Was coaching another mom who is suppose to lead a petal for her daughter's Daisy meeting and it reminded me just how far behind I was in recording our Brownie proceedings. The good news is that I took the time to plan out several months of meetings at once, and so I have pretty good notes!
So, It's the first meeting in Oct, and we are OUT of my house (yay!!) The cabin is a bit rough - clearly the boys have been meeting there for a long time. But I think we can slowly start to add more touches to make it more appealing to girls.
But the thing is, it's a good size room. There's a sink, a bathroom, flags to use for a ceremony and a place to store our troop supplies. And we control when it's opened with our own key. No more can the school cancel our meeting because there's no school or because they simply forget to unlock the school for us (which happened on a regular basis last year).
I learned my lesson and did not conduct parent business at the beginning of the meeting. I did let the girls play duck duck goose at the beginning (big mistake) while waiting for all the girls to get there. Let me say now, avoid this game at the beginning, save it for the end. The girls get all worked up and then it takes half the meeting to calm them down again. I keep falling for this trap and vowed after this to find another solution for the wait of start of meetings.
I had decided that this year I wanted to incorporate the flag ceremony into our meetings. This meets the 5th requirement for the Celebrating Community badge.So the first half of the meeting was dedicated to teaching the girls what to do. We just used the basic ceremony found on the National Girl Scout site. This about what we do. I have it printed and in a plastic sheet I keep in my Girl Scout binder. That way, it's always handy.
announcer: "Girl Scouts, attention." Used to announce that the flag ceremony is to begin.
announcer: "Color guard, advance." This signals the color guard to advance with the flags, or advance to pick up the flags.
announcer: "Please join us in saying the Pledge of Allegiance." (all the girls recite as one with their hands over their hearts)
announcer: "Girl Scouts, recite the promise." The announcer says one line at a time and the girls repeat.
announcer: "Girl Scouts, recite the law" The announcer says one line at a time and the girls repeat.
announcer: "Girl Scouts, dismissed." Girls may leave in formation or be at ease where they have been standing.
So that there are no arguments about who "get to do it" we have this as part of our Kaper chart and rotate the girls. The girls are still young, so we have a "leader" who says one line of the law and then the rest of the girls repeat. I don't have a picture from that first meeting because I was so busy teaching them, but I have one from the following meeting - our Halloween meeting ha ha...
I had learned at one of my trainings that a lot of the troops are making their sit-upons out of decorative duct tape instead of the weaving I did as a young Brownie myself. Sounded good to me! What we did:
Supplies:
Roll of brown kraft paper or old grocery bags
1 roll of clear packing tape
rolls of duct tape - at least one per girl easy
quilt batting - Queen size was more than enough for 12 girls
sharpie marker ( to mark their names)
scissors to cut tape
Steps:
1. Lay out the batting and have the girls cut approximately a 11 x 14 rectangle of batting
2. have them lay the batting on the kraft and have them cut a 22 x 14 piece so they can make a "sandwich" of paper/batting/paper.
3. Seal up the ends with the clear tape to make the project easier to handle. This is a good time to add a name as well.
4. Have the girls start cutting long strips of colored duct tape to decorate the outside until completely covered.
5) Mark their names on each one with a sharpie, then cover over it with the clear tape.
Remind the girls to seal the entire mat so that water cannot get in and "grow" things. It was helpful to have some moms on hand to help with the tape just because it's so sticky. Count on a fair amount of loss with the girls cutting their own tape!
Also, the temptation for the well meaning moms is to do the construction and cutting for the girls. The key phrase I use regularly is "Let the girls learn by doing." And under my breath just for the mom's ears I follow with "even if it's wrong."
We are suppose to be building strong girls and strong leaders. This will not happen if we do everything for them. Let girls do these things on their own. It may not be Pinterest or Facebook worthy, but it will be real, and something they can be proud of
And that's it! Two of 130 badge requirements - check!
Sincerely,
Leader Mom in the Making
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