We have Paypal for donations! Thank you Council!

Terry Borning and Stefanie Harrington of Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming sent us the links to our paypal account. They even sent me html code for the blog (yay!), so consider this post, 1) an invitation to donate via paypal, 2) an invitation to test the link, and 3) an invitation to comment with any problems or to post your success.  Problems can also be communicated to Becky at campwestana@yahoo.com.

Please view the Donations tab/page above to read our donor letter.  If this is a gift of giving, also view that tab and call or email Becky your message request RIGHT AWAY (include in your email that you paid via paypal).

Bake Sale ~ Saturday Dec. 22 ~ Whitefish Mall

There will be a Save Westana Bake Sale this Saturday at the Whitefish Mall from 10 am to 5 pm to raise money for Save Westana.  Girlscouts, leaders, and volunteers can assist with baked goods by Friday night (see below) and/or helping to man the booth (contact Becky).

Supporters can come down and buy goodies!  Especially if you are already headed there to see Santa!

Becky's facebook post:
We are having a bake sale at Whitefish Mountain Mall from 10am-5pm, Saturday (December 22nd). If you want to bring baked goods to my house, call me at 892-1518 (Me- being Becky Johnson-Opalka). You can drop them off at my house Friday night. We are needing girl scouts (and leaders) to help man the table, and hold up signs too.

*You can also coordinate with Becky or find out more via campwestana@yahoo.com

Things keep taking shape, another news story today

Becky was on the news again today, so take a look:

NBC news story synopsis for December 18, 2012


And then, consider this a timely opportunity to

DONATE or EDUCATE !

We've now surpassed 2,000 views to this blog and 125 "likes" on facebook, but we can bump those numbers and bump awareness....put your social media addictions to work for your community....every bit helps.

KPAX Story Link

Most of what active leaders hoped to have lined up is now lined up or very close to lined up (see Monday's HH News article and our blog post from spring that said what needed to happen), but time is short and financial needs are huge.  Please watch the clip and tell us what you think about how it came across (that there is still hope?).

Flathead Girl Scouts trying to save camping tradition | KPAX.com | Missoula, Montana


A couple of statements warrant clarification, PLEASE NOTE at least these two points---


1. It is not true that Girl Scouts would have to pay $25,000 for this year's lease (DNRC will freeze the $5,000 rate while we complete the steps required for purchasing the easement, so we are hoping Girl Scouts will wait to terminate the lease)

2.  It is not clear that we should have to raise the full 1/2 million dollars by January 15 (we need to raise as much as possible as soon as possible but DNRC is working with us, so we need to convince any partnering entity and our council land board to give us time as well, but we need to raise a substantial amount fast to keep all parties at the table)


Since the public meetings in spring, the following obstacles have been resolved:

1. Received DNRC's assistance in solution finding (many thanks to Bill Beck for his assistance in those discussions), which includes:
    a.  Assistance with the reappraisal process
    b.  Solution finding steps that have led to permanent easement options and exclusive use
    c.  More time to raise the money and more time for exploring options
    b.  Frozen lease rate during fund raising and/or easement application process (no increase would
         occur at this time, as also reported in Monday's Hungry Horse News article) if we are
         allowed to move forward
2. Paperwork, bank account, and council approval is now in place for fundraising
3. Council support for fundraising and easement coordination was granted

And the primary obstacle that remains:

1.  The cost of the easement is an enormous challenge that local leaders and girlscouts are willing (and were approved by council) to attempt (with the burden falling entirely on local troops to raise in order to maintain the last and only remaining Girl Scout resource available locally)

Stay tuned.....

Watch the news tonight ~ KPAX at 10pm

At least I think it will be tonight.....KPAX is interviewing girls and leaders for the news at Westana today so watch for it and we'll try to post it here if they put it on-line.

Update: 10 pm news (channel 8 for most of us)

Hungry Horse News Article Dec. 10 ~ "Still fighting"

Girl Scouts still fighting to save Camp Westana

We are OFFICIALLY starting to raise money to Save Camp Westana!!!

