13 August 2009
Buy HQ, Sell Camp
Posted by admin under: camps .
I posted last year about the Girl Scouts of Northeast Ohio purchasing a new headquarters in Macedonia, Ohio. After spending 3 million on the building they said they would be good stewards of the investment that the community was making in them after some taxes were deferred for a number of years. Now, a mom takes issue with their stewardship of a camp property that she thinks can be saved. Her editorial can be found in the Cleveland Leader.
The following editorial is written by Barbara Starr who is attempting to save the Crowell/Hilaka Girls Scout camp in Summit County.
There is a Girl Scout Camp in Summit County that a group of us, a rather large group, don’t want to be mothballed October 1, 2009. We fear that this will mean it will never reopen. If you google/bing/yahoo Crowell/Hilaka you will find out many interesting things about the camp.
Girl Scouts Of Northeast Ohio (GSNEO) is the owner of this camp. GSNEO was formed when 5 councils merged. From the day the councils merged, no repairs besides the bare minimum were done to Crowell/Hilaka.
GSNEO sent a letter to troops that had recently camped there about their idea of mothballing the camp to save the $125,000.00 it takes to run the camp for a year. My grouped rallied and organized and came up with a proposal to keep the camp opened and committed ourselves to try to raise money to fix the couple of major issues, such as the dam and waste water treatment. We have some members that could write grants, etc. The first meeting we had with them was June20th, 2009 and we were just told yesterday that we are not allowed to try to help. We are not allowed to get lists of professionals willing to help and we are not allowed to try to raise money until they decide what they want to do.
I feel that there is something underhanded here. That they have a developer whispering in someone’s ear. I cannot tell you how different this camp is from the nearby camps as far as housing and scenery. By the way, in this same time period, they purchased a new HQ for $2.97 million.. Please visit our website www.friendsofcrowellhilaka.org We want to continue the fight-for the Girls.
There’s even a short video where Barbara attempts to play on your heart strings and shows the lake near the camp. Looks beautiful.
I called over to the Girl Scouts of Northeast Ohioand spoke to the Chief Operating Officer, Brittany Zaehringer, to ask if what was written by Ms. Starr was true and what their response was and she made me feel important. I mean, she said the way they treat the media is to have questions submitted by e-mail and then a written response given back. Cool! She called me media. Some yahoo out in Los Angeles using free blogging software to post stories he happens to find interesting at any given time.
Anyway, my e-mail is on the fritz again so I’ll have to get through later, but she said she was going to be out the rest of the week and responding next week anyway so I’m not hot and bothered. Check back next week and see what the council response is to this potential sale.
- Macedonia Welcomes Girl Scouts
- Girl Scouts Leader Magazine Online
- More Reorg Pains
- Boy Scouts Might Advertise More Co-Ed Aspects
- Scouting Fundraising
