Daisy Girl Scout Leaders

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

I was excited when we started too...while I am excited at how well we've done, I am also ready to move on to our service project (we are making blessing bags for a local hot lunch program) and our fun trip (the zoo is putting on a Daisy event this summer). I actually can't believe how well we did, especially when I look at the numbers the council gave me for our initial order (which was 80% of councils per girl average for the season from last year)....we've blown those numbers out of the water....I see our boxes emptying out and I am secretly every time a parent drops off money, because I know its one step closer to being done

Yes, I'm counting down. At first, it was kinda exciting, but now I'm ready for it to be over with.

All in all, we did pretty good with our sales, I'm just ready to finish with it and move on to something else.

Kelly

Its almost funny when you think about how it all played out...and I definitely keep thanking the parents for stepping up...

Love the idea about setting aside a little each year for a big trip...especially since the girls keep saying they want to go to Disneyland...we have the meetings at my place and 's room is decked out w/ Disney stuffies, princess dolls, pics and souvies from the last trip At the end of meetings, the girls usually have time to play while parents and I have a few minutes to chat, and they always beeline for her room...maybe I'll see if the girls would like to set some long term goals as Brownies (we start next year) and then we can decide how to save from each sale...do you just set aside a set percentage of each girl's sales? or set a specific monetary target for each sale (ex: $50 total from this sale will go towards XYZ)?

So sorry to hear all these troubles.

I praise our Cookie Mom -- she was great!

I already told our girls that we should set aside a bit of money each year for a big trip when they are older -- and my DD6 said, "Yes, to Disney!!"

 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

Happy 100th Birthday Girl Scouts! Anyone doing anything special to celebrate? Our SU had a 100th event on Saturday, and the troop is going to see the Lorax next Sunday (better late than never, right?).

 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

Anyone else looking ahead to next year? We are bridging up to Brownies and have gone from a small troop of 6 to an almost full troop of 11 (I will take up to 12; after that I would need a dedicated co-leader). Just looking at the Brownie Guide and our first journey (Quest) I can see that the first few months will be filled up quickly. I am sketching a rough outline and it looks like we will be alternating between journey meetings and "traditions" meetings (where we make situpons, learn songs, celebrate Juliette Low's birthday, etc.); and that SU events, "just for fun" trips, etc. will have to be in addition to these (we've been able to swap about 1/2 of those out in place of regular meetings this year).

I think I will definitely need a more structured parent help system next year. This year, I asked parents to fill out the standard "parent interest/help" form, and got back a bunch of forms with either everything or nothing checked, which really wasn't all that informative/helpful. So I've been just asking for help as needed and usually everything works out pretty smoothly (although cookie season was particularly ). But, I think a lot of time and energy can be saved if I have a set "go-to" person and then if needed rotate through the other parents for help. So, I am going to ask parents to sign up for to be my #1 go-to for different "jobs", with the understanding that they will not always/only be the person asked to help with that aspect. So far, I'm thinking:

-Drivers and co-pilots (drivers and chaperones for trips)
-Cookie (or Nuts) Crew
-someone to help on designate drop off days (which will only be 2x per
week next year)
-someone to act as a "booth backup" in case I can't make it or the parent
who signs up backs out
-Certified Campers
-at least 2 parents who will get CPR and camping certification and go on
the trip the girls want to take next year (I will do it, too, just want back
up/help)
-SU Event Supervisors
-parents who can come to SU events and chaperone/help us (we get to
actively participate in SU events next year and not just attend)


I am also taking a page from another poster and will be starting to transition the girls into taking more active leadership roles/responsibility within the troop...we will start with one rotation of every girl being the hostess/snack person for one meeting, then we will have them lead part of a meeting on the next rotation, finishing with the girls running entire meetings...over the next 2 years, we should have enough meetings to rotate through the girls 3 times (if I need to, I will adjust this as we go on, but for now, I am planning on trying the first "snack" rotation at least). In order to do this, parents are going to be asked to attend their daughters' meetings to supervise/help as needed.

If anyone has any suggestions/possible parent "jobs"/thoughts/ideas please share. I am trying to learn from my mistakes this year and make improvements for next year. I started with the parents thing because I am trying to pull together an end of the year assessment for the parents and have started setting up a yahoo group for the parents (another HUGE change that I think is going to help tremendously), but I will also be making changes in the meeting layout (more time for girl scout traditions, for one) and other areas, too...btw-if anyone has any suggestions for an end of the year assessment, I would love to hear them...

 

[Marshay]

Yes, we just bought the Girls Guide yesterday and I'm looking through it to start a high-level planning next year.

