who just wants to see her girls excel within the Girl Scout program. My son is also a Boy Scout...where there are seemingly very few rules to follow (or atleast in our pack). Girl Scouts requires so many permission slips, trip requests, money earning requests, manual older girl travel requests....far too much paperwork and followup for every event or fund raiser. A good volunteer leader should not require so much "babysitting." Though, on the flipside, I do realize that these stipulations were put into place for good reason, for those who didn't follow enough of the rules. I understand that Girl Scouts has to protect its liability as well. Catch 22.
- In my small community, I don't think any work has been done to recuit girls into the program. As evidenced by the lack of publicity about girl scouts. There is never stories in local paper, no information in publications at the local library.
- I am the GS troop organizer for (SU # removed). I have been told that council hired an employee to help me recruit parents to be leaders. I have sent her emails but never an answer. (name removed) at the (location removed) office has helped me more than this person. If it was not for the support of (name removed), I would have stepped down from being the Troop Organizer.
- Volunteers are left on their own without a mentor.
- It's not so much finding the leaders - but the stewardship of them. There are some amazing leaders who have been with the organization for years; but it's taken me three years to identify them!
- There are fewer stay at homes moms able to give time.
- Time commitment is high; too many rules
- Lack of support for the volunteers.
- We are in a society where parents want a babysitting service and will commit their daughter but not themselves to be a leader. I have been a leader for more than 25 years as I feel GS is a great organization for girls to be girls as well as learning important life skills
- There are so many rules now and so few volunteers. There are a handful of volunteers that absorb most of the work in a Service Unit. They get overworked and sometimes don't have the best disposition because of it. One of the main reasons we lose Leaders is due to how other Leaders treat them! So sad but true.
- I don't know that I would fault GSGLA for not finding enough adult volunteers, but I do think society has shifted, and they expect a troop leader to just appear. I don't know that they realize that troop leaders are parents, just like they are and that someone has to step up and lead a troop. Maybe GSGLA could focus on supporting troop leaders more, so they spread the word about how great it is to be a troop leader and all the benefits. If so many troop leaders aren't feeling like it's worth it to lead, then they aren't going to share their positive experience, they'll complain, which will turn off future volunteers.
- Lack of time. Lack of support. It's HARD to get a troop started up if you're a FT employee juggling family, multiple kids, job, life. It shouldn't be so hard!
- I think enough people want their girls to participate, but they don't want to lead. Leading takes a lot of time, effort and money. Leading shouldn't cost the leaders a dime. I am a leader in my church and feel way more appreciated than I feel leading for Girl Scouts. My girls seem to appreciate, but I don't feel it from Council.
- everyone is busy and overscheduled.
- There is very little advertising by the council. there needs to be more information on getting other's involved.
- Adults are pulled in so many directions between work and getting their children from place to place as well as trying to manage their homes, get laundry done and feed everyone a semi- healthy meal. Too much for them. Unless we are dealing with the super volunteer -- one who makes all this look easy and can work with her girls in her troop
- Not enough adults are willing to volunteer.
- Working moms
- Time constraints for the adult of daily life and the training time.
- Council needs to seek non parent volunteers from community. Volunteers are burdened with running our own troops, SU volunteers, and recruiting. Council needs to help find adults for all the girls.
- There are a million reasons why people don't want to help..... I've heard half of them.
- Most adults feel like they don't have the time to volunteer. With most people working outside the home, their time is limited...
- Volunteers are not given enough guidance and support after starting a troop. So much emphasis is made on recruiting girls but not much, if any, emphasis on recruiting leaders.
- Lack of support, lack of training.
- I think we need to be very transparent when signing up girls. I tell parents that ask me, and aren't at my troop level, that if there isn't a troop they can start one or participate in council and SU events. Our SU has a waiting list for Brownies because none of those parents will lead a troop! I think the main reason is the "I don't want to be a leader" mentality of parents. I think if they talked to other leaders they would realize that most of us didn't think we would become GS leaders...we do it for our girls!
- my feelings are that their main theme is to get more girls involved and not on leadership/skill requirement for those who do sign up.
- Working parents; more activities for all the children in a family do not leave time for one parent to concentrate totally on GS; many different cultures in our council that do not have a history of GS- we are unknown to them and they don't seek us out or know enough about us to be interested;
- Red tape/rules/regulations/requirements make it increasingly more time consuming & ultimately harder for leaders to function. Though I know the rules are aimed at protecting the leaders, the council & the girls themselves sometimes its "just too hard" or impossible to make something happen within the guidelines, even for the most dedicated leaders. Cookie sales are one of those things...some field trips...maintaining ratios...attending trainings.
- with everything going on-line and handled at council not only the human element been taken out of the process, but we at the SU level have no idea now, who's registered who's not, who has been background checked who has not, who has had training who has not etc...
- I think it is such a stressful position, it is hard to sell , it's almost a full time job! Additionally, I don't think there is enough talk about recruitment to give options for volunteer positions.
- I am a new leader this year and there is no support and no help and I can see why people don't want to do this. It took about 20 calls and emails to get a bank account. It's unacceptable
- I do not believe there is enough information about scouting in our area. During cookie sales we have a lot of people at our booths saying they didn't realize Girl Scouts were in the area.
- People don't have enough spare time to be leaders
- I don't know. I know there were girls who just started meeting though as no leader could be found. The community coordinator took 2 additional troops for this reason
- Need to advertise more and recruit
- Because we're not supporting the leaders we do have with programming, and not doing a good job recruiting and developing leaders from participating parents and other community segments (retirees, young adults).
- Location and busy busy parents
- All girls participate already in different pathways, that is what keeps girls. Singing girls up exclusively, does not get the girl the full GS experience and benefit of scouting.
- Adults aren't sought out. We hope that the girls' mothers will take an interest and sign up because their daughter did.
- Most parents don't realize troop leaders are not paid staff. They feel these leaders are just there for their kids and that GSUSA has it all figured out. More assistance and information about how volunteers are needed at EVERY recruitment would help.
- Because they have gotten rid if so many of the really good leaders by running them off and making them feel unwanted or needed
- Serving as a leader today is extremely difficult. The paperwork load, time spent at required meetings and trainings that spend too much time selling us non-related items, stiff rules and regulations that NO other non-profit organization has, lack of support, and the "big brother is watching" atmosphere make for much more stress than is really necessary. Appreciation is not shown on a regular basis. Councils and GSUSA can make mistakes and miss deadlines, but leaders cannot. We all feel that we are being watched, supervised and judged, and rarely do we hear what we have done right. This is not 100% true. There are a few professional Girl Scouts who go out of their way to be supportive and helpful. The turnover is so great that information constantly gets lost, and communication jumbled. It is expensive to be a leader - not just the supplies one inevitably winds up donating; but gas, training fees, books and uniform, event fees, paying for physicals . . . And the program has become so rigid that there is nowhere near the flexibility there once was to share your individual knowledge and talents.
- The Council seems to only be concerned with the number of girls and really don't provide much programming events.
- 1. Only parents of girls are approached to be troop leaders. No one asks college students, sorority members, aunts/uncles, older siblings, or family friends to be troop leaders. I'm a prime example; I have no children of my own (yet), but volunteer for Programs & Learning Services events. I've been volunteering for about 10 years. Only one person asked me to be a troop leader, but prefaced "the ask" with a "I know you don't have kids, but..." This is NOT how we should be recruiting! Not at all. 2. Parents (as that IS who we're looking for) do NOT have the time! A troop is too much work for a single parent, or for a married parent where both work full/part time jobs to make ends meet. In addition to their jobs, kids almost always sign up for alternate activities; be it band, choir, sports, science club, whatever. Academic programs have after school hours and parents have to accommodate their children's schedules. To ask them to not only do all of that, but to also invite 20 more little girls into their homes once a week for 10 months, is ridiculous. We should be moving away from "Troops are the standard.". Today's lifestyle doesn't allow for it.
- Our Service Unit has found an answer to this, by having recruitment on specific days and times every month. In doing this we were able ot recruit enough adults to lower our waiting list to a few handful of girls instead of 200 or more on a wait list. We lie when we say it will take only a few hours of your time per week. It takes a lot more than a few hours a week to be successful. People are busy, we have to make sure we help support our new volunteers, so they are not left hanging and our Service Unit does that, I know others are not so successful.
- Parents are just busy. They want to find activities for their kids but don't want to take the time to volunteer.
- Parents stating not enough time for them to be leaders. They think of Girl Scouts as a babysitting program so they have an hour or less to run around. Girls, heck, families are trying to do much in an evening and there is not enough time for everything, so something has to give.
- Many women either aren't interested in the things Girl Scouts do or they don't feel like they have the time or that Girl Scouts isn't benefiting their daughter enough to take the time to participate.
- Adults feel overwhelmed, and don't understand the commitment, so they don't want to sign up.
- People today are just not volunteering or making longer time commitments as they were in the past (may be a generations issue....seeing the same thing in my workplace). Just in my Service Unit in the last 10 years the numbers of people who would volunteer to do extra leadership within the SU has significantly decreased to just a few who are hanging in there. And it is becoming increasingly more difficult to recruit leaders for troops.
- Not enough support for volunteers. More and more of the work that has traditionally been accomplished by the staff are now put on volunteers that already have more than they can handle. If volunteers don't do it -- it doesn't happen be it programming, recruitment, training....
- As a new leaders we didn't realize that the girls stayed with us until they leave the program. We needed a mentor to walk us through every step instead of being told to find the information on line. We could have used a curriculum sample to use for a year. Each year actually. I feel that the program is too vague and becomes unwieldy. New leaders should be matched with an experienced leader for each troop. That experienced one stays with them and guides them for the first year at least. Also, there should be a limit on the number of girls a troop can have. We have 20 and I council would give us more if we would take them. Troops also need to be limited to the same grade. Our troop is mixed and this causes issues with bridging as well as awards and getting through a journey. There is only one year that they are all on the same thing. This isn't enough time.
- The increase in the number of two income households. The fact that existing volunteers are so overwhelmed with their own volunteer/family/work responsibilities that it makes it very hard to support new volunteers. The council continues to place more and more requirements on the existing volunteers, which stretches the resource even more thinly. There is not a clean, single point, push style communication system in place from council making it hard for volunteers to stay informed.
- Most women in my area work and don't have time. Also after my experience I wouldn't recommend to anyone.
- See above comments about local Service Unit managers! This issues was brought up at a local area delegate meeting. I said the same thing - you can have the greatest recruitment program for girls and adults. But, it doesn't matter if you don't have the supports in place to keep them. You might keep them 2-3 years and that's it. Councils need to focus on taking care of the issues that current Leaders / staff have and stop focusing so much on recruitment.
- Recruiting non-scout background adults is difficult, More "fast Four" meeting formats and more on-line interactive training to get them started. Leader Mentoring would help.
- They don't have any idea what it takes to be a leader because most of them have never been in GS prior to taking the job and they never go to a meeting to see what happens there or how much time and planning goes into a meeting.
- Too much bad pr about council
- I think it is hard to find people who agree to be leaders...so make sure you appreciate the ones that we have and treat them respectfully and do not waste their times at things like leader's meetings, etc. Make time commitments be for very important things and make them very efficient - we are all too busy to sit around a non-productive meeting! Facebook and email are there to communicate a lot of stuff !!
- We have been told over and over that GS is a "membership organization" NOT a service one. This is wrong-headed thinking and should cease. NOW.
- Moms want their daughter to have the Girl Scout experience they had as a child, but they do not want to be the volunteer/leader to provide it.. I think they do not understand they can share the responsibilities of the troop with all of the parents, so it is not too much for any one person.
- Parents don't have enough free time to devote to setting up and running a troop. We all take on too much and helping with girl scouts just isn't a priority for them.
- And of those long time leaders they hang them out to dry with no support if there is one issue they blame the troop leader
- Lack of time, concern over amount of time needed.
- Our council appears as a very disorganized unprofessional run non-profit. Women, particularly professional women, do not want to deal with the frustration of dealing with a poorly run company. I co-directed a day camp and had several volunteers who had to deal with our council quit over its poor management. Also if you want your daughter to be exposed and learn about corporate management, you want it to be with a well run company. Our Girl scout council is not that.
- lack of organization, help, money
- Potential volunteers see it as too time-consuming.
- Not letting adults know about the support and training available. Even I didn't feel qualified or interested in be a Troop Leader. I wound up starting two troops in two different towns, though. There were over 200 girls on the waiting list in my county. I had to do something to help get all those interested girls. I registered five co-leaders and five parent volunteers to get it all together. (I call the parent volunteers "future co-leaders".) One thing that bothered me was that on the spreadsheet wait list I was given, so many parents had been noted as being interested in being a leader. Why were these parents not called and told about starting a troop or adding on to an existing troop? Other parents on it were interested in being troop volunteers.
- In my daughter's school, not every grade level has a troop. I know there are second graders who would like to be in Girl Scouts but none of the parents wanted to step up and be a troop leader. I lead the first graders and another mom leads third graders. We are both too tapped out to add second graders to our troops so the second graders just aren't participating. I mentioned this to our SUM at the beginning of the school year but nothing was done to solve the problem.
- The focus of the staff is all about increasing the numbers. When I have asked why (do you get paid a bonus for signing more girls?) I get vague answers about bringing the program to lots of girls. But, the reality is that many girls are recruited, few are placed in troops and the rest complain loudly to their friends which makes it even harder to recruit the next time. How about "if we build it, they will come?" I think we should focus on a very strong program and the word will spread that Girl Scouts is the best place for girls to be.
- RULES - DRAMA - PROGRAM
- I wish I had an answer then we would have more leaders
- Finding leaders that are reliable, willing to put up with too much training, too many rules, too much local council politics, lack of communication and cooperation from council, dealing with unruly children, time consumption, being used as a babysitter, work schedules, and the expense are major contributing factors. Why be an unpaid leader that takes time away from the family when joining a group is easier and is little hassle? Times have changed and both parents usually work and demands at home are great. Single parents seem to be a growing majority.
