AnneinMpls

Okies....what are your thoughts on "auto-belays"?? They have 11 of em at Vertical Endeavors which is where we'll probably go (those folks just seemed a lot more professional and used to working with kids than the other places).

Found the official wording from WAGGGS:

Member Organizations must also adhere to the Girl Guide/Girl Scout Methods, which are: Progressive Self Development; Learning by Doing; Teamwork through the Patrol System; Service in the Community; Outdoor Activities; Active Co-operation between Young People and Adults; and Symbolism.

This came from http://www.wagggsworld.org/newsroom/documents/pdf/WOSM/Fundamental%20Principles.pdf which itself is an interesting read.

More later...

Anne in Mpls

LOL! Foggy, thank you - I find a lot of value in the tongue-in-cheek responses as well. These examples do point out how often the things we spend time on really don't have anything to do with the program we hope to deliver to the girls.

I'm hoping that if we can define more clearly *what Girl Scouting is* (or what we hope it to be!) we can better maintain our focus.

I found this at the WAGGGS website:

"Our method of training is to educate from within rather than to instruct from without; to offer games and activities which, while being attractive to the girl, will seriously educate her morally, mentally and physically."

Girl Guiding by Lord Baden-Powell (1918)

The Girl Guide/Girl Scout method is the specific way we work with girls and young women to achieve the mission of WAGGGS. It is an integrated approach with certain key elements:

Commitment through the Promise and Law

Progressive self-development

Learning by doing

Teamwork though the patrol system and training for responsible leadership

Active cooperation between young people and adults

Service in the Community

Outdoor activities

Symbolism

The GSUSA website does't hae much to say on methods, but focuses more on the four program goals. I would say that any valid GS method would have to help in achieving those 4 goals. The WAGGGS "key elements" seem to be a mix of methods and goals. Clarity is needed

Those 8 methods of Boy Scouting are inspiring. What are our methods? Have we ever set down and defined them? Looks like something like this is going to be discussed at our next national convention, according to a recent email I received on the GS trainers list.

So...

What are *our* methods?

Girl Planning?

Girl-Adult Partnership?

Handwork?

Outdoor program?

Uniform??

What say you all?

Well, I looked into our council's ropes course, and their minimum age is 13 so we'll need to look elsewhere.

http://www.rei.com/stores/bloomington/pinnacle.html has some info on the climbing wall at the REI store near us in Bloomington. Does $125 for a 2 hour chunk of time sound good?

http://www.pjaschotterfitters.com/climbing.php3 is located out in Stillwater. They do "kids climbing parties", 6 kids, two staff belayers for $99.

http://www.verticalendeavors.com/ve/scouts.htm is in St. Paul. They have a class specifically designed for GS: $30 per girl for what looks to be a 4 hour class.

Ok, I know this topic started as "ropes courses" but it looks to be that indoor climbing will be more accessible to us.

Anybody familiar with the facilities I've noted here? Which do you recommend?

Thankee!

Anybody have experience with this? Seems to be a big hit with our girls but it's not something I've ever done before. Our council offers low ropes and high ropes courses. What does a first-timer need to know? What kind of preperation is good for the girls to have before-hand?

Co-kernals! I love it

Scoutnut, you're a busy busy lady!

G'mornin folks!

Hoping we've got some more of us out there - welcome to Louise!

Louise, it sounds like your Brownie troop may be keeping tabs on a traveling mascot this summer? Would love to hear about other things you have going! So many troops shut down for the summer. I remember at one time some councils would only provide insurance for troops for 9 months of the year - yikes! That's all changed now...

I know my daughter's Brownie troop will continue meeting through the summer - but without herself and 8 friends! They all flew up to my Junior/Cadette troop ) Both troops are hoping to do some spring recruiting. My troop will be doing some weekend camping - they are leaning towards horseback riding. I was hoping to take them caving They also just got a taste of climbing so we'll hit our council's ropes course.

What's going on for summer - let's hear!

Anne in Mpls

Scoutmaster Ron, yes, that's the one I'm thinking of. Uncleguinea is likely correct on the timeframe too as that would have been when I saw it.

I'm doing up my own version - but curious if others are using this?

I cant remember what the thing's called or I would find a copy online...

It's a high adventure kind of survey used for recruiting - does this ring a bell? Do any of you use this, or have made your own that you'd be willing to share?

Thanks!

I'm gonna maybe sound silly but...

Where do you buy parachute cord?

Well, it's been rocky...

We lost nearly *half* our troop when one family moved out of state. (They had 5 girls!)

3 of the remaining girls are related (cousins) - one of whom is "wallet girl" (stole my wallet after the first meeting of the year) and one of whom the family is refusing to pay for their cookies from the cookie sale...we are trying to tactfully work through the situation but I do think we will lose these three girls as well.

