Another Adventure Begins~ First Troop Meeting of 2010-2011

Troop 9691 is beginning our 4th year as a troop and we had a great first meeting for this new school year! It's a blessing to have such a strong group of girls each eager to have fun as a Girl Scout and be a part of the Girl Scouting experience. Many of our girls are returning Girl Scouts, and many of them are just starting out for the first time ever. What ever the case, we all are here to focus on building our "Courage, Confidence and Character to make the world a better place this year"! We all have special gifts and ways to make a difference in our own lives and the lives of those around us; this year will hopefully encourage each girl to be inspired to be all she can be. As leaders of this awesome troop, we -Lisa, Kristi, Novia, Stephanie and Teri- would like to say it is an honor to share time with these girls and get to know them over this next year.

Our first meeting of this school year began with getting the girls situated with a pre-meeting craft... we made "Friendship Circle" SWAPS. For today, we instructed the girls to put their SWAPS on their shirt or vest, but typically their SWAPS will either be traded with other troop's Girl Scouts and/or placed on a canvas baseball cap. Our new Girl Scouts will receive their canvas baseball cap at our next troop meeting.

After our SWAP activity, we came together to prepare for snack.

Today's snack was a story about the qualities of what goes into a Girl Scout Troop. Leader, Teri read the "Recipe of a Girl Scout Troop", while the Junior Girl Scouts emptied the ingredients in a large bag. We made Girl Scout Gorp and we believe the girls had fun eating it!

Next we had the returning Girl Scouts lead the Troop in opening our meeting with the Girl Scout Promise:

On my honor, I will try (I pledge my good name and respect for others)
To Serve God (I will observe my personal spiritual beliefs)
and my country, (I will be a good citizen of the United States of America)
To help people at all times (I will be courteous and look to assist or serve others)
And to live by the Girl Scout Law (I will use the Girl Scout Law as my daily guide)

The Girl Scout Law
I will do my best to be:
Honest and fair,
Friendly and helpful,
Considerate and caring,
Courageous and strong, and
Responsible for what I say and do,
And to respect myself and others,
Respect authority,
Use resources wisely,
Make the world a better place, and
Be a sister to every Girl Scout.

We discussed the Girl Scout Promise as a group and the significance of holding the right hand up showing three fingers. (This sign stands for the three parts of the Promise as well as the "three C's" of "Courage Confidence and Character" from the Girl Scout mission statement. FYI~A Girl Scout handshake is a formal way of greeting other Girl Scouts and Girl Guides. You shake hands with the left hand and give the Girl Scout sign with your right hand.)

PROJECT for our new Girl Scouts~ To help them learn the Girl Scout Promise, we encouraged the girls to take home a printed copy of the Girl Scout Promise to color and post somewhere visible to help them memorize.

We broke into our different Girl Scout levels and played a game to learn more about each other. After the game, the leaders took the opportunity to talk with the girls to get a feel for what kind of things they would like to do and accomplish over the year. Each girl was asked to share one or two things they would really like to do this year as a troop. The girls came up with some fun ideas! ASK YOUR GIRL SCOUT WHAT SOME OF THE IDEAS SUGGESTED WERE.

As their leaders, we will try our best to organize their goals into tangible projects.

We ended our time together in the Girl Scout traditional "Friendship Circle"...

Shouting "GIRL SCOUTS ROCK!" when we were all done. These girls have strong lungs!

Thank you moms who stayed during the troop meeting and helped things run more smoothly!

Your time and help is MUCH APPRECIATED!

Recipe for a Girl Scout

What a great way to kick off our first meeting and snack time together... creating our own Girl Scout gorp mix by sharing the qualities of what it takes to make a Girl Scout...

By Patricia Harlow (Click HERE for full size copy)

The girls seemed to enjoy their Girl Scout gorp snack.

Friendship Circle... A Girl Scout Tradition

The friendship circle is often formed at the end of meetings or campfires as a sort of closing ceremony. Everyone gathers in a circle where they cross their right arm over their left in front of them and hold hands with the people on either side. Once everyone is silent, the leader starts the friendship squeeze which is passed from hand to hand. Often the girls will silently make a wish or think of something they are thankful for after their hand has been squeezed before they pass the squeeze along. Also, in some larger groups, the girls put their right foot out into the circle when they receive the friendship squeeze, so that everyone can see it travel along the circle.

Uniform Information

For our troop, we have chosen to go with the VEST as our standard uniform for the Daisy & Brownie level and your choice of Vest OR Sash for the Junior level. Any under shirt or bottoms may be worn with the vest or sash. Please encourage your Girl Scout to wear their uniform to every troop meeting and any Girl Scouting event.

