I've been getting a lot of emails, saying "I thought I was alone in disliking/hating the Journeys. Thank you for your articles." To all of you who wrote and to all of you who just thought that, you're welcome. Writing the articles is a lot like stating the obvious though. I have some other obvious observations to share at the moment.

The second round of Journeys are out and, oh, new requirements for Girls Scouts' top awards--the Bronze, Silver, and Gold award are out as well. It's not good news.

The new requirements require that girls work on the Journeys as a prerequisite to their project. For the Gold Award, our top honor, girls must complete TWO of the Journeys.

I knew it was coming, but I was still horrified when the news arrived. My girls, and many of yours, hate these Journeys. Add to that the fact that they have to be done in a troop setting, and my math suggests that fewer will be inclined to earn the awards. At the older stages, not only are there smaller troops that meet on an infrequent basis, but there are also many independently motivated Girl Scouts. There may be one girl in a troop who wishes to earn her Gold award, but now she will have to cajole some of her troop members into devoting a not-insignificant amount of time doing a Journey.

I also have an issue with the whole progression of the Journeys ending in a "Take Action" project. Essentially, we are asking our girls to take on three projects to earn their Gold Award. How tedious. How boring. How redundant! As I said to one person, I'd rather see them complete a series of proficiency exams in knot tying, fire building, and tent pitching. At least they'd have some skills that would help them should they ever land a spot on Survivor. The current proposal to require Journeys doesn't guarantee that they'll leave the process with any skills, except perhaps some talent in aversion avoidance.

What do I mean by "aversion avoidance?" Well, the arguments are already mounting within Councils about the appropriateness of "Journey weekends" whereby girls would knock out the majority of requirements in a Journey "to get them out of the way." Am I the only one who sees a problem with this? The response is not "Joy o joy, we will JOURNEY through this program over a period of months," but "Crud, how can we meet the letter of the law with the least amount of time and energy invested?" The image of leading a horse to water comes to mind...

In the mailbag has been a lot of questions about what we can do as leaders. Unfortunately, I think this steamroller is going to flatten us, but I do have an email that you can use to register your concerns and complaints. My suggestion is that you politely demand a non-Journey, traditional route to the higher awards. We aren't going to be able to stop the Journey train, but perhaps we can create a second train track. Here's the email and happy writing: programideas@girlscouts.org