Daisy Girl Scout Leaders

[Suellen]

Next year I might up it to once a week instead of every other week.

I've been thinking this too. I know my daughter and at least 1/2 the other girls wish the meetings were weekly.

 

[QVCshopper]

Hmmm so what if a parent works until 5:00?

That would work for me .... but my co-leader actually works until 5:00. I bet the extra 15 minutes would help a lot!

So as a parent of a Daisy Scout.... do you like the extra events (think weekends with fun stuff to do) or is it more of a feeling like just something extra you need to do?

I'm more than willing to plan stuff on the weekends for the girls... I just don't want to overwhelm mom's and dad's.

We tried to do one weekend thing (it was a cookie kickoff), signed my DD up, but then it snowed that day, and we didn't take her. They still had the event, and I was sorry to miss it, but it wasn't worth the risk.

I think we'll sign her up for the daddy and daughter V-day dance, but maybe not the thing about different countries? Not sure about that one.

Personally, I like the two meetings/month thing. It's enough for this age group. Not sure about parents who work til 5; my DH picks up my DD on the way home from work. A lot of the moms seem to stay home or work part-time like me. Hope that helps.

 

[mickimousemama]

I'm jealous of all of you who meet so often, we meet once a month from 6:30-7:30pm and even getting everyone there once a month is proving to be difficult. So far for weekend events only two girls have ever shown up, because they just dont work for the others. My co-leader and I are hoping to get a few more plans figured out for the girls, her dh is preparing to deploy, so things are a bit crazy for her right now. In February we have our Cookie Kick off on the 4th and sales start on the 5th, then our regular meeting on the 21st. We'd like to have done something for valentine's day but we could not get parents to commit to anything.
We did wreath sales this fall, which were a HUGE profit for us, I think we made around $1200 from it?

 

[mickimousemama]

I've read parts of this thread on and off, but the last few pages were very interesting...

I have a kindergarten DD, and am one of two asst. leaders (we are both new to girl scouts), and have a very experienced leader (for whom I am very grateful!)

So far, we have earned the blue center badge, and the red and spring green petals. We have a plan lined out to earn one at each meeting for the rest of the year, so they will be done with those, and then in the fall, we plan to start the first Journeys book.

Our first pre-orders for cookies are due tomorrow, and my daughter was super excited and loved going door to door. We sold 110 boxes, which I thought was pretty good for her first year (each girl's goal in the troop was 70 boxes). I also then ordered about 20 more so we would have a few to take door to door, to get those houses that we missed.

In our area, Daisies aren't allowed to have cookie booths at places like grocery stores, which is fine with me.

I thought the prizes were pretty sad...Our themes were "Count Me In" with an Owl logo (and some handprints also)

1-44 boxes -- Cookie patch
45-79 Count me in embroidered bracelet
80-129 eco wood owl necklace (silver looking charm on blue leather like chain
130-164 -- owl carabiner clip
165-199 Portable mini jams FM radio
200-299 Owl Spiral journal (think small notebook)
300-399 Count me in Sticker kit
400-499 Owl pillow
500-649 Messenger bag
650-849 Owl Alarm clock
850-999 Friendship bracelet kit
1000-1499 e-reader (not specific, doesn't look like kindle)
1500-1999 -- $50 e-reader gift card
2000++ e-reader case

All prizes are cumulative. In addition, if you ordered 160 boxes on initial order, you would get 5 themed patches also.

On our cookie order form, it says to wear your girl scout pin, and/or clothing to identify you as a girl scout. I can't imagine being told to not wear your uniform while selling an official product. HOWEVER, that being said, I have two sons, one in cub scouts, and then other now in boys scouts, and it is a completely different set of rules. I have had a leadership role with the cub scout pack, so am pretty familiar with the requirements. From 1st to 5th grade, it is all about the family camping, and they do earn all of their own achievements by working either alone, with their adult partner, or with their group. A parent must be with each boy if they are in 1st-3rd grade. To make a long story short, my daughter just doesn't understand why we can't just go camping like the boys do, since she has been going with us since she was 3 (now is 6 1/2).