There are 11 patches and each patch has 5 steps to it. This changes things up for us a lot. With the petals we were able to earn them one per meeting. But for the new 11 patches, you cannot do all the steps in one meeting and our moms have started complaining a bit about not having a lot of work to do at home next year since homework really starts to kick in for 2nd grade. (We have it now but only once a week, not daily except reading books).

So all that said, we are not doing a Journey next year. I really want each girl to lead one patch but I'm not sure if they will be ready. Of course, the parent can help. We did 5-10 minutes last year and 10-15 minutes this year and the girls really like leading. They each earn a "leadership" fun patch, too!

 

[Marshay]

Parent Roles

We have 6 girls so have assigned 6 parent roles.

#1 Me - Troop Leader, 1st Aider, Documentation/Adminstration and future Camp certified

#2 Co-Leader, 1st Aider, Money Manager and Future Camp certified

#3 1st Aider (she's a nurse), Arts and Crafts Supplies (we only bring to meetings where we need it and found it easier to have one main supply box rather than have all the girls bring their own)

#4 Photographer and she puts all the photos together digitally on pages (one page per meeting) to make our own photobook. She is also a future Camp certified mom.

#5 Cookie Mom - she does both booths and regular sale

#6 Treasure Hunt leader - our girls love to do these and she makes the clues relevant to what we are doing.


Then each mom also leads one meeting or arranges one field trip, plus they assist their daughter when it is her time to lead.

Plus we also ask for parent volunteers if there is a meeting I, or my co-leader can't go to. It's funny b/c my moms ALL want to go and we have to draw names to see which parents can go!

 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

Yours is the model I am using as our goal for giving the girls more repsonsibility Do you just ask parents/girls to sign up on the calendar or do you assign them a certain day? How far out do you set this up? Wow, I would love once a week homework, lol...we have homework every day, which is one of the many reasons we had to do Saturdays for meetings. I definitely think the Journeys seem to have a lot of "homework", but I am also hoping that as I go through it all, I can make some adjustments/sub out different activities...our SU leader just reminded us at the last leader's meeting that as long as we are doing something that meets the "spirit" of the requirements, we can make adjustments to fit our troop, although some of it does look like stuff the girls might like too.

Yes, we just bought the Girls Guide yesterday and I'm looking through it to start a high-level planning next year.

There are 11 patches and each patch has 5 steps to it. This changes things up for us a lot. With the petals we were able to earn them one per meeting. But for the new 11 patches, you cannot do all the steps in one meeting and our moms have started complaining a bit about not having a lot of work to do at home next year since homework really starts to kick in for 2nd grade. (We have it now but only once a week, not daily except reading books).

So all that said, we are not doing a Journey next year. I really want each girl to lead one patch but I'm not sure if they will be ready. Of course, the parent can help. We did 5-10 minutes last year and 10-15 minutes this year and the girls really like leading. They each earn a "leadership" fun patch, too!

Thanks for sharing! Adding ideas to my list

Parent Roles

We have 6 girls so have assigned 6 parent roles.

#1 Me - Troop Leader, 1st Aider, Documentation/Adminstration and future Camp certified

#2 Co-Leader, 1st Aider, Money Manager and Future Camp certified

#3 1st Aider (she's a nurse), Arts and Crafts Supplies (we only bring to meetings where we need it and found it easier to have one main supply box rather than have all the girls bring their own)

#4 Photographer and she puts all the photos together digitally on pages (one page per meeting) to make our own photobook.

#5 Cookie Mom - she does both booths and regular sale

#6 Treasure Hunt leader - our girls love to do these and she makes the clues relevant to what we are doing.


Then each mom also leads one meeting or arranges one field trip, plus they assist their daughter when it is her time to lead.

Plus we also ask for parent volunteers if there is a meeting I, or my co-leader can't go to. It's funny b/c my moms ALL want to go and we have to draw names to see which parents can go!

 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

Soooo.....I started looking for examples of end of the year surveys (why reinvent the wheel, right?) and then discovered google docs and began playing with it...anyway....the end result is this lovely little form, which I won't need for at least a month and a half, and which will probably change a dozen times between now and then, lol. Anyone want to take a look at it and offer suggestions? Please don't use the form to offer suggestions, provide them here My hope is that I can use the survey as a tool for planning/making changes for next year. Thanks!

