The Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace just received a major honor for its redesigned Library. Click below for details?
Source: Celebrating Our Success: A National Award for the Library at the Juliette Gordon Low Birthplace!
I wrote about the Library redesign in February.
I don’t understand Girl Scout cookie pins.
I know cookie t-shirts, cookie toys, and I have a large collection of cookie patches. I’m even making a cookie patch quilt.
But somewhere between my years selling cookies and my daughter’s cookie season, the cookie pin appeared. Why?
The first cookie pin debuted in the fall 1998 Girl Scout catalog. The requirements are in separate activity guides available from GSUSA.
The pin is a different color each year, but the year is not part of the pin’s design, which guarantees confusion.
In the 2005-2006 guide, then-CEO Kathy Cloninger explains that the cookie pins focus on Girl Scout core values. I can’t complain about that purpose, but it would be nice if those core values were explicitly listed in that guide. (Fortunately they are on the cookie boxes.)
I also think that it’s nice to have a cookie prize available to all Girl Scouts. Each baker has their own annual theme, which means rival slogans and different cute cartoon animals across the country.
But isn’t that what the various cookie badges do?
Clockwise from top: Cookie Connection, Cookie Biz, Cookies & Dough, Cookies Count
Three cookie themed badges–Cookies Count (Brownies), Cookie Connection (Juniors), and Cookies and Dough (Cadettes and Seniors)–were introduced in 1997. Why add a repetitive set of ugly pins the next year? How are they different? A second badge for Juniors, Cookie Biz, was introduced in 2004.
Introduced in 2011, the current Girl Scout Leadership Experience (GSLE) program also has two cookie badges per level. They are the soulless silkscreened variety, using words as a lame design effort. The requirements overlap with the cookie pin requirements, and now some councils are offering their own patch programs with similar requirements and names. The badge in the left is for Juniors, on the right is a patch for multiple levels.
Confused yet?
But what I really don’t get is why are cookie pins such expensive pieces of junk? I have gotten higher quality jewelry out of gum ball machines. These pins aren’t worth a quarter, much less $2.
I haven’t actually counted, but it certainly seems like the number one item that parents are trying to replace in the various Facebook Girl Scout groups is a cookie pin. The pin backs snap off within days of putting one on a vest. Perhaps they jump off and flee in embarrassment.
How can a girl possibly earn a cookie trifecta–badge, baker patch, and pin–without double-dipping?* There are just so many ways to practice a sales pitch.
Like I said, I just don’t get the cookie pin program.
And I’m not going to put them on my patch quilt!
My patch quilt. It was supposed to be 100 patches for 100 years but I got carried away.
*Double dipping = using one activity toward requirements for two awards.
©2017 Ann Robertson
“I found a bunch of silver fish!” I recently announced to my family.
“Call the exterminator,” my husband replied.
Then, as a good Man in Green, he corrected himself. “Oh, you mean the other one.”
Indeed, this is what I found in the bargain bin at Jo-Ann Fabrics:
It’s a string of silver-colored, fish-shaped beads. Each is about 1″ in size. I thought they would be perfect additions to a Juliette Gordon Low costume or a Daisy-themed Kim’s Game.
The Silver Fish was the highest award available to Girl Guides. It could be considered the first highest award for Girl Scouts, because it was listed in the 1913 handbook, How Girls Can Help Their Country, along with the list of the 20 badges needed to earn it. But no Girl Scouts ever did. In fact, some of the “required” badges were not even available in the United States. Instead, Daisy created a US equivalent: the Golden Eagle of Merit.
In October 1917 Girl Guides redefined the Silver Fish as an adult-only award recognizing outstanding contributions to the movement.
Helen Storrow (Wikipedia)
Originally the award depicted a whiting with its tail in its mouth. It changed to a swimming fish on a dark blue/light blue striped ribbon in October 1917.
Today the fish is an Atlantic salmon. According to the Girl Scout Collector’s Guide, Lord Baden Powell suggested this species, “a salmon swimming up a river, overcoming every water fall, boulder, and other obstacle in order to reach a quiet place in which to spawn.”
Lady Baden Powell received a specially created golden Silver Fish in 1918.
Three Americans received the prestigious Silver Fish. Lord Baden Powell personally presented the first to JGL at the 1919 national convention in Washington, DC. Anne Hyde Choate and Helen Storrow received theirs at the 1921 national convention in Cincinnati. Choate, JGL’s goddaughter, was national president from 1920 to 1922. Storrow led the effort to build Our Chalet.
Anne Hyde Choate (l) and Juliette Gordon Low wear their Silver Fish (Harris & Ewing photo)
Anne Hyde Choate’s Silver Fish at GSUSA
Daisy was buried in her Girl Scout uniform, including her Silver Fish, at Laurel Grove cemetery in Savannah.
Anne Hyde Choate’s Silver Fish was donated to GSUSA. Earlier this year, it was on display in the lobby of the 17th floor of national headquarters, 420 Fifth Avenue in New York.
Today Storrow’s fish lives at the Cedar Hill Museum in Massachusetts.
Thank you to the Cedar Hill staff and volunteers who confirmed the location!
©2016 Ann Robertson