- During recruitment there is nothing showing the support and training a leader potential needs. It's like sign your girl up, oops no leaders so you have to be one, slow background checks or feedback that troops don't get started until LATE fall.
- Leader burnout and overextension. Parent burnout or overextension from other activities. The ridiculous push by National to make so many two-year levels, making it much harder for leaders who'd like to have a multi-year/multi-level troop - and thus most leaders do a single-year/single-level troop, which makes it harder to get girls and leaders together and with compatible schedules and interests.
- A lot of households are dual income households now and don't have the time/money to take on one more thing or participate. The cultural differences are a huge factors. Some don't see volunteering as a noble/honorable contribution to their communities and everything it has to offer without helping or contributing the time, effort or money.
- Because parents are so overwhelmed today. If they come to the recruitment and hear and see all the different books, etc. it scares them off. Also I don't think today's women volunteer like previous generations.
- Parents are often reluctant to take on yet another activity. It can seem daunting to a new leader all the things that can/should be done for and with the girls. I hold two meeting a month, and there are many things I want to do with my girls that I just can't fit in.
- I do not see our council actively recruiting adult volunteers.
- Leader development and support
- TIME. Leaders need training to be good in their positions, yet everyone is so busy, commuting, working multiple jobs, traveling, online training is helping, but in many cases we need face to face and Q&A sessions with the volunteers. Not sure how to address that.
- Lack of information and training and lack of support.
- In my area, most adults are savvy enough not to volunteer with a corrupt organization.
- They don't recruit adults to be leaders.
- YES YES YES I have been leading my troop basically on my own. Yes there is a CO-leader on paper. But on paper only. Yes there is two adults in attending meetings/events- but they are just there as another Adult. Its sad and I want to do more but I need an active partner. Yes Troops are folding all around us and what little leaders are left cant handle all the girls and stress by our selves. GSUSA needs to concentrate on getting more leaders and treating them loving and kind with fun training. THEN the higher numbers of girls will come. You can't just get more girls and hope someone will lead them.
- New leaders are relatively unsupported and hit with all kinds of legal requirements immediately. Most effective leaders ease into the position by helping leaders casually. Service Unit Directors were the most affected by consolidation. Instantly they were hit with a huge increase in responsiblility for absolutely no pay or recognition. Staff members made up goals for them to meet and were raising the bars rather that praising and encouraging.
- First and foremost I know that parents around her don't want to commit. You have parents that give a lot and those that don't and those that do are getting burned out (that is the point that I am getting to and have started backing off, especially since my business has more than doubled in two years.) I also don't think that some parents are comfortable leading due to language issues as we have many foreigners in our area. Further, they also didn't grow up with GS and therefore don't know much about us other than we sell cookies. Leading is what you want it to be and no two troops are the same.
- Sadly most parents are looking for another activity for their girl who is already over scheduled. The parent is not interested I'm being even more committed to anyone activity so no volunteers.
- I know there are girls who would like to be in troops but leaders are not available.
- We emphasize signing up younger girls whose parents are not mature or self-sufficient enough to feel comfortable leading a troop. We don't emphasize retaining older girls, whose leaders are old hands and often suffer troop dissolution when girls hit middle and high school and activities multiply. We might look at the Cub Scout model - one troop that serves one program level, in addition to or in place of the usual model where a leader follows her girl as she ages.
- the culture and society we live in
- The council seems little to not involved at the service level.
- Adults just don't want to step up. In addition, I think the new programming is difficult to do especially in rural settings. Journies need to be re worked by volunteers so much that it's daunting.
- Council and service units do a great job recruiting. There are just not enough people stepping up. we average about 2 troops per grade level per school. some grades need 3 troops
- Families are much more independent than in the past. The first 50 years of scouting, carpooling and sharing responsibility of telephoning each member were big issues. Now everyone has a car but doesn't try to coordinate with others - just send them an email and tell them when to drop their kid somewhere and don't ask for any other interference with the parent's lives - especially not doing something outside with girls or camping or anything beyond elementary school science.
- So much has to go into being a leader that it is daunting no matter how much it is claimed to be flexible.
- They work hard on getting the younger girls but not in retaining the older girls.
- Not enough staff to work in the service units to help with recruitment. Service team members are spread too thin trying to recruit, train, and run their own troops.
- Council sets up a GS night at the school, lets the kids show up with their parents, then lays it on the line: there's no troop unless someone steps up. Parents don't seem to know this ahead of time, nobody wants to do it, they don't feel qualified. People like me start by "helping" the leader and end up getting sucked in and leading. There has to be a better method of recruitment!
- No follow up because of high turnover of employees
- A lot of parents don't want to help out. They are looking for someone else to do all the work.
- Parents are too busy and not willing to put forth the time and effort.
- I think council and GSUSA forgets that the leaders are volunteers when they give the leaders so many extra things to do. The Daisy Dozen program is a complete waste of time as is the monthly leader meetings that they called mandatory. These things take away from planning our meetings and events with the girls.
- Not enough events to meet
- Many parents have complained about the difficulty getting a response from staff members when they contact the council about finding a troop for their daughter. I do know that there is a huge wait list for girls looking for troops. I don't think that parents are aware of how GSUSA is a volunteer program, where the parents should actively participate. Many parents are intimidated by the thought of leading a troop. I know that my area director has attempted to get parents into the council for informational meetings, but parents do not show up. Perhaps having an informational packet, geared toward recruting new leaders, that explains the process and responsibilities would encourage people to volunteer.
- Parents want someone to do it for them, drop off service, and no commitment on their level. I think that if was can get more "families" involved they would stay with the program longer as the whole family. Parents with different age girls end up in different troops and things get complicated, when things get complicated, GS gets dropped.
- No proactive reach to only recruit new leaders. Just as one is recruiting new girl members, you also need to recruit new leaders and focus solely on this separately.
- Adults are busy and being a troop leader takes tremendous amount of time. I feel that new leaders are not given enough mentoring and they back out. I feel everything I learned being a leader for 5 years was persevering on my own with little guidance from council.
- It is very hard to get volunteers these days- everyone is "busy". We need to have council recruiters at local events- they are better at "closing" and hooking volunteers in I think. Not many people ever really want to sign up to be a leader- they do it for their daughter so there can be a troop. Boy Scouts have more paid leaders in urban areas where it is hard to find leaders- GS needs to do more of this. Moms (or whoever) will jump in to help, and hopefully sign up as they gain confidence. The ever increasing rules and training is discouraging new leaders- they feel overwhelmed and do not always understand that rules came about for a reason. Our SU tries to have level mentors to help them.
- My guess would be that the volunteers aren't contacted unless they specifically put on their that they want to be a troop leader. Luckily, years ago the local town rep. personally called me and convinced me to be the leader even though I hadn't marked it. I ended up being a troop leader for years and have loved it ever since! People need a little friendly push now and then!
- Parents all want to have their girls join, but claim they don't have the time to volunteer. I have been looking for a solution for over 10 years...
- The council does not emphasis enough the fact that if a parent wants her girl involved in Girl Scouting that she, the parent, needs to step up and form a troop. There are not enough openings in existing troops to take in new girls.
- The staff is very inpersonal-- they don't tell a new leader what all being a lead is about-- both good and bad. You get a lot of work, parents don't help, but seeing the girls learn and grown is a great reward. Council staff only care about getting numbers up-.
- Communication, training and support. There used to be recruitment meetings held at schools to educate parents and girls interested and get them excited about scouting and get parents excited about leading.
- Especially at the older girl level, troops do not fold because of lack of girl interest. They fold because the adults get fed up with the red tape, lack of support, and out right incompetence of council staff and convince their girls to focus their efforts into other activities.
- In our service unit, it is sometimes difficult finding parents who are willing to volunteer so much time to run troops.
- Girl Scouts has become nothing more than a babysitting service and no one wants to be a leader because of that reason.
- We should 1-have a program that fills the need for outdoor activity, and 2-recruit leaders as actively as we recruit scouts.
- A lot of the problem lies with the younger generation not being inclined to volunteer. They expect it to be like soccer etc and a leader to already be in place so that they can just drop off their daughter. We have had to start stating that if a parent doesn't step forward we will not be able to register the girls as our Troops are all at capacity.
- I think parents are afraid of the commitment of being a leader and do not have the knowledge to get a troop started. I feel that not enough support is provided to them in helping them get started.
- I feel they are being pushed by GSUSA and don't have a lot of choice. The rules cause a lot of staff turnover (about every 2 years if not less) so we are continually training staff on policy and program and they're supposed to be there for us. In the olden days when we could allow volunteers to work with staff there was more cooperation, more enthusiasm, more retention of both staff and volunteers than I see today. GSUSA should check the statistics to see what the life of a GS leader is now VS 20 years ago. How many leaders stay with the girls regardless of whether their daughter remains? In our SU we have several who like myself continue to serve even after our daughters have graduated out of the program. Since there is not the continuity of membership staff, some SU's and leaders are not sufficiently trained and subsequently run little "Hitler" regimes making up rules as they go to thwart Pathways. One SU tried to make a parent take all of the trainings or her daughter wouldn't be included after the daughter's original troop disbanded. She came to one of my trainings and she was able to make the right contacts to get the correct information and now the girl rather than being an outcast is a spokesperson for the Council.
- I think people are intimidated by the volunteer process. From the difficulty of online registration, to getting involved with council to be placed (unless you are signing up with your daughter) to background checking, to volunteer training. The volunteer essentials book is huge and intimidating to new volunteers. Only some training is required, but depending on the trainer, it can be intimidating as well. Girl Scouts does have some excellent classes, but for women with little volunteer experience, I think it can be overwhelming.
- Parents may think becoming a leader is too time consuming
- Everyone is so busy and volunteering, especially as a leader, is a large time commitment. I have met many parents over the years who have said they wanted their daughter to be in a troop, but they couldn't find an available spot. When I mention that is likely due to lack of leaders and they should volunteer to be a leader and their daughter would automatically be in a troop, they decline. One suggestion is to try to develop a program where adult leaders "mentor" other leaders. Perhaps one "experienced" leader could be placed with a troop and then request parent volunteers to help the experienced leader throughout the year (if there isn't any one parent, then each parent would need to agree to one-two months of meeting/activities as their share). The "agreement" could be that the mentor leader would work with the troop for one year and then the parents would need to take over in the leadership role.
- Girls want to be in Girl Scouting, but our council no longer provides training for leaders. New leaders are lost, and current leaders have troops so large they don't have time to "train" new leaders.
- I use to be very active in the Memphis TN area however I couldn't even tell you what the name of the council is. I've tried to help girls get a troop and have had poor response.
- Definitely need to look at recruiting more volunteers. You'll never get more girls engaged if the troop aren't there for them to be part of.
- I know my town no longer has a girl scout troop at any level. Part of it might be volunteer/leadership issues. But the other "problem" is emphasis on the all consuming sport, the kids have very little time for extra curriculars.
- Not enough understanding of the support available for new leaders. Lack of understanding of scouting in general.
- In our SU we still have 8 girls who were signed up who are leader-less ... all we've done is set ourselves up to fail ... those little girls deserve better than this and why put so much pressure on those moms ... we've seen this many times "if you don't step it up than your daughter won't have a troop" then that person feels guilty and takes on a troop only to hate it and quit the next year. The entire troop flops because most of the time the other girls' parents are also very fed up.
- the requirements and the fact that most work a fulltime job .the support system out of our council is not the best. there are some wonderful staff members but like every organization some are not good.
- I've been in Tennessee for almost 5 years now....I've called and spoken to council about volunteering....I have over 50 years as a scout and adult volunteer....I've ran the gammitt on different positions....council sounded excited....I received a couple of calls from a field advisor telling me that they were mailing me background forms to fill out and that a local neighborhood chair would call.....nothing....I've received no calls, no forms.....a couple of years went by and I was at a scout fundraiser and met the new local scout chair along with a couple of volunteers...gave my business card....nothing. I realize I'm older but I still have a lot of great ideas and time where I could volunteer......I don't understand....
- some of it is because of our su manger
- I am a Membership Recruiter. I find the Service Units over demanding of leaders time. The neighborhood/community model work best at forming 'esprit de corps' among troops, girls, leaders and parents. I do not have the time I am required to expend finding adults to be leaders. The process to become a leader is very time consuming for adults. Council staff is overworked and dumps on the volunteers, who get frustrated and leave the program with child in tow. Girl Scouts is not a for profit business and should not force those demands on volunteers. It is destroying the program.
- The demographic they focus on is already spread so thin. Also, asking the volunteers to pay for their own background checks is not right.
- More programming for older girls needed....
- Parents are just too busy. We have to help them think about co-leadership with three adults to a troop. That way there should always be two adults available.
- The online process is not user-friendly, nor does a volunteer see a "body" until they are in and there's no face-to-face with new volunteers immediately.
- Lack of communication. The staff is too busy reciting,
- A few women who know it all and are not willing to allow others in.
- Our council does not do a good job of supporting our leaders. I think our council should concentrate a bit more on retention. And I feel that the constant turn over in our staff leaves an unexperienced group trying to carry out recruitments and program activities without the knowledge of what Girl Scouts is all about. It seems to be a business, not an organization for girls. Many seem to be in it for a paycheck and have no regard for the Girl Scout Law. It seems to me those "enforcing" the law should be trying to follow it as well. Recuitments are great, but without leader training and actually getting the girls into a troop in a timely manner all of the recruitments in the world won't work.
- Potential leaders are scared away by the ridiculous process.
- If our council does, it is their own fault. I have heard many moms say they told council they would be leaders and council told them to find another volunteer and five girls and they could. Councils need to do more to match up girls and volunteers in to troops instead of huge troops or waiting lists.
