FOOD DRIVE

 

Our troop held a food drive on Saturday to collect food for Girl Scout Families in need.

 

I was so proud of my girls, they stood for 4 hours in front of our local market asking for donations. Our community is AWESOME! We had probably 10 carts full of stuff in just 4 hours. Awesome!!

 

A local church allowed us to set up and Sunday Girl Scout families will come fill their cupboards with groceries.

 

 

Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday

Juliette Gordon Low

 

GIRL SCOUT DANCE

Tonight was our Annual Girl Scout Dance.

This year Bringing Back the 80's

It was a great time the girls

really enjoyed it.

I enjoyed seeing all the girls dressed up. it is funny how 80% of them all dressed like my girls below.

 

 

One of the ladies made a photo booth with the neatest props ever. My girls had a lot of fun in the booth.

 

Of course we would choose the crude line :)

 

My girl is the one in the middle with the unibrow!

 



 Very clever centerpieces

 

 

Even celebrities showed up!

JK this is one of the Dad's dressed up like Slash

Our dances used to be Father/Daughter but that has changed to include all.

 

The boom box was one of the photo booth props. My Coco really wanted to bring it home but it was promised to the makers daughter. Funny how they want something that looks so old.

I actually had one that looked like this.

 

Glad it was a fun night.

I am working on some "fun" things to keep the girls interest. We may have to move things around with our meeting times etc to accommodate the girls personal lives.

 

 

 

 



Meeting #4

Our 4th meeting was a continuation of the our 3rd meeting where my cookie mom started the Cadette Budgeting badge. I work for a large bank and pulled some material from there on earning money, savings accounts and how they work. I was very surprised at how little these 12 year olds know about money and banking. Maybe I expected to much as one of the moms commented that she didn't learn this until high school. I tried talking to them about ways to earn money and how to save it. I had sample savings deposit slips and withdrawal slips. This was very difficult for them, even with the basic instructions on the slips. Hopefully when they see it again they will have learned something.

I am having a really hard time with the troop this year. I had one quit last week. My daughter is ready to quit. There is way to much drama at our meetings. I could go on and on. When I talked to the mom of the girl that quit, the reason she quit is that it is no longer fun and seems like it is work work work. I had to agree it has not been fun for me either. They are in school all day learning and studying. I don't want them to come to a meeting to sit there and listen to a lecture again.  I have to blame some of that on the journeys and the new badges. I am not a fan of the journeys. My goal for the future is to give them opportunities to experience things they would otherwise not be able to. This will include some "studying and listening" but more hands on experiences. They also requested more crafts and cooking. We may just have to go the old fashioned way of GS. Do things like home keeping, sewing, hospitality, outdoors events, etc.

 

I hope we don't lose anymore but they are at the age that GS is not so cool. I have to find a way to make it cool and make them proud to be a GS in today's society.



Service Project

 

I have chosen Operation Christmas Child supported by Samaritans Purse as our October Service Project. You can go here for more information. There are collection sites all over the country.

 

My family has done this every year for several years now. I love choosing items and thinking about the little girls or boys that will receive them. I have tried to promote it in our troop but usually just 2 or 3 participate. This year I will be giving each girl one item and she will have to get 8 of that item. We will fill 8 boxes, one for each girl in the troop. The troop will purchase the fillers.

Here is a list of items that we will put in our boxes.

Bar soap

toothbrush and toothpaste

washcloth

shampoo

crayons, coloring book, pencils, notepad

hard candy

doll, ball, jumprope

hair brush, hair tyes

 

I will add little things I can pick up at the dollar spot or dollar store. We will use the plastic shoe boxes from Walmart that are .97 cents each. That way they have a sturdy box to keep. We will also include a letter and photo in each box.

 

It will be a fun meeting filling boxes and discussing how we are doing a good turn!!



OUR NEXT MEETING PLAN

It has been a slow start and chaotic this year. Between finding days that all girls can meet, the school football schedule and my work schedule we haven't had as many meetings as I would like. So our next meeting in a couple of weeks, we will have alot to cover.

First up will be a short parent meeting to complete the health forms, contact info, dues requirements, etc.
I will also have everyone read and sign the code of conduct, adults and girls!

We will be choosing and explaining troop government. I did this last year with half the girls so the other half will have the opportunity to have a position this year.

We will also vote on badges, service projects and trips for 2012. To keep it simple we will plan for 2013 in December or January.

My plan is to do a service project, badge work, crafts and a trip each month.

October:
Service project: collect and distribute personal hygiene items for the VA Hospital here or prepare Operation Shoeboxes to send in November.

Badge: Budgeting/Money and NO BULLIES

Trip: Dance and Girls Fun Run

Crafts: decorate small clipboards and  tile necklaces. These I already have in our craft stock.

November:
Service Project: Food Drive for local pantry. This is a all service unit event.

Badges: Cooking (at the girls request MORE COOKING)

Trip: Camp Noark Work Day

Craft: I will have to come up with something for Thanksgiving and cooking

December:

Service project: Random Acts of Kindness- This will be something done individually, I will give them the tools and encouragement and they can roll with it.

Badges: Girls Choice or First Aide

Trip: Possibly a Christmas drive to look at lights / Girls Pick

Craft: Gifts for family, thinking salt scrub

Now if we can just pull it off!! :)

FUN MEETINGS

Our last meeting we made duct tape wallets. I found this idea from the Michaels.com


Ours didn't turn out quite like this. The girls decided they were more of a Clutch.

I took 1 sheet of felt and covered it with duck tape overlapping each side.
Turn it over and fold up half way
duck tape each side closed
cut the top to form a V
tape all edges
folder over the top
add velcro closure to top and bottom

when open you will have a felt covered pocket for money or whatever.
Some of the girls did patterns with different tapes and they also did the tops different.

They love the crafts.

Next meeting will be a parent meeting planning and preparing for the next few months.