Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind
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@jaredbusch said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
Our troop broke free from the popcorn enslavement just before I turned 18. One of the parents knew a business in town that was shutting down that had a snow cone machine to liquidate.
I specifically remember my friends troops would sell tickets for and work the local "haunted forest" during Halloween, they were never popcorn slaves that I was aware of. They did all kinds of stuff to raise money to go camping and do whatever else they did.
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I guess I don't even understand why so much money is required, don't you just get "merit badges" for doing/learning new skills? Why do they have to sell a billion boxes of cookies to learn new skills?
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@bnrstnr said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
I guess I don't even understand why so much money is required, don't you just get "merit badges" for doing/learning new skills? Why do they have to sell a billion boxes of cookies to learn new skills?
Some of the merit badges can only be earned on camping trips, like navigation or wilderness survival. Which costs money to get out there, camping grounds, food, etc.
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@bnrstnr said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
@jaredbusch said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
Because lawsuits.
Because lawsuits from who? Girl Scouts (the corporation?) or the people eating the cookies?
If the Girl Scouts are suing people for not using their products then start your own organization... People have bake sales all the time without being sued to oblivion
Lawsuits from the actual maker of the cookies who likely have a lifetime contract, non-compete clause etc.
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@bnrstnr said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
I guess I don't even understand why so much money is required, don't you just get "merit badges" for doing/learning new skills? Why do they have to sell a billion boxes of cookies to learn new skills?
Simply put, like with hockey someone needs to pay to keep the ice cold. . .
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@dustinb3403 said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
Lawsuits from the actual maker of the cookies who likely have a lifetime contract, non-compete clause etc.
Right, so ditch the Girl Scouts name completely, get it back to a local thing. Seems like a win-win all around.
I guess with how sue-crazed everybody is nobody wants to operate something like this an accept any liability...
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@bnrstnr said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
I guess I don't even understand why so much money is required, don't you just get "merit badges" for doing/learning new skills? Why do they have to sell a billion boxes of cookies to learn new skills?
Very little is required. They get basically nothing from the cookie sales. They sell a billion boxes of cookies becaue the girl scouts are a multi-level cookie marketing scheme. That is what they are. They aren't about anything else, AFAIK. They are literally about selling cookies as pressured child labour through a pyramid scheme that is illegal on the MLM side and on the child labour side. But they've been doing it under a non-profit money laundering front since like 1936 so people turn a blind eye to it.
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@bnrstnr said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
@dustinb3403 said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
Lawsuits from the actual maker of the cookies who likely have a lifetime contract, non-compete clause etc.
Right, so ditch the Girl Scouts name completely, get it back to a local thing. Seems like a win-win all around.
I guess with how sue-crazed everybody is nobody wants to operate something like this an accept any liability...
Ditch the whole concept and make something that isn't an MLM.
My problem here, and it's not a problem just a bit of confusion, is if we look at what the Girls Scouts truly are, why would anyone want anything like that, at all? If we want something for girls to do, shouldn't it just be a completely different thing with goals that aren't selling cookies?
I guess to me it's like saying Product X is a car. Oh, that's not what I want, I want a sandwich. We should make Product Y based on Product X that meets my goals. But if your goal is a sandwich, why make something related to the car you didn't want en route to getting the sandwich? Why not just make a sandwich in the first place rather than trying to alter the car into a sandwich?
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@scottalanmiller said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
@bnrstnr said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
@dustinb3403 said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
Lawsuits from the actual maker of the cookies who likely have a lifetime contract, non-compete clause etc.
Right, so ditch the Girl Scouts name completely, get it back to a local thing. Seems like a win-win all around.
I guess with how sue-crazed everybody is nobody wants to operate something like this an accept any liability...
Ditch the whole concept and make something that isn't an MLM.
My problem here, and it's not a problem just a bit of confusion, is if we look at what the Girls Scouts truly are, why would anyone want anything like that, at all? If we want something for girls to do, shouldn't it just be a completely different thing with goals that aren't selling cookies?
I guess to me it's like saying Product X is a car. Oh, that's not what I want, I want a sandwich. We should make Product Y based on Product X that meets my goals. But if your goal is a sandwich, why make something related to the car you didn't want en route to getting the sandwich? Why not just make a sandwich in the first place rather than trying to alter the car into a sandwich?
You are implying that Girl Scouts is a MLM only, which is not true. But Girl Scouts never had as strong of a presence of doing other things with the kids like Boy Scouts does. So the MLM fundraising side is the only thing people "know" about Girls Scouts.
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@jaredbusch said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
@scottalanmiller said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
@bnrstnr said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
@dustinb3403 said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
Lawsuits from the actual maker of the cookies who likely have a lifetime contract, non-compete clause etc.
