AnneinMpls

Welcome Joni! Tell us a little bit about what your troop is up to And in case you don't hear it often enough - thank *you* for taking on that cookie mom job! Anne in Mpls

Kudu, thank you for that very detailed explanation - I had not known that "patrol method" was such a departure. GSUSA has used the term "patrol system" to describe its form of troop government at least since 1947. Let me get my older handbooks, and go over it a bit.. First, from my facsimile copy of How Girls Can Help Their Country, p. 120 under "Power of Captains" (Captains were our equivalent of troop leaders, adults over the age of 21.) "A captain appoints her own lieutenants and patrol leaders for one year, when she can either reappoint them or substitute others. She can

Thanks so much Yes, I think I'm pursuing the square peg round hole idea without timing. Anne in Mpls

SSscout, let me help clear things up for you First off, there is no such thing as GSA. We are Gir lScouts of the USA, or abbreviated GSUSA. Our headquarters are in NYC. Secondly, the "traditional" GSUSA model is the patrol system. Reference any GSUSA handbook from 1912 up to the present, and, although the information has become scant, it is still in our present-day handbooks. Historically, GS troops were large enough to fully implement the patrol system. Numbers declined, leaders began leading only single-grade level troops, troop size declined, so GSUSA now also advocates two

Thanks everyone Now we're cooking with gas! No wait..that's a different station I'm thinking there's something I can pick up at home depot that will make the square peg round hole game easy to set up. Ooh...just got an idea to fit our emeergency preparedness theme...the sticks need to be whittled to fit the gaps in the vent! Chemical attack! Could use dry ice for the "smoke" coming through the holes.. The fuzz stick relay too is looking easier to manage safely, with penalties for removed shavings (which would encourage careful cutting) and for *blood* (And, oops!

Yha, I think this just might be a case of once again our council gets in the way of actually playing the game of Scouting. *If* we only did it as a day trip, I wouldn't need to file anything at all. But, we're making it an overnight in order to use up some soon to expire cookie credits and therefore need to file with council. I think we'll just submit the overnight paperwork without the horse rescue visit, cause we're also planning a cave tour in the area that same weekend. Anne grumbling in Minneapolis

My apologies Bob White! I've been all over the internet lately gleaning what I can from where I can. That particular game came from http://www.boyscouttrail.com/content/game/game-411.asp which is *not* an official BSA site. SSScout, thanks so much! Yes, you and I have achieved an understanding Indiana Jackie indeed

G'mornin! Allscouting, how do you handle finances, being dual registered in GSUSA and BSA with their very different policies on troop/crew finance? Thanks! Anne in Mpls

Hi again Cheerful Eagle! I visited the horse rescue in our area today - council said I needed to do a walk-through myself before bringing the troop, and they are also requesting that they fax their cert. of liability insurance to them. Just curious - did your council request this too? I hate it when council puts me in the position of being a pain in the neck. I mean, I get where they're coming from, but we won't be riding, and we should be covered by GSUSA's insurance anyway. Just a little frustrating. Especially when the horse rescue says they've had Girl Scouts volunteer before and t

Hi again Cheerful Eagle! I visited the horse rescue in our area today - council said I needed to do a walk-through myself before bringing the troop, and they are also requesting that they fax their cert. of liability insurance to them. Just curious - did your council request this too? I hate it when council puts me in the position of being a pain in the neck. I mean, I get where they're coming from, but we won't be riding, and we should be covered by GSUSA's insurance anyway. Just a little frustrating. Especially when the horse rescue says they've had Girl Scouts volunteer before and t

Thanks guys for your help (I'm sure I'm not the only Girl Scout on here giggling at the thought of needing the Boy Scouts to show us how to use knives safely though! But, really, thanks - I know it was offered in a generous spirit I know sometimes print does a poor job of conveying what one is trying very hard to communicate so bear with me while I try again We're putting on a wide game, an event held outdoors in which the whole of it put together is the game - we're still in the planning stages so we are in need of an overall creative theme. From there we'll flesh out what is to ha

Hi folks! (I think I've finally figured it out - what we in Girl Scouts call a "wide game", y'all often call just a plain old "camporee"!) So, anyhoo... I'm looking for ideas for how to work jackknives into a wide game that we are planning for April. We're expecting 150 girls, so we'll either run the game twice, for 75 in the morning, and 75 in the pm, or have rather large groups of 10-15 rotating. I'm planning two different stations around this - one doing basic safety using the folding tagboard model knives, and real knives at the next station. So far the best thing I can come up w