- Our service unit never seems to have enough leaders. I think that it might be because they never have leader recruitment events. They have plenty of girl events, but none to recruit leaders. Also the registration nights are not well run. When my daughter first joined you had to arrive at an event at a specific start time. Then all the girls went off with different volunteers to experience some fun girl scout activities like learning songs and games and making crafts. While they were gone the adults listened to a presentation about the Girl Scout program and its values and objectives. That was followed up by a plea for volunteers to fill vacant positions. It worked well, but this is not what my current council does.
- My council has decided to do more younger girl programs and now the older girls aren't sticking around! That's a shame!
- It's hard to get working moms to volunteer when they are already so busy.
- Lack of support, lack of recognition
- There is not much training on how to deal with awful people that want to suck leaders dry with old baggage. As leaders how do we recognize & deal with these abusers of our time management & be great volunteers ( how do we put the complaints back in the complainers lap as I feel the complainer needs to create a solution or just SHUT UP
- Being a troop leader seems daunting. It is often not presented in a "user friendly" way. Parents are busier and need to be presented with options for balancing life and troop management.
- Because of the time that the volunteer has to put in. Young families are very busy and too much paper work that Council want volunteers to do and they just do not have the time. More and more paperworks on the volunteers
- Lack of new leader support, too many rules/structure for leaders.
- Not reaching out to single, childless and retired demographics. The "working" parents are simply too busy, and they would rather pay, like in sports, than have to volunteer.
- Lack of emphasis on recruiting volunteers before recruiting girls. Girls we have in abundance but without the volunteers to implement the programs, that number is irrelevant.
- Parents are reluctant to take on 'one more thing.' Also, figuring out what you need to do to become a leader is overwhelming and not well explained.
- You need to recruit leaders and GSUSA should develop programs to train council on getting leaders. Having Michelle Obama do a video isn't getting it done. Too polictical in some areas and they message is lost. I held a recruiting event in September and the lady from council was so uninspiring that we didn't get a single mother to volunteer and there were over 20 adults and close to 40 girls. Plenty of girls signed up but no troop to put them in....
- Most parents believe they cannot possibly take on a leadership role because they work. There should be a national ad campaign "I am a Girl Scout leader" with women from all walks of life, economics, careers, and education levels saying who they are and why and how they volunteer. If I can do it, maybe someone else will realize she can do it. Single moms, moms of many kids, career and professional women, struggling moms, etc.
- I believe in teaching the value of commitment. I believe in community service. I think members should be committed to the entire program. I don't think some should do the "work" of scouting and others just jump in for the "fun" events.
- I just don't think parents want to be involved.
- Parents are very busy and feel they don't have the time to become leaders. They need a better understanding of what being a leader entails so that they can see that it is possible for anyone to be a leader.
- The recruitment process is reverse. We should focus on finding the adult volunteers. And building girl communities within already established communities like schools, etc. Girl Scouts thrived on the girl community developed through troops and camp. You cannot get that experience form a one day event once a year.
- Volunteer Organizations generally have this problem, but it was much simpler with my son in Boy Scouts. The Pack program made forming dens and finding leaders for dens (which work like GS troops) much much easier.
- The bigger issue with recruitment of girls by council is that in the past several years they have made the Communities responsible for recruitment. They tell us what our girl numbers are and expect us to improve them. They have provided little help in staffing a recruitment drive and none for getting adult volunteers. They sent a bunch of pdfs for fliers, but expected us to pay to print them and make the signs. As and Adult Recruiter a few years ago, I was tasked with interviewing potential volunteers and then there was not follow up from council as to helping to train them. They said it was our Community that should have done this, but again there was no training. I myself didn't get much of a training, as the poor woman who showed up to give me training had been told by council that they did not have a training manual yet for my position! It was discouraging and I did not return to the position the following year. It has improved slightly since then, but damage has been done.
- People don't want to put time into volunteering
- They don't follow up on volunteer offers, for example my offers to volunteer. Also, my daughter, who is a lifetime member and has been on admin staff at camp, has been a leader in Eastern Mass, and has been active with GS for many years had to basically beg to be assigned to a troop as a leader in her area. She is on a planning committee for the council, but had to complete an entire application with references to become a troop leader. Then, she had to call multiple people at the council to ensure that they followed up. It took almost a year for her to be assigned to a troop that needed another leader.
- When too much is emphasis is placed on recruitment, it becomes a numbers game. It's about QUALITY not QUANTITY. As a Service Unit Manager, it's hard to support my Membership specialist who needs to recruit girls when you know we don't have troops established for them and it's just about getting to the number set by council.
- No one wants to step up and volunteer, some have heard about another leader/former leaders problems/frustrations and lack of training and help and they don't want to go through the same thing.
- Special requirement for adult volunteers. You can not have a troop without the leaders. It seams we are forced to keep taking more girls than is possible. With larger troops, it is harder to get to the values as Girl Scouting.
- The current troop leaders do not feel as though they are receiving enough help and support and therefore are not taking in more girls. The potential volunteers see the frustration that the current leaders have and don't want any part of that. If the current leader had more support, then they would enjoy it more and others would see how much they may enjoy it too.
- GSUSA still has not come up with a workable model to divide troop leader responsibilities among several adults to fit with the schedules of women who work.
- It's always been a "numbers game".....recruit, recruit, recruit.
- Not enough support, training and resources to support volunteers.
- Potential volunteers not understanding what being a leader would require. In my personal experience, we were told we could get together and co-lead, but there was no further outreach to us to provide us with training information or what the support systems are. My suggestion would be to have current leaders meet with potential new leaders (parents with girls who are interested in joining) at the same time the service units are recruiting girls so they can provide information about what they do as leaders.
- They make it very difficult to train the new leaders. By the time they discover how long the training is (over 4 hours), the adults say they don't have enough time.
- Registration is frequently not followed up-many families have complained that they registered through the new online system (and paid) expecting to have a daughter placed in a troop, then we're not contacted. This is killing our reputation.
- No recruitment activities for ADULTS. Council pushed girl recruitment onto the Service Unit managers who are already overwhelmed with running the SU and usually a troop as well, on top of a full time job. Very frustrating when Council has PAID people who are supposed to do this as part of their job description.
- I think that recruitment is weak in our Council. The Council should be getting into the open houses at every elementary school, if possible. They should be getting information out to churches. We have Y guides and American Heritage in our area. Alumnae are not sought out for leadership. How about a registry of Alumnae that updates with life changes like marriage and children. GS could communicate with them in the lead up to their daughter entering kindergarten.
- I think parents need to understand more about what the life of a Girl Scout leader looks like AND show them how a girl can benefit from Scouting. A commercial by girls about girls in Scouting might be great...
- Moms are concerned with the time commitment they need to make in order to be an effective leader of a girl scout troop.
- It's not finding the leaders, but keeping them. The programs are too involved; the girls have schoolwork to do and then girl scout work. I find it exhausting. There is also too much politics going on.
- They don't really help them once they get their money leaders are left to fend for themslves to get training and set up completed
- Leaders are not valued by staff, there is little to no communication or help to leaders, and leaders often have trouble complying with the new restrictions on how meetings can be run (only registered children at meetings, etc.)
- it is hard to find adults to lead it is a big commitment
- People are too busy & aren't encouraged and supported properly to realize they can be leaders.
- They rely too much on parents, but parents are very busy and they are not involving other members of the community who might like to lead a troop but don't have girls.
- Perception of time needed. There are no written manuals for new leaders. This would have saved me a ton of time.
- Everyone wants their daughter to sign up for girl scouts but no one wants to be leaders. Generally the troop leaders are parents of the girls in that troop. So girls have to wait for a parent to step up and be leader in order to get a troop going. It would be nice if GS alumnae would volunteer to run troops rather than just parents. A lot of times the parents were not Girl Scouts so they don't know what they are doing, whereas a GS alumnae would make a better program.
- Bad training. The leaders aren't told about the service unit meetings. They feel lost.
- no incentives to become leaders, no support for leaders from Councils or GSUSA, and history of lousy treatment of leaders
- Too much paperwork, too little documented resources in one place; to much general BS
- It is hard to get volunteers thru a computer system that is so old. It takes a while to get the info and get it to the proper leader/service team.
- Parents are scared to get involved because of the time commitment and/or not feeling comfortable in leading a troop.
- training, communication. They want to reach a girl count and are forced to focus on getting those numbers in for council...they have little time to focus on leaders.
- I think that the hardest problem with recruitment of adult volunteers is the time commitment. Many adults who were former leaders do it out of love for the program. Better programs with Q&A sessions for potential leaders would be a better way to retain them. Many new adult volunteers feel lost or overwhelmed
- The recruitment staff does not do much at all for recruiting leaders and girls. They need to replace the staff in our area with people care about their job and who are not taking long "working" lunches and on Facebook all day. We need staff that wants to help our service unit; find leaders and help leader get girls for their troops.
- The amount of time GS is requiring of volunteers to be troop leaders has become a burden on the working mothers/parents today. This is creating a short fall of volunteers, which in turn is taking away from GS enrollment. Quotes from parent “too much time required of the parent for training and girls, leaving us to have to give up something”
- parents are busy and don't want to take on the time commitments, and there is a definite lack of close community support since realignment happened. A lot of experienced, very involved leaders left after realignment due to shifting council policy's.
- I don't think the leadership is excited and pro active enough to get out there and spread the girl scout message. It seems that it is more of a job instead of a passion. Recruiting needs to be about truly wanting to impact and improve the life a girl. Not just collect a pay check
- Cause the only thing our city cares about is Wrestling and Girls Swimming
- People are just think they are too busy. They want someone else to do the work. Of those that are willing, they need more support. They are afraid that they won't know what to do.
- Communication
- We are instructed to recruit only adults, not girls.
- Not enough incentive or training for leaders
- I don't think our council has a good enough balance on recruiting & existing members.
- The program is now too much like school. Volunteers don't want to be schoolroom teachers, but mentors to young girls. I also believe that the different 'pathways' other than troops and camp are just a way to get more membership fees. Many of these 'pathways' are a one day or just a few weeks program and then GS has their $ and don't have to offer them anything else. I believe this will lead to dissatisfied girls/parents who feel they are not getting their money's worth from the program.
- Parents are busy, often looking for free babysitting, unwilling to put forth the effort to work with a troop because of the responsibility and time investment and the thought that "someone else can do it". Parents at recruitment events do not understand that there are not leaders waiting for girls to join--it is always the other way around. I could find fifty girls in about thirty minutes, but finding the adults to take those fifty girls into troops is a big time and effort investment and most parents don't understand the need for leaders or what it takes to be one. Newly recruited leaders do better with more personal contact with experienced leaders.
- Competition with sports and other activities is a hindrance but if the council is not being seen or in the eye of the public as doing good and fun things, why should anyone want to participate? If a girl has a horrible experience because the volunteers were not trained well, that will be shared among the public. I know we can't get rid of that risk but it could be limited.
- Emphasis on gaining new numbers to meet recruitment goals without the support staff and volunteers to handle the new membership.
- Too much training time. Too much too to implement the journeys.
- I have girls that wanted to be in a troop but no one would volunteer to lead it. The moms did not want to be a Juliette status. I feel that those girls will decide to do something else and not try again
- Time commitment
- The difficulty in communications.
- I feel that the council needs to spend more time on recruiting adults for leader and community team positions. I think they also need to come up with more effective ways to recruit girls. Our community numbers are down a large amount this year. I know this is partially due to registration fees going up by over 100 % with the increase to $15 and our local council charging an additional $15.
- Poor support at the Council level to the Service Units. They push 'numbers' but it falls on the volunteers in the SU level to train and organize. when the SU fails at placing girls quickly enough, or is incapable of forming troops fast enough, the parents complain to Council and Council in turn complains back the to SU, so at this point we are getting it from both sides. The number of girls participating is worthless if the experience is bad and leaves parents regretting the decision to join GS.
- People are too busy and not knowing how to get involved in a step-by-step basis further hurts this process. Potential leaders need to understand that they can make the troop what they want and they don't need to follow some standard way of doing things. Troops should do what works for them.
- Making the volunteering process difficult to navigate. I was starting a troop of 8th grade cadettes this year and almost gave up several times with all the obstacles placed in my path. I'm not a new leader either. I had been a leader for 2 years in my last council. My troop is comprised of girls that had a leader resign and girls moving to the area so they needed a troop.
- there are too many things leaders need to do and it's not worth it.
- People want to complain but don't want to put any effort in
- Because the support and training is so lacking. If i wasn't already skilled at organizing my troop would have failed! There is zero support, zero
- There are no incentives to be a leader. I only do it because my daughter loves what we do in our troop. I don't like dealing with our service unit or council members, they lack the compassion and knowledge to assist leaders.
- I don't see any adult volunteer recruitment happening. We do have recruitment events at the elementary schools but these are geared toward children. Obviously, the hope is that someone wants their daughter in enough that they will lead. That is what happened to me (although I was a GS as a child, too). Volunteers need to be appreciated! Not berated or talked down to or ridiculed or left to fly on their own.
- There is not incentive to be a leader, leaders still have to pay to register and train themselves. It is like paying someone to be able to help him.
- Lack of Meeting Locations
- People are busy and are afraid to commit. It would be great to have more mentors that could help start Troops and then turn over leadership to the adults. Get parents to team up so it doesn't all fall to one leader. We have lots of support for leaders, but I know it is still scary to make the commitment.
- There is not enough follow-up for the new Leaders and they get overwhelmed.
- Yes, I have added 1-2 girls to our troop every year for the past several years.
- There are not enough people willing to lead.
- Parents are looking for babysitters, not becoming an active participant in their childs activities
- Time commitment, not hearing back from council staff in charge of starting troops, frustration in general. In some areas, many can't pass a background check.