From our fearless leader Becky via Facebook:
____________________________________________________________
If anyone wants to help volunteer for fundraising, or any of the other numerous steps that it takes to come up with $500,000, please email campwestana@yahoo.com and we will send you a volunteer form to fill out and return. We will also send the other documents and information that you need to get started. 

We are OFFICIALLY starting to raise money to Save Camp Westana!!!

______________________________________________________________
Related author's notes for this blog: 

Back when we were raising awareness and exploring options, the blog was the place for detailed info, with other media used for updates.  At the time, there was a lot of 'thick' information to sort through.  Now that our targets are set on a course of action, and we have a person to lead the charge (yay!) the general picture is far less complicated, and information sharing will be based more on updates and such.

We know that not all media is for everyone, so I will try to post Becky's facebook updates here over time for those of you who don't prefer facebook, and so that we all have a way to share info with non-facebook friends and family.

Terrific Article in Hungry Horse News ~ Very good synopsis of where we're at

The article (also in Whitefish Pilot): Girl Scout camp in jeopardy, lease jumps five-fold

Posted: Tuesday, May 8, 2012 4:07 pm

BY CHRIS PETERSON Hungry Horse News 

For more than 50 years, local Girl Scouts have been staying at Camp Westana on Lower Stillwater Lake. But by next year, the memories and joys that go with camping there could vanish.

Camp Westana is on state school trust lands, and those lands were reappraised by the Montana Department of Revenue in 2009. The seven-acre parcel, with a generous expanse of lakeshore footage, skyrocketed in value, and the lease the Girl Scouts pay to use the land increased from $5,000 a year to $25,000. The local troops simply can’t afford that.

“It’s 50,000 boxes of Girl Scout cookies,” noted Tom Sago, whose family members are involved in Girl Scouts.

A box of cookies sees a 50-cent profit.

Troop leaders from Columbia Falls and the region are working on solutions to save the camp, but none of them are easy fixes. They met again last week with regional leaders to brainstorm solutions.

Several ideas have unfolded. First, the scouts have agreed to pay for a reappraisal of the property. That could lower the value of the land and the scout’s lease payment. Land values were high when the Revenue Department did the appraisal in 2009, and they have dropped substantially since the real estate bubble burst. But even if the appraisal comes in lower, the land value is still likely to be higher than the prior appraisal done in 2003.

Another option is a land swap. The scouts could look for a donor willing to swap with the state for a piece of property equal to or greater than the value of Camp Westana. The site on Lower Stillwater Lake, however, is worth about $500,000, and finding a donor could be difficult.

A third option is a permanent easement. The easement would allow the scouts to use the property in perpetuity after they pay a lump sum to the state, according to Mary Sexton, director of the Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation. Sexton said the exclusive use of the property for the scouts could be negotiated in an easement.

But the state can’t simply give the scouts a discount on the lease, Sexton noted. The Montana Constitution requires that the lease be tied to market value. About 10 percent of the state’s school funding revenue comes from school trust lands, Sexton said, and not all are scenic lakefront properties. The Costco-Lowe’s shopping center in Kalispell, for example, sits on school trust lands leased from the state.

Council Support, Top Priorities, & We have money for the appraisal!

This is a very broad summary for now, because too much has happened since yesterday and dinner won't cook itself (and my husband, our primary cook, is working)!

But in a nutshell, the town meetings felt like a huge success, primarily because;

• We know we continue to have council's support in doing what we can to save the camp
• We have new knowledge about options and combinations of options that keep the door open for saving the camp, *if we can raise the money*
• Kay Smith (Westana's caretaker) has nurtured an independent bank account started by the previous care taker, so we can pay for a new appraisal (a key first step in moving forward; this is not something other camps have, that we have because it's from a long time ago and was maintained over the years)
• Everyone present at both meetings got to speak and showed enthusiasm and commitment to moving forward (the money is overwhelming but everyone is willing to try)

This is on our shoulders locally to pull off, but with Girl Scouts councils nationally all down-sizing their number of camps, we are fortunate to have our council's full support in attempting this.

