The new requirements are out for the Bronze, Silver, and Gold Awards. As I mentioned in another article, Journeys are required for these awards. That is the good and the bad news because that is all that is required as a prerequisite to the award projects. If I ever had any doubt that the Journeys were going to be the new program and that Try-Its, Badges, and IPAs, along with any other award of value, are going to be "phased out," it is gone now. The new awards don't require anything else, and I truly believe you have to be a fool to think that isn't the writing on the wall.

To return to the awards, one journey and a project is required for the Bronze and Silver Awards. For Gold, a girl has to have completed the Silver Award or do two journeys. The suggested (not required) hours for each award are 20, 50, and 80 hours, respectively. Seriously? Suggested? Those who approved these awards don't really think that girls in junior and senior high school don't know how to cut corners even without this gilded invitation to do so?

As someone who earned First Class (the old "highest" award) and then the "new" Silver and Gold, I find this an extreme devaluation of the awards to the point that it is insulting. These new requirements are a gigantic step back for Girl Scouts and for women, and no, I am not being dramatic. How are we supposed to be taken seriously if we dilute our own value? With these new requirements, a girl can join Girl Scouts as a junior in high school and leave a year later with our organization's so-called top award.

Furthermore, the new Gold is no where near the equivalent of a Boy Scout Eagle in which a boy has to work his way through the ranks and then demonstrate a set of core skills (21 merit badges!), serve in a leadership position, and then do a project in which the boy involves and leads other individuals. I invite you to look at the link below to get and idea of what earning a Boy Scout Eagle entails and then I challenge anyone to argue that the new Girl Scout Gold Award is anywhere near the equivalent of the Boy Scout Eagle.

While you are poking around, check out Venturing. It is co-ed for girls and boys aged 14 and older. I won't quit Girl Scouts, but I am very seriously considering dual registration. It isn't very hard for me imagine myself walking my girls through their awards through Gold as quickly as we are now allowed to do and spending the rest of my time Venturing. Before anyone emails me over that comment, ask yourself, how is a leader supposed to take these awards seriously if National doesn't have the self-respect to do so themselves?