We are left with two girls who are my asst. leaders' daughters, and two other wonderful girls with somewhat sporadic attendance. We also have 9 Brownies flying up (one of whom is my kiddo). So we have basically 13 right now but no cohesive group feel after 7 months.

We have had a fairly full program: astronomy nights at the Observatory, snowshoeing, swimming, two weekends of cabin camping (no camping background for any of the girls and we're finally into good weather!)

I want to continue building our outdoor program. I want to recruit but I worry about how to do this successfully. It feels like it's been a year of false starts so far.

The more I write and think, the more obvious it seems that we need to do some heavy recruiting. What is step number one in doing recruiting?

Anne confabulated in Mpls

I've been musing a bit on the words "aloft and free". It seems to me that the horizontal carrying of large flags has only become common since 911. (I may be wrong on this...maybe I'm only recently noticing?)

Gazing upward at our flag is to me full of optimism and looking into our future together.

911 has on some levels left us all with a shared trauma. For me, I remember how blue the sky was that day. "Perfect flying weather" I said to myself when I first saw the images..."this could not have been an accident". Looking into the sky has changed some now. Gradually I'm returning to enjoying our wide skies that seem to go on forever. (When I moved back from Europe having lived there for four years, I was suddenly struck by how much bigger the sky seems here.)

Carrying the flag horizontally feels like mourning to me. It has a heaviness to it, a slower pace, and a respectful remembrance. Still, it's better for all of us to see our flag "aloft and free". Symbols *are* powerful. It's never "just" a symbol.

I deeply appreciate the carefulness and thoughfulness of this group. Thanks for listening.

Peace,

Anne in Mpls

Awww...but just think of the alternatives...

That group of AOL-patch-wearing scouts could have dropped out instead of crossing over.

That "chaplain" kid? Could have fried himself dropping acid just because there is no god so why care?

That scouter with several position patches? Maybe a few less boys in Scouting.

(I understand the desire for proper uniforming - really I do! Breathe....breathe...keep it all in perspective!)

Peace out,

Anne in Mpls

Hey folks - this board's been quiet lately, so how bout a general rollcall?

1. Introduce yerself

2. Say a lil something about your involvement in Girl Scouting and any other scouting programs

3. You can include an update on your current Girl Scout program

Okies,

I'm Anne. I live in Minneapolis and am a pretty much lifetime Girl Scout. Have also done some time with Cub Scouting and Boy Scouting. Currently, we're preparing for our Service Unit Court of Awards - we just started up a new Junior troop this year that has been basically one challenge after another and I'm hoping we'll finally find our stride over the summer. I

m also a Council Trainer and will be our SU's orientation specialist this coming year.

Peace out,

Anne

(now it's your turn!)

Greetings!

Two key ideas I try to use:

progression - give them something to cut their teeth on - present choices that offer real differences of pros and cons so that there's something worth discussing and their decision will demonstrably affect the outcome.

trust the process - acknowledge even the barest hint of a programming idea that comes straight from a kid's mouth without undue judgments as to the idea's worthiness (barring unsafe and unethical activity!), and point them in the direction of how to pull it off effectively.

On the other hand, try to avoid the mistake I'm prone to making in letting things stall out because I'm too hands off in waiting for them to generate the program! They need some real tastes of what's available and they need to know that they are real possibilities. Maybe invite another troop's plc to come in to present how they pulled off a high adventure experience.

I find maintaining the momentum to be the really difficult part during a troop's startup phase.

Peace out,

Anne in Mpls

I think maybe there's something else going on with this kid... leaving for part of an event because he needs a break to go play video games. Have you asked the parents about this? This is just odd. A kid who doesn't want to be at an event either doesn't come or leaves early and doesn't return. They don't say "I need a break." This sounds like a kid with asperger's syndrome or some such thing. The other piece that fits is his reluctance to be in a POR even though he's served on summer camp staff. How is he with general basic social skills? How does he do one on one? What do the other boys think of him? Ask one of your more mature scouts. How bout his parents? How do they explain his behavior? Something is up with this kid. I'm not saying "give him his eagle". I'm just curious about what makes him tick. or tock

I picked up an old copy of Sea Exploring just because it had great program possibilities. You can do names or initials in International Flag Code, call up your local Coast Guard folk or water patrol to do boating safety - we did this at a youth fishing day, with a plastic tarp outline of a boat, and learning port, starboard, fore, aft...also everybody tried on lifejackets before getting into the "boat".

There's great music for a sea-going theme, sailor's chanties, hornpipes, and think of the knotwork -

Square knot work is very easy to learn - it's a basic form of macrame. Many many crafts like macrame were carried out at sea during long voyages (including embroidery, knitting, nalbinding and crochet).