Most of the options available don't involve owning the camp; it will remain school trust land under most scenarios, but there are easement and other options that do allow us to save the camp if we can raise the money.

Our first steps are:

• New appraisal
• Assess what qualifying local entities are most interested in and are the best fit for applying for an easement (more details on these types of particulars will be posted later)
•  Funding options (donors, grants, any feasible options)
• Keep working toward deciding which option or set of options (easement, land exchange, etc.) are the best fit 
• Work out the details for accepting donations (which people have enquired about giving since the first week, but we couldn't/can't even think about taking money until we've got council approval and followed the right steps as part of a non-profit organization)

Bottom line is that we are moving forward!

Letters from Girls ~ Columbia Falls Service Unit ~ Typed and Annotated by Ann Brooks

Hello! 

     Here's a typed up version of some letters from girls hoping to save Camp Westana.  I will copy the originals (they are wonderful, handwritten, and include colorful artwork) before sending them to council.  What I record here, then, is a typed, black and white, flat version of their letters.  In order to portray some of the authentic flavor, I'll include some of the events I overheard or otherwise gleaned from being present when pen (or marker) was put to paper (when I can).  Also I'll keep the author's original spellings.

“please help us save the Westana Camp.  Please because some people haven't been their And it looks fun! 

please save it.”  “By Jenisha 3433”.  (2^nd Grade) This text also includes a drawing of a blue, white, and red flag on a pink pole. 

This letter and the ones following were written by a young troop, 1^st and 2^nd graders.  This is their first year as a troop and they have NEVER been to Camp Westana.  Ever. An older girl, a 9^th grader, sat with them and helped them with their spelling and showed them a slide show of some of the things her troop had done over the past 9 years at Camp Westana.  One of the things that really caught the younger girls' attention were the photos of the Columbia Falls Service Unit retiring three American flags at Camp Westana.

Stay tuned and check back soon ~ More from Bill Beck and DNRC!

We are still working on refining all of the options we can bring forward to council at the up-coming town meetings (info here).

To bring anyone new somewhat up to speed, area members received a letter from Council (GS of MT/WY) asking for help in deciding what to do following a lease rate increase (from $5,000 to $25,000) and leaders in multiple towns started efforts to help.

Up here (Columbia Falls) we started with a facebook page and this blog, and things took off from there following really fast press coverage through Kalispell leaders that referenced our on-line resources.

Senator Bill Beck talked to council about his desire to help, and her reached out to leaders as well.  He's been keeping us posted, and DNRC has met with him multiple times to keep brainstorming.

The Senator and local DNRC leaders let me sit in with them yesterday, and the ideas I heard were extremely encouraging.  It was also great to see agency leaders empowered by their agency.....they are working to help and truly willing to explore ideas, so today we are grateful to Bill Beck for the bridges he's building and DNRC for their problem solving approach.

I can't wait to summarize all the possibilities.....the options and combinations of options possible make quite a long list when you put them together!

More soon!

Video ~ Westana Girl Scout Camp Earth Day Tribute

Westana Letter you have to read ~ Ann Brooks, Troop 3964

To Whom It May Concern,

I'm writing this letter to let you know what Camp Westana means to me. Sometimes when things are taken away or lost, only then does their worth becomes apparent. I value this purposeful introspective, so I can appreciate what we have with Westana, while we still have it. So I know also, what the cost will be to me, if we lose it. Hopefully this will be a bit of premature nostalgia and we can go back to camping at Westana for years to come. So, here's what I noticed over the years.

