Girl Scout camp supporters address Board of Directors in town hall meeting held in Decorah

by Julie Berg-Raymond

According to the website for the Girl Scouts of Eastern Iowa and Western Illinois Council (girlscoutstoday.org), “the Board of Directors is accountable to the membership for governing the affairs of the Council.”
Several dozen Council members aimed to hold some of those Council directors to that dictate Monday night, March 11 as they gathered in the fellowship hall at Decorah’s First Lutheran Church to address a recommendation to close and sell the four camps owned by the Council: Camp Tahigwa in Allamakee County, Camp Conestoga in Scott County, Camp Little Cloud in Dubuque County and Camp L-Kee-Ta in Des Moines County.
Five members of the Council’s Board of Directors attended the town hall meeting to hear discussion of its property committee’s recommendation, which officially reads as follows:
“Sell all four current camp properties; initiate a feasibility study to explore development of a program center/outdoor facility within our Council, centrally located from a population perspective near good transportation corridors; research existing organizations within the geographic region and be proactive in partnering to use their facilities in the future.”
The full 28 members of the Board of Directors are expected to vote on the issue at their next meeting March 28.
Lee Mowers, a Board member from Rock Island, IL, conducted the forum - the fifth such meeting Board members have held. “We’ve heard lots of heartfelt testimonies,” he said.
From the start, it seemed clear to those in attendance the Board members weren’t there so much to answer questions, as they were to simply allow a public forum for concerns to be voiced - a fact which appeared to frustrate many of the attendees during the sometimes emotional two-hour forum.
The plan was to divide everyone into small groups, several people to a table, and provide them with a list of four questions to discuss during a 15- to 20-minute “breakout” session.
But Brecka Putnam of the Twin Cities in Minnesota and formerly of Decorah, who has been involved with Camp Tahigwa for 25 years - as a camper, counselor and volunteer and camp director, told Mowers she wished to ask a question of all members before the session began.
“I can say that we won’t answer your question (at this point),” he replied, “but go ahead.”
“How many of you, in the last decade, have been asked to make a contribution to your camp?” she asked the large group. After three or four people raised their hands, she asked, “How many of you would open your pocketbooks to contribute, if asked?”
Virtually everyone in attendance raised their hand; at which point she turned to Mowers and said, “As a professional fund-raiser, I can tell you the number-one reason people don’t make contributions is they aren’t asked.”

BREAKOUT SESSION
Attendees discussed the following questions during the breakout session: “1) Are the existing camps meeting the needs of today’s girls - both those who are, and those who are not, attending camp? 2) What are the pros and cons of continuing with the current properties? 3) What opportunities and challenges come with the development of a single outdoor facility? 4) What are the challenges and opportunities of expanding partnerships with other organizations, where we use their facilities and they use ours?”
Keith Bruening of Decorah said the biggest pro about keeping the camps open is the fact that “it’s land. Once you sell it, it’s gone.”
For Lynn Carlson, who traveled from Independence to attend the meeting, preserving the relationship between individual camps and their own communities is a powerful argument in favor of continuing the camps - as opposed to the property committee’s recommendation to develop a single, centralized “outdoor learning center” with “full lavatory facilities, climate control and technology access.”
Carlson’s point was reinforced throughout the evening, as members talked about the value of keeping the camp experience technology-free.
“Girls need to experience walking through the woods and sleeping under the stars,” Sue Russell of Ridgeway said. “They’ve got electronics at home and at school.”
Others questioned the ability of one facility to accommodate more than 19,000 Scouts, and the cost of transportation to a centralized location - what one attendee described as a “perfect, theoretical, unified camp.”
Most participants took issue with an assertion, included in a pre-meeting handout of “questions and talking points” distributed by Board members, that they “have done numerous surveys of campers and non-campers… offered resident camp, troop camping, numerous outdoor opportunities and have strategically marketed camp, yet our attendance at camp has continued to decline.”
Attendees were virtually unanimous on the question of appropriate use of existing facilities, and effective marketing of the camps.
Sharon Wambold of Reinbeck is a former troop leader and noted each of the four camps was once known for a unique type of outdoor experience (“rustic,” “aquatic,” “horses,” etc.). She recalled the time of her tenure as one when “all our camps were full - because we marketed their individual strengths. We need to market what we have… We feel there has been very poor marketing,” she said.
Edna Haskovec from Waukon said, “the camps could easily meet the needs of girls if they were utilized wisely,” suggesting that “a day camp at Camp Tahigwa, with its 315 acres, is not a good use of that property.”
“We need to pull together,” Carlson said, echoing Wambold’s recognition of each camp’s uniqueness and relationship with its own larger community. “Give us an opportunity to keep our camps,” she said.
Noting that only one of the Board’s 28 members is from northeast Iowa, Dale Putnam of Decorah wondered how many of them had been to any of the four camps they’re recommending be sold and proposed that “a director doesn’t get to vote on the property if he or she doesn’t get out there and walk around it.”
“Of course we’re (Camp Tahigwa) not going to win any votes,” he said. “We don’t have anyone on the Board of Directors.”
Mowers said he knew at least five of the Board members have visited the camps; and, he added, “all five will concede that Camp Tahigwa is the most beautiful piece of property we own.”
“I would ask if you folks could delay your vote, until you have a chance to see what they’d be taking away from our girls,” Putnam replied. “Is there a reason you can’t delay the vote?”
“We are coming to the end of the tenure of members who have been involved in the process,” Mowers said.
“Is the vote in March going to be open to the public? Can we come?” Putnam asked.
“These are the members who were charged with (making this decision),” Mowers replied. “I’m concerned that they would be intimidated.”
“Most of us think that you’ve already made up your minds, and that you’re asking us our opinions to placate us - and we won’t have it,” one person said.
“I’ve asked two questions,” Bruening added, “and nothing gets answered… I know a railroad when I see it, and this is a railroad.”
Specifically, Bruening wanted to know about annual losses sustained by Camp Tahigwa, and about whether the property committee’s recommendation was solely financially based.
“We have the numbers,” Mower said, asking another Board member to locate the figure. A few minutes later, Chief Executive Officer Diane Nelson of Davenport noted, “a deficit of $137,000.”
Another attendee again asked whether the committee’s position was based solely on finances. “No,” Mower replied. “It’s a question of how to best use resources in a way that allows the most girls the chance to become girls of courage, confidence and character.”
To a reporter’s final question - regarding the purpose of this and other town hall meetings being held on the topic of closing the camps, and whether there was any chance attendees’ concerns would change the property committee’s mind about its recommendation, board member Jill Dashner of Cedar Falls-Waterloo replied, “My point in being here is to listen. I want to hear what you guys have to say. We want to hear what people have to say. All suggestions are being considered and listened to.”