ETA: Survey updated 3/22

 

[Marshay]

Yours is the model I am using as our goal for giving the girls more repsonsibility Do you just ask parents/girls to sign up on the calendar or do you assign them a certain day? How far out do you set this up? Wow, I would love once a week homework, lol...we have homework every day, which is one of the many reasons we had to do Saturdays for meetings. I definitely think the Journeys seem to have a lot of "homework", but I am also hoping that as I go through it all, I can make some adjustments/sub out different activities...our SU leader just reminded us at the last leader's meeting that as long as we are doing something that meets the "spirit" of the requirements, we can make adjustments to fit our troop, although some of it does look like stuff the girls might like too.

Thanks for sharing! Adding ideas to my list

Yes, we just assign the girls and moms to dates at the beginning of the year and realize that we'll probably have to switch some of the dates around a bit, esp if a parent has to go out of town (which happened 2x on us).

My coleader and I both like to have a general plan for the year, which we do prior to our first meeting (at least this is what we did for Daisies). For Brownies, we are hoping to leave "blank" days so the girls can choose what they want to do for those. We want to start involving them in the planning, with the future goal being that they are planning nearly the entire year -- with helpful suggestions from us!

Yeah, we just have daily 15 minute reading and homework (spelling words) due on Friday morning. Of course that means we need to practice the spelling words each day but we only turn them in on Fridays. For 2nd grade, we'll be turning in homework every day, plus have spelling tests on Fridays.

 

[Marshay]

Soooo.....I started looking for examples of end of the year surveys (why reinvent the wheel, right?) and then discovered google docs and began playing with it...anyway....the end result is this lovely little form, which I won't need for at least a month and a half, and which will probably change a dozen times between now and then, lol. Anyone want to take a look at it and offer suggestions? Please don't use the form to offer suggestions, provide them here My hope is that I can use the survey as a tool for planning/making changes for next year. Thanks!

Wow -- that is a thorough form. I know my moms wouldn't want to answer that many questions but I plan to use some of those, too, for this year. thanks!

I did come up with a form last year, too, and had some of the same questions. When I find it, if I have any new ? from it, I'll share with you.

 

[Marshay]

Ok, so in reviewing the Girl Scout Guide for Brownies, there are 11 patches plus one make your own to do in 2 years. After studying each of the 5 requirements for the 12 patches (60!!!), I figured out for our troop we need:

12 Field Trips or Outside Speakers for the Patch Requirements

14 Separate Meetings for the Patch Requirements (this can be cut down if scouts do some of the stuff at home)

2 possible Big projects like making a Bug Box or butterfly Feeder of expanding on one of the other Patch requirements.

So that's 28 meetings, not necessarily including special days like World Thinking Day, Holidays, JGL Birthday, etc.

We generally meet only 18 times from late Sept to early June for one hour. This is definitely going to be tight scheduling.

 

[ButterflyJen]

Hi all! I just started as a Brownie leader for my 2nd grader at the beginning of January. Thought I could offer input about badges, etc. We meet twice a,month, 1-1/2 hours per meeting.

We started with basics at the first meetings: Troop rules, troop jobs, what it means to be a Girl Scout, voting on our troop crest. Right after that was Thinking Day, so that was one meeting. We decided to put off the Journeys till next year and work on Legacy badges. So, we dove into the Girl Scout Ways badge. I tweak things a bit to fit with the girls' lives and other things going on, so instead of celebrating Juliette Low's birthday we celebrated Girl Scouts 100th birthday. We made sit-upons as a tradition, and I gave them one piece of homework before our first meeting (having to do with the Girl Scout Law, since most of the girls were not Daisies, they were sort of clueless about this). Anyway, long story short, I am seeing that it's taking two meetings to finish each badge. We will be working on First Aid next, visiting a fire station, practicing dialing 911 on cells with NO batteries , etc. The girls will have homework on outside injuries - they'll have to research their assigned injury and teach their group how to treat it.

OK, I've rambled on enough Just wanted to say, badges can be done on two meetings for the most part! Have fun!

 

[Marshay]

ETA -- This morning my co-leader and sat down to review this and tried to whittle it down more, so I adjusted my numbers below.

Ok, so in reviewing the Girl Scout Guide for Brownies, there are 11 patches plus two make your own to do in 2 years. After studying each of the 5 requirements for the 13 patches (65!!!), I figured out for our troop we need:

8 Field Trips or Outside Speakers for the Patch Requirements

10 Separate Meetings for the Patch Requirements (this can be cut down if scouts do some of the stuff at home)

So that's 18 meetings, not necessarily including special days like World Thinking Day, Holidays, JGL Birthday, etc.

Highlights in red font above!

 

[Marshay]

Hi all! I just started as a Brownie leader for my 2nd grader at the beginning of January. Thought I could offer input about badges, etc. We meet twice a,month, 1-1/2 hours per meeting.