Camp Westana has a gift to push an individual's preconceived limitations and to promote a troop's team spirit and disguise it all as fun. Our girls began going to Westana when they were six years old. They had preconceptions that they needed electricity, walls, roofs, floors, flushing toilets, and/or vehicle access to be comfortable. We had so much fun without these things that we went back in the winter. We had so much fun in the winter, that we went back, summer and winter, year after year. We had so much fun going back year after year, that we began inviting other troops to come with us. We had so much fun going back with other troops, we began to expand our visits to summer, winter, and fall.

The girls gained from all these experiences. While it's not like they'd ever put, “I could haul all the things I needed for a winter overnighter in on a sled when I was 10 years old” on a resume, it is something that becomes internalized. And when new obstacles confront that girl, what was once “impossible” is now measured with the yardstick of “Oh, I've done things I thought impossible before. And I loved them”.

I gained too. Camp Westana is on Lower Stillwater Lake. In order for the girls to go past their knees in the water I had to become a lifeguard. Swimming was never anything I did in the past and I had a preconceived limitation on my ability to swim 500 yards. Heck, I couldn't even conceive of how far 500 yards was on a lake. But if we were spending time on Lower Stillwater Lake, I'd have to swim 500 yards for the Red Cross certification. So I did. And then as a troop, we pushed the boundaries of what is considered typical and acceptable swimming standards by playing in pure muck. We swam, used logs as rafts, had mud fights, and discovered fish, snakes, turtles, and crawdads. We swam in the impossible (and showered quickly afterwards, I will admit).

Camp Westana has a gift of being a bridge to the community. Before we even got to camp, back in our own neighborhoods, selling cookies door to door, women would tell us about how when they were a Girl Scout 50 years ago, and they went to Camp Westana. They remembered and we felt a bond. And when we got to camp, as remote as Camp Westana is, we never lost that sense of being connected to something bigger. We never could. So many people came together to enhance our experiences there. Teresa at the USFS would set aside snowshoes for us to use each winter, so we could haul our sleds in. Kay would set out the key and tell us how deep the snow was that year. We had

Dates and times confirmed for town meetings ~ one in Columbia Falls!

Thank you GSMW!


We are excited for the town meetings.  Earlier dates were tentative, but Stefanie Harrington of Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming (GSMW, the council we are part of) confirmed the following dates/times/places:

Monday, April 30th, 7pm

Hampton Inn- Springcreek “A” Room

1140 Highway 2 West, Kalispell, Montana



Tuesday, May 1st, 12 Noon

Teakettle Community Hall

235 Nucleus Ave, Columbia Falls, Montana

Please share with anyone you think is interested in attending; council will also be working to communicate the info!

See you there, right?


You can help spread the word by any means, no matter how old fashioned, and/or you can use the facebook event page (http://www.facebook.com/events/101986086603744/) to share/invite people, and/or you can find us on twitter and retweet (@SaveCampWestana)

Featured Interlake Article ~ 100th Anniversay and Interviews with Sago's

Girl Scouts celebrate 100 years of service

CANDACE CHASE/Daily Inter Lake

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_a9ffc47e-85f0-11e1-9b94-001a4bcf887a.html

"Sally Leep, chief executive officer of the Montana/Wyoming council, said the organization has been resilient while remaining faithful to Low’s vision of a safe and supportive environment in which girls develop courage, confidence and character to become leaders.

“Since 1912, Girl Scouting has built its success on a deep commitment to  timeless values,” Leep said.

For Sago, the mother of three daughters who achieved Girl Scouts’ lofty Gold Award, as well as others in Montana, these 100th year celebrations became slightly bittersweet with the potential loss of the state lease for Camp Westana. Using an updated appraisal of the camp, the state raised the annual lease from $5,000 to a cost-prohibitive $25,000 a year.

Each of Sago’s daughters — Cassandra, 22; Deirdra, 19; and Kendra, 17 — put in 65 or more hours making improvements at the camp to earn their Gold Awards. Deirdra, now a community college student, and Kendra, a junior at Columbia Falls High School, worked on the camp last summer."

