Alright, just finished the first full day of convention (second day, overall)! This morning, we kicked things off nice and early with a wonderfully inspiring keynote speaker, Frances Hesselbein, who spoke about the management of nonprofit organizations and about how spectacular Girl Scouts has been at creating an organization that has gracefully withstood 100 years of change in leadership, society, and goals. Considering my desire to one day be the CEO of a Girl Scout council and continue my own nonprofit, her words definitely resonated with me and I truly enjoyed her speech. Shortly thereafter, we then got right down to debating in the first business meeting of the National Council Session.
As delegates, we all sat together on the convention floor and had the opportunity to debate our views for the first proposal. During the debates, I had an opinion that I wanted to share with the delegation, so I stood up at the microphone to speak. However, the person right before me called the question and the motion was passed to vote on the proposal at that point. In retrospect, I suppose it was good that I never got to speak because, unfortunately, whenever someone gets up at that microphone, there is always someone in the room who grunts, laughs, or rolls their eyes at what they have to say. Proposal #1 was passed and councils will now be able to charge girl members an annual general service fee.
After the business meeting, I grabbed lunch with the girl delegates and we had an in-depth conversation about the fact that there are no girl members sitting as voting members of the National Board. I shared my Girl Scout stories with them about how I was selected for the National Board Leadership Lanes in 2009, but it was soon dissolved after little more than a year. In addition, I also shared with them my goal of writing a proposal for the next convention that will place girl members, not only on the National Board, but on the governing boards of every Girl Scout council. Needless to say, they supported the idea 100% and were excited to be involved in any way possible.
Later that afternoon, we spent the remainder of our day at the second plenary session and the National Young Women of Distinction awards ceremony. At the plenary session, we listened to a very lively conversation between Soledad O’Brien and a panel of four other accomplished men an women who shared with us their expertise on moving beyond diversity to inclusion. During the YWOD awards, we witnessed a multitude of amazing speeches by girls who had gone above and beyond in earning their Girl Scout Gold Awards and truly attempting to make the world a better place. Listening to each of those girls present their awards made me swell with pride as a Gold Award recipient. I can’t help but feel overwhelmingly confident when I’m able to represent the hundreds of hours I spent dedicated to my project by wearing my Gold Award upon my blazer all weekend. In addition, it was wonderful to see one of my colleagues, Toni Gutierrez, on that stage – way to represent Girl Scouts of San Gorgonio Council!
Finally, I was able to take the girl delegates to the National Board meet and greet. I introduced them to one of the board members that I know, Marisa Tabizon Thompson, and the girls were quick to share with her my idea of having girls serve on the National Board. Marisa was more than enthusiastic about the idea and urged the girls to collaborate with me and write a stellar proposal that would make it through to the next National Council Session. That said, the planning has begun: four girl delegates of Girl Scouts of Northern California, and myself, will be working in the months and years to come in order to hold Girl Scouts accountable to their mantra of “for girls, by girls.” There will definitely be another post about this proposal to follow in the weeks to come!
Here’s to another full day of exciting activities and voting on the second proposal, tomorrow!
