Brownie Girl Scout Leaders

[purpleorchids]

WELCOME!!!

Hi Since a lot has bridged to Brownies this year and we don't have a thread yet, thought a new one would be good for us to have. Hopefully all of us will still pop in the Daisy thread to help answer any questions that they might have.

This year I have 6 girls and we will be joining our meetings with another brownie troop who are in there 2nd year so we will have 11 total in our meetings. We decided to do this since my co-leader has 2 girls one in my troop and the other in the other troop. Of course we are still short some volunteers but this year I am incorporating the parents to volunteer to lead one meeting. I did this in my 1st year daisy troop which worked out well and should have done it for the second year too.

We will be having 2 meetings a month plus any service unit activities. For our meetings so far, I put this agenda together. Some of the badges coincides with what GS event is coming up like Cookie sales in Jan - to meet my customers, etc. We will also being doing the Water Journey book near the end of the year. Haven't gotten the book to look it over to see if we can also incorporate the skill building badges to the journey awards (if anyone knows off hand I would love to know)

5-Oct Celebrating Community - doing a parade the next day.
19-Oct Investiture ???or do the SU one
2-Nov First Aid Badge (Have mini first aid kits to give to the girls)
16-Nov Safety Award Pin
7-Dec Philanthropist Badge
4-Jan Meet My Customers
18-Jan Give Back Badge
1-Feb Thinking Day Project

 

[purpleorchids]

We will be doing the post card exchange again - this will be our 3rd year and the girls have lots of fun and perfect for thinking day. They have started their sign up for this year
http://www.mythinkingday.com/

 

[Marshay]

thanks for starting up the new Brownie thread! We have our first Brownie meeting on Wednesday and I am excited (now) to start the new year. I definitely enjoyed having the summer off.

 

[Marshay]

Ok, about our troop. We have the same 6 girls from last year and we are not adding any more girls. I am a troop co-leader, along with my good friend. Both of our daughters are in the troop and they are best friends.

We meet 2x/month in the evenings and nearly all the moms come to our meetings. We are having each mom take over one meeting to do the assigned badge (Painting, Girl Scout Way, Meet My Customers, Money Manager) and my co-leader and I will do the rest. I think we are saving 3 for next year. I will encourage the girls to do the Make Your Own Patch each year, but it is not required.

At the end of the year, we'll go to a local restaurant with families and each girl will give a brief presentation of their Make Your Own Patch to everyone.

At this time we are not doing a Journey but hope to pick one for next year.

Our first year of Daisies we made a Daisy Rag Doll. This year we are making a Brownie Elf doll to be her friend and my co-worker who sews made the girls messenger bags with the fabric that they picked out. My daughter chose Rapunzel and Tiana fabrics -- go Disney!!

Right now we have 3 unplanned meetings which we'll use to help finish badges or plan Princess party or Game Nights, etc.

 

[purpleorchids]

Marshay - Yes summer was a nice break!

We haven't done a Make Your Own Patch - I think that is a wonderful idea on them presenting it too. I think I will have to incorporate it into our agenda

 

[Familyof4lovesDW]

Thanks for starting the new thread. I love getting the good ideas that everyone has. I had 4 of the 5 girls from last year reregister and so far have added 2 new girls. There is a roundup next week, so I wonder if any more girls will sign up.

I am good friends with my coleader and both of our girls do cheer also. So with that taking up a lot of time, it is hard to fit the gs stuff in. We have a Brownie skills day coming up that at least 4 girls are going to. I invited the two new ones, one cannot go and I have not heard from the other. We will have our first meeting in three weeks, since I am leaving for Disney Friday

I do not like how you have to average 20 nuts per girls to get the extra cookie money. All you had to do before was participate.

Have you see the Browine shirts at Old Navy? They are super cute!

 

[Marshay]

Thanks for starting the new thread. I love getting the good ideas that everyone has. I had 4 of the 5 girls from last year reregister and so far have added 2 new girls. There is a roundup next week, so I wonder if any more girls will sign up.

I am good friends with my coleader and both of our girls do cheer also. So with that taking up a lot of time, it is hard to fit the gs stuff in. We have a Brownie skills day coming up that at least 4 girls are going to. I invited the two new ones, one cannot go and I have not heard from the other. We will have our first meeting in three weeks, since I am leaving for Disney Friday

I do not like how you have to average 20 nuts per girls to get the extra cookie money. All you had to do before was participate.