- There is too much conflict among the women (leaders) in my service unit (SU name removed) which scares off several potential leaders. We are not visible enough in our community and receive minimal support from council. We lack meeting spaces in our service unit, forcing many troops to meet in leaders homes and become exclusive, thus not welcoming new girls into scouting.
- Not enough new leader support
- Yes--we struggle In some areas of the council. Some areas leaders come from the recruitment event as moms/parents of girls with no problem. Other areas, parents are not stepping up. I am hopeful that pathways will allow girls to at least participate in something, and once they are fully active this might encourage more to volunteer as a troop leader. I think this will take time.
- Lack of support and communication. It seems like the focus is on enrollment numbers not the leaders and girls.
- It seems as if the Council employees are rated (performance evaluations) on the number of girls who sign up - it's an official goal for them and at the SU level, we feel the pressure. For adults, it's hard to not convince them that there's too much work in being in a leader.
- our council does not do recruiting activities -- that is left to the service units. we only start troops when there are adults to lead. council should help find more adults to lead ... the girls will follow! we always have more girls needing troops than adults willing to lead.
- Yes, but this is been the case for many years.
- Potential volunteers feel that it will be too time consuming to be a leader. Plus, they have many other time commitments and opportunities.
- I think that until we have enough staff to back up and support new leaders, volunteers will be reluctant to step forward. Much of the structure still seems to be oriented towards non-working volunteers, when in fact most of our volunteers work full time outside the home.
- We don't make it a requirement that girls who sign up must have involved parents. I personally ask every family in my troop to lead a badge as a requirement for joining my troop. It weeds out the dead weight.
- My service unit does a great job of this, not council for my area.
- I don't feel troop leaders are given enough credit for what they do.
- People claiming they do not have the time to volunteer. It takes too long to get background checks done. People think you have to have a daughter to participate.
- The time commitment scares off parents. They have busy lives and are happy to drop off their daughters but don't want the obligation of leading. Also, we had someone in the past who did not represent GS/us well. Poorly dressed-not in GS attire, late to scout night & yelling at her daughter. There needs to be a guideline for GS leaders and uniforms for girls. The Boy Scouts always look good and stand out in a crowd. Our girls blend in because all the moms do is put their GS vest/sash over normal clothes. I've tried to get a uniform standard for the girls in our council but leaders don't listen or care. I've proposed a white collared shirt, khaki bottoms (shorts, skirt, capris, pants, etc.) with vest/sash unless their troop has a specific uniform. Image says a lot. Pink spotted leggings and the like don't belong with a uniform.
- The council drops the ball when recruiting.
- The main reason we have lost adult volunteers is because they end up feeling like the organization has consumed their daily lives and it feels too much like work. The main reason we have issues with recruiting new adult volunteers is because the adults are worried it will be too much for their schedule. I also believe the reason we lose these members or have a hard time recruiting new members is because of the lack of support in starting a Troop. Many adults know it takes money to start a Troop and often times they don't have the money to purchase a guidebook or journey book set to get their troop started on earning patches.
- recruiting is low.
- I am disappointed to find out that there is a leader that was dismissed from another troop for control issues but can still lead other troops? The situation sounds pretty serious and included continued bullying in the troop over many years that she overlooked, yet it is still ok for my daughter to be led by her?
- Our council is too big. Council support and resources are a 3 hour drive away.
- Council keeps recruiting girls, and does little to recruit leaders. That is through the efforts of our SU manager. I do think that training is an issue for many adults. Online training for many required classes would open this for many. It is difficult for many to get to the training sessions in a large council, especially since most of us are parents with young children at home, and many work as well.
- Yes, which is why we need current Girl Scouts, volunteers, leaders, co-leaders, and supporters to talk about how amazing the experience is - on social media, at yoga classes, in the grocery store line, in your emails, with extended family over dinner - you are our greatest voice! If you're sharing all the amazing things Girl Scouting brings to your family and troop, more and more people will start to catch on to our energy and enthusiasm .... which means more girls get to experience the magic of Girl Scouts! Win-Win!
- Lack of community involvement by employees of GSEIWI.
- They choose to get rid of anyone who speaks out against the current program. I tried to lead a 80 person day camp and they refused to allow me to lead after said I was not supporting the cookie sale. I never told the girls not to sell, after all, that's their choice. I told neighbors and friends and family that the girls got more money if you donated $1 per box instead of buying. Saving them money, giving the girls more, and sending a message to the council. Again, I never brought my opinion to the kids. We were there to play and learn, not to politic. I was still told they would rather have no camp, then a camp lead by someone who wasn't 100% with the program.
- Not enough parents wants to put up with the red tape crap and there are other things going on in people lives.
- Small Troop sizes. Troop leaders close them at six. And never open. Many people want their daughters in Scouts but time is a issue.
- Every service unit is different. My service unit does a good job at recruitment, but I know that other SU's have difficultly.
- Parents and children are over committed/scheduled.
- Personally, giving scouting enough of my time is a huge issue. Few parents of the other girls have offered to help with events because they are overloaded as well. I wish I was more connected with other leaders for advise. I can't make it to monthly SU meetings due to the day of the week they are held.
- Poor leader training as well as a false sense of what that leader is to do as a leader. Not consistent across the board, lack of support, lack of follow up once leader is place in a position.
- Just seems like very little parent participation..to many parents sign their girls up for scouts like a babysitting service...I send newsletters home almost every week, with info about what we are doing, several of the girls say their parents don't read them and throw them away.
- They are nervous about the comment time and see all the stuff they have to fill out and learn it is a bit overwhelming
- Today's adult is very self centered and does not want to give back to the community.
- GS has gotten the reputation as affordable childcare. And trust me, many families treat it as such. Most mothers today are working outside the home, and don't have the time, energy, motivation to be a GS leader.
- I think a lot of parents have a lot going on and it is hard to find time to be a leader. Also, a lot of them no longer feel connected to the program. We need a way to reach parents to be leaders in a way that will not stress them out
- most of the parents, don't want to be leaders
- many find the GS program overwhelming. too much paperwork for trips/outings compared to other councils.
- Being a leader is very time consuming. There is a lot of training, hurdles, paperwork, rules, and drama you have to deal with. You need a supportive spouse.
- This is a generation issue. Adults do not see the value in volunteering. As a former Master Trainer, I have seen a decline in the willingness of leaders to attend trainings for basic information. It seems that they want the "only one hour a week" way of leading,
- I think this is found through out the USA due to the lack of interest in parents.
- Our service unit has goals for recruitment, adult training and sales. The girls and their families care about programming, but if you're not a leader, they don't reach out to parents nor do they encourage the service unit to hold programming locally. It's about the numbers, not the girls.
- Not enough info on what to expect at recruitment events, fear of lacking support.
- Deplorable programs and seriously delayed response times from council members are the top two reasons that leaders become wary and then drop out of the program. Being troop organizer for one year certainly brought this problem to light. When I approached council, "oh, well, we are busy." Doing what, exactly?
- Lack of personal contacts and continued support...
- The same parents volunteer for everything and are spread too thin. I also feel there needs to be more support for each leader as they get started. I happen to be part of a very supportive service unit, but without the local support, I'm not sure how much each leader would have. Our council has been making some improvements in this area, though, with 1 to 1 meetings with new leaders and online training available.
- As a current leader, I can tell you that there aren't enough leaders. Some of it is capacity of volunteers. Every person is not a leader but can be a supporter. One of our troop leaders left due to the time commitment and none of us who stayed (3:3) want to continue. To be a great troop leader requires a serious commitment. You are organizing the meetings, doing all the paperwork for field trips, taking money, shopping for troop supplies, etc. It is really a part time job. Even committed people burn out.
- I hate being told that we haven't met our recruitment level for girls and adults. This is not how to run a volunteer organization. I will not actively recruit members. Girls and parents should seek us out.
- I think it is always hard to find adults to become leaders. It is a big commitment and everyone is so busy. I think is is also a fear of the unknown, how much it is really going to take, will I have help from other parents. In some of the areas there is a language barrier.
- I have lead three troops and been organizer as well. People are afraid to,step up as leaders because they have no idea where to begin and don't want to get in over their heads. They are afraid of the time commitment and have assumptions of what a typical Girl Scout leader needs to do. Before I agreed to step in as leader of my daughter's troop, I spent all summer researching info on the web so I felt prepAred with ideas. Many people won't have the time or interest to do this and training did not provide much help on running troop. as an organizer I was able to give tangible hands on help, advice, websites and encouragement to parents when suggesting they consider becoming a leader for a new troop. They need to know that a troop can be flexible with meeting commitments and that they have a strong and friendly service unit/consultant/ organizer who is there to answer questions and help them along. If these front people don't enjoy their position and arn't helpful, they probably shouldn't volunteer in this capacity. Many times we take the position because no one else will, but it doesn't serve anyone if not done with a positive commitment
- In the recent past, and some of the residue remains, volunteers were not appreciated and were given too many restrictions. Everyone was bogged down with paperwork, rules and regs.....essentially, all the fun was wrung out of the program. In addition, these programs were too expensive, run by staff instead of volunteers and many were too 'fru fru' for many of our girls. THEY WANT HIGH ADVENTURE!! We are losing our girls to the Boy Scouts!
- The push for more recruitment has resulted in neglected support to current and past troop leaders. As a SU, we are attempting to fix this. However, we are trying to fill a hole that was dug in quicksand, and I think it will be a while before we can rebuild all the relationships that were lost.
- everyone's busy, parents think being a leader is very expensive and time consuming
- Lack of communication and support for new leaders. There is a lot to learn about the scouting programs, and I do not feel that the leaders are provided with adequate training. New leaders should be given a "resource person" such as an older troop leader, that they can go to when they need questions answered.
- Program sucks. Training for leaders (the national parts) aren't effective or informative. Leader manuals are vague because the program is all over the place (refer to sentence 1). Instead of focusing on making the girls slave labor for product sales, focus on program & treating volunteers like the invaluable part of the program they are. Instead of shoving programming down to the community level, bring it back to the council level & broaden it. We have large scale, council wide campouts every 3 years. And it's a giant pain for leaders, with the amount of information needed MONTHS in advance (including tent sizes & # of tents). Boy Scouts (yeah, again) do this multiple times per year & we can give them a head count a couple of weeks before the event...no tent #s or sizes...basic rules apply & not the bevy of stupid crap that GSNENY made us go through.
- I think GS does a good enough job of recruiting girls, but they aren't as aggressive about finding leaders. Potential leaders need a quick and dirty idea of what kind of time and energy commitment being a co-leader involves. Having appropriate, targeted training available is important, but PLEASE don't make every leader sit through the rehashing of everything every month at leader's meetings; we meet with our girls about twice a month for 1.5 hours each, a total of three hours. Leader meetings are 2.0 hours per month. This is just wrong.
- They are too pressured to increase their numbers and sometimes make promises that can not be kept.
- The amount of paperwork required of leaders turns volunteers off to taking a troop on.
- I think they've made it look too difficult and it scares people who may be considering becoming a leader. Journey's are intimidating...training is not easily available.
- Parent's should be given a better understanding of the Girl Scouts and what we are all about, I don't believe they get a good understanding by attending these super troops. Training also as I said should be completely revised. Maybe somehow a short training/meeting introduction type thing to get them to understand what Girls Scouts is all about and what is involved with being a leader.
- A lot of required training for adults, but a lack of council programming to provide activities that troops can join. That could help troops/leaders provide quality program with less effort. There's a huge effort in our area to recruit low income girls, but those parents often don't have time or aren't interested in providing leadership.
- Are council has become clickish. People are afraid to speak up about things and in turn be shut out.
- It's so daunting. People think its a lot of work. When they are all the paperwork they have to deal with that doesn't help
- People are tired and stressed and dont think they have time. We are so busy trying to make a living and not taking good enough care of our health. There is not enough education about how to find wellness, or just not enough energy to learn ...
- I don't think my service unit is organized - and I'm not sure if my council is equally disorganized or if it's just my service unit. No one in their job seems to have the time to do their job efficiently. But, when others offer to help, no one seems willing to let go of some of their "duties" to let someone else help because each person has at least 2 "jobs" they do, neither well. So we spiral with bad communication, poorly run events and frustrated leaders all around. I think new troops somehow get lost in the midst and sometimes get helped.
- We are a new troop with no experience. it has been rough, we are learning as we go along.I think workshops on how to do journeys, quests and keep the girls focused would be helpful.also jumping right into cookie sales is going to be a challenge.
- The focus is so different now and their is SO MUCH training, that it often discourages parents to sign up as leaders.
- Parents do not like to be blind sided with the need to volunteer as a leader after they have signed their daughter up and paid the registration fee. Also most do not know there will be a troop fee on top of it once a leader is found. Personally, I feel a troop leader should be recruited over the summer and then assigned a troop - not the other way around. Also new troops should be given some basic supplies to get started.
- We have trouble finding leaders for troops regardless of how they come to us. The simple answer is "parent entitlement culture" &/or a community misunderstanding on how Girl Scouting operates... that it's not a drop-off activity with many scheduling options like dance.
- alumnae should be urged to start their own troops , also most moms and dads are not prepared with a mentor, we should have interested people sit it with existing troops meetings , so they can see what we do
- From what I've seen, those leading the activities don't really explain Girl Scouting to the parents. The parents don't really know what Girl Scouts are all about, and neither do the girls really. From these activities, it kind of just reinforces the idea that Girl Scouts make crafts and sell cookies and that's it. I've been to a few of these recruitment activities and the main thing I would like to see changed are the people running the activity really explaining Girls Scouts to everyone there.
- The area we live in makes it difficult out from many people to volunteer if they are not stay at home moms/dads.
