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2001-06-10 - 8:50 a.m.

BEING A TROOPER

I love being a girl scout troop leader. I don�t love the paperwork. I accept that some paperwork is inevitable. Keeping the financial books is necessary and important and I can see the value of an annual financial report. Filling out impossible surveys, however, is not what I signed up for.

The girl scouts seem to have a survey for everything of late. There is the fifth grade girls retention survey and the GirlSports initiative survey. The worst survey of all is the one that they hid in the annual financial report: the �how-do-you-lead-your-troop� survey.

Now that the girls are in middle school, I don�t really lead my troop. Instead, I coordinate it. This past year, I assigned girls in groups of two to plan and run meetings. Most of the time I just get supplies, do the paperwork, make announcements, and insist on clean-up. (This last activity could be a full-time job at some meetings.)

When we go on field trips, sometimes the girls suggest field trips and sometimes I do. We rarely vote. If a large core of girls does not respond to an idea with enthusiasm, it just doesn�t happen. We reserve votes for those times when disagreement is clear and must be resolved to get on with what we all agreed to do already.

But the survey assumes that people suggest activities and we vote. The survey wants to know who suggests the activities that we vote on. Is it me, me and the girls, or the girls? There is no place to say, �None of the above.�

I�ve thought of taking this survey to the girls and having them vote on the answer. I think we�ll use punchcard ballots�the butterfly type.

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