It might help to focus in on an era? There's pirates, privateers, merchant marines, explorers, immigrants, vikings...

If you need more inspiration, pick up a couple books by Robert Lewis Stevenson: both Kidnapped! and Shipwrecked! have great descriptions of life aboard sailing vessels.

S'all I can think of off the top of my head...

Peace,

Anne in Mpls

G'morning!

Here's an update on the new troop:

I got leadership of the Brownies turned over to my asst. leader. Unfortunately, program there has now become mainly cut and paste crafts and they've cut frequency of meetings down to twice a month.

I'm still the committee chair for that troop, so I'll need to find a way to communicate to them on building the program back up. Changes were made without my input or I would have had a lot to say!

In the Junior-Cadette troop we have 8 active girls in three patrols. Patrols were closer to "patrol size" before we had 6 girls (all from the same family!) move out of state over the holidays. We have 9 active Brownies flying up - they have begun meeting with us on the weeks they don't have a Brownie meeting.

We were trying to do patrol leader meetingd separately from troop meetings, but attendance was an issue, and with such a small group, 3 pls and a treasurer, if one person is absent it leaves a big hole. We'll try having pl meetings right after troop meetings.

One of my asst. leaders is still too adult-directed - tends to want to sit the girls down and deliver information via lecture - I've not yet found a way to effectively curtail this.

We have our first overnight event coming up next week as we finally have some troop funds to work with. This one is basically a huge lock-in at the health club with many troops from all over the Council - swimming, yoga, basketball till 2 am and an opportunity to practice packing and shlepping gear and using the buddy system. The following month, I'm looking for a cabin-camping weekend and some day-long winter outdoor activities like cross-country skiing. I'm hoping to get the girls up to speed on camping skills in time for the area-wide Prairie Flower encampment, and hit some state parks for camping over the summer months - some situated for canoeing, and one has caving closeby. So I think we're going in the right direction for active program, but patrol system is looking like it will take a while to develop as we're a youngish inexperienced group.

Advice and comments are always appreciated!

Peace,

Anne in Mpls

This post made me smile, mainly at the memory of a gentleman scouter. At a brief training session on the uniform method, this older scouter was describing the importance of wearing the uniform correctly as scouters because we serve as the role models. He himself was very sharply turned out in full uniform except for those funny beads he was wearing - I was way too green at the time to know they were legitimately part of the uniform But what stuck with me was what he ended with: What do we say to one who is wearing the uniform improperly? and he demonstrated shaking their hand respectfully without drawing attention to the uniforming mistakes. His entire demeanor communicated kindness and respect - those qualities were as much a part of the uniform he wore.

I think, and perhaps I am reading more into the lil story than is truly there, the point may be that uniforming is one of the 8 methods - humiliation for improper uniforming is not! Others here may not have witnessed "uniform policing" at its most heavy-handed and may find it hard to imagine that such unscoutlike behavior could occur around a good and proper scouting method. If a story like this one can gently chide someone who's gone this path - if they can see themselves in it because the humor allows the message to get through - then such a story may have some usefulness. (It could use a rewrite here and there to polish it up and increase its usefulness.)

Thank you for the opportunity to remember a good scouter,

Peace,

Anne in Mpls

Here's what we did last month to help our girls understand the process better..

I started off by describing what they would be doing - how the patrols can give ideas to their patrol leaders and what happens when those ideas are brought to the patrol leaders meeting. I gave each of our patrol leaders a very simple patrol meeting agenda - basically take attendance and list three events happening this spring that were of interest to them. While the patrols met, I brought 4 chairs (for myself and the 3 pls) to the front of the room and arranged them in a semi-circle and then gathered everyone back together for a demonstration patrol leaders meeting. I explained that at the patrol leaders meeting, we spend the first few minutes on a leadership skill, and then take care of troop business. For the leadership skill portion, I "taught" the pls "positive encouragement" because it's short and sweet and easy to do in front of a bigger audience. I explained what positive encouragement is, when to use it and gave examples, then went around the group and had each pl roleplay giving positive encouragement to her neighbor. Then we moved on to the next part - I asked each of the pls to make a report: who was there and what their ideas were - we also always include in our reporting the "minority opinion" - sometimes one person's off-the-wall idea has some real merit and can point us in another direction for program. From these reports we were able to determine which events to go ahead and register for.