Have you see the Browine shirts at Old Navy? They are super cute!

Can you explain how the nuts affects the cookie money? I wonder if that is a SU thing since I hadn't heard that before...or is it new for this year? We didn't sell the nuts last year but we will this year.

Ooh, I will have to see them. I tried looking on-line but couldn't find the brownie shirts.

I plan to go to our local store on Tuesday and buy all the patches, etc for the year, as well as some Xmas gifts for my Brownie!

 

[GS for life]

I don't understand how your nut sale affects cookie money. In my council, they are separate.
The water journey is fun

 

[momof3baldwins]

My daughter just graduated to Brownie this year, and I am the new co-leader. We are going to Disney in a couple weeks, does anyone know if there are any badges or anything she can work on while we are there? We havent had our first meeting yet so I dont really know how the badge thing works. Thanks!

 

[Marshay]

My daughter just graduated to Brownie this year, and I am the new co-leader. We are going to Disney in a couple weeks, does anyone know if there are any badges or anything she can work on while we are there? We havent had our first meeting yet so I dont really know how the badge thing works. Thanks!

Well if nothing else, there is a Make Your Own badge that she can earn. If you have the book, you can read the "rules" associated with it. (maybe you can also find on-line).

But that gives me a GREAT idea -- thanks so much!

We are going in January 2013 and I can have her pick a topic about Disney, research it ahead of time, go to Disney and "do it/see it, etc" and then when she gets back she can design her badge for it.

How cool!!!

 

[ButterflyJen]

Subbing! We have our 1st meeting on Monday...so excited to get back into it! We have 22 girls...holy cats. 15 returners from last year.
We have so much planned!! We've finished the Legacy badges and are working on skill builders for the first half of the year. My Family Story, My Best Self, Making Friends, and a MYO anti-bullying are in the first three months capped by investiture. Then Philanthropist and money badges during Christmas & cookie sales. Brownie Quest after that, then Bridging preparation. Whew!!
I think in our council, you have the opportunity to earn an extra amount per cookie box sold if your troop averages a certain amount of nuts sold per girl. We're skipping that - cookies are enough for us!!

 

[Marshay]

Subbing! We have our 1st meeting on Monday...so excited to get back into it! We have 22 girls...holy cats. 15 returners from last year.
We have so much planned!! We've finished the Legacy badges and are working on skill builders for the first half of the year. My Family Story, My Best Self, Making Friends, and a MYO anti-bullying are in the first three months capped by investiture. Then Philanthropist and money badges during Christmas & cookie sales. Brownie Quest after that, then Bridging preparation. Whew!!
I think in our council, you have the opportunity to earn an extra amount per cookie box sold if your troop averages a certain amount of nuts sold per girl. We're skipping that - cookies are enough for us!!

Wow Jen!! That sure is a lot of badges!!

 

[ButterflyJen]

Wow Jen!! That sure is a lot of badges!!

They might be badge-obsessed. We are trying to focus on self-esteem and being your very best this year. The girls are learning about their families, where they are from, what keeps them healthy, and how to be a good friend. It sorta all ties in together We'll see how well it works!!! I feel the need to play a bit of catch-up since we didn't start up until halfway thru the year.

 

[kelann7]

Thanks for starting this new thread!

My first Brownie meeting is Thursday. I have 17 girls - a mixture of 2nd and 3rd graders. My daughter is 2nd grade. I was the Daisy leader for the last 2 years with a mix of both grades. Some of the girls that were with me my first year moved up to Brownies last year, but then their leader moved out of state, so they didn't have a leader, so I'm taking them back into my troop. I really hate how it changes each year. I wish I could keep the same set of girls year after year, but we don't have enough people willing to volunteer to be leaders.

For our first meeting, we are going to do some getting to know you stuff since I'm combining 2 troops and I have 2 new girls joining us and everyone doesn't know each other. Then I'm going to hand out the Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting book. I had a parent meeting last week and collected dues which included the cost of the book. I went to the GS shop and bought all of the books, so that before I hand them out, I will take a bunch of pages out. At this meeting, we will go over the first section together and I will talk about earning badges. I took out the requirement pages and will hand them out as needed. This way the girls can bring these books home and leave them at home. We meet at school at 5:00, some of the girls go to After care and come straight to the meetings. If they have to bring these books back and forth to meetings, they will get smushed and torn and someone will forget it, so I decided to let them leave the binder at home and I will pass out pages and they can bring them home and add them to the binder. I also took out the paper doll pages to keep until we are ready to work on this badge later in the year.