I didn't want to just drop my daughter off at a meeting where parents weren't really allowed to stay, or just send her off, even though they are "trained and have had a background check". I know it is all about "protecting girls" but sometimes I think it goes to far, and borders on secrecy if you strictly adhere to some of the policies. ok, must get off the soap box now!

I will say, it has been a good experience, not too time consuming outside of the meetings, we rotate "primary responsibilit" for the meetings, so that does help alot.

Does anyone else feel like they are "herding cats" at times? well, off to finish preparing for this week!

I completely agree that cub/boyscouts and girl scouts are like comparing apples and oranges, My son is a wolf cub this year (his first year) and until now I had thought that cub scouts and girl scouts were very similar, however ours are NOTHING alike.

I like that our cubscouts gather once a month as an entire pack/unit, so the boys can get to know eachother, and look up to those above them, I also LOVE that they include family in everything (atleast in our area) and sadly our girl scouts do not share that same feeling, upon first joining when I mentioned my husband worked nights and I would potentially need to bring my 8 year old many of the other leaders said I should just stay home then, because this is about the girls, not incuding your whole family none of the girl scout events are geared towards families at all.

anywho... We are doing no presales for cookies this year, we pick up our cookies on the 31st, give them to the girls on the 4th and start selling on the 5th, our girls are not allowed to do booths OR go door to door to sell, they are to ask family/and or friends, and close neighbors, which were the same rules for our Wreath sales in November, which I thought was crazy because I've always known girl scouts to go door to door, but apparently we have very strict rules. The recomended sale for each girl scout for us is 64 boxes so that is what was ordered for each of our 9 girls. It should be interesting!!

 

[Familyof4lovesDW]

We meet every week and it works out good. We meet from 6-7 so the girls can eat dinner first and the parents that work are home and they are home before bed. By meeting weekly we are able to get a lot done.

For our be a sister to every girls scout petal we are going to send valenties to the brownie troop at our school. The girls are going to make the valenines.

What are Wreath sales? I notice the ones who mention it are from Minnesota. Is it a local thing? We sell nuts, I sold calanders back when I was a gs, but have never heard of wreaths.

 

[mickimousemama]

We meet every week and it works out good. We meet from 6-7 so the girls can eat dinner first and the parents that work are home and they are home before bed. By meeting weekly we are able to get a lot done.

For our be a sister to every girls scout petal we are going to send valenties to the brownie troop at our school. The girls are going to make the valenines.

What are Wreath sales? I notice the ones who mention it are from Minnesota. Is it a local thing? We sell nuts, I sold calanders back when I was a gs, but have never heard of wreaths.

I think it is a local thing, even the girl scouts in other towns did the nut sales not wreaths, we are one of very few areas that seemed to have wreath sales. They went over really well for us. We had 6 girls selling!

 

[solstice621]

Hey there-
I am a brand new troop leader. We have a kindergarten group of Daisies and just started right before Chrstmas. We are in the middle of cookie sales and I am completely overwhelmed as I am also cookie mom. I have not read through all the threads, but we are placing our cookie order tonight and I am not sure how many to order for a cookie booth? Are there guidelines or recommendations? How many should I have on hand for our booth? It is a small location, we are just doing it for the experience. All of our cookie sales are gong very well so far. Thanks for any help you can give me

 

[RangerPooh]

Daisy mom here-

My DD joined Daisy's back in October and we have weekly meetings for one hour a week. In all honestly it doesn't seem like we do as much as some of the other groups listed here (no sales so far or weekend outings). Tonight is our investiture ceremony and I have a question: What patches or pins (if any) do the girls earn tonight? Also do we have to buy them or do our weekly dues cover the cost?

