Girls CAN!

 

Please join me in welcoming Charity Rosenberry to the GSHPA team. Charity will join the council on Monday, July 14, 2008 as the Chief Financial Officer (CFO) in the finance department, based in the Harrisburg  service center.

Most recently Charity was employed by the American Education Services/Pennsylvania Higher Education Assistance Agency (AES/PHEAA) as the Director of Financial Reporting. While at PHEAA, Charity oversaw the financial reporting for AES/PHEAA, the PHEAA Student Loan Trust, and three non-profit foundations. She also managed the preparation, review, and distribution of financial statements, Security and Exchange Commission (SEC) forms, federal and state tax filings and management reports and analysis. Prior to joining GSHPA,  Charity’s work experience also included being the Internal Auditor for the Pennsylvania Employees Benefit Trust Fund, Senior Accountant  for Zelenkofske Axelrod & Co., CPA’s, and Accounting Specialist for First Data Merchant Services Corporation.

Charity is a graduate of Penn State University and has a Bachelor of Science degree in Professional Accountancy and a Bachelor of Science degree in Finance. She became a Certified Public Account (CPA) in 2001 and is a member of the Pennsylvania Institute of Certified Public Accountants and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants.

We are pleased to have Charity join our management team and look forward to her help in achieving our mission!

Donna Ventresca

Employment Manager

Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania

Beltway Commons

242 Airport Road

Hazleton, PA   18202

570.501.2604  ext 1410

570.501.2321  fax

800-692-7816

www.gshpa.org

Make it a summer to remember! Try camping with Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania.  Visit www.gshpa.org  for additional details.

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Please join me in welcoming Donna Ventresca, Employment Manager, to the GSHPA team.

Donna has 7 years experience in the human resources field.  Her prior positions include HR Manager for Paper Magic, Training Coordinator/Recruiter for Cargill Meat Solutions and HR Recruiting Coach for Lowe’s Regional Distribution Center.  Additionally Donna has worked as an Office Manager for Manpower Staffing and a Sales Manager for L’eggs Products.  Donna graduated from Blue Mountain High School and is a professional member of the Society for Human Resources Management (SHRM).

I know Donna looks forward to being an improtant part of this team!

We are pleased to have Donna join the council and look forward to her help in achieving our mission! 

Welcome Abroad, Donna! 

Donna Ventresca

Employment Manager

Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania

Beltway Commons

242 Airport Road

Hazleton, PA.  18202

570-501-2604, ext 1410

570-501-2321, fax

800-692-7816

www.gshpa.org

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The link below will take you to the GSHPA web press release page.  There you will note an important message regarding our new Interim CEO, Shirley Valentine-Attoh:

E. Lee Beard, chair of the board of directors of Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania (GSHPA), announces Shirley Valentine-Attoh, has been named Interim CEO effective July 1, 2008.  Follow the link (in red) below and look for the section that looks like this:

July 2008

Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania Announces Interim CEO

March 2008

 

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Posted July 5, 2008: The following is a note from Donna Ventresca, Employment Manager:

Please join me in welcoming Season Hain to the GSHPA team. Season joined GSHPA on July 1, 2008 working as a part time Sales Associate in Retail Operations.  Season will be located at the Harrisburg service center.

Prior to working with GSHPA, Season was employed as the Events Coordinator for The Theatre Museum.  She was also with  Capitol and Museum shops where she was the Retail Operations Manager/Buyer.

Season graduated from Conestoga Valley High School and attended Harrisburg Area Community College.

We are pleased to have Season join the council and look forward to her help in achieving our mission! 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome Abroad!

Donna Ventresca

Employment Manager

Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania

Beltway Commons

242 Airport Road

Hazleton, PA.  18202

570-501-2604, ext 1410

570-501-2321, fax

800-692-7816

www.gshpa.ogr

Harrisburg Location: {<–click for directions)

(Administrative Office)350 Hale Avenue
P.O. Box 2837
Harrisburg, PA 17105-2837
T: 717.233.1656 or 800.692.7816

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Dear Friends:

The following is a treat from Jonathan — enjoy!

