Daisy Girl Scout Leaders

[Marshay]

I have a daughter who is an 8th grade Cadette. I have two words for you in regards to "sewing" on badges: Badge Magic. This stuff is amazing. It's a super adhesive that is available in the various badge shapes (the earned ones that go on the front of vest/sash.) Peel off one side, attach it to the badge, peel off the other side and press it on the garment. The badge won't fall off in the wash. Found it at my local council store. If you have difficulty finding it, go to badgemagic.com. They have sheets available that can be cut to the patch shape for the ones that go on the back.

OOoh, so no more ironing? Just stick on? This sounds perfect!

 

[Stacey012345]

So, how is everyone doing with earning their petals? So far, we have only done 2 petals. We will only have one meeting in December because of Christmas holidays, in which we will have a Christmas party, but then starting in January, we will get serious about earning the rest of the petals.

Anyone doing the Journeys? Are you following the book or coming up with your own ideas?

Thanks.

Kelly

Well, we've had 4 meetings (one each month from Sept-Dec) along with 2 council run programs, and a Food Drive so far. 1st year Daisy Troop, earned the Promise Center, Spring Green petal for Food Drive and some fun patches for the programs through council (on Oceans and a Dr. Seuss one). They earned a Food Drive fun patch along with their petal. We are also doing the Flower Garden Journey and they've earned the first watering can piece - we started a troop garden 1st meeting and by Nov they had tended it for 3 meetings and earned the first part of journey. Can't do next part of journey until probably April because it involves planting a Community garden....so we need spring! But we are following the story at the meetings until then, though we are up to Chapter 4 of 6 already so it will probably be finished before April.

My plan is to finish the Journey this year (2 more pieces) and do another 4 petals between now and June for a total of 5 earned. Then next year they can focus on the other 5 Daisy Petals for their 2nd year and do some fun things in between, as I don't believe we need to do a 2nd Journey during Daisy years (phew!).

 

[Stacey012345]

With Daisy's, we try to have 1 parent for every three girls. That way we can actually get a real craft done. If the girls spend their time running around, then the meeting is a total waste.

If the leader is willing to come up with the agenda and have the materials to keep the crafts going, then the parents (or babysitter) should plan to attend every third or fourth meeting.

We just have myself and my Assistant Leader, but we do a craft at every meeting. The one thing I do that I find helpful, since each girl takes a different amount of time to do the craft, is that we have the girls use a page of the Activity Book so if they finish the craft and others are working, they are tasked to something else....eliminates any possible running around, and they enjoy it.

 

[amez]

Is anyone doing the "Between Earth and Sky" journey? I'm thinking I want to start this one in January and try to incorporate some try-its in for my three Brownies that are in my group.

 

[livsmom04]

Is anyone doing the "Between Earth and Sky" journey? I'm thinking I want to start this one in January and try to incorporate some try-its in for my three Brownies that are in my group.

We are going to do this starting in January too. I am so happy I found this thread too! I am not a leader but I'm a co-leader and am having a good time with it. We did on December 11th the Disney on Ice and the girls and even the parents that came all got a really neat patch that had Toy Story 3 on it. We have done several things with the girls. We have taken them caroling at a nursing home, we have made sit-on's for the girls to sit on while in the meetings. We meet every other week and we have a due of $5/meeting. We are just starting out and my daughter is in the first grade. We have only 5 kindergartners in the troop and the rest are all first graders. I am going to be taking on the first graders next year to help out and then we'll go from there. We're having a blast thought! I even heard that there is a week of where Girl Scouts are at the World too. That would be so awesome!!!

 

[Marshay]

I even heard that there is a week of where Girl Scouts are at the World too. That would be so awesome!!!

Glad you are having so much fun as well!!

Our Council is "stick-in-the-muds"! They actually have in their travel paperwork (I'm paraphrasing that field trips to Walt Disney World are discouraged ... instead if you want to go to FL, then they suggest we visit historical sites like St. Augustine or natural environments like the Everglades.

 

[kelleyrn2000]

New Daisy leader here! Our leader stepped down a couple weeks ago, so myself and another mom decided to co-lead. Looking forward to hearing ideas for earning petals! Tomorrow I meet with my co-leader to get our next few meetings planned out

 

[Familyof4lovesDW]

Is anyone doing the "Between Earth and Sky" journey? I'm thinking I want to start this one in January and try to incorporate some try-its in for my three Brownies that are in my group.