Good morning! Every so often I'll try to reactivate this thread - sometimes GS topics go silent. Just remember, if you're looking for a place to talk GS, this forum is always here! To find it, just click on "Forums" then scroll waaaay down the page, and click on Girl Scouts. Now, the next screen might not show much! You'll need to select "show all topics" and you'll see that we do indeed disucss many things! Go ahead and reply to something, or start a new topic! We'll be glad to hear from you!! Currently, still leading a combined Jr-Cadette troop. I lost one girl to venturing thi

Some more ideas: 1. developing a troop annual calendar: include SU events, have all school schedules on hand 2. Brainstorming: use badge topics as a jumping off point for coming up with challenging program ideas then flesh it out by deleoping plans that allow progression in skill 3. Get outside and get active: girls who are more physically active will be more able to show initiative and more exposure to what's out there will give them more to draw from when triyng to come up with ideas of things to do 4. ideas for leader-initiated activities to "prime the pump": go on a s

Good morning folks! I posted my version of a patrol leader manual to a couple folks on here - email me at avarberg@yahoo.com if you would like it also. I thought now would be a good time to talk about more of the "how to do it" - how do we use the patrol system to move a troop towards more girl planning? Every trained GS leader has probably seen that graph - the Girl/Adult Partnership. On the other hand, current GS training is light on the actual practicalities of how to make this happen! So let's talk about that I always gotta start from troop size - tiny troops will almost al

Thanks everyone for your input! I'm kinda in a bad place because I have to obtain buy-in from a bunch of adult leaders who think I'm a nutjob because I let girls light fires and climb trees. Hmmm, think I need to have two more stations: one on lighting fires and one on tree climbing bwahahahaha. Anne, instigating stuff in Mpls

http://www.ssrguides.org/resources.php?sub=tdceremony More info found here about why we call it "Thinking Day" It's traditional to get up before dawn and hike to a high place where you can see the sunrise and take part in "The Great Think", thinking thoughts of friendship for scouts and guides around the world. I keep telling myself I'm going to revive this tradition - NEXT YEAR, really, I will. But it will have to be on the closest Saturday because my work day starts before dawn! Peace to you and yours! Anne in Mpls

Oh dear - I had a very lengthy reply to you privately all set to go and then my flaky internet connection dropped and I lost the whole thing. Email me at avarberg@yahoo.com and I will send more details! At least in my own email program, if the connection drops I have a draft! Peace! Anne in Mpls

Regarding your question, do patrol leaders meet separately? Yes, they should - the traditional term for the patrol leader meeting in GSUSA is the "Court of Honor" (yha, I know...) Originally, patrol leaders were appointed, and any misbehavior of scouts was handled by the Court of Honor - the patrol leaders when assembled had authority to impose punishments, etc. Obviously, this has changed over time Generally, whenever we elect patrol leaders, I schedule a patrol leader training (my dining room table - I serve tea) and I have patrol leader manuals that I've made up - I've photocopied p

Good morning! Our troop will be designing a wide game (this term is used to mean many different things - I'm talking about the sort of game where patrol sized groups travel from one point to another along varying routes to perform various activities that may or may not be scored) and our theme (so far) is "Be Prepared". Ok, the theme needs work, of course. The rough idea is a set of stations where they will learn and practice skills for meeting plausible emergencies: simple first aid, pandemic, evacuation, sheltering from weather emergencies, etc. Maybe use the Red Cross "Get Ready" three

I too send my greetings out for World Thinking Day 2008! This weekend is the official weekend for TDOTI - Thinking Day on the Internet. We'll be at the library tomorrow morning to help girls get online to chat with Girl Scouts and Girl Guides around the world. Here's some info so you can join us! See http://www.scoutlink.net/ for much more info. http://www.girlscouts.org/internet_safety_pledge.asp is the internet safety pledge that girls should discuss and sign before participating. You might choose to include this on your permission slips. Same thing also at GoGirlsOnly http:

Oh for cool You might take a look at the "Get With the Land" program. http://www.girlscouts.org/program/gs_central/insignia/online/participation_patches/getwithland/ is the link to it. BLM fits right in there. You're already earning Horse Fan, Horse Rider, and for the ones who are bridging, possibly the Horse Sense IPA, right? All of these have a horse breed activity. Blue skies! Anne in Mpls

Hiya Cheerful Eagle! My best advice to you would be to fully utilize the full GSUSA program to the max: take advantage of your council's camps, and as your girls get old enough, do the whole tripping and travelling thing. Check out Destinations but also look at hostelling. Encourage girl-planning: really make this happen. you may have to "endure" some pretty silly girly stuff like a day at the mall but they'll need this (hopefully only once or twice!) if they're going to take you seriously that you will support their planning. (I now have a group of girls that can't stand to do one more

Juliette Low - founder of GSUSA - was also a close friend of Kipling's - it's rumored they would leave boring dinner parties in their finery to go fishing!

Where's your PLC at on this?