I would love to hear what you are doing to earn badges, meaning details for each step.

Thanks.

Kelly

 

[ButterflyJen]

I love that idea Kelly!! I have ideas to type out - will do later when I'm not on the Kindle

 

[vcr]

I have a group of 10 second grade brownies (I wanted one grade level so we can stay together). We are not doing any Journeys and I let all the girls pick a badge they wanted to do this year and I added a few so we are doing half this year, half next. For our next meeting, we are doing the Making Friends badge and making get to know you Cootie Catchers and playing toss and talk ball for Step 1. I have most of the badges planned. Does anyone else have a pinterest girl scout board? Mine is http://pinterest.com/vcr1995/girl-scouts/ Some of the things I am doing for badges are making no sew tutus for the Dance badge, homemade hula hoops for Making Games badge, laundry bottle piggy banks for Money Manager (TD Bank has a girl scout program that goes great for this badge and includes a free patch). I charged $60 for dues this year to pay for all the fun patches, badges, and crafts we will be doing. $30 at first meeting $30 in Jan. All the money from product sales go to field trips (we live in Central Florida and have tons to pick from)

 

[huffjoann]

we had our 1st meeting last night,, I moved up from co leader to leader this yr,, we have all 2nd grade girls, 5 returning from last yr and 4 new ones so far,, I am sooo confused about the journeys vs triats,, we are doing the its your world change it journey first, then I guess we will do some tryits? not sure how it will all play out. We meet 2x a month then do some of the SU activities,, my returning girls were never much of a participate on Sat group, LOL,, so we just do the best we can.
last yr my main thing as co leader was planning crafts & activities to tie in with meeting content,, this yr I am doing it all as I have a brand new co-leader and I am not trying to throw a bunch on her early on.

 

[kelann7]

Have you see the Browine shirts at Old Navy? They are super cute!

Are you talking about the shirt that says "Brownies Rule"? I got one for my daughter. Did you see any others?

Thanks.

Kelly

 

[RangerPooh]

I'm new to being a Brownie leader. My daughter has been a Daisy the last 2 years, and when no one stepped up to lead, I did. I'm nervous as I have yet to plan activities and our meetings begin next week. From the looks of it I will have to purchase the leader books out of pocket, so I'm not sure which book to start with.

For our first meeting I'm thinking about playing a Bingo game that I made using Girl Scout associated words, meeting everyone, and having our troop assistant (who just graduated high school) show her former vests/sashes to get the girls excited. As for dues, we're asking for $2 a week.

Looking around online I discovered Kaper Charts, do any of your troops use them? If so what do they look like?

Thanks and nice to meet you!
Keri

 

[Marshay]

I'm new to being a Brownie leader. My daughter has been a Daisy the last 2 years, and when no one stepped up to lead, I did. I'm nervous as I have yet to plan activities and our meetings begin next week. From the looks of it I will have to purchase the leader books out of pocket, so I'm not sure which book to start with.

For our first meeting I'm thinking about playing a Bingo game that I made using Girl Scout associated words, meeting everyone, and having our troop assistant (who just graduated high school) show her former vests/sashes to get the girls excited. As for dues, we're asking for $2 a week.

Looking around online I discovered Kaper Charts, do any of your troops use them? If so what do they look like?

Thanks and nice to meet you!
Keri

If you purchase the girls guide to brownies for your daughter then just use that for yourself, too. No need to buy another one for you as leader. This year they are designed to be both for girls and leaders.

I recommend you don't charge each week but get all the dues upfront. That way you know how much money you have to spend for the year...and less hassle to collect money each week, provide change, etc. it may also encourage girls to attend when it's already paid for.

Our first meeting we reviewed the first 20 pages or so of the book, chose our troop crest, learned new brownie songs, asked girls what they want to do this year, reviewed the fall sales, etc.

Yes we use a kaper chart..the girls like to see what they are in charge of, so it works well.

We are not doing a journey at this time...just doing the legacy, business, cookie badges in the girls guide.

Good luck!