BTW, We kick off the cookie sales with the cookie tasting this weekend

 

[daisy2jae]

We have 9 girls in our troop but only 8 have been active. We meet every other week for 1 hr plus a fieldtrip/tour activity each month (pizza tour, bakery tour, pet shop tour, etc) I've enjoy everything so far till tonight. We meet at our local summit center similar to a YMCA set up for some. We have 4 meeting rooms seperated with wall pull outs to seperate the rooms. Never had problems but now they have a zumba class next door plus on the other side is a toddler play room (kids looking through the blinds at us). The girls were so distracted and I felt like I was yelling to get my voice heard of the zumba class. I need to find a better meeting place and we're even paying to use this spot. Can't use my home due to g.s. rules. Can't find a church with open space and the library is full. In order to use a school we have to get it approved through a school board meeting. (takes time) YIKES anyone have ideas? Plus it needs to have tables and chairs.

 

[mickimousemama]

We have 9 girls in our troop but only 8 have been active. We meet every other week for 1 hr plus a fieldtrip/tour activity each month (pizza tour, bakery tour, pet shop tour, etc) I've enjoy everything so far till tonight. We meet at our local summit center similar to a YMCA set up for some. We have 4 meeting rooms seperated with wall pull outs to seperate the rooms. Never had problems but now they have a zumba class next door plus on the other side is a toddler play room (kids looking through the blinds at us). The girls were so distracted and I felt like I was yelling to get my voice heard of the zumba class. I need to find a better meeting place and we're even paying to use this spot. Can't use my home due to g.s. rules. Can't find a church with open space and the library is full. In order to use a school we have to get it approved through a school board meeting. (takes time) YIKES anyone have ideas? Plus it needs to have tables and chairs.

Yikes, that would be very distracting! We meet at our local armory, if any of your girls have a parent in the service you might be able to use it for free if you have one? Other groups use local churches, and our community center. We have to meet in a public place as well. I hope you are able to find something that fits your needs!

 

[solstice621]

Just reading through these last few posts, I can't believe how different the rules are for different GS councils. Not everyone is selling GS cookies yet? We started ours a few weeks ago. I would have thought it would be the same time for everyone.
And it seems like we have different rules for meetings too. We are allowed to use our homes for meeting sites. And we aren't allowed to pay for a spot for a meeting. I kind of feel bad about this as we use my church and I feel bad not making a donation on behalf of the troop.

 

[Marshay]

Do you have the girls to your house for the "extra" stuff? We were told explicitly that we could not have any GS related activities at our homes.

We are able to meet most anywhere, including our homes or our parents homes. However, there is a lot of paperwork that needs to be completed and given to each mom every time we leave our main meeting space (elementary school). I'm in charge of the paperwork and was able to streamline the paperwork so it's now only about 4 new pages per person each "off-site" visit and I just tell the moms to bring a copy of the generic paperwork that doesn't change (troop transportation form, insurance form, etc)

Just curious how often and long everyone is meeting. We meet every other week for an hour and it just doesn't seem like enough.

Some of the girls have expressed an interest in meeting every week. I'm thinking that an hour isn't nearly long enough to get all our "business" done AND then have some fun too.

I also feel like I don't have enough time to really do what I want to do with them.

Problem is ~ we already meet from 5:30 - 6:30 ~ which I am sure means late dinners for some of the girls and rushing like heck for others.

We meet every other Wed from 6:30 - 7:30pm and we are finding we definitely need more time. But since we can't go later (bedtimes) and can't go earlier (both co-leader and I have other small kids so we have to wait until DH come home), we are just going to cut back on activities for the night.

I really don't want to go weekly -- I like having the break in between.

 

[Marshay]

Someone asked about what we all are doing. here's are schedule (meet 2x/month for regular meetings and have additional w/e activities if sponsored by the SU/council) but we try not to do too much -- they have things going every single weekend!