We started with basics at the first meetings: Troop rules, troop jobs, what it means to be a Girl Scout, voting on our troop crest. Right after that was Thinking Day, so that was one meeting. We decided to put off the Journeys till next year and work on Legacy badges. So, we dove into the Girl Scout Ways badge. I tweak things a bit to fit with the girls' lives and other things going on, so instead of celebrating Juliette Low's birthday we celebrated Girl Scouts 100th birthday. We made sit-upons as a tradition, and I gave them one piece of homework before our first meeting (having to do with the Girl Scout Law, since most of the girls were not Daisies, they were sort of clueless about this). Anyway, long story short, I am seeing that it's taking two meetings to finish each badge. We will be working on First Aid next, visiting a fire station, practicing dialing 911 on cells with NO batteries , etc. The girls will have homework on outside injuries - they'll have to research their assigned injury and teach their group how to treat it.

OK, I've rambled on enough Just wanted to say, badges can be done on two meetings for the most part! Have fun!

Thank you for your input!

My troop leader and I just reviewed all the Legacy patches in more detail today and came up with approx 18 meetings (field trips and regular meetings) to complete the 13 patches (11 Legacy + 2 make your own, one for each year) and we definitely have the girls doing work at home (a lot of drawings) and are going to use Moms/Dads for the special guest speakers (nurse, volunteer firefighter, etc) so that won't take up an entire meeting.

I'm glad to hear that you, too, are doing 2 meetings for one patch. That is what I was thinking too (originally had 28 meetings, sounds like you guys have 24 meetings and we are going to have about 18 meetings now). But this clearly tells me that you can't do it in one year and we may or may not be able to do a Journey for 3rd grade.

I wish we could meet longer than one hour but since we meet at 6:30pm, we run up against bedtimes and can't meet after school since we don't want siblings at our meetings (including my own!). One hour goes by sooo quickly!

 

[ButterflyJen]

I am impressed that you can get as,much done as you do in one hour!! We are adjusting our start time next year so we will meet from 530-7 every other week. My DD needs her sleep or she is a holy nightmare the next day
I am sort of toying with having the girls work on their Painting badge over the summer. That way they are still in the GS mindset AND it's one less we have to do over the course of the next year...
We are planning to do a Journey next year for sure. If some of the Legacy badges fall by the wayside, oh well.

 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

Thanks for sharing!

Yes, we just assign the girls and moms to dates at the beginning of the year and realize that we'll probably have to switch some of the dates around a bit, esp if a parent has to go out of town (which happened 2x on us).

My coleader and I both like to have a general plan for the year, which we do prior to our first meeting (at least this is what we did for Daisies). For Brownies, we are hoping to leave "blank" days so the girls can choose what they want to do for those. We want to start involving them in the planning, with the future goal being that they are planning nearly the entire year -- with helpful suggestions from us!

Yeah...I know it is way too long, but it is a very rough draft and I kept thinking of things to add...I will definitely be narrowing down/making changes before I ask the parents to fill it out ETA: I already eliminated a few questions

Wow -- that is a thorough form. I know my moms wouldn't want to answer that many questions but I plan to use some of those, too, for this year. thanks!

I did come up with a form last year, too, and had some of the same questions. When I find it, if I have any new ? from it, I'll share with you.

Thanks for chiming in! I love that you started with the Girl Scouts Way and situpons, as that is exactly what I was thinking of starting with 2 meetings per badge sounds manageable. I'm hoping that if I rotate meetings between journey and legacy, we will get to do several of the legacy badges and at least the first two journeys. I'm also hopeful that since the girls have expressed an interest in camping, we might be able to draw out our meetings a little further into summer next year to "prepare" for camping (while managing to fit in a few extra badges/finish some journey work )

Hi all! I just started as a Brownie leader for my 2nd grader at the beginning of January. Thought I could offer input about badges, etc. We meet twice a,month, 1-1/2 hours per meeting.

So, we dove into the Girl Scout Ways badge. I tweak things a bit to fit with the girls' lives and other things going on, so instead of celebrating Juliette Low's birthday we celebrated Girl Scouts 100th birthday. We made sit-upons as a tradition, and I gave them one piece of homework before our first meeting (having to do with the Girl Scout Law, since most of the girls were not Daisies, they were sort of clueless about this). Anyway, long story short, I am seeing that it's taking two meetings to finish each badge. We will be working on First Aid next, visiting a fire station, practicing dialing 911 on cells with NO batteries , etc. The girls will have homework on outside injuries - they'll have to research their assigned injury and teach their group how to treat it.

