Talk:American Heritage Girls

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Scouting Wiki Project American Heritage Girls is part of the Scouting WikiProject, an effort to build a comprehensive and detailed guide to Scouting and Guiding on the Wikipedia. This includes but is not limited to boy and girl organizations, WAGGGS and WOSM organizations as well as those not so affiliated, country and region-specific topics, and anything else related to Scouting. If you would like to participate, you can edit the article attached to this page, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion.
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the quality scale.
Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the importance scale.
American Heritage Girls is part of the WikiProject Christianity, an attempt to build a comprehensive guide to Christianity on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, you can edit this article, or visit the project page, where you can join the project and/or contribute to the discussion. If you are new to editing Wikipedia visit the welcome page so as to become familier with the guidelines.
Stub This article has been rated as Stub-Class on the Project's quality scale.
(If you rated the article please give a short summary at comments to explain the ratings and/or to identify the strengths and weaknesses.)

[edit] Relevant links

I don't think these links are directly relevant to American Heritage Girls

They are more critiques of the Girl Scouts of the USA and so may belong in that article under controversy.--Erp 20:30, 2 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Prayer at Girl Scout meetings

Though the American Heritage Girls founders claim Girl Scouts have banned prayer at meetings I can not find evidence of this. I did find

Dear Juliette,

My daughter's troop meets at a religious place of worship. They start off each meeting with a special prayer from the sponsoring religion. Is this okay? What exactly is the Girl Scout policy on religion?

Sincerely,
Prayer Conscious

Dear Prayer Conscious,

"Girl Scouting has a spiritual foundation and places value on individual personal development. Each girl is encouraged to become an active member of her own religious group and to respect the varying beliefs and practices of others" (Troop Leader Resource Guide, p. C4). Every Girl Scout meeting begins with some form of structured routine. This could be a song, flag ceremony, reciting the Girl Scout Promise and Law, sharing a poem, etc. Some troops may choose to open with a prayer. However, "Girl Scout groups must recognize that religious instruction is the responsibility of the parents and religious leaders" (Blue Book of Basic Documents, p. 21). Opening with a prayer from any religion is fine as long as a variety of prayers are used to educate the girls about different faiths, and this is what the girls have agreed upon. The troop needs to be respectful of the varying religious opinions and practices of its members in planning this type of activity. In addition, "when a Girl Scout troop is sponsored by one religious group, members of different faiths or religious affiliations within the troop shall not be required to take part in religious observances of the sponsoring group" (Blue Book of Basic Documents, p. 21).

Girl Scouts of Santa Clara County web site

Which seems to state that prayer is allowed as long as the religious beliefs of all the girls are respected. In other words no forced prayer.--Erp 00:43, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Importance

I don't think a small non-aligned scouting like group should rank more important than national organizations outside the top 20 largest.--Erp 00:46, 17 January 2007 (UTC)