Summer activities and fun for girls to do!

(Recruitment tool for girls and volunteers!)

You should have received Dairy Queen coupons via mail by now.  If you have not — or if you need more information, contact Jonathan Crouch, jcrouch@gshpa.org.

A new sweet treat and a great time together are waiting for you and your GS girls!

Send in pictures of you and your girls at Dairy Queen for council recognition!

Dairy Queen, an official national licensee of Girl Scouts of the USA, is pleased to declare July 7 to July 13, 2008, Dairy Queen Girl Scout Appreciation Week! To celebrate summer, Girl Scouts and Girl Scout groups are cordially invited to visit a local Dairy Queen between July 7 and 13, 2008, for Dairy Queen’s Girl Scout Appreciation Week. Make it a fun family or Girl Scout group event!

This July, Dairy Queen will introduce a new treat — the Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard. Made up of creamy soft-serve blended with Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie pieces and a crème de menthe topping, the Girl Scouts Thin Mint Cookie Blizzard will be available during July 2008 at participating Dairy Queen locations.

As the featured Blizzard of the Month, the Girl Scouts Thin Mint Blizzard will be advertised on national television and through local radio and print media and promoted on Dairy Queen’s website — DQ.com.

And as a community-oriented company, Dairy Queen and its operators want to help Girl Scout councils take advantage of this summer’s promotion to increase membership and volunteerism and create fun activities for girls — for Dairy Queen Girl Scout Appreciation Week and beyond.

To connect with a DQ in your area, visit Dairy Queen store-locator.

Please contact your local store directly to determine if they are participating in this national program as well as to make arrangements for activities, recruitment tables, programs, etc.

Here are just a few great ideas for how councils can work with Dairy Queen operators to make Dairy Queen Girl Scout Appreciation Week and this partnership a success:

Membership & Volunteerism:
·Work with your local DQ operator to set up a membership recruitment table outside the store. Email Jen Ward, GSVSC’s director of marketing and communications, at jward@gsvsc.org to request incentive coupons for this purpose.

·Work with your local DQ operator to place membership and/or interest indicator forms at the store. Establish collection procedures with the DQ operator or opt for self-mailing forms/postcards.

Fun Summer Activities for Girls:
·Work with your local DQ operator to coordinate “behind the scenes” tours for troops, groups, or day or overnight campers.

·Organize a “Blizzard-making class” with your local DQ operator.

· Invite your local DQ operator to talk with girls about what it takes to own and run a business successfully.

GSHPA will be promoting this special partnership and opportunity to our major media outlets. If you have any questions on how to best leverage this partnership with your local Dairy Queen, would like our assistance in coordinating press efforts in your area, or need more information, please contact GSHPA via www.gshpa.org!

To Contact the Board of Directors:

(There is no gate keeper for this method of contacting the Board)

board@gshpa.org

Snail-mail Address:

Attention Lee Beard / Personal & Confidential

Board of Directors
Girl Scouts in the Heart of Pennsylvania
 350 HALE AVE
HARRISBURG PA  17104-1518

 Chair - E. Lee Beard, CPA of Drums

Click here to link to the GSHPA Board page.

Following is a note from network member Jessica Hopkins on behalf of Education.com; it regards our mission. Enjoy!
 

Hey Rod,

As active supporters of the Girl Scouts, you already know why it’s such a great organization for women and girls. Education.com, an online resource for parents and educators agrees. I wanted to share some more of the excellent benefits that participating in Girl Scouts offers: Click here for: Why the Girl Scouts Matter

Characterized by generations of women pioneering social causes like non-violence and health & fitness, Education.com knows that the Girl Scouts offer so much more to girls than irresistible cookies.

Feel free to share with your troop (and we would love it if you posted on Girls CAN!), and please let me know what you think. Look forward to hearing back!

Best,
Jessica

Jessica Hopkins
360i on behalf of Education.com

The following is a wonderful opportunity for our girls to get creative and experience poetry in motion!