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_a9ffc47e-85f0-11e1-9b94-001a4bcf887a.html

Town Meeting(s) Rescheduled

Too tired to type much tonight, but please take note of the new info (more on the related tab at the top of the page):

April 30 in Kalispell
Possibly a second meeting in Whitefish or Columbia Falls

Stay tuned....and contact council if you'd like them to know that a C Falls meeting is important to C Falls troops, parents, leaders, and community members (lrpp@gsmw.org)

Thanks!

Today's food for thought:  Sleep is very important.

Representative Bill Beck to Girlscouts: You're not alone

Yesterday's post may have made our progress sound a little....stagnant?  We've found that our limitations so far are pretty darn limiting....hefty and grounded in law and policy decisions that are so far not at all in our favor.  Issues we can't address with cookie sales!

So far, our camp is in the wrong place at the wrong time politically, but she is still standing where she belongs, so we are still ready to do whatever it takes to keep her there.

Which brings me to today's happy event....a phone call from Bill Beck, who wanted to let us know that we're not in this alone, and that solutions are being sought.  He's begun meeting with agencies and organizations that could help with solutions or play important roles, and he has more meetings to come.

He sees that there are win-win possibilities here, and it is EXTREMELY heartening to know that those with the resources and skills to do what we can't are engaged and active in doing so!  Stay tuned, campers!

Today's food for thought:
This is the day, in 1962, that Rachel Carson's Silent Spring was published.

Count-down to Town Meetings ~ A couple of weeks to go

Times and places are still to be determined, but council is looking at the 30th in Kalispell, then hopefully another in Whitefish or Columbia Falls.

STAY TUNED and stay active: To save Westana, our hill is still pretty steep!

We have some very achievable goals, and some that are pretty challenging (ahem, $500,000 is a lot of cookies, as pointed out in last week's Missoulian article).

We still need letters to council!

We still need strong attendance at the town meetings!

We still need ideas and local commitment to long term support once the camp is saved!

We also know there are an awful lot of stories out there we haven't heard yet.

Please stay tuned, we need you, council needs you, Westana needs you, and local girlscouts need you!

Today's food for thought:

To take a service unit on a campout for two nights in the Flathead Valley can be more expensive than you might think, even on public land.  Without Westana as an option, our bi-monthly Service Unit campouts may be too much for local troops to afford.

Court ruling halts law to cut lease rate increases (cabin/residential leases)

This article pertains to a different type of leases than ours, but us relevant to school trust lease lands and the idea of capturing full market value for all school trust lands.  Not great timing.  The relevance/need for regulatory relief is further discussed elsewhere on this blog, including the easement option page.

http://missoulian.com/news/local/judge-halts-law-to-cut-increases-in-northwestern-montana-cabin/article_6ae6006e-7f92-11e1-b1c7-001a4bcf887a.html

Wouldn't it be great if this included Westana?

Drilling fees pay for new national forest lands in 15 states, including Montana

Read more: http://billingsgazette.com/news/state-and-regional/montana/drilling-fees-pay-for-new-national-forest-lands-in-states/article_d0e4a4db-4d1c-5582-b0b0-bb40eab4b66c.html#ixzz1rOBO98N4

New Research Confirms Lifetime Benefits of Girls' Participation in Girl Scouting

New Research Confirms Lifetime Benefits of Girls' Participation in Girl Scouting

Approximately one in every two adult women in the United States was a girl scout at some point, according to this article.  Society/Community benefits to active scouting are enormous....remote areas need resources and support to keep scouting alive (in some cases staff, in some cases trainings, in some cases a facility like Westana makes a huge difference in what troops can do....and in our case, whether or not we can keep up our campouts....this is the return I feel we need, in an area removed from a lot of the resources troops in larger areas may have more ready access to).

Missoulian Article April 3 ~ 'Cut Girl Scouts Some Slack'

http://missoulian.com/news/opinion/editorial/cut-girl-scouts-some-slack/article_8b72c22e-7d97-11e1-8673-001a4bcf887a.html

Happy 100th anniversary, Girl Scouts! Now cough up $25,000.