Camp Daisy (SU)

Muffins for Homeless (Yellow)

Christmas Fashion Show/Caroling at Senior Center (Spring Green)

Winter Craft making snowflakes to decorate school library windows

Cheer & Tumbling (SU)

Pajama Party and Game Night (LIght Blue)

Sweethearts Dance (SU)

SHARE Movie (SU)

Valentine's cards for Senior Center (Green -- we're not buying any material but using existing stuff from home or nature)

World Thinking Day (Ecuador -- we are similating going to the country in a big box "the airplane", getting our "passport stamped", visiting landmarks like climbing mountains "girls will bring backpacks", hiking the rain forest "stuffed animals" going to the beaches "girls will bring sunglasses and hats" and seeing the volcano "we'll similate a volcano". My co-leader is from there so she's bringing lots of picture to share, we'll sing some songs and learn phrases and she'll talk about life in Ecuador.)

Police Station Tour (Magenta)

Wednesday Etiquette Meeting and then Saturday Tea Party and Easter Egg Hunt (Orange)

An older Girl Scout is doing our Rose petal night for us as part of her Silver Award

Girl led night (their choice)

Mother's Day, Father's Day meetings and also work on making Daisy Doll

Ice Cream Party/Year End

===========================
I'd love to hear what you guys have done, too...esp with Journeys since we haven't done that ... will do it next year.

Any recommendation on which Journey's book to do? I see there are 3 new ones now.

 

[TexasTodds]

ok...just have to toot my own horn..(this may be no big deal for some people...) but I have just learned how to sew (hand stitching...) The short story is that I was never able to take home economics, so I have just always made do with either stitch witchery, or iron on patches to hold things together. Now with two boys in scouts, and now a Daisy also, it was time to learn. So, this week, I have sewn on one fun patch, the center petal, and three of the other petals (yes, I know they are iron-on, but I am trying to get in the practice!). Also, the remaining troop numeral to replace the one I lost before it got ironed on, and the AOL patch on my son's boy scout uniform.

Now I can't wait to get more of the fun patches to sew on!

We meet on the 2nd and 4th Wednesday from 6-7 pm. There are times I would love to meet for a half hour longer, but it does seem like herding cats at times already, so we try to keep circle time to 10-15 minutes, and then just really re-enforce the "petal lessons" during the snack and game time also.

Is anyone using the Journeys yet? Do you use the girl's books also? We are planning to start them in the fall, and wondered if it was worth it to have the girls buy them.

Thanks!

 

[clanmcculloch]

And it seems like we have different rules for meetings too. We are allowed to use our homes for meeting sites. And we aren't allowed to pay for a spot for a meeting. I kind of feel bad about this as we use my church and I feel bad not making a donation on behalf of the troop.

With meetings in the home there could be liability issues. Some councils have taken a stance that it's easier to just say never rather than evaluate each situation while other councils just step back and stay out of it entirely and assume there will never be any problems while other councils are somewhere in between where you have to get the home approved.

As to paying for a location, you can still make donations of sorts to the church. You can donate your time in the form of service projects to show your gratitude. Maybe help with spring cleanup or fall raking or donate extra boxes of cookies for after service treats. This is not payment; it's showing gratitude and re-enforces the sense of community to the girls (we help each other).

 

[solstice621]

As to paying for a location, you can still make donations of sorts to the church. You can donate your time in the form of service projects to show your gratitude. Maybe help with spring cleanup or fall raking or donate extra boxes of cookies for after service treats. This is not payment; it's showing gratitude and re-enforces the sense of community to the girls (we help each other).

This is a great idea. I had been thinking of doing something like this already. I like the donating the cookies for treats idea! Thanks!

I feel so lost...all of you who are posting seem to be on the ball with everything and doing so much with your troops. We have barely gotten past learning the promise! Where do you guys come up with all of your great ideas?? We are really struggling to make this fun for our girls. I am trying my best to come up with some fun ideas but I am finding it hard to relate back to the petals. Do you have websites you use as resources?

 

[mickimousemama]

This is a great idea. I had been thinking of doing something like this already. I like the donating the cookies for treats idea! Thanks!