- Parents do not have a lot of time. As a leader I have to put in a lot of time planning troop meetings and activities. Many parents do not want to commit that much time. Most parents in my troop work full time as do I. It may be time to look more at how troops are supported and have more support so troops are not stand alone. Maybe troops are connected to larger groups before the Service Unit so that they can plan more activities together and get more support for new leaders.
- Face-to-face recruitment yields more leaders. Parents don't want to be involved. They want to pay someone to take care of their children's activities. Our council is doing its very best to brainstorm ideas for a changing world.
- Like everything else these days, parents don't have the time and/or energy to participate. See comments at end regarding wait list troops and Gold Award. Our council would like older girls to run troops but the time commitment means that girls have to choose between running a wait list troop or doing Gold. The sad things is, the girls choose gold and eventually wind up dropping that because of the red tape, the things the advisor wants them to do to make the project have a lasting impact that are beyond the scope of the original intent of the project or other reasons. With a wait list troop as a Gold Project, the girls are committed and everyone benefits. Just because a lot of girls did it, did not mean there was not a need.
- I think there is the idea that being a leader takes a lot of work. I hear that a lot from people when I say that I am a leader... "Wow! And you work full time too?! How do you have time for it all?!" or when a mom friend from another area is interested in signing her daughter up for Girl Scouts and then emails me to ask about the commitment of being a leader. They are afraid it will take all their time (what little we have as parents).
- New leaders are not supported in any way leading to easy burn out and being stretched way too thin.
- The only leaders we are able to recruit and retain are the ones that have girls in the program.
- Lack of follow through by council to get girls into troops.
- Not enough focus on getting parents involved. Need more focus on letting parents know that GS is flexible to their schedule/availability. Need to also focus more on having available "mentors" (experienced troop leaders etc) for new volunteers.
- People are afraid of the commitment.
- Too little training! There needs to be more emphasis on recruiting the adults first and getting them trained, then recruit the girls. If there isn't a foundation how can you build something that will continue to grow?
- Lack of support to adult volunteers.
- There is an overall lack of initial support. We recruit leaders but sometimes they are told an unrealistic view of how 'easy' it is to be a leader. Leading a troop requires some time and effort, it is not something.you can lay down and pick up once a week or biweekly. We need to prepare new leaders, especially those who were never a scout, for the commitment they are making...an outline of how to get started, troop startup guidelines, etc...and then be available to guide them through the initial kinks. Many volunteers because.they just don't know how to push through and they feel alone (I have asked volunteers who left/changed their minds.)
- They don't recruit adult volunteers. Parents should be contacted by council for opportunities available within the council. It usually only occurs when a leader/troop is not available. Get adults involved early so there is a pool of volunteers when needed.
- Parents do not have enough time to train and then become effective leaders of troops. Too much pressure is put on existing volunteers to do all the work which causes alienation of good people.
- because they spend to much time trying to get girls to join and no time what so ever trying to get adults to lead them. Parents come in with their girls thinking that leaders are all ready in place and just waiting for girls to join, when the the fact is there probably is no adult wanting to be a leader
- Adults think they are just too busy
- Both my council and GSUSA seem to be more focused on getting the girls who are not in GS and have no interest in bing in GS then they are about building programs for the girls they have already. Also while Daisys, Brownies, and Juniors are imprortant it seems as if there is very little attention being paid to keeping middle school and High School girls involved and the addition of the Ambassador level with no extra badges to break up the high school years is just mind boggeling .....
- Most parents I talk with tell me they have never been asked or had contact with troop leaders. When recruiting is done at their schools, people are hesitant to ask parents to step up or explain it doesn't take up tons if time.
- People are too busy to volunteer with work and other commitments.
- It's all in how they go about recruiting the leaders and treating them after they are recruitment. There is so much red tape, it's scary for new leaders to learn all the do's and don'ts and there aren't always experienced staff or leaders to help them. They're also trying to recruit PRESCHOOL MOTHERS - see below - which I think is a huge mistake.
- Not enough support for new leaders. Not enough info out there
- We haven't figured it out
- The person in charge of our school does not work at all to find leaders. She turns girls away from scouting by telling them there are no troops with openings, and does nothing to recruit new leaders/troops. Her troop has 10 girls in it. My troop has 16 and is still growing, and that is because I believe in scouting and think the girls NEED it.
- Women feel they don't have the time to commit. They are unfamiliar with whats involved and scared to start something they might not be able to handle.
- No time and don't like they was FS is handling things now.
- Council is very disorganized and I have trouble getting answers from them.
- there needs to be an easier way to let parents know what is really involved w/ being a leader. Most feel it is too time consuming and don't really know much about it.
- They don't help or support us so new leaders don't stay.
- The program is difficult to explain to new volunteers. Finding a location (free) to meet is also getting more difficult... Training programs are often cancelled.
- Parents claim they work...
- One reason is people are busy and lots of organizations have trouble finding leaders. Our council doesn't provide enough support for leaders. Before the merger, we got great support and I felt valued as a leader. Now they (council) don't seem to appreciate what leaders do. They just frustrate efforts to do things and they don't provided help. They have cut back the office staff to a the point that the ones there who want to help us just don't have the time or resources to do so.
- trying to find a troop at every grade level in each school. Thus leaders for those troops.
- My guess would be that someone at the "top" of the organization is placing too much importance on recruitment numbers and not on retention numbers. We also see a huge turnover in staff (membership - those who work with the community/troop leaders). They do not last very long. Probably need to be paid more and/or reduce something "toxic" in the corporate culture.
- Time commitments. Many families that I know of in two councils have multiple jobs multiple kids in various after school activities. How much can realistically be accomplished?
- Because they just care about numbers not the girls and that's why recruitment a are so low
- here needs to be more emphasis on trying to find leaders. The troops now are at capacity (in my area) and it seems like they are trying to recruit more girls with no one to lead them.
- poor leader training
- There are always more than enough girls that want to join, but most parents aren't willing to commit their time to help.
- communication. lack of mentors for new recruits.
- Unorganized, poor staffing, no local store, no direct phone line to the local council office.
- There are no incentives for leaders to be leaders. You truly have to in your heart want to do this and accept there is no thanks from your council.
- City and urban moms want their daughters in Girl Scouts, but are unable to help as leaders because of job commitments. It would be nice to have more retired women help.
- Parents aren't involved with their children nowadays.
- Volunteers' priorities and too-busy schedules. Frequently multiple events will be scheduled at the same time at different locations.
- I think that not enough parents take an active role in their daughters lives and treat Girl Scouts as a babysitting service instead of investing the time into improving the lives of their daughters.
- They recruit the girls but not the volunteers.
- Being a leader is a huge commitment, with very little guidance or support, and little or no appreciation from Council.
- There is no training available to the leaders in rural communities any more, or it is hard to get. Leaders are slipping through the cracks, and current leaders are being told they need to train the new leaders and yet we have not been trained to do so. We give up soo much of our time already and willingly, but there has to be a stop at some point.
- I do not think there are enough leaders. Our family looked for many years for a Troop, before finally having a space open in one. We also did a Daisy Troop formation, many more girls came than were allowed to join the Troop being formed. I was sad to see so many girls turned away.
- Adults see how overworked our current volunteers are and run when they hear we need leaders. More parents are working, some working two jobs due to the economy, and they don't have time to volunteer for us. And the whole training and registration process is too complicated for them to take the time to try and understand.
- Our council just doesn't take the extra time to find volunteers, they waste time on meetings when the paid council people should be helping to recruit volunteers, or at least contacting those interested within a day or two, not weeks or months later when they've lost contact. The service unit council paid person needs to be available most of the day and not take days to be reached when a person has questions.
- It's a lot of work to start a troop. Many of the potential volunteers are working parents, so their time is very valuable. Sometimes we can identify a leader, but not a co-leader, so the troop never gets started.
- Large amount of staff turnover
- Where are GS? They are not visible because adults and girls are not wearing uniforms. We need an identity. Girl Scouts is more than religious instruction, academic excellence and team sports. Girl Scouts provides a safe supportive environment for girls to try, fail and to try again. Our community image is gone sour. We are not visable. Recruitment is of "at" people. The Adventure loving girls are going to boy scouts. We need to promote our adventure camp programs. Boundary Waters, Florida Sea Base, etc.
- I would like to see training streamlined- if a volunteer has training in one council that should transfer to another, perhaps alongside an online council specific update or supplement that builds in their current knowledge and introduces them to the new council. Perhaps if volunteer facilitators (in my council) weren't redundantly training experienced leaders who move to our area, they would have more time and energy for additional advanced training- overnights, outdoors, etc.
- yes they do this every year. sign up girls and leave the volunteers scrambling to find troop leaders. Most leaders end up overwhelmed and quit that first year leaving many girls with a bad taste about Girl Scouts. We need to entice the parents as well as the girls
- THERE IS NO COMMUNICATION TO PROSPECTIVE LEADERS THAT THEY WILL BE TRAINED AND WHAT IS EXPECTED OF THEM!
- Our challenge is finding good leadership and GSUSA could help all of us with materials, PSAs and reasons for adults to agree to be a leader mentor in girls' lives. We can find girls for a troop but we have a very difficult time in finding adults willing to be a troop leader. Many times, we lose new girls because there is no troop to put them into or leaders willing to lead them.
- Girls are placed on a waiting list and leaders don't know that there a girls signed up. Council doesn't contact leaders and ask if they have room in there troop they just leave the girls on the waiting list.
- Our council no longer provides council programs or activities for our girls. They used to provide extensive program activities open to all Girl Scouts in our area, but now they do almost nothing for our girls. Leaders and Service units must provide all of the program opportunities.
- time commitments/economy. many adults are working longer hours and trying to balance that & family time.
- Being a GS Leader is a full-time job if you want to have an active troop and follow the current GS program of product sales, service, badges/journeys, etc. Most volunteers can't get enough parent help and feel underappreciated for all they do, and the amount of personal expenses they incur (printer ink & paper, gas, food). Most are extremely DEDICATED and see the value in the program, but its really hard to find a kindergarten parent willing to jump right in, unless she was once a scout herself.
- Parents see this as a drop off activity and don't see their involvement as necessary.
- I don't even want more girls because its hard enough now.
- I don't know how the whole council has been doing for leaders but I believe that our service unit has been able to get the volunteers that it needs.
- I think the council staff have disenfranchised so many active leaders, that at this point, we have many of the old guard leaving and there are not enough new people willing to join or stick with it, as there is minimal support for troop leaders at any level.
- lack of staff to help; lack of communication; too much many square miles in the region to support volunteers in small communities. Restrictions on trainers as to number of classes they can teach and how often they can do it. Too much time spent trying to raise money and not enough spent in helping girls. Too much of a power struggle in central office and not enough emphasis on girls. Too many adults in high places have forgotten that GS is for the girl, not for an adult's career resume.
- Council has chased away many good, seasoned volunteers. When a girl is added as a GS for one program that they may not even know by attending they are being signed up as a GS, the council and national are just falsely upping their numbers for their gain
- Busy parents don't understand the time commitments of being a leader/volunteer. As a service unit manager, I don't have any recruiting materials specifically targeting adult volunteers and explaining the benefits of being a leader.
- Parents are just uneducated on what to do, what they can do, or how they can help. I had a mom say that she would be scared to take on co leadership of a troop! They just don't know how little they can do and make a huge impact.
- I am only speaking for my community, not the entire Council. We do a lot of recruitment events at fairs, block parties, schools, etc., which is great. They also have been doing a good job at getting college students to volunteer. However, my community has a lot of single-parent (or grandparent/guardian), low-income families, and lots of adults don't have the resources to be leaders, especially now that so much is done online. (Only about 50% of our community has online access at home.) I love having the college students lead, but I would like to see some of the $$ put towards recruitment instead go to Council staff who could help coordinate/lead troops since there is, necessarily, a high turnover rate with college student leaders.
- Adults don't want to make the time commitment, but still want everything for their daughters. We are all busy, and choices have to be made, but the Girl Scout movement is very valuable.
- We are just too isolated.
- Poor communication, lack of required training locally and in a timely manner. Training is confusing and not consistent with the different Trainers. When questins arise during training volunteers are referred to contact various people at our council - the trainer is unable to answer many questions or has the wrong answer. Our Volunteer Essentials Guide has errors, is confusing and complicated. Forms are outdated, poor put together and not up to date.
- The area is expensive to live so most households are 2 income. This leave little room for parents to have time to be a leader.
- Not enough training available, area we live in where parents don't have cell phone or email access readily available, no Spanish trainings
- Culture in our area makes it tough
- The Launch parties of this past fall were not in specific neighborhoods which made it take longer to place girls and find volunteers to be leaders. We used to recruit specifically in our own areas at the schools in our areas and I still think that works the best.
- They are more interested in starting Daisy troops than in retaining middle and high school girls. Parents don't want to be leaders because their perception is that its too much work. If they created a mentoring program (Taking experience leaders and sistering them up with new leaders) would encourage new leaders that they are not alone.
- many homes have gone to 2 parent incomes and limits parental involvement. many opportunities through school and church that take precedence over other activities.
- General time issues and amount of training
- My service unit, was able to meet their goals, because we had consistent recruiting, like at a certain day, time, and place. They are now trying to use that model now for other service units.
- they formed a troop 2 years ago, a friend signed her daughter up, told them she would do whatever was necessary, gave them her info, they never called her. they push is to get more girls.
- Work, time and money.
- Parents of girls enrolling new Girl Scouts do not always want to be a leader or know about how to become a leader
- Parents are not always willing to help, many areas we are having problems with are high free and reduced lunch schools. Quality volunteers are not always willing to step up. Council Outreach has helped and when we get the names of those scouts served in outreach, we are making all attempts to include them in SU activities and events.
- Not enough communication. I'm involved in both cub scouts and girl scouts and as a leader, the cub scout program is hands down better. The online training is much more convenient. All the girl scout rules are enough to drive away prospective leaders.