That’s essentially Montana’s poorly timed message to the state chapter of the national youth organization. The state Department of Natural Resources and Conservation recently let the Scouts know that their annual lease payment for Camp Westana is ballooning from $5,000 to $25,000.

State officials met with leaders of the Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming and agreed to extend the lease for one year. Even so, the Girl Scouts say there’s no way they can pay the new rental price, which came as a result of a reappraisal on the 7.2-acre property on Lower Stillwater Lake just north of Whitefish.

Last month Girl Scouts of the United State of America celebrated its founding 100 years ago, when Juliette Gordon Low hosted the very first Girl Scouts meeting in Savannah, Ga. The organization now counts 2.3 million active Girl Scouts nationwide.

Some of those Girl Scouts are now planning town meetings in Whitefish and Columbia Falls to drum up public support for Camp Westana and come up with ideas to save the beloved property. A Facebook campaign – at www.facebook.com/SaveWestana – is already under way.

But surely the state can cut this youth organization some slack. State government leaders need to work with the Girl Scouts to determine a more reasonable long-term lease payment.

Save Westana ~ Westana Winter Camp 2011, troop 3391

Daily Interlake Editorial March 31

"And in the meantime, state officials could earn their own merit badge by taking another look at this exorbitant lease increase. At the very least consideration should be given to phasing in bigger lease payments over several years."


http://www.dailyinterlake.com/opinion/editorials/article_59ee3a96-7af2-11e1-a7b3-001a4bcf887a.html

It’s ironic that just as the Girl Scouts have kicked off a centennial celebration for the national youth organization, the state of Montana stands ready to pull the plug on a local Girl Scout camp that has helped thousands of girls learn life skills for 50 years.

Camp Westana on Lower Stillwater Lake north of Whitefish could close because the Girl Scouts can’t afford an annual lease increase from $5,000 to $25,000. Scout leaders are weighing a number of options but already have said that kind of increase is cost-prohibitive.

A worst-case scenario is that Camp Westana would be bulldozed to clear the way for the state to do something more lucrative with the land. It would demolish five decades’ worth of hard work by countless volunteers who have expanded and improved the camp facilities through the years.

Since 1962 Camp Westana has been a special place to teach girls values such as fairness, courage, compassion and confidence. These young girls must be asking where the fairness is in this situation.

The Montana Department of Natural Resources and Conservation, mandated to capture full market value from all of its leases on nearly 5.9 million acres of school trust lands, has determined Camp Westana’s 7.2 acres and 300 feet of lake frontage is worth $500,000. That’s why the Girl Scouts’ lease is increasing five-fold.

The mandate to generate revenue to support public schools certainly is a worthy cause; schools need money, too. But it seems the pendulum has swung too far in recent years. This all-or-nothing approach makes it next to impossible for nonprofit groups to compete for use of the state lands. The Girl Scouts could buy a permanent easement for a half-million dollars, but unless some deep-pocketed benefactor steps forward that seems unlikely.

TV News Story Article: KCFW March 28

(Link to article and VIDEO)

*Also see Press Coverage Page for links to 6 newspaper articles and 2 news stories (including this one) since Monday

Local Girl Scouts Have Traditions Rooted In Camp Westana

FLATHEAD COUNTY

By Rebecca Vogt
KCFW Reporter

POSTED: 6:51 pm MDT March 28, 2012
UPDATED: 7:08 pm MDT March 28, 2012

FLATHEAD COUNTY, Mont. -- From daisies to ambassadors, Girl Scouts of all ages spend hours at Camp Westana.

"They learn how to set up tents, how to cook meals outside, and they learn camaraderie," said Service Unit Manager Naureen Sago, "They learn to get along with older girls and so they learn that there's more than just them in their unit."

Kendra Sago, a Girl Scouts Ambassador, says she completed her Gold Award at Westana, "It's kind of helped me realize that once you've made a goal it's very rewarding to actually go through and finish it and you can see the outcome of it."

