AnneinMpls

Yes, I know we have many different options for how we can register. I've laid out the plan we've chosen, as well as specific questions that I have Thanks! Anne in Mpls

Hi Kris - interesting topic, but I'm not *quite* sure what you're getting at - can you start us off with an example? Anne in Mpls

Hi folks, I've really appreciated all your advice and wisdom as we move forward with our girls. We just arrived home last night from Lake Itasca (more in-depth overview of the trip in another topic). All 4 of our new Juniors came and because of the bunking situation, I put our 2 most self-sufficent Brownies in with them to fill the room. Those 6 functioned like a well-oiled machine from a bygone era - I gotta say how very proud I am of these sharp young ladies. Now this week we're heading into recruiting events for the Service Unit (District for you guys from the Red Planet ) If I

Hi folks! I've been wondering over this one. I think if we really looked at it carefully, most of us would agree we're better-suited to the needs and interests of a particular level in Girl Scouting. Instead, we hang in there with the same bunch of girls, usually our daughter and a few friends. This bothers me - it limits the opportunities for new girls to join, and the opportunities for our daughters to meet a range of caring adult role models. I just heard last night at our Council's Fall Preview, that this trend of tiny troops and more troops is really really expensive. Honestly, to

Backpacking in the Black Forest, riding the overnight train from Brussels to Munich with my bestest friend Cathy 2 years in a row for the older girl conferences, staying at the now gone Olave House in London with our troop, working all year fundraising to pay for our own horseback riding lessons all summer (thanks Mom!), being invited to sit in on a training session for Belgian troop leaders - it was in Flemish - I couldn't understand a word - but it was Scouting and it made perfect sense , our first co-op campout with the Boy Scout troop - we each planned activities for the weekend - the bo

Greetings all! Hehe - yup, first thing I saw in my inbox today was the email from the Service Unit for recruitment night - I've volunteered for doing one of the parks, so I'm definitely on the lookout for those Junior age girls! Brownies troops traditionally were often divided into smaller groups of about 6 girls each - hence the British term "sixes" to call the group, and "sixer" to name the girl taking care of such things as attendance (compares to "den" and "denner"). They're very careful to train Brown Owls that sixers are only in charge of "things", not other girls, because that is

G'mornin I'll preface this by saying I have a small amount of backpacking experience - not extensively enough to experiment much and compare and contrast, nor am I degreeed in physiology or anything! Seems to me that men and women metabolize sugars differently - that piece of hard candy or caramel at a rough spot in the trail doesn't seem to give women that same sort of burst of energy - small meals more often of the peanut butter/cheese/crackers sort seem to work better for us - I'd suggest to plan plenty of trail protein snacks for your co-ed venture crews! www.melpomene.org here i

Thanks bunches for your reply - yes, I agree patrol method is not appropriate for younger 'uns. And I apologize for asking you to compare Martian apples and Venusian oranges! If I might suggest a (necessarily flawed) rubric, GSUSA BSA Daisies - Kdgn. Tigers - 1st grade (both have parent and kiddo participating together) Brownies 1st-3rd Cubs/Webs 2nd-4th+ (pretty differently structured - for Brownies, every meeting is like a pack meeting, kinda-sorta - GSUSA recommended troop size at this age is 15 to 25) Juniors 4th-6th Boy Scouts 5th on up This is wher

Hi all - I'm really enjoying learning more about the BSA lifeguard certification. Also, find myself comparing and contrasting G2SS policy with GSUSA's Safety-Wise policy which I've been having to comb through these last couple weeks. No lifeguards on duty up at Itasca State Park where we're headed for the weekend, so I signed up to get my Red Cross Lifeguard training (trained lifeguard for *all* swimming required by GSUSA) - wow, things have changed a !!lot!!! since I got my RC Advanced Lifesaving 20 years ago. (BTW, to share the good news, I passed all my tests today - woohoo!!!!!

I know - I have a truly nutty bunch of girls - they even get excited about the serious "boring" adult-sounding stuff. Anyway, I restructured a bit so that they're forced to choose only *some* of these less fun-filled sounding activities Somehow I ended up with a troop of little professors like my own kid - at least they like fishing I think I do need to remind them we can always come back another time if we don't have time to do it all! We got filler activities up the wazoo - some are projects in progress, some new stuff. The girls are preparing all the meals (even though we're rota

hehe - it's always the adults who are the trouble makers I have one mom apparently really unhappy with the 5 am departure time I've set, and now they seem to have the idea this is negotiable....sigh. It's a 5 hour drive....add in stopping for a quick breakfast, etc and the whole day can slip by pretty quick. I'm already writing up a lil page regarding expectations for chaperones, including a substantial message regarding allowing daughters to enjoy their own experience of camp apart from mom (and to avoid allowing special privileges!), and the girls have already gotten to identify adul

Well, in just a couple weeks I'm bringing 15 girls up to Lake Itasca. As this is our first overnight outing on our own (we've done overnights with the whole Service Unit where all the activity is planned for us) we are sleeping indoors, cooking outdoors. We're staying at the Mississippi Headwaters Youth Hostel - if we like it, we'll keep this as a future destination for winter overnights once we move on to tent camping. We have 6 adults and a 15 year old helper. (Too many adults to my mind - comments?) I'm encouraging the 15 y.o. to function as an SPL. Due to the configuration of the spa

might try hooking up with the SCA folks.. www.sca.org

rotflol!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! "Cooperative approaches" indeed! I need to hold onto that tactful phrasing Yes, here on Venus we do things differently Back to our regularly scheduled programming...