- time commitment, costs
- Parents are busy and just want their daughters to participate. However if they were a Girl Scout they seem more willing to volunteer if they can.
- The lack of real leader training and all the push for leadership essentials with no practical skills lost us volunteers. Plus, the poor way in which girl led was presented contributed to this. Also, the lack of training for journeys still plagues us. No effort was made to help current leaders adapt to the journeys. Instead they were told this is the new program. Finally, the lack of communication or accurate information chased away leaders. Not only do we need to focus on new members but retaining both the girls and leaders off current troops.
- I have been an Organizer for over 30 years. I am a volunteer and work full time. I happen to be very good at getting troops going and directing them where to get continued help. I always felt that I could be strictly a "Recruiter", but it is so much work, that I couldn't do it without compensation. I feel "local" women/moms know the scoop in their neighborhoods and would be a tremendous asset to your membership efforts. I still believe that "Troops" are the best way to go for our future. I'm getting ready to retire in a few years. If you ever want to talk further about it, contact me at (contact info removed).
- We need to be better organized and provided more support from staff to help with recruitment. SU Volunteers are getting burned out from September to December trying to handle the needs of recruiting and training new leaders and trying to meet our SU recruitment goals. We have our own troops to support in addition to meeting the needs of the existing troops in the SU.
- In general, people think that you have to know a lot about Girl Scouts to be a leader. They do not see themselves in the leader role and don't know how to start. I have always had the idea of having a "Thinking of Leading" pamphlet made by National. Technology should be used more extensively in Girl Scouts. DVD's should be made on how to actually do a badge and they could be used to aid leaders and show at recruitments to demonstrate that leading is doable.
- Our council doesn't feel it's worth their effort to recruit girls above grade 3 & puts no effort into it
- When you ask girls to come for events or activities (including troops) before you have enough adults to serve them, you are asking for problems. Waiting for parents to fill in the gaps has never worked. Look outside the usual. I began as a leader while in college. Student teachers would gain invaluable experience working with girls in event and activity settings. Young single professionals in companies looking for service ties to their communities (both the companies and the people) could serve as leaders for events and activities without having to make a commitment to a troop. Councils need to take responsibility to talk with (not to or at) volunteers, parents, and girls and not just to ask for money!
- Many adults don't want to commit to the role of leader. They would prefer to have someone else do it for them.
- Not enough parent volunteers, existing troops having smaller sizes.
- Current troop leaders are unwilling to accept more girls. Too few parents are willing to volunteer.
- lack of understanding about the organization in general, lack of understanding about the amount of time it actually takes to volunteer, lack of support/education for volunteers.
- many troops cap membership and aren't open for new girls, leaders coming forward to start a troop do their own recruiting to get local girls
- Trainings are difficult, not useful, and time consuming. Too many rules and regulations that need to be followed. It is overkill.
- Not enough volunteers, too many expectations to fully organize the program with little training and support. Expectations that we as volunteers run a daily program when we are working fulltime and have family lives outside of girl scouts. Can be very time consuming. The same (few) people volunteers are doing the work. While others just show up. Then these leaders (workers) are asked to do so much more.
- Volunteering takes lots of time, resources and talent. Many people do not understand how they can make the Girl Scout volunteer experience fit into their busy lives. We need to make it easier and more fun to join as a volunteer, and help volunteers understand that it is not as hard as they may think it is.
- we had a parent do her application and back ground check she received her welcome letter but was never contacted by council, as the registrar I knew nothing about this women or what she had been told about forming a troop until she said forget it --
- Parents are too busy to give time to scouts. There should be a plan to encourage all girls who have had GS experience to become leaders before they have kids.
- We don't have a strong recruiting pitch to inspire adult involvement
- As a volunteer, it is difficult for me to navigate all the steps I need to get started. There is a lack of mentoring and my impression is that the bureaucracy scares potential volunteers away.
- There is confusion as to what they need to do. They also think it will involve too much time to invest in the program, and only want something for their daughter.
- Speaking for myself I am already giving so much to Girl Scouts I can't give any more (this week I have GS 5 days this week an overnighter and I was double booked on one of the days)
- Most parents I talk with say they are too busy to be a leader.
- busy parents and it looks too hard, not enough support
- signing up & getting trained is a serious headache ... no one wants to go through that and then be told - go forth! they need support - information about program, opportunities. training should be a one shot deal - come in do paperwork, learn how to be a leader, be handed tools including record keeping software, shown a good solid website that will support them & then told next is a day/weekend of outdoor training - do all outdoor over one weekend - then the few specialty trainings could be done when desired (domestic / international travel / special events)
- Most parents just don't want to be involved. If council could come up with a great recruitment video that could be viewed on the nights we recruit for new girls maybe more parents would like what they see and get involved.
- Not sure. Maybe more encouragement to parents is needed. Our SU has set up a new leader support system, and a surprisingly low number takes advantage of it.
- On recruiting. There was not a way to answer that more recruitment should be done.
- It seems that many feel that someone else will step up to be a leader and so they do not have to. They say they are too busy. But, it also seems that most of the ones who are the leaders also have full time jobs while others who aren't working just sit back.
- I feel that some parents believe GS is just a free babysitting service, that is why they themselves do not volunteer. GS should also find a way to get fathers involved. The process of becoming a volunteer sometimes takes too long. Volunteer applications need to be processed in a week. We need to grab these volunteers before they become involved in something else; and then will not have time for GS.
- It isn't councils fault. As a former School Organizer, I have found that in the last 2 years, it has become increasingly more difficult to find parents to step up ... and we live in a community where there are a great deal of stay-at-home moms who I thought stayed home so they could volunteer!! (I work full-time (plus!) and still found a way to "DO IT ALL.")
- People need more convincing to sign up
- I think busy parents have difficulty realizing that just several hours of their time each month would make a positive impact on their child and help other scouts receive programming. I think they are intimidated by the time, effort and involvement needed to make a troop.
- They are known in our community for not following through with training and volunteers go somewhere they can get busy serving!
- The sign up process does not work. I know some parents who have signed up to be a leader, still are not, have no troop and the communication is hit or miss and no two people say the same thing. Also I believe they should do a recruitment at the end of school years and through the summer to get people signed up, registered, and ready to lead a troop and get most if not all of the people in troops before the new year starts.
- Parents are busy, volunteering with GS as a leader is a big commitment.
- women living in the NYC area lack the resources to volunteer.. the time is probably the worst, the sites to hold the meetings,
- Parents not having time to volunteer. The paper work involved is a lot and turns people off.
- There are always girls who want to join, but do not have a troop. I think this has improved in recent years with more joint troops across schools, but it is still a problem. There are a lot of parents who just aren't up for the task of being a leader.
- The potential leaders don't know of the benefits and available support. They are concerned about how much time being a leader will take.
- I think we need to slow down on recruitment for girls, and get STRONG recruitment for volunteers. They are pushing new girls into my troop constantly. They come and go before I learn everyone's name!
- Parents don't want to committe they think it is to difficult to run troops. The journeys don't make it,any easier since they are very involved and like school work
- They only push and build activities around the younger groups. There is really no programs for the older girls
- Council does nothing to support service unit in having events for recruitment. We used to have them - now never. I quit being a school representative because I felt so left out on my own by the council and SU. Staff turnover is so great with the VSCs that I honestly can't tell you who ours is now.
- Being a leader is time consuming, and a major commitment. Not everyone has the time to do it.
- Staff members should be leaders too; leaders are overwhelmed with paperwork
- there are too many other activities for girls in this area.
- I agree with growing the membership but do not agree with recruitment, recruitment, recruitment when we already don't have enough leaders. It is not ok to guilt our volunteers into taking more girls than they feel comfortable handling.
- Our society is not interested in long term commitments and do not seem to value volunteering as an important life skill.
- Leaders don't feel confident enough to teach the skills needed for the activity
- Not enough encouragement to sign up leaders. But it is not all on the council. I feel that some adults do not want to volunteer. they want to drop their kids off for a hour or so and not worry about them while they go off and do other things. I think during recruitment events there should be a booth with "How Can I Help" staffed with new and older leaders. Encouraging Mothers, Fathers, Aunts, Uncles to volunteer.
- Not enough volunteer support. There is not a set path to follow which allows for customization unless you use the Journey program, which is hard to follow and often uninteresting for the girls. The length of time required to complete these does not allow for deep exploration into other areas. Frustration on receiving materials. When I started, I was handed all the important information in the Safety Wise book and an additional book with council info. This was easy to take to meetings/camp and share with the girls. Having items online has complicated finding what you don't know you are looking for. In fact, just this morning, I was setting up our first meeting of the year (we have a very late start this year) and I was EXTREMELY frustrated at the new volunteer portal in our council. I could not find anything I wanted! It took me 2 hours to find and gather all the property information I needed to share with girls for planning their camp, etc. I am a seasoned leader of 8 years who is very computer savvy. I cannot imagine what a new leader would feel like.
- We are focusing too much on the organization and too little on the opportunities leaders will have to do activities with girls.
- Lack of support
- Lack of volunteer support, recognition, and appreciation. But primarily because GS makes is harder, not easier, to volunteer. We focus on recruiting girls, but not on retaining volunteers.
- Time commitments from the adults. They are either already committed to other activities and don't want to take on this one or they feel they can't do it so they just want to "drop and run" and slough it off on someone else.
- It's all about the NUMBERS! That's why councils have so many membership staff and hardly any program, camp, etc.
- The council in this area does not have a good training program. I always hear from moms that the Boy Scouts have a great training program for new leaders. Why can't the Girl Scouts suck it up and go ahead and model training after the Boy Scout program? Because there is no training, new leaders usually quit within 1 year in this council.
- As staff, and one that does recruiting, the main objection I have seen to finding volunteers has been I don't have time or I can't do that or someone else will step up or in the case of several areas I cover - I don't know when we will have orders to ship/move out and I would hate to go through the training only to leave mid-year.
- The program is not what people thought it was. It's not "what Girl Scouts used to be". Leaders start and then are not pleased with the program. Paperwork can be time consuming. All of the trainings required to be able to do varying things with your troop can be hard to attend because of scheduling and time consuming.
- There are too many recruitments by Council itself and those are with little/no consultation with the communities these recruitments are supposed to be helping. Flyers are sent through the school system, and we're only advised after the fact. Then the recruitments over-promise what an actual community can deliver. Most girls want the troop experience, but given the shortage of adult volunteers/leaders, it's very difficult to "slot" the girls Council sends back to us - if they actually send them back to us. We try mightily, but we'd prefer to do our own recruitments in our own communities, and tailor those to what we can actually deliver.
- Again, I am jaded because in my community, the parents would rather pay someone to run activities for their kids than to be involved, whether it be the Girl Scout/Boy Scout leader, soccer coach, or religious education. This also means they aren't the most supportive parents in a troop and that makes it harder for those who do step up to run troops.
- Adults are very busy. They are afraid of the level of the time commitment needed to run a troop. They don't think they will know what to do, how to lead a group of girls. While we know that there are level consultants and other troop leaders in the area who are willing to help these people aren't at the meetings. They are there when the new leaders are planning activities. Finally, once an adult gets through their fears and signs up to be a leader it can take up to 6 months before she can hold her first troop meeting.
- I'm not sure why My council is so crazed about recruitment because at the end of the day the leaders are not there... council hopes that a parent with start a troop but it doesn't happen and its a big let down to these girls and I believe it upsets parents ...My Daughters First year was like that and felt very left out. I believe good number in GS membership should be happy active Girl scouts... not just on how many we have enrolled.
- People are fed up with the paperwork, issues with the website, making the program more difficult than it need to be, problems with the programming....
- The leadership training isn't clearly laid out, and troops are not working together as often as they should. The stand-alone troop model that only connects at the Service Unit makes it hard to have cooperative experiences and see the continuity of the program. It would be easier to grow troops and encourage leaders if there was more connectedness between troops of different levels, so parent could see what the programs evolve into as their girls get older. It would also be better for encouraging parents to be leaders if parents saw that there was ongoing support, and they were not left to fend for themselves. I know that is not the case, but in a lake of a service unit, it's easy for a little fish of a leader to feel lost.
- Parents claim they are too busy to volunteer. We need to do a better job explaining there are many options for troop makeup and leadership and meetings to accommodate different schedules, even those of the busiest parents. ... It would also help if the training was not so onerous. Allow SUs to do their own training to minimize the time and travel for new leaders/volunteers.
- There is a lot of emphasis on recruitment but not a lot of support for current Scouts.
- I have extensive experience with the downside of being a troop leader. There is simply too much paperwork to satisfy the council. I realize that in today's world the council has to be careful and to everything possible to avoid lawsuit. But when the emphasis is on the needs of the council, it falls apart in meeting the needs of adult volunteers and thus girls. I think that GSUSA has been using a corporate/business model that is all about brand. The program is top heavy. I am also aware that adult volunteers are discouraged at the council level by paid staff. The staff, as paid employees, feel they have the answers and the knowledge. They don't get it. I would like to see every single staff person paired with a volunteer to give them guidance. I'd even like this to go a step further and see much of the staff replaced by volunteers. I think this would create better programing and save the councils boat loads of money.
- At least in our troop, we just make room. Our troop does not believe in turning away any girls.
- It's all about the numbers. Get the girls registered and don't worry if they are placed or come to meetings.
- Today's society and values .. hard to find someone who has the time, the passion, and the self- motivation to be a Leader if they perceive no safety net for them. Oh -- and the fact that it's Volunteer and they don't "get paid" to be a Leader. I have heard other parents from other Troops within the Service Unit say this. I may not have parents that have stepped up and become a ":Leader" in title -- but with my guidance and support - the parents are doing what a Leader would do during meetings and outings as a team with me. I have 13 parents who have signed up to be a Volunteer for the troop out of 20 families. Registered Volunteers get first choice to help or be involved if the Troop goes on a outing or event - knowing that all those that registered have had to pass a background check to be allowed to be a Volunteer increases a sense of community and safety within the adults of my Troop.