Please help get this out to the Girls Scouts — post and forward:

~ Poetry In Transit seeks a few good writers ~

Poetry In Transit, an award-winning community program, invites your participation.  This year-old project, patterned after London’s successful Poems on the Underground, displays poetry in advertising space.

click for full info: display poetry on buses

Greetings All,

 I’m probably going to knock a hornets nest off a tree with this post.
I hope GSCM (Girl Scouts of Central MD) is monitoring the e-mails of this
group,  because I am about to unload. I just returned from a Venturing
event this weekend  with my daughter’s Venturing crew. The success of
that event, just reaffirms what I have been observing over the past 7
years of leading a girl scout troop. (the past 4 of which has been at
the Cadette/Senior level).

 I think GSCM is failing our girls (and families– particularly when
it comes to including Dads) miserably when it comes to providing
periodic adventure and outdoor events for girls 14-18 which includes
male (as well as female) role models.

 My daughter is a 1st year Senior Girl Scout and a Venturer (she joined
a Venturing crew 1 year ago). I just tuned over the leadership of my
Cadette/Senior troop to a Co-leader and the GS troop is in good shape.
My daughter has decided to continue as a Juliette (for some personal
and medical reasons). The interesting thing that I’ve noticed and am
grateful for is, that Venturing really encourages the girls to not
quit Girl Scouts and helps them work toward completing their Gold
Award. My daughter was about ready to quit GS because she wants to
teach younger girls outdoor skills, but her male Venturing Advisor
encouraged her to stay with GS. In fact VENTURING provided her with a
way to earn more leadership hours toward her Gold Award, through a
program at a local elementary school called “ACCESS” which is a
program to introduce scouting underprivileged kids at area schools.
She in essence was a den
 chief for Cub Scouts at an under performing school (normally an adult
position).

 She would have done the same to introduce girls to girl scouting, had
there been an ACCESS program for GS and I know that ACCESS must exist
for young girls. When a little girl saw Krista in her Venturing shirt
doing ACCESS with the 14 kindergarten- 1st grade age boys she asked
her, “Isn’t there a meeting for little girls too?”

We just returned from a weekend just north of Pittsburgh from a
Venturing Quest. The event was well run, well organized, and provided
adventure and co-ed fellowship for the kids involved. (Archery, Trap
shooting, pistol, hatchet throwing and climbing and rappelling)– The
Girls loved the hatchet throwing the best!.

I would estimate that of the 200 youth attending (there were nearly 350
total participants, with over 125 being adult advisors), about 70 percent were
girls and 30 percent boys. Of that 70 percent girls attending about 50
percent were former girl scouts and the female Venturing Advisors were
former or “soon to be” former girl scout leaders who were just
frustrated with Girl Scouts and the feeling that Girl scouts actually
makes Girls more dependent because the organization is so risk averse.

 After seeing this event as compared to GS council events; I am
convinced that Venturing is the Gold Standard for girl run/boy run
programs. There are a lot or things that the GSCM can learn from the
Baltimore Council or National Capital region of Boy Scouts. There are
many things that the Boy scouts (especially Venturers) do right and
Girl Scouts do wrong. The biggest thing, and most positive thing, I saw was the
involvement of FATHERS at this Venturing Quest!
 Girl Scouts needs to involve fathers more and GET OVER its aversion
to anything Boy Scout organized and pick up a few pointers. Either
that or I predict will lose (its older girls) to Venturing in droves.

 This event was well balanced. What impressed me most was the girl/boy
run Area wide elections to determine the girl/boy leadership of the
area (MD, Delaware and PA). The girls learned to work with the guys
(which is what life is about anyway) and in many cases (especially the
climbing wall and repelling) the girls out-did the guys. You can’t
flirt when you are climbing a 150 ft tower. In short, I think the
Venturing serves to dispel a lot of gender
 stereotypes for both the boys and girls. Most importantly, there was
a mix of good male and female role models to teach the Venturers. (75
percent male advisors — fathers; 25 percent female advisors)

 This summer, my daughter and her crew are going kayaking/camping down
the Delaware River, stopping at the various scout camps. The girls and
guys of the crews are doing most of the organizing and planning and
the Adult advisors are there to do just that advise, counsel and
consent.