OK, I've rambled on enough Just wanted to say, badges can be done on two meetings for the most part! Have fun!

 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

EEK! I just got an email/survey forwarded to me from the council. With the new regulations allowing councils to charge up to the same amount as national for registration (by the way, national registration is going up to $15, which isn't bad, imo), our council is considering charging a matching fee for registration, which would bring our total registration costs to $30 ...I don't think parents will be nearly as willing to register themselves if this happens ...and we do have $30 per girl available, thanks to cookies, but that takes a chunk of change out of the budget we were planning to use carry us over to nut sales ....hopefully, we'll at least convince them to transition up, instead of just jumping to $30...if enough leaders point out that they will see a plunge in parent registration (like I did), they might reconsider, especially since every leader's meeting our SU Director reminds us that council is reminding her that parents should register and get screened....I am not against council charging a registration fee (hopefully it would translate to better programming/training/etc. and be a benefit to girls in our council). I'm just not sure jumping to $30 immediately will actually be beneficial if it scares off potential new recruits and causes parent registration numbers to drop ah well, off to look at our troop numbers and see if I can "trim some fat", just in case we do wind up paying $30 per girl

 

[Suellen]

I don't understand why the troop is paying the girls registration? That is the parents reaponsibilty (one of the few!). I also don't think that decreased parent registration would sway our council. I get the feeling they prefer parents not to e 100% actively involved because it effects the way the girls interact with each other.

Im not trying to be judgey - just curious!

 

[LoveMyBeautifulGift]

The girls FAAARRR exceeded our expectations for cookie sales. They all participated and did amazingly well. There is enough money for the service project, fun goal, vests (which the girls voted for before sales-they are super excited about being Brownies next year) an extra fun/just because trip that we added after seeing how well things were going (it was our second option for the fun goal), remaining meeting costs, an end of the year ceremony, registration for the girls (at $12 each) and then a little left to carry us to nut sales. We are encouraged to carry as little as possible from one year to the next, and I can't imagine that we would need that much to get us through until nuts anyway so after looking at the budget for this year, we looked at what we can "pre-pay" for next year (which I thought everyone did ..at cookie training several leaders suggested "pre-paying" for things for the next year to bring your total down to avoid the extra paper work that comes with having more than $500 in your account at the end of the year ). I would love to know what others spend cookie money on, we were basically told a service project, a fun goal, and don't carry a balance over $500 to next year...to which I thought "how could anyone have $500 left from cookies after paying for the service project and fun goal?" Does anyone keep part of the cookie money for "startup costs" for the next year? Or do you use it all this year and charge dues to get you through to Nuts next year? Or something else/some combo of the two? I would love to hear how others do it, obviously I should have asked here earlier in the year

As far as parent registration, I'm not so sure the council expects 100% participation, but they certainly are eager to get 100% registration


BTW-I don't get judgy at all from your post, just curiosity...which has now sparked mine

ETA: I'm not freaking out that we won't have money for next year or anything, I was just surprised and a bit because I thought I had finally figured it all out, lol...and now I get to go back to the girls/parents with the news so we can figure it all out again

I don't understand why the troop is paying the girls registration? That is the parents reaponsibilty (one of the few!). I also don't think that decreased parent registration would sway our council. I get the feeling they prefer parents not to e 100% actively involved because it effects the way the girls interact with each other.

Im not trying to be judgey - just curious!

 

[Marshay]

We had about $500 from cookie sales and leftover troop dues that we didn't spend as of begining of March.

We had the girls vote on how they wanted to spend the monies and then my co-leader and I determined the rest

Girls Vote (Cookie Money)
===================
Trip to Zoo, lunch, snack and souvenir
Purchased the Brownie Vest
Purchased the Girls Guide for Brownies before they raise the price!
$50 left in the account for a future big trip

Then coleader and I spent the remaining monies on some final patches, craft supplies, poster board and a gift for our Cookie Mom.

This was our first time selling cookies and it was nice to have some extra monies.

We didn't do the nut or magazine sale last year. I'm not sure if we will do them this year.

 

[Suellen]

Our girls did well through cookie sales too... we have enough to buy vests for next year and also to do a fun project. The girls are working independently on their 100 year community service project ~ and we have done some things with them... such as valentine's day cards to the local nursing home.

Last year in July I bought a craft project for each meeting of the year through Oriental Trading Company WICKED cheap. Mostly because all the holiday stuff was clearance.

Me and my daughter will not be returning to our troop next year because we will be living in Florida and will need to find a new troop. But our goal for our troop has always been to save as much as we can in order to go to Europe when they are older.

So yeah... we save most of ours.