It was important to keep the whole thing *brief and concise* - otherwise you'd have a whole meeting of mostly sitting and watching. But we found this to be time well-spent. They got to see their patrol leaders in action, they found out that there are real skills to be learned - leadership doesn't just come naturally, it got more of them interested in someday being a pl, let everyone know that every opinion is valued and recognized. Our group is pretty young yet - patrol leader meeting attendance is spotty if we fo these apart from our regular meeting night, and I don't think any of them are making phone calls to their patrol members on their own yet. But they are actively recruiting, which I take as a good sign. (Our numbers went down again because we had a family move to Chicago over the holidays - they had *6* girls enrolled in our troop, ans they had divided themselves amoung the 3 patrols..) So right now we only have 3 registered members in each patrol, but we have 9 new girls starting next week (crossing over from the Brownie troop)so that should put us back up to 6 in each patrol, assuming every patrol does an equally good job at recruiting new members

Peace out,

Anne in Mpls

As a Council Trainer, I have to confront the image problems head-on. Most new leaders come in thinking that GS is a fun afterschool activity where they'll sit and do crafts. And unless I break through that somehow at training (and if the leaders bother coming to it!!) that's exactly what their troop does.

It's not the girls who object to "sweat dirt and bugs" - it's their mommies - and these are who our troop leaders are. But frankly, councils have been spending a lot of money making their camps all comfy for these leaders, and *these are still not the leaders who are bothering to take their girls to camp*.

These same folks don't want a "large" troop because they perceive it as "too hard to manage". What they want is an exclusive clique ready-made for their daughter. I work super-hard on this one in training to get out GSUSA's message of inclusivity. I tell these leaders straight up - if you're limiting who joins in this way, thst's a clique, not a GS troop. Then I move on to how bigger does not equal "more difficult", and try to get them to understand the benefits of multi-age versus one-grade-level for making the troop function well.

This same group also doesn't want meetings to run longer than 40 minutes and they certainly don't want to meet every week. Sheesh. So, I bite my tongue to keep all my mean thoughts to myself, put the encouraging smile back on, and give them the tools and information on how longer meetings are easier to run and meeting consistently keeps girls from dropping out. "What? You mean meet during the summer?????" Yha...I work on that one too.

As cheesed-off as I am on these issues, I consistently get good evaluations. I wish I could see some hard data on how the troops do. I think training is where we've got to put our emphasis. As an organization we bemoan how tough it is to get volunteers that we then think we ought to just let them do it any old way. But isn't doing a job well the biggest motivation to keep at it? We gots to give them the tools.

Peace out,

Anne in Mpls

Yha...the name Studio2B is supposedly the result of market research. They tested a bunch of names and this was the one with the most appeal...

It's supposed to represent a "limitless space" and Girl Scouting's program goals are recast into the "Become Belong Believe Build" Studio2B motto.

Cutting through the "geeky" perception is admittedly difficult. I don't know yet if this new name does it. The trappings of the new program - the cutesey charms and bracelets - are very much like the ones in the department stores that are selling very well ...to Brownie-age girls. Seems to me they missed the mark big-time on that, since this program is supposedly for teens. Seems to me any market researcher ought to know that a teenager is going to want to steer clear of anything that totally appeals to 7 and 8 year olds. I think they basically threw a lot of money away on this program.

Anne in Mpls

From my reading of this post, I think he's looking for a way of modelling what actually happens at a patrol meeting and PLC...

If you've got a few boys who are of the talkative sort, you can have them up front and roleplay a discussion. Sometimes just one opening line written on an index card, and maybe a brief characterization of opinion is enough to get the ball rolling - you don't need to then script the entire thing.

You can tailor this, throwing in a couple "characters" who display difficult-to-manage behaviors, such as The Complainer or Dictator, but at this stage you're better off, having each one in the roleplay try to do their best without playing up the negatives.

Is that more like what you're needing?

Anne in Mpls

G'mornin all

Just starting to get back in the swing of things after the holiday break...

Bob, I definitely agree with you're wanting to get clearer on the data. I'd be interested in how close your numbers are to what Purcelce ended up with, given that there were private responses reported.

I also think that Purcelce's analysis may have some merit - "we use it when we need to" to me sounds like, when a smaller troop has new Scouts, then they can put together a new scout patrol. I'm still working out how to fit NSP into the premise that "patrols gather to form a troop" - in the small (patrol-size) troop, implementing NSP might smack of dividing rather than gathering. What I'd rather see is folks doing some hard recruiting to fill a full NSP

Also, the Social Scientist in me has a deeply felt need to chant "correlation does not imply causation!" whilst smacking myself in the head in ablation for sins against research methodology

In other words, it is yet to be determined in some *other* study whether small troop size is caused by not using the NSP - and keep in mind that a 1:1 corelation is a very rare thing in the social science world so direct causation would still be mitigated by many other factors.

What I'm begining to think is NSP needs to go hand-in-hand with strong recruiting in order to impact overall troop size. By itself, it probably does a fine job at *retention* of new scouts. We just need more data - mayhaps the BSA has this data?

Purcelce is doing real good playing Fantasy Social Science here, and properly prefaced this by saying it was an informal poll. Still, the numbers are interesting to look at.

Peace out,

Anne in Mpls