 My point in this lengthy e-mail is that a representative needs to
actually participate in one of these Venturing events to learn how to
keep older girls in Girl Scouting. The Venturing business model works
and works well. It only has been around for 10 years, and I think it
will overtake Girl Scouts for older girls unless GS USA recognizes
it’s competition and learns from it.

 Take Care,
 Donna

   Oak Ridge — After spending the last six years watching her brothers create wonderful handmade cars with their dad, and race them with everyone cheering on, Allison Borrelii finally asked her mother why the Girl Scouts didn’t have their own pinewood derby. This was the inspiration for a Daddy Daughter Pinewood Derby that the girls hope to make an annual event. Allison’s mother, Andrea Borrelli, leader of Troop 185, including Allison and 18 other fourth-grade girls at Paradise Knoll School in Oak Ridge, immediately began planning the event.Awards winners were:

Every troop with children from their elementary school was invited. Enthusiasm for this new event was great, and the registrations poured in. It was decided that the refreshments stand at the event would benefit the Paradise Knoll School Playground, which is in need of replacement. Troop 294 volunteered to bring baked goods, and other parents offered to bring supplies. Shop Rite donated a voucher to purchase hot dogs, buns and more. Lakeland bank sent a donation as well. Indianapolis 500 race car driver and Girl Scout patron Sarah Fisher sent autographed posters for each girl.

For speed, 1st place went to Amanda Seugling; 2nd Place to Kaitlyn Klosz, and 3rd place to Grace Lemanowicz.

For style, the winners were: Fastest Looking, Dakota Vigh; Most Original, Rachel Lyons; Most Colorful, Lindsey VanNortwick; Sportiest, Lauren Peterson; Spirit of Girl Scouts: Allison Borrelli; and the crowd’s favorite, which looked like a pinball machine, was created by Katie Villalobos.

One of the highlights of the event, which was held on March 30 at the Oak Ridge Presbyterian Church Parish Hall, was when Sam Burlum and his teammate Tommy Vigh Jr. of Tommy Vigh Jr. Racing arrived with their 1981 Ump Dirt Car Street Stock Camaro, which races at Orange County Fair Speedway in Middletown, N.Y. The girls climbed in and the cameras came out.

In all, 41 racers attended the derby and had a very exciting time.

 Katelyn Confer, daughter of Michael and Patricia Confer, Shavertown, was recognized by state Rep. Phyllis Mundy, D-Kingston, with a citation in recognition of her Girl Scout Gold Award achievement, the highest honor a Girl Scout can receive.

Confer is a member of Troop 2654 and previously received the Girl Scout Silver Award, the second highest award in the organization. She is a junior at Dallas High School and is active in various school activities such as SADD, student government, field hockey and Teacher for Tomorrow.

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Less Control, More Change

Only about 10 percent of American girls are involved with Girl Scouts — a number that’s held steady for decades. But the organization plans to start targeting the other 90 percent with their most aggressive public relations strategy to date. This week CEO Cathy Kloninger hired the organization’s first-ever marketing director to revitalize its brand and has charged its in-house Research Institute with studying how girls feel about the organization’s core mission to train future women leaders.

“What we heard from thousands of girls is that they’re really turned off by the command and control top-down type of leadership they see so much around them,” says research director Judy Schoenberg. “They really aspire to a type of leadership that’s about making a difference in the world and social change.”

Please follow the link-lead to the rest of this article:

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=89126533

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With 2.6 million members, Girl Scouts of the USA is the nation’s largest organization for girls. The group’s executives were pleased that four-fifths of both sexes said that women and men are equally qualified to lead. This was not the case in the mid-1980s, said chief executive Kathy Cloninger.

What concerned Cloninger and others was not only that girls did not desire to be future leaders but also that many feared they would not be capable enough to assume leadership roles. Twenty-one percent of girls said they had most of the qualities of a leader, such as being outgoing, hardworking and responsible.

They also said they lack the ability to command people and, if they tried to do so, they would be laughed at by their peers or seen as bossy and make people mad.

Please follow the link-lead to the rest of this article:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/03/26/AR2008032603036.html

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