We will be doing this starting in January. Do you have any ideas? I know at our next meeting we will be decorating bags for their "trip". We found "luggage tags" at our council store for 5/$1. We will use these bags for the girls to keep their Earth and Sky book in, since they will need to bring it each week.

Our Christmas party was awesome. We gave the girls daisy headbands, daisy ornaments, lip gloss, pencils, horses and candy canes. The girls also each brought a book and did a book exchange. We also found a cute reindeer christmas patch at council for $1 each.

So, who is going to sell cookies?

 

[Marshay]

So, who is going to sell cookies?

No one from our troop volunteered to be the Cookie Mom so we are not selling cookies. I figure I was doing enough as the leader and didn't want to take on the whole cookie responsibility too.

Maybe next year...I'm glad we charged more for our troop dues since that is our only income source.

 

[skw444]

So, who is going to sell cookies?

We are! We are hoping for about $500 profit from the cookies which will allow us to do lots of fun stuff next year at no cost to the parents. Is anyone participating in booth sales? I think we are going to try it too.

 

[amez]

We will be doing this starting in January. Do you have any ideas? I know at our next meeting we will be decorating bags for their "trip". We found "luggage tags" at our council store for 5/$1. We will use these bags for the girls to keep their Earth and Sky book in, since they will need to bring it each week.

So, who is going to sell cookies?

Good idea about the "luggage tags" I went to our craft store today and picked up the stuff so the girls could make one. I really need to sit down and figure out what craft and/or activities that I can do with Earth and Sky. i will post if I come up with anything

We are selling cookies. I hope we do well.

 

[kelann7]

We will be selling cookies. We start selling on Jan 21st. Since this is our first year, I have no idea what to expect. I have leader cookie training this Thursday. We have a cookie rally on Jan 14th.

We are just doing pre-order sales. We are not doing a booth sale. I don't think Daisys are allowed to do booth sales here and since this is our first year and the girls are young, I figure we should keep it simple. I don't even want to set a goal because I don't want anyone to feel pressured.

Kelly

 

[Marshay]

for those of you selling cookies, can you let us know how it goes? How much "real" work is involved?

I think we will try to sell cookies next year.

Thanks!

 

[amez]

My girls are second year Daisys and first year Brownies. We sold cookies last year and our cookie sale is already under way. This is my first year as cookie chair (as well as leader).
The cookie training is pretty thorough and the website is fairly simple. Make certain you communicate with your parents when orders are due, when they will be delivered and when money is due. Seems simple, but some leaders over look telling parents this. Make certain when the girls turn the order into you the parents total the cookie order--just makes it a bit easier to double check the work. You will enter the cookie sales in the website under each girls name. The website will total up how many cases you are getting (it rounds up--extra boxes can be sold at booth sales or just sold outright) You will arrange a time to pick up all your cases, then you will sort your cases and have the parents pick up asap (you don't want to have cases of cookies sitting around your house)
We have additional time that we can order more cookies if people order more or if you need even more for booth sales. If you do a booth sale you have to sign up online. some places have tables, some you need to bring your own. the have the girls sign up to work the booth (max 4 girls and min 2 adults)
Nearly all of my girls attended the cookie rally, so I just gave them their order form and said do your best. i didn't want to go over everything again.

hth

 

[Marshay]

My girls are second year Daisys and first year Brownies. We sold cookies last year and our cookie sale is already under way. This is my first year as cookie chair (as well as leader).
The cookie training is pretty thorough and the website is fairly simple. Make certain you communicate with your parents when orders are due, when they will be delivered and when money is due. Seems simple, but some leaders over look telling parents this. Make certain when the girls turn the order into you the parents total the cookie order--just makes it a bit easier to double check the work. You will enter the cookie sales in the website under each girls name. The website will total up how many cases you are getting (it rounds up--extra boxes can be sold at booth sales or just sold outright) You will arrange a time to pick up all your cases, then you will sort your cases and have the parents pick up asap (you don't want to have cases of cookies sitting around your house)
We have additional time that we can order more cookies if people order more or if you need even more for booth sales. If you do a booth sale you have to sign up online. some places have tables, some you need to bring your own. the have the girls sign up to work the booth (max 4 girls and min 2 adults)
Nearly all of my girls attended the cookie rally, so I just gave them their order form and said do your best. i didn't want to go over everything again.

hth

thanks! How long do you think someone volunteeers altogether? If we sell next year, I'd like to tell that mom how much time is involved (training, website, picking up, delivering cookies, etc).