- If you are having trouble with leader retention, then I think offering council events as I described above might help, since these events greatly assist leaders.
- Lack of Field Executives from Council getting to know volunteers. Delays in paper work and the system for training. Too many changes to the program they know. Journeys are seen as too much work.
- People in general are just too busy and overwhelmed with life.
- The example set in our community was that most of the work fell to the one or two leader. The troops I co-lead shared responsibilities w/the other adults and we had ALL adults register with their girls. But other troops have folded b/c of lack of support for the leaders.
- No new people are helping. It's always the same people doing everything and they get burned out.
- Money, lack of training and support for new members, screwing over current leader so there is no willingness to help
- There is push every Spring to get new girls to sign up, but then every Fall there is a need for existing troop leaders to take on new girls from other areas into their troop because there are not enough leaders. First find the leaders and then let them find the girls or ask for help finding them.
- Council is VERY difficult to work with. They lack communication skills, volunteer skills and overall management skills to handle recruitment, placement and long-term goals.
- It is very difficult to recruit troop leaders. The hours required to run a good troop are extensive, in my experience about 20 hours/month. Plus, the emphasis on fundraising above all else is disheartening.
- as a recruiter, I used to be able to sell the 1 year daisy program as the easiest thing - anyone could do. In fact, I had cadette troops run daisy troops. That made a transition easy to an adult leader the next year. Now, My older girls can no longer help - as they never lived in that program type.
- The "usual" methods don't work for our urban area where students don't go to school in the neighborhood where they live; where students don't go directly home after school; where so many families have such heavy workloads in order to pay exhorbitant cost of living in our area.
- The need for money to pay for the expenses they incur.
- I think that the costs for certifications associated with being a troop leader are prohibitive for a lot of adults who would otherwise be interested. I also think the amount of training required makes the time commitment unreasonable and unmanageable for most. Also, the way most of the programs are structured, if adults have jobs that aren't 9-5, it makes participation very challenging.
- Not enough communication! If the adult does not understand what they are supposed to do as leaders it makes it hard to find volunteers.
- To many Pathways looks like "give us your money...oops, sorry we can't find a troop for you". It puts a heavy burden on volunteers at the SU level to serve these girls. If a troop leader is most comfortable with a small number of girls, she/he should not feel guilty about not taking more. We are volunteers...not paid employees with a quota number of girls we are required to serve!
- If the council stuck with traditional values, recruitment would be easy. You did this to yourselves by changing program.
- As a leader, I don't feel I have as much support as I did the first time. I feel I learned more from the in person classes and the one on one troop set up, but I understand why it changed. We also had more classes. I don't have the skills myself to do a lot of the things in the badges and I don't have a resource to learn them. I am happy that I took the classes I did with my first daughter. If I were a first time leader, I would not feel prepared. In particular, the outdoor skills. I went to the basic camp class, but we really didn't go over ideas on what to do between setting up camp, meals, and tear down.
- Too much emphasis on patents as volunteers. Not targeting non traditional volunteers.
- Most mothers work every day. It is so difficult to add another activity and obligation to an already hectic schedule. I have volunteered as a Registrar in my service unit. I know all the reasons why they are afraid to make the commitment. Many potential leaders are put off by the thought of finding their own meeting place and calling all the girls to set up troops. We have had several persons commit to leading a troop and back out before they even get started. It would be great if we had a place to call our Girl Scout home and all troops in the area could use it as needed.
- Recruitment? we STILL have not had a recruitment event in our SU this year. several troops disbanned, we have no SUM or MC, our field director had been out on bereavement leave since October and we've had ONE SU meeting all year. No one knows who the girls from the disbanned troops are or if anyone would want to be placed into another troop.
- I think some parents or other adults think they will be left out on their own-- even though they are reassured they won't be. They also feel that they will not do the "right thing" as far as teaching the girls. They feel overwhelmed.
- time and commitment, not enough assistance
- People don't want to volunteer. Most families have both parents working to make ends meet.
- The problem is, it is recruitment, then nothing! I consistently see messages to our Council about .... I signed my daughter up and we've been waiting ..... weeks/months for a troop - what about us? And other than encouraging journeys, there are very few program activities and Council has no incentive to provide any because they just point us at the Journey books and tell us to have a good time. WE NEED PROGRAMS! Another reason I wish we could go join the Boy Scouts instead!
- I feel everything is about numbers and not wow what a great program girls are getting. It can be hard for volunteers to get the word out about girl scouting and I feel that council should help more here help us with mailings if we can. Not get the word out through our school, why should we have to pay put of pocket to do a mailing for recruitment. Also feel it is hard to get leaders for they feel there is no support at the council level and communication is poor. You could talk to 3 people and get three different answers
- The application and training process is perceived as too much work and the paperwork and red tape of being a leader can put a lot of people off.
- Need to push recruitment in the spring, train in the summer and be ready for fall. Need online training for Daisy and Brownie leaders.
- There are not a lot of girls signing up anymore. My 5th and 6th graders get laughed at for being GS.
- Becoming and staying a leader is cumbersome and time consuming - trainings, paper work, meeting plans all take time and most parents are already stretched thin.
- There is a small group of "insiders" and they tend to not like to let others in or they overstep them when they do.
- I think most parents feel they do not have enough time.
- They throw away willing volunteers. I've been asking since May for a new placement, after 10 years of dedicated service, due to relocation. My daughter is ALSO without a troop. We have asked for Service Unit information for the new area and have been met with silence. We are utterly disconnected from GSUSA ...except for the sales fliers that hit my inbox every three days.
- Parents don't want to volunteer. They constantly say they don't have time, always an excuse. We tend to scare them off with so many requirements. Our Council is slow in the training process to get a leader going. I always have a waiting list of girls I can't place in my Svs unit
- lack of training on what is means to be troop leader or a troop due to the pathways public perception.
- Lack of support for new volunteers
- There is a lot of focus on getting membership girl numbers rather than building troops. There is no screening of leaders; if someone signs up and passes the background check and does online training, they are a leader. This causes problems as they often don't understand why we need certain types of dedicated leaders. This then creates wholesale in adult leadership later when they quit.
- Because there is too much red tape and not enough dedicated adults with the time to figure it all out.
- Poor volunteer member support, lack of communication with volunteer members
- Everyone feels they are too busy.
- We have had more problems having consistent recruitment to all girls since the merger. There are numerous Council programs, but few that my girls are interested in. There is very very little support for troop program and very poor customer service, especially for new or inexperience leaders. This is causing recruitment problems and poor community image. These problems are happening with 30% more being spent on personnel compared to pre-merger.
- As the one who has occasionally had to try and find/recruit volunteers, I have heard the following: "I don't have time." "It's too much work." "I have no idea what to do" They think it's like Boy Scouts, and they don't want to be that involved. They think it's not like Boy Scouts, and they want the structure and organization that Boy Scouts have.
- There is no leadership from staff members for new troop leaders
- anti-volunteer attitude at council. ethnic diversity of council and lack of diversity understanding by council staff.
- Lack of support from the Council
- Well when I moved from my home council, I tried to contact the one in my new area several times. Being a full lifetime member, and a former camp counselor, and a gold award holder, I figured they would want me as a volunteer. Months went by, They NEVER contacted me back. Not for phone calls, emails, etc. So is it a lack of leaders being available or a terrible lack of communication and training from the counsel?
- Council does nothing for recruitment
- It takes too long to get the troop started. Parents want to help but the training requirements and waiting for the whole process to complete is crazy. It took me three months before we could have our first meeting.
- There is only focus put on recruiting girls but not keeping them involved or getting adults to help them stay involved.
- Training, leadership from council. A program for volunteers that doesn't take 5 hrs a week would help too.
- It's a lot of work with very little direction
- Do you have time to read a book? I could literally write a book and it's from 18 years of experience as first a troop organizer for one school, then for three schools and now as a staff member that works with 25 schools and churches. We need to make being a leader a 30 hour per year commitment and no one can be a leader until three years of involvement in other roles. It would be a game changer and need to be strategically managed in pilot locations first to test and refine until we know it works in different demographic sets.
- SO much red tape to volunteer. Lack of time for potential leaders is a big factor
- My council only recently began to be more active in girl recruitment. Prior to this year, it was mainly left up to current adult volunteers and SUM to recruit scouts. I feel they should also begin to concentrate on adult volunteer recruitment as well. I also believe that there should be more recognition and support for adult volunteers. There should be more recognition and incentives made available to leaders/volunteers that are provided by council and not out if the leader's picket. Something as simple as a GS T-shirt, their insignia tab/ pins to get their uniform started or GS scarf. Maybe a different incentive can be achieved by leaders for every year or level they are a leader.
- There is no support for new comers. There is not enough work to being new leaders in. There is nothing happening for NEW members at leaders meetings. No one uses or knows their ID number. ( ID should be used more) the Journeys are hard to teach and learn and they are useless. You also CHARGE member fee for a volunteer. the true cost to VOLUNTEER without taking girls hard earned cookie money in about 80 100 dollars.
- Even though I am not currently a member I clearly get the feeling from what I follow about GSUSA is interested in numbers. They are trying to make Girl Scouts cooler and more trendy instead of offering an awesome program and promoting that.
- We don't have good recruitment tools. Parents are too busy. Parents don't feel they have enough time or the skill to be a good leader. The program has changed a lot and is more confusing to explain. Very few materials are available in Spanish.
- The troops are not being supported
- They lack the support for new leaders. I would like to see a peer system set up were the new troop leaders have a peer group of experienced leaders to help with support. Maybe even a new leader handbook that explains kappers, cookies, money, and common problems just to name a few.
- Rural area. Many parents are working outside of town and by the time they get home and eat dinner, it's too late at night to start a meeting for younger girls. Tag-along rules. Many parents have multiple children and, because they can't bring other kids to meetings, they can't be there. The girls who need the program the most are those whose parents are NOT involved in their lives. Of course, that means we need non-parent leaders. Where do we find them? We aren't in a college town so we can't find College students who were GS to help us here. Grandparents are typically still both working age too.
- not enough help from council - most new leaders are VERY overwhelmed at the beginning which leads them to quitting and nothing ever done with the girls who was signed up in her troop leading to upset girls and parents!
- not for sure I think there is a lack of communication they do the recruitments for the girls and the parents come in thinking there are already leaders in place to take them, I think they need to do recruitments for leaders and if a person fails a background check DO NOT MAKE THEM A LEADER ...
- Noone has the time or desire to be a leader, they don't want to be bothered.
- People are not willing to step up and be leaders..they just want so done else to do it.
- When you sign up girls before you have adults in place, you get disappointed girls who move on to other things.
- You can get as many girls as you want into the pipeline. It ultimately makes no difference if you can't provide troops and good programming for them. GS needs to focus on how to deliver program to girls at the middle school and high school age levels outside of the "3 person troop" model. I think they should start by looking at how BSA does things, because they are VERY successful at keeping high school kids involved, and providing leadership! Expecting college girls to step up and do it is silly and unrealistic.
- I'm told by our Service Unit manager all of the time that she doesn't have enough volunteers. However, I have gone through the council training and have never been asked to volunteer.
- the emphasis has always been about quantity when it should be about quality.
- Our council doesn't seem to spend time on recruitment or programming. I generally take my girls to camp/programs at a neighboring council. I get little to no support from council and their programming does not address what the girls ate interested in - or we find out about it too late to be able to attend.
- Not everyone can participate on the level of belonging to a troop. Extending opportunities to as many youngsters as possible is a great idea.
- volunteering is a learned skill now. I learned to volunteer from my parent's example. I will not accept the excuse," I am a working parent" we all work! Parents need to step up and put time in with their children, even if it is behind the scenes.
- Leaders have lots of paperwork.
- People are involved in many activities. Over the years I've found that many people don't mind helping but they don't want to be the "leader". They will help though. It is a lot of work to be a leader and some people do not like to take on the responsibility. In my younger troop, I am the 01 and I have 4 02s. This makes it easier. In my older troop, there are two 01s including me and there were 3 02s. We are currently down to 1 other but we have dropped the number of girls. We consistently ran about 24 girls until they got older. Now we have 12 Seniors.
- Lack of leader recruitment and information for possible leaders and lack of understanding for leaders that you can make GS simple of complicated and both have value for the girls
- I think that if we offered more activities that the girls WANT and not just what the leaders want to do then the girls will help to "sell" scouting for GSUSA. If the girls are excited and having fun then they will tell their friends. Invite a friend to skate nights and such are not a true representation of girl scouting and what it has to offer. That is just a "fun" night but a night that anyone could do at any time....however if you take a girl camping that is an experience that they can not get just any time.
- I don't think a girl should be a GS only for one event. GS is about starting something and finishing it, making friends along the way, and the events in my opinion are the rewards for the hard work the girls put into the troop.
- When I attempted to become a co-leader I faced a number of barriers and eventually stopped trying
- Girl Scouting has changed for the girl, but has it changed for the adult volunteer? Shorter commitments for adults serving groups of girls may be more desirable for adults rather than the traditional "troop leader" model. The troop leader has been saddled with a group of girls for an undefined amount of time and may not possess the skills needed to "lead" a group of girls. More support from staff in the form of training for how to handle girls, how to involve more parents or how to structure a troop would or learning experience could help.
