Local councils.—Where troops are numerous it is usual to form a council composed of women and men representing all the best interests of the community: Parents, schools, religious denominations of all sorts, business, producers, women's clubs, and other social and philanthropic organizations. The council acts as the link between the girl scouts and the community. It has the same relation to the separate troops that the school board has to the schools—that is, it guides and decides upon policies and standards, interprets the scouts to the community and the community to the scouts. It does not do the executive or teaching work; that belongs to the directors, captains, lieutenants, and patrol leaders.
One function of the council is to interest public-spirited women and men, particularly artists and scientists, in girl-scout work and to get them to act as referees in awarding proficiency badges.
But wisdom is to be sought not only in large cities, where there are schools and museums, laboratories and studios. It is a poor community that does not have at least one wise old person—a farmer learned in nature's ways, a retired sailor stocked with sea lore, or a mother of men who knows life as perhaps no one else can. The wise council will know where to find these natural teachers and see that the scouts go to their schools.
Another prime function of the council is to raise funds and to make available such material equipment as camp sites, meeting places for the troops, etc. The captain should turn to the council for help in arranging and directing rallies, dances, fairs, pageants, and other devices for entertainment or securing money.
National organization.—The central governing body of the girl scouts is the national council, holding an annual convention of elected delegates from all local groups. The national council works through an executive board, which meets monthly and conducts national headquarters in New York. The national director is in charge of headquarters and his direct responsibility for the administration of the whole organization, with the general divisions of field, business, publication, and education, each in charge of a secretary.
The field work is administered through 14 regions, each covering several States, and in charge of a regional director, who helps in the formation of local councils, the training of captains, and acts as general supervisor and consultant for all work in the district.
Under business comes the handling of mails, all the work of the shop where uniforms, insignia, books, badges, flags, and other equipment are sold, and the distribution of material ordered by mail.
There are three classes of publications: First, a monthly journal, The American Girl. Second, pamphlets and articles for general propaganda and publicity; these are handled by the editorial and publicity staffs, respectively. Third come publications of a technical nature, like the official handbooks for scouts and officers and outlines for training courses. These form part of the work of the education department, which has general oversight of all that pertains to training for leaders and the development of standards of work, including the important feature of coordinating the girl scouts with the other educational and social organizations. Camping also forms a part of the work of the education department.
During 1919 and 1920 the following publications were issued:
Scouting for Girls: The official handbook, 576 pages.