Historical links between Scouting and GLO's?
 

Just like many GLOs have a link to freemasonry. I am curious if GLOs are historically linked to Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts. I know SAE and APO are linked to BSA, but I don't know about the rest.

Coincidence between GS and sororities?

You get a badge.
You pay dues.
There are weekly meetings.
There is a promise and law.
There is a GS handshake.
You have ceremonies like bridging, etc.
There are colors.
We learned about our founders and our history.
Girl Scouts encourages alumni participation.
Troops normally start at schools.
You do service projects.

A Theta Chi brother (George Chapman) wrote the Order of the Arrow ritual.

One of Kappa Delta's National Philanthropies is the Girl Scouts of the USA. There is a KD badge that Girl Scouts can earn. My chapter usually holds 2 events a year with several local girl scout troupes.

Actually I think it is more a patch than an official badge (at least I haven't seen it in any of the badge/try-it/Interest Patch books that are published by GSUSA.

With regards to GS being like a sorority, to some extent it is. There is a 'secret motto', handshake, recruitment, membership pin, ceremonies that go along with getting that pin and changing levels, etc. There were even more similiarities in the early years (you can find them in the original 1913 handbook - which is REALLY neat!). I do not believe that Juliette Gordon Low was ever a member of a fraternity/sorority and Lord and Lady Baden-Powell would not have been either - but as ShaedyKD mentioned, KD is the only sorority that is officially linked to GSUSA as a national philanthropy (though I would personally like to see a lot more!).

Sarah
Field Executive
Girl Scouts of Woodland Council

My father was a member of Alpha Phi Omega in the early 1970s. At that point, you had to be an Eagle Scout in order to be in Alpha Phi Omega...that has since changed, and it is now a co-ed fraternity.

Re: Historical links between Scouting and GLO's?
 

What is the SAE connection with the BSA? Seeing as how SAE predates the BSA by over 50 years, it seems odd that there would be a connection.

Re: Re: Historical links between Scouting and GLO's?
 

Well, I won't say directly. A lot of the APO founders were SAEs.

But even if many of APO's founders were SAE's, is that a historical link between SAE and the BSA, or just between SAE and APO? If there are links with the BSA, it seems you could be able to "say directly," since the BSA doesn't have any "secrets" (except in the Order of the Arrow).

I really don't know I got this from SAEactive http://greekchat.com/gcforums/showth...ht=girl+scouts

Thanks, Dionysus -- reading through that thread was helpful.

So far as I know, the SAE/BSA link is the fact that many of the founders of APO, which started as a service fraternity for Eagle Scouts, were SAE's. I don't think there is any specific link other than that.

Probably the strongest influence on the Scouting movement has been the military. Lord Robert S. S. Baden-Powell, who founded the Scouting movement in England, was a veteran of the Boer War, and scout life follows something of a military model. One can also detect a strong influence of the writings of Rudyard Kipling on both British and American Scouting. American Scouting, of course, also draws heavily from Native American lore.

That said, I think that both Scouting and GLO's reflect the fact that young people (and not so young people) are naturally drawn to distinctive handshakes, signs and salutes, mottos, and the like as both identifying and distinguishing marks and as intangibles that encourage unity and esprit de corps. My 2 cents.

Not just Eagle Scouts, but any scouting experience.

Thanks for the correction, dardenr.

On a related note, I found on the web an article on the Scouting movement and Freemasonry: Lord Baden-Powell, Benefactor of Boyhood; B-P and Freemasonry.

For what it's worth.

There's a long story in the fall '05 Phi Gam magazine listing their ties to scouting.

Current Scouting Natl. Pres. John Cushman is a Colgate Fiji, and '96-'98 pres John Creighton is an Ohio St./Pitt Fiji.

The organizations have similar value systems and premises. At our alumnae club meetings, we often end up talking about Scouting because so many of us are Cub Scout/Girl Scout leaders. It's rather humorous really. However, I think also that the leadership skills learned in Scouting wind up making the same people active in Scouting want to be active in something similar in college and end up fraternities/sororities. They are the joiners after all.

Originally, to be a member of Omega Phi Alpha you had to have been either a Campfire Girl or a Girl Scout. That changed in 1958, before the sorority went national, but a lot of chapters still do a lot of things with these orgs.