Generations of Girl Scouts have learned life lessons at Westana for half a century - but that may soon be threatened by a lease increase of 5 times what the Girl Scouts of Montana and Wyoming pay now. The lease is figured at 5% of the state's new $500,000 appraisal of the camp.

A group of Columbia Falls troop leaders wanted to get the word out and created a "Save Camp Westana" Facebook page and blog.

Easement Application Process

As you can see throughout our sites, our lease has gone up above what we can pay.  There are multiple options to consider, none of which are simple (see the Lease Notice Letter link at the top of this blog).  We want to research them and be able to make proposals to council that are as viable as possible.

Options like paying the annual rate (even with the help of other entities), or a land exchange (which is complicated in general, but further so by the high appraised value of the property) are not off the table, but are problematic.  An easemet, as evidenced by the success so far of Kidsport (see the Interlake article linked to in the following post), is seeming like a viable avenue for us to pursue.

Daily Interlake article today about Westana!

I didn't notice we were in the paper today!  Take a look!

And area folks, don't forget to write your letters to council (see the tab at the top of the page)

Daily Interlake Article: Lease increase may doom Girlscout camp

Yay!

Look what I just found....a blog devoted to saving Girl Scout and Boy Scout Camps!

The site is SaveCamps.org, which offers the following description of their organization:

It seems that almost monthly we hear about another scout camp or nature camp being put up for sale. SaveCamps.org is a project of LandChoices, a 501c3 national nonprofit land conservation organization based in Milford, Michigan.
SaveCamps.org is part of LandChoices’ Big Camps program to save camps for kids. SaveCamps.org was established to provide information about how Scout and other outdoor camps can be saved from being sold for development.

They have toolkits, tips, videos and links to resources.  Please take a look at their toolkit page and see if you can help sift through this site and see if their are tips you'd be excited about getting us going on for Westana or spearheading or at least bringing to our attention.  I haven't begun to sift through it myself, and it may be a few days until I can, so please let me know what ideas stand out the most!

If that seems daunting, no worries, consider book marking it and taking a look at it later.

For now, our top priority is letter writing (look for a tab/page on this blog for where to send it and more info).

Thanks, Angela!

Mark the centennial by saving Westana! What could be more meaningful?

Girlscouts mark 100 years of closing gender gaps 

SAVANNAH, Ga. (AP) — Recruited over tea at the mansion of a Georgia widow, the first Girl Scouts went on to earn proficiency badges for cooking meals and caring for babies. In a nod to their changing times, they also learned to shoot rifles and self-defense tactics such as "how to secure a burglar with eight inches of cord."

Now a century has passed and millions of Americans have taken the Girl Scout promise, sold Samoas and Thin Mints by the truckload and gone on to careers from CEOs to astronauts. As they celebrate their 100th anniversary this month, the Girl Scouts of the USA boast a record of progressiveness built on combining lessons in domestic know-how with outdoor adventures and technical skills aimed at teaching girls they can do anything.

Read more: http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/Girl-Scouts-mark-100-years-of-closing-gender-gaps-3379359.php#ixzz1q69K8nFf

Start by Liking us on Facebook, lots of support opportunities will be coming!

The facebook page is almost as new as this blog, so please join/like/follow and check back again in a few days to see how far we can get in getting our technology ready and getting ourselves rolling.

The value of this camp is too much to convey in a short starter-post, but there are photos and info on the facebook page about the lease increase notice (that will make the camp unavailable after September, 2012, if council has to sell/end the lease!)

If you start a blog, have Westana photos or stories you'd like to link to or share, and/or see other resources we should link to, tell me and I'll put links up on this blog.

There'll be pages on this blog with different kinds of actions we need help with (ranging from little to big) and different types of ideas we'd like to explore, but a great starting point is letter writing (see facebook page if you haven't been to Westana yourself, and see the lease notice page to see what our council is up against).

http://www.facebook.com/SaveWestana