Click HERE for the visual of what you will need for your uniform.

Girls are responsible to purchase the following:

VEST (or Sash for Junior)
Wavy Flag
Council ID Patch (for appropriate level)
Troop Numbers- 9691 (for appropriate level)
Insignia Tab (for appropriate level)
World Trefoil Pin (goes on tab)
Membership Pin (for appropriate level- goes on tab)

Troop is responsible for the purchase of all patches earned through the year as the girls meet goals and complete projects.

Please try to have your uniform by our first Ceremony Celebration which will be held on Tuesday, August 31. We will be "Bridging" a number of Girl Scouts as well as recognizing a number of girls in an "Investiture" and "Re-Dedication" Ceremony. Contact your troop leader with any questions regarding where or how to purchase your Girl Scout uniform. We're looking forward to a great year!

GIRL SCOUTS ROCK!

Troop Calendar 2010-2011

Listed below is a list of our meeting dates and general events. As we add continue to plan our year, we will add the details to this calendar.

JULY:
19 ~ 1st Day of School

AUGUST:
3~ AT 6 PM~ Girl Scout Rally (Registration and INFO Meeting for 2010/11)
17~ 1st Troop Meeting
31~ CEREMONY CELEBRATION (Bridging, Investiture, & Re dedication Recognition... a special time for some special girls)

SEPTEMBER:
7~ NO MEETING due to Intercession
21 ~ Troop Meeting

OCTOBER:
5 ~ Troop Meeting
19 ~ Troop Meeting
24~ Cookie Training
31~ Juliette Low Birthday!

NOVEMBER:
2 ~ Troop Meeting
16 ~ Troop Meeting

DECEMBER:
7 ~ Troop Meeting

JANUARY 2010:
4~ Troop Meeting
16~ Cookie Sale Begin
18 ~ Troop Meeting

FEBRUARY:
1 ~ Troop Meeting
15 ~ Troop Meeting "World Thinking Day" Project
27~ Last Day Cookie Sale
28~ Cookie Money Due to Troop

MARCH:
1 ~ Troop Meeting
6-12~ Girl Scout Week
12~ Happy Birthday Girl Scouts!
15 ~ Troop Meeting

APRIL:
5 ~ Troop Meeting
19 ~ Troop Meeting

MAY:
3 ~ Troop Meeting
17 ~ Last Troop Meeting

Troop "Camping Fun" To Be Announced

CAMPING FUN!

For much of the year our Girl Scouts talked about wanting to have a "Camping" experience with all it's fun and Girl Scout traditions. With that in mind, the leaders got together and decided to make a special time for the girls with a Camping/Slumber Party at the school as an end of the year treat. We had a great time and will do our best to make this an annual troop event!

DAISY GIRLS

BROWNIE GIRLS

JUNIOR GIRLS

Our "Camping Fun" included:

(Click on separate links below for more details)-

• Setting up tents in the school gym for the girls to sleep in.
• Making "Sit Upons" (a Girl Scout Tradition!)
• Ordering pizza for dinner
• Making SWAPS (a Girl Scout Tradition!)
• Learning "Camp Fire Safety" (a Girl Scout Tradition!)
• Building a Campfire (a Girl Scout Tradition!)
• Singing and Sharing Campfire Songs & Stories (a Girl Scout Tradition!)
• Making S'Mores (a Girl Scout Tradition!)
• Lights Out at 10:30 PM... (Yeah, Right!)
• Rise and shine... Breakfast time!... Zipper Bag Omelets!
• Games
• A number of Girl Scout mom's and sisters helping out!
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

BELOW~ 5 puffy eyed, exhausted, and beautiful leaders who would do it all over again for the sake of giving the girls a Girl Scouting Experience!

Time for Set Up!

For our "Camping Fun", we wanted the girls to actually sleep in tents as if we were camping outside. We had tents graciously donated for our use by Girl Scout parents and got them set up inside our school gym. The tents were large enough for each troop to have their own. Daisy Girls in one, Brownie Girls in one, and Junior Girls in one- with an extra tent left over!

Camping indoors was great; since we live in South Texas, being indoors meant we did not have to deal with the hot humidity, the bugs/mosquitoes, other little critters, and the rain... which we DID have a down pour storm in the middle of the night. Thankfully, we were indoors!

As the girls arrived, we had everyone set there stuff in a place along the wall until we had a chance to get the tents set up.

...setting up the tents...


Melody and Kelsie, our two teen helpers for the night! Both of these girls have Brownie sisters and were former London ISD students. Thank YOU, girls for all your help!

Sit Upons ~ A Girl Scout Tradition

What is a sit-upon? They are homemade, usually waterproof pads used to protect the user's backside from the cold and damp while "