So, I bring all our girls out to the Mississippi River Clean up Day, and we're taking a break for lunch. Charlie McGuire was there singing and playing,too. Then Ronald McDonald shows up. He raises his hand, and *shouts* over Mr. McGuire's playing and singing, "Heeeeeeeey, Kids!!!!" and proceeds to get numerous pictures taken of him with our girls in uniform by his handler, then slaps Ronald McDonald stickers all over their uniforms.....cringegroancringegroancringegroan. I had the girls move the stickers off of their vests. Yeech. (I don't know really how this relates to t

oh...hmm...how to say this without giving offense to anyone... Women are...different We have a volunteer position called a "leader mentor" but it's "understood" that leaders come to the mentor (and rarely that), not the other way around. The whole comissioning style just doesn't fly well on this side of the Tiber. Shame, that.

Wow, I wish Girl Scouting had this kind of supporting structure. Our service unit finally got a *really good* hardworking field manager (paid council staff) who came to nearly *all* of our SU mtgs and encampments - really helped us feel like what we were doing was *important* and recognized. She's moved away now, but now we have other council staff coming by to see what we're doing - the PR dept people, etc - looks like she's told people there we got it goin on Our girls have gotten to see themselves in print and pictures in council publications too. It's a neat thing you're thinking of d

Choosing songs for Cub Scouts becomes easier when you use the theme - I wrote up songsheets for our Cowboy theme and our Water theme (we did the raingutter regatta) Here's a very simple repeat-after-me song for the Cowboy theme: I'm going to leave! " Ol' Texas now " Aint got no use " For the long-horned cow " They've plowed and fenced! " My cattle range! " And the people there " Are all so strange! (There's a couple more verses - a lot of the songs I use come from Girl Scout songbooks (shhh! Don't tell!) and from the KidsSongs songbooks with tapes -

Hey folks...not sure why people are getting bent out of shape over someone taking some initiative to put a new piece of programming out there...not like he's upping the 10 commandments to 15 Anyhoo, this discussion reminded me that at one time Senior Girl Scouts used to have Mounted Patrols or Troops who after developing their horseback riding skills and horse knowledge would put it to use doing horse camping, horse shows, gymkhanas, service projects such as maintaining bridle paths, etc. Mebbe your idea might mesh better with the Venturing program now? Controlling a horse at the level

I'm fearful I may have much too much to say on this subject! I'll try to condense it down... I was a foster parent to a boy from my cub scout pack many years back (boy and his younger sister). Both seemed to have ptsd related to pretty severe abuse early in life. L. was on both antidepressant and ADD meds and enrolled in an EBD program school (emotional/behavioral disorders). L. was a kid who'd climb any building (this in a good mood generally), take off running for miles if scared or upset, and bust out windows if angry. We kinda had our hands full... Turns out his antidepressa

Thanks for your reply! Good thought on maybe 4th and 5th. Let me clarify what I'm planning on doing...keeping the Brownie troop going inperpetuity (sp?) and adding a separate Junior troop - I like the 3 year age spread, much beyond that and I'm a bit lost ) I think you're right about not recruiting 6th graders right now - we would be shortchanging them. I'll let our Service Unit registrar know More 1sts and 2nds for the Brownie troop and more 4ths and maybe 5ths for the Junior group. Any of the rest of you reading, I still would like more guidance on omplementing patrol method

Hi folks - I've already gleaned all I can from the Girl Scout forum so here I am to partake of your advice! General idea here is, how do I build up my 3 bridging 3rd graders into first, a strong patrol, and then a good strong troop? Background: I lead a Brownie troop of mixed ages - 1st 2nd and 3rd graders all together - this is what I like best because they get the experience of learning from one another - older and younger. I prefer larger troops - right now we have 15 and that's not quite big enough for my tastes. Bigger numbers allows greater opportunity for girl leadership.

page 12 of the old pink book "Games for Girl Scouts" It's not in the new yellow edition - I just checked. Your council might have a copy of this older edition that they could lend out or photocopy from - or try interlibrary loan. ISBN number: 0-88441-301-1

Hi Midnight, Just to clarify a bit, You may or may not be a "mandated reporter" - these laws vary widely from state to state. If you are a mandated reporter this should have been covered in your job orientation (although given the climate - they may have skipped gleefully over it...) 1. If you make your report as a mandated reporter, you are under more obligations to have credible real allegations. You might also have a right to hear back what actions have been taken by Child Protection or other agency in your area. 2. You also always have the option of making an anonymous re

Just wanted to share my experiences so far with the Studio2B program. (Let me preface this by saying that I'm a green-blooded long-time Gold Award Girl Scout active on 2 continents during parts of 4 decades....(there's a scary thought!!)) Currently, I'm my daughter's Brownie troop leader - we are a multi-age troop - meaning that I actively seek girls from 1st 2nd and 3rd grades so that they have all those great opportunities to learn from each other. Now I have 3 3rd graders ready to start Junior GSing and can't find a good troop to take them in - though I've been putting bugs in pe