Girl Scout cookies

[pne]

Further on the theme of we_swap_snacks: can someone tell me about the availability of Girl Scout cookies?

They're an icon of American culture, and I'd be interested to try some, but am wondering whether they'd be available to my swap partner, since as I understand it, they're typically sold as part of fund-raisers, so might not be available year-round but only at selected dates.

Is that about right? Or are there places where you can get them at any time? (Or even order them off the web? Presumably not since that would not benefit a specific local unit.)

If they're only sold occasionally, about how often is this? Every couple of months, perhaps, so if the swap partner knew sufficiently far in advance that I'd like some, they could wait until the next sale? Or only once or twice a year? Or does this depend so much on the local unit that it's impossible to say in general?

Relatedly, what are your favourite Girl Scout cookies? Why those in particular?

Which ones would you recommend?

Oh, and in what kind of quantities do they get sold? I wouldn't want to buy entire boxes of cookies—something on the order of 200 g (7 oz) per type, perhaps. Is that possible?

Comments

[leora.livejournal.com]

I did Girl Scouts. There are actually two ways the cookies get sold. The main way is orders. You trek house to house asking people if they want to order cookies. They order what they want, filling out a form. Then you go back around with the cookies delivering them and getting the money for them. Someone or other refuses to actually pay for the cookies they ordered and your family gets screwed and stuck with the cookies and needing to pay for them, or you may be able to pass the cost onto your troop, but it's a real problem.

The second way, if your troop decides to do it, is to order a bunch of cookies on spec. Then when you're done going house to house delivering cookies, you set up a table and try to sell all the extra cookies you ordered (and any that didn't properly get taken by those who ordered them).

Your troop can only sell them once a year. Each individual Girl Scout gets a badge based on how many cookies she sold and a small prize also based on how many cookies she sold. In New York, you go around getting orders while it's freezing cold and the ground is probably covered in snow.

Anyhow, the thin mints are pretty much always the number one seller and most loved cookies. They are chocolate + mint. It was awkward because people would always ask me when they're ordering, "Which do you like best?" And I'd have to say, "Actually, I don't like any of them. But people tend to love the thin mints." Of course, I don't like ~chocolate~ so I'm not representative. I'd eat the trefoils, basic shortbread cookies with the Girl Scout logo on them, but they are only okay and kind of dull. Most of the cookies are chocolate and the exact cookies sold will vary periodicly, but a few classics like Thin Mints are unlikely to be tampered with because why mess with what works so well?

The money made gets split between the individual troop and Girl Scout Council. Selling cookies is a big way that many troops manage to have various nifty activities like camping trips. While my experience with the Girl Scouts were mainly bad, I do respect that the Girl Scouts are generally okay. They are open to people of any religious belief, including atheism, and they are open to people of basically any orientation. The problems I had have to do with specific people I ran into who ran things badly, as an organization I don't know of problems with them. This is different from the Boy Scouts which has homophobia and a rejection of atheists built into the organization (currently, there are some people who would like to change this and some Boy Scouts who are quite different from this, but the system as a whole has the bigotry written into the rules, which makes it very different from Girl Scouts). Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts sound similar, but they are completely different organizations.

Oh and the price per box varies regionally, which is part of why no Girl Scout is allowed to sell to anyone outside her area. There were problems with Girl Scouts unable to sell because of competition from other Girl Scouts in areas selling the boxes cheaper and also difficulty with customers upset or confused by two prices for the same boxes floating around. So you generally need to get in touch with a local Girl Scout. But since they want to sell the cookies, it's usually not too hard to get them at the right time.

Ah, so many memories.