Right, so ditch the Girl Scouts name completely, get it back to a local thing. Seems like a win-win all around.
I guess with how sue-crazed everybody is nobody wants to operate something like this an accept any liability...
Ditch the whole concept and make something that isn't an MLM.
My problem here, and it's not a problem just a bit of confusion, is if we look at what the Girls Scouts truly are, why would anyone want anything like that, at all? If we want something for girls to do, shouldn't it just be a completely different thing with goals that aren't selling cookies?
I guess to me it's like saying Product X is a car. Oh, that's not what I want, I want a sandwich. We should make Product Y based on Product X that meets my goals. But if your goal is a sandwich, why make something related to the car you didn't want en route to getting the sandwich? Why not just make a sandwich in the first place rather than trying to alter the car into a sandwich?
You are implying that Girl Scouts is a MLM only, which is not true.
No, I'm stating outright that if they are anything more than an MLM I'm not aware of it. I'm not saying that they aren't, just that whatever they are past an MLM is not transparent to me and I don't know if it exists or, if it does, what it is.
As an outsider, their MLM business is the only aspect we see. At least typically.
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@jaredbusch said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
But Girl Scouts never had as strong of a presence of doing other things with the kids like Boy Scouts does.
Right, Boy Scouts have this strong "visible" non-MLM thing, I know some things that the Boy Scouts do. Then, once in a great while, I see them doing an MLM fundraiser.
Girl Scouts, I see constantly doing MLM fundraisers, the most of any MLM I know of world wide in fact, and I know zero of there being anything beyond that.
Which leads to the question of "what is it about the Girl Scouts that we both know about and would want to preserve?"
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The real question here is: what do girl scouts do besides MLM, and is it significant enough to categorize them as not just a MLM?
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@tim_g said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
The real question here is: what do girl scouts do besides MLM, and is it significant enough to categorize them as not just a MLM?
I was thinking the same thing. My daughter is in GS and has been for a few years now. They seem to do a bunch of other stuff, but I'm not that involved. I mean, I go to a lot of her events, but my wife is the main one doing stuff. My daughter is a brownie too so I think depending on the bracket (or whatever) and the people running the troop, the various activities they do probably can very a lot.
Actually, my wife has gotten stuck with being the troop's cookie manager two years in a row. She has to collect all the money from the parents and submit the orders online. She hasn't said anything to me about things seeming fishy, but she does have a lot of complaints about their website, plus a lot of parents are idiots about submitting and picking up their orders.
I'm also thinking that if it is a full blown MLM at this point, it probably didn't start off that way. I'm sure various levels of greed and corruption have gradually fueled changes that swung the cookie sales portion of the GS into the MLM arena of things.
I feel like pretty much anything that starts off with good and pure intentions and is successful is inevitably pushed more and more to the point that it becomes an obscene version of it's original self.
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@tim_g said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
The real question here is: what do girl scouts do besides MLM, and is it significant enough to categorize them as not just a MLM?
I doubt that they are truly "just an MLM", but I'm decently confident that they are mostly an MLM. It's definitely the key focus that they have, it uses all of their time and effort. And it is absolutely their interface to the outside world.
I'm sure that they do some redeeming or positive things, too. I just have honestly no idea what those things are. Maybe they teach woodworking or rock climbing or survival skills... I have no idea.
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@dave247 said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
@tim_g said in Girl Scouts - Training Girls to Run MLMs, Change My Mind:
The real question here is: what do girl scouts do besides MLM, and is it significant enough to categorize them as not just a MLM?
I was thinking the same thing. My daughter is in GS and has been for a few years now. They seem to do a bunch of other stuff, but I'm not that involved. I mean, I go to a lot of her events, but my wife is the main one doing stuff. My daughter is a brownie too so I think depending on the bracket (or whatever) and the people running the troop, the various activities they do probably can very a lot.
Actually, my wife has gotten stuck with being the troop's cookie manager two years in a row. She has to collect all the money from the parents and submit the orders online. She hasn't said anything to me about things seeming fishy, but she does have a lot of complaints about their website, plus a lot of parents are idiots about submitting and picking up their orders.
I'm also thinking that if it is a full blown MLM at this point, it probably didn't start off that way. I'm sure various levels of greed and corruption have gradually fueled changes that swung the cookie sales portion of the GS into the MLM arena of things.
I feel like pretty much anything that starts off with good and pure intentions and is successful is inevitably pushed more and more to the point that it becomes an obscene version of it's original self.
My nieces were in it, and they sold cookies. That's all I know from that
I was in the cub scouts briefly before being kicked out for being too rural in a poor region, and we did things like little projects to make wooden cars to race. That was about it. Definitely no fund raising. But not much of anything. Wasn't in long enough to figure out what it was actually about. I was from such a rural area that I was in it just to meet kids, which it failed to do.