I feel so lost...all of you who are posting seem to be on the ball with everything and doing so much with your troops. We have barely gotten past learning the promise! Where do you guys come up with all of your great ideas?? We are really struggling to make this fun for our girls. I am trying my best to come up with some fun ideas but I am finding it hard to relate back to the petals. Do you have websites you use as resources?

We really have not done much either compared to what I have read about, at our first meeting we made name tags, on the back I printed the Girl Scout Daisy and the meanings of the petals, this was our first time meeting, so we just did a snack sign up and we let the girls and parents vote on if we should order the journey books (which we chose not to for now) and also the vest, smock, or back pack, one girl voted for the smock and the rest all wanted the back pack. So we ended up doing the back packs, since we were a new group we didn't have any $ to work with tho our SU borrows us $50 to start up. Our back pack's were $8 each at Hobby Lobby and we used 40% off coupons to buy them so they were under $5 each, at that time we only had 7 girls signed up. The following week was our fall greenery (wreath) sale kick off/halloween party.
For our November Meeting, we made Daisies using popsicle sticks and the petals with their meaning on them, the girls had to color themand then cut them out and we went over each petal with each girl as we helped them glue it all together. We worked on the Girl Scout Law, and learned the Girl Scout Squeeze. We had a few weekend events in November, one was a GS Santa workshop, all girls in our SU made small crafts to sell for foodshelf donations for a Santa Workshop they would be hosting in December, other than the leaders daughters only two of our girls showed up for this event.
In December They had the Santa work shop, but none of our girls were able to help out (mostly too shy) There was a caroling event at local nursing homes, but my daughter and I were the only ones that attended. At our December meeting (which had to be re-scheduled, and re-scheduled numerous times because of bad weather) We made keychains using pony beads and ABC's beads with their names, and one pony bead to represent each color of the daisy, and to help them remember their meanings. They put them on their back packs!
For January we made Valentine cards for people in the nursing home and read a story from the Journey book (The story did not appeal to the girls at all) We then talked about being friendly and helpful and had each of the girls draw a picture of what they thought being helpful looked like. (We earned our yellow petal (Friendly and Helpful).
In February we have our Cookie Kick off, while We talk with parents and get everything handed out the girls will be working on valentines for their Daisy Pen Pals. Our actual meeting is the night before World Thinking Day so I am trying to think of a project for them to do for that.
I'm only the co-leader so I haven't been involved much, but I'm making a list of fun stuff I think we should start doing. I will try to remember to share! I found a fun blog yesterday about a troop in SD I defintely recomend checking it out! http://daisychainsmom.blogspot.com/

 

[Marshay]

I feel so lost...all of you who are posting seem to be on the ball with everything and doing so much with your troops. We have barely gotten past learning the promise! Where do you guys come up with all of your great ideas?? We are really struggling to make this fun for our girls. I am trying my best to come up with some fun ideas but I am finding it hard to relate back to the petals. Do you have websites you use as resources?

Remember each troop is going to be different based on your girls and leaders' interests.

My co-leader and I just like to do all sorts of things and we meet once a month to plan (plus tons of emails). Basicaly we read the different petals and brainstormed some ideas to earn those petals. Our leader meetings are actually a lot of fun b/c we both thrive on creativity and planning. I am very lucky to have such a great co-leader.

If you google Daisy girl scouts, you'll get lots of ideas.

Also, ask your girls.

I did one Treasure Hunt to find some things early on and when I didn't do it the following meeting, ALL the girls were upset. So I quickly learned that we need to do a treasure hunt at each meeting.

Good luck! Remember to have fun, too!

 

[amez]

has anyone decided how many cookies to order for booth sales. I have to order in a few days and I really don't want to over order, but of course I want to maximize our sales. Any ideas or suggestions?

 

[Suellen]

We don't order for booth sales. We have a cookie cupboard that we can go to and we pick up as many as we want for that sale. Then we bring back the money for the per box cost.