- Working mothers. The resistance to male troop leaders. The hours necessary to learn the program (Journey's, Jargon, Events, History) The creativity necessary to develop activities to support objectives, as many people do not believe themselves to be creative. Leader must: a. keep it interesting and upbeat b. help the girls individually decide what they want to accomplish and how they can get to their goal. Early years the leaders are helping the girls to reach their goals and ideally in the later years the adults are more coaching and less directing. c. help the troop decide what they want to accomplish and how they can do it. d. tie in badges to those objectives for short term sense of accomplishment e. tie in annual/council wide/historic activities into those objectives f. tie in troop advancement to those objective for long term gains g. and if a girl wants to add a bronze/silver/gold project?? WHEW
- Not enough hours in the day to volunteer, and the next generation of leaders will only camp if there are "flushies". Really??? Suck it up!
- We live in a very rural state, we are few and far between.
- o Advertise requirements to be a leader in public forums (ie you don't have to be a mother of a Girl Scout. You don't have to be a former Girl Scout) o Recruit young women from universities or other organizations that look to work with kids. o Big Brother/ Big Sister advertise the need for mentors on the radio, why not Girl Scouts.
- Parents are not asked or expected to be involved in some way to help the troop. I see the same thing with AYSO. Parents sign up their kids for soccer but expect someone else to volunteer to be the coach or referee. Maybe there needs to be greater emphasis in getting parent involvement and commitment throughout the membership year, especially during GS recruitment season. It might not hurt to recruit dads to be troop leaders. I see many female Cub/Boy Scout troop leaders in my community. Why not target dads to volunteer to help lead Girl Scouts?
- We don't have a great support system once the volunteer signs up. It requires too much time for what is supposed to be a fun, volunteer position. Many of our leaders have to juggle leading a troop with a full time job as well as managing their household. There are so many girls for each troop and we have way to many hoops (via paperwork) for leaders to jump through to do any particular activity.
- Lack of parental involvement.
- I don't think we have enough connection between troop leaders and I have felt not supported in my efforts. We just don't communicate well in our service unit. So, I personally have felt like I am kind of "going it alone" and I wonder if other leaders feel that way. It is a lot for work leading a troop and it would be great to be more supportive and connected to other troops. I think these concerns might keep adults from volunteering as they might not know what to do and it can be very overwhelming if you don't know who to ask and who will help you.
- I had to answer "I don't know" to the recruitment issue because I feel my council doesn't do enough recruitment activities! But I do know that finding quality adult volunteers has always been a problem for our council. I think our council needs to "connect" with other councils who have greater success with this and share strategies.
- Competition for my time not at work. So many options. GS's would be wise to make a case for why being a troop leader is more important than - mentoring, coaching, community service, self care, family/household work, school, BSA, etc... Or, just be satisfied that that's how it is (give up).
- Thankless job... Parents of girls mistreat us and too much training and paperwork is required. Burnt out got little thanks
- Moms are already overwhelmed with work and family. Need to be more welcoming to dads who want to lead.
- Both parents are working (often shiftwork) and baby sitters for siblings become a problem.The economy has a direct impact on how extensively a family can participate.
- Lack of understanding about parent lifestyles, focus on troop leaders. Many volunteers would rather be involved on a basis that requires less long term commitment, less extensive training, or in a specific subject area. Focus is on getting girls, but membership doesn't look for non-parent leadership.
- To use (name removed) quote to me, many years ago, "Volunteers are a dime a dozen". I disagreed then, and I disagree now. Treat volunteers that way and not only lose them, but word-of-mouth loses many more.
- Not going out to the Schools and community to recruit. You can't do it all through signs and online. There needs to be face to face interaction. School, Churches. and libraries are great places for STAFF members to use their time to recruit and help set up new troops and leaders. But I NEVER see them.
- I don't know if they have a hard time finding troop leaders or not, but I will say they they have a copious amount of people who don't seem to be able to handle how to be a troop leader. I've met/been lead by leaders who either didn't give a crap and made they're girls make beaded jewelry, FOR THE ENTIRE YEAR, or they were so mean or controlling, that it was boarder-line abusive. And I almost quit GS when I was 11 because of this, until we found the troop that I would end up staying with. They were great leaders, they wanted our input on the activities we did, they made the troop as a whole work out our meetings. We would know how many "business meetings" we had and how many "fun meetings/field trips" we had.
- Time.
- Adults to busy to be active in scouts. Too much training required.
- There are too little volunteers to lead troops. Stop recruiting more girls if we don't have a troop for them.
- The economy, more women have to work!
- Potential volunteers don't get the message that their commitment is only as time intensive as they want it to be.
- Honestly, I don't know. Parents want their girls in the program but are not willing to take on the responsibility of being a leader. The GSUSA may find it beneficial to recruit leaders on college campuses.
- I think the size of the council makes it too easy to leave areas untouched.
- We just don't have enough leaders
- Too many women are working such long hours already and just don't have the time to volunteer like they would want.
- Lazy and disinterested parents
- Not enough local advertising, we need a paid full time service unit manager
- I feel that the recruitment of leaders is not emphasized. The recruitment is all focused towards getting girls to join Girl Scouting. And if by chance the parent wants to volunteer- that's great. I wonder why we don't just recruit for leaders in parents magazines and local newspapers.
- No one values us especially if we are not with the clicky women who butt in and take over and ONLY do things THEIR way. Maddening especially when it isn't in the best interest of he girls. It's turning me off especially after the program was destroyed. After 13 years we are joining Frontier Girls as their program is what Girl Scouts us to be. LOVE their badge work.
- The program is so different from what parents remember that they aren't comfortable volunteering. Many don't see the value in volunteering to be a leader.
- Partial to certain people and girls.
- people just willing to step up and do it. It is not an easy job.
- The Current Service Unit Manager in (SU location removed) is incompetent, unapproachable and needs to be removed before the whole service unit falls apart.
- they are too busy keeping up with their numbers and their work goals to focus on the program and the girls. it's one thing to want 100% participation, but this is what all the leaders are attempting to accomplish, while the paid workers expect more and more and more without developing ways to get it resolved and with always wanting the volunteers to do more. i'm particularly tired of our council manager expecting us to do her paid job and further tired of her not listening when suggestions are made, or putting everything off for yet another day. we're halfway through the scout year and now she wants to jump on the bandwagon of getting a troop together? get real, where were you in September?
- not enough positive emphasis is put on being a leader.
- That does not apply to my service unit. I believe there needs to be more council-run programs for Seniors/Ambassadors. Once the girls get past Juniors, there are few programs for these girls. As Cadettes, my girls participated in some GSCM activities. However, these programs were repeated year after year. There isn't much that they haven't already done that is offered to teens. In addition, GSCM offers a spring encampment. They charge $50/girl. They own the camp. Our SU offers a fall encampment. The cost is $30/girl and they still makes a lot of profit. Generally, those cookies are troops heading to Savannah and get a lot of the profit. If our SU is able to make a lot of profit at $30/girl while renting the camp, I don't know why GSCM charges $50/girl. I know that precludes a lot of girls from participating.
- Not enough council support. The local office is only open one day a week, the day day is not consistently the same weekly. Too hard for volunteers let alone we girls and adults.
- Lack of support, burning out those that do volunteer
- There is not enough training from Council for new leaders or those who want to know more about being a leader.
- lack of time and commitment, especially from working mothers.
- Parents don't have enough time and the whole idea can be intimidating.
- The journeys are intimidating
- In my small town as new daisy girls sign up our school coordinator just tries to find a parent to be the leader. The parent may know nothing about Girl Scouts. I think a volunteer should be sought first so they are trained and ready to work with new girls.
- Difficulty in scheduling training. Amount of training required.
- Parents are looking for a solid program to offer their daughter the scout experience. Some parents are not able to devote the hours and additional funds out of the family budget.
- Parents don't want the responsibility.
- I think volunteers are our best way to get more volunteers. Council needs to focus on making volunteers jobs easier so we can help grow our numbers instead of using volunteers to make their jobs easier.
- Wow ... they signed up a girl and assigned her a troop without even checking to see if there was room or if the troop met the parents' time needs. Just bad communication ... the volunteers stepped up and fixed their mess up.
- Parents are not willing to give time. they want to have an after school program to send their child to.
- Parent's are busy and it's a lot of work to run a troop. GS should hire qualified people to run the troops with parents helping out.
- It's not like when I was growing up and most moms didn't work outside the home so they could lead a troop. Nowadays, most moms work outside the home and the time commitment to a troop can be really daunting. Also, there is so much bureaucracy and paperwork (and cost) that I think parents are turned off.
- No support! No guidance! No money! We are expected to do it all by ourselves.
- I think it is the culture of parents now. They want their children to do something but not willing to make time for them. Parents in my generation are very selfish
- Lack of organization.
- adults aren't interested in getting involved
- Requires too much time. Volunteers are expected to do way more than they signed up for.
- Parents don't want to commit.
- People feel overwhelmed as they aren't sure where to start, time commitment appears daunting.
- As I have discovered being a new leader last year, being a good leader takes a lot of time and energy, more than I realized when I volunteered. I love doing it but it is exhausting to keep up with all of the communication, planning, and organizing. I don't think that there is a better way to do it, but it is not easy. Many people are not willing to squeeze being a scout leader into their already busy lives. Plus, dealing with parents is frustrating.
- The economy makes it hard for volunteers to commit. Plenty want their children in scouting but many will not offer to help. The same is seen in sports, PTAs, class rooms.
- Council staff believe that volunteers are like buses, there is one right around the corner. They have no appreciation for volunteer input, they completely ignore their concerns. The CEO and other Senior staff continually blame GSUSA or other areas for their lack of financial stability. They have cut staff to bone and passed more work to the volunteers with little or no support and then get offended what those same volunteers question. Bottom line, there is no respect for the work a volunteer does by the current administration and that make it very difficult to recruit new volunteers when your current base is leaving and is vocal about why.
- I think its a shame that they keep telling people to register on line and then never help them to find a troop. I had one girl join this year (7th grade) that was told last year when they called council there were no troops at her school. There were two last year. Mine (her age level) and one troop of girls a year ahead which I know for a fact would not have turned her away. She missed a year in scouting because the recruitment specialist didn't even know the troops existed.
- Poor communication and lack of support
- We have lost many leaders due to all of the changes and new rules. Also, many troops' leaders decide on their "magic number" and won't allow other girls to join once they reach it, which means that if a girl wants to participate she has to find a group of strangers to join because the one at her school "is full". All the paperwork is a deterrent also. People are willing to take on "mom sized" jobs, but often are left running the entire troop alone...
- There needs to be a group of older girls that plan events calendar with a panel of leader/ mentors to help them. Something that needs to be addressed is counsel using events for troops to earn money for council. The prices end up being too expensive especially for new troops. Example; overnight event at a museum cost $35.00 but council charges $45.00 (this is figuratively speaking). The activity should be cost and if extra supplies are needed then let troops bring them.
- I never received any type of recruitment materials from my council, and the programs offered by my council are unorganized and not fun for the girls that attend, according to my surveys I ask the girls to answer questions about events. The events provided by my SU I always get positive feedback but the council events I get ambivalent to negative feedback about. Its enough to make me quit announcing and promoting council events
- I think the problem is that leaders get tired of leading, and they leave their troops, but then the council can't find enough leaders to replace the ones that leave.
- Parents want Girl Scout programs for their daughters, but they don't want or can't spend the time necessary to volunteer with the organization.
- No help at the local level to recruit leaders
- I feel that our council works too hard to get a certain number of troops rather than help a few troops get stronger.
- Lack of adults to commit=(
- Having volunteered at a WAGGGS center and seen troops from around the world, I perceived a generational gap in particular with GS leaders from the United States. I think it's great to get leaders of all ages involved, but recruiting more young women to be troop leaders can lead to powerful mentor/role model bonds. I had a good time in my middle school troop, which was led by a friend's mom, but the troop that really impacted my lasting involvement with Girl Scouts was my high school troop, which was led by a former camp counselor. I think councils could do more to target college-aged GS (and even non-GS) members to lead troops -- especially at the Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador levels.
- lack of support to leaders and the constant drive for money instead of a focus on program for girls.
- Lack of communication. People want to know what is involved in being a volunteer and there is not clear communication about that. Also, lack of training opportunities.
- Current Leaders are burnt out and are sick of the lake of communication and having to drive all the way to Tampa to do anything. Leaders vent to friends and word gets out that its a difficult job.
- many people work now and time is an issue
- The focus has been on the girls and not adults. Have not witnessed and support from our Council to actively recruit. Service Units are on their own.
- people are afraid to commit themselves. I think less and less adults were in scouts so they don't know enough about the program to make the jump to leader.
- Too many working parents do not want to commit to leading. There is not enough leader training.
- Parent don't feel they can handle being a troop leader.
- There is a waiting list in almost all Service Units in our area due to lack of leadership for a troop. Girls are encouraged to participate as they can and join a troop as one comes open. Currently the size of our troops has grown so more girls are getting an opportunity to join a troop if they wish. Until adults see the advantage in engaging in the leadership teams, the girls will have to pave their own path in Girl Scouts.
- it isn't just Girl Scouts Who are having problems recruiting volunteers. With the need for more dual incomes, families have less time to volunteer.
- Lack of time. Some parents don't see a value in girl scouts.
- Life is very hectic these days and time is limited. It doesn't have anything to do with the GS program.
- There is a generational change in the volunteer ethic. It will improve but currently it is difficult to get parents engaged in the same way they used to be engaged.
- That's the million dollar question. It's harder to find volunteer leaders with so many women working full-time. Perhaps GS could publicize that leading a troop has many profiles, not just as an after school program. I hear that people don't have time (they want baby sitters), they're afraid of all the training (which used to be what felt like every other year, but now is now infrequently offered, far away), or they don't know what it takes and are afraid of being responsible for other people's children.
- More working moms, more single family homes, less school support
- Leaders should be recruited first, by experienced volunteers with support from staff, before girls are recruited.
- Not enough interest from parents. not enough advertisement visibility.
- Volunteers are already troop leaders and service team members and adding recruitment duties is too hard. Staff need to recruit.