 

[skw444]

thanks! How long do you think someone volunteeers altogether? If we sell next year, I'd like to tell that mom how much time is involved (training, website, picking up, delivering cookies, etc).

I was cookie mom for another troop last year, so I can tell you how much time I spent.

Training - Our service unit holds a training session that lasts an hour and a half.

Website - it doesn't take very long to enter the girls orders, so I'd say 30 minutes here.

Picking Up - The way our service unit does it since it's so huge (100 troops in the service unit) is they rent a warehouse to have the cookies delivered to it. The cookies come on 2 tractor trailer trucks! Each troop in the service unit must send at least 1 volunteer to help unload the cookies and divide them up for each troop. This process takes about 3-4 hours and when we leave, we take our troops cookies with us.

Delivering - Once I get the cookies to my house, then I must sort through the boxes to divide up for each individual girl in our troop. We had 9 girls and sold roughly 1200 boxes, so dividing takes time too. I'd say this probably took me about 2 hours because I did it by myself. This year, I will have some help. I then set 1 day when my troop has to come get the cookies. They are in my garage and I want them out!

Collecting money - The first year, I made the mistake of letting everyone turn in their money in whatever form they got it. So, I had lots of cash and change. It was too difficult to keep track of and count. So, last year I had the parents write 1 check to the troop for the total amount they owed. This worked much better!

 

[Marshay]

I was cookie mom for another troop last year, so I can tell you how much time I spent.

Training - Our service unit holds a training session that lasts an hour and a half.

Website - it doesn't take very long to enter the girls orders, so I'd say 30 minutes here.

Picking Up - The way our service unit does it since it's so huge (100 troops in the service unit) is they rent a warehouse to have the cookies delivered to it. The cookies come on 2 tractor trailer trucks! Each troop in the service unit must send at least 1 volunteer to help unload the cookies and divide them up for each troop. This process takes about 3-4 hours and when we leave, we take our troops cookies with us.

Delivering - Once I get the cookies to my house, then I must sort through the boxes to divide up for each individual girl in our troop. We had 9 girls and sold roughly 1200 boxes, so dividing takes time too. I'd say this probably took me about 2 hours because I did it by myself. This year, I will have some help. I then set 1 day when my troop has to come get the cookies. They are in my garage and I want them out!

Collecting money - The first year, I made the mistake of letting everyone turn in their money in whatever form they got it. So, I had lots of cash and change. It was too difficult to keep track of and count. So, last year I had the parents write 1 check to the troop for the total amount they owed. This worked much better!

Thank you for this!!! It puts the process into perspective for me.

If you or anyone else have other advice/thoughts on the cookie process, please let us know. I'm cutting and pasting from this thread into a Cookie Journal so I have it for next year!

 

[kelann7]

For those who have done the cookie sale or are going to do it this year - did you do the Cookie activity guide? Do you give each girl who participates the cookie pin?

I really want to keep this simple, since this is our first year and the girls are so young. I looked at the activity guide and I'm not too impressed with it. We are having a cookie rally. I really don't want to spend one of our meetings doing the cookie activity guide.

I would like to just talk to them a little bit about selling cookies, without any pressure to reach a goal or sell the most.

Any thoughts?

Thanks.

Kelly

 

[amez]

We aren't doing anything from the guide--we did the cookie rally and I don't want parents to feel like it's all about selling stuff (we did the nut sale too)

Our delivery is a bit different then a previous poster--the truck stops along the route (could be a parking lot) and you are signed up for a pick up time-I think every five or ten minutes. It's counted and put directly in your vehicle and you are out of there. I guess they are really good about staying on time. Hope it goes like that this year They will explain how your area handles delivery during training.

 

[Familyof4lovesDW]

Our delivery is a bit different then a previous poster--the truck stops along the route (could be a parking lot) and you are signed up for a pick up time-I think every five or ten minutes. It's counted and put directly in your vehicle and you are out of there. I guess they are really good about staying on time. Hope it goes like that this year They will explain how your area handles delivery during training.

This is how our nut delivery was, too. Our rewards for nuts just came in!

We bought canvas bags and had the girls decorate them with fabric markers and bought stensils. They will use these to carry their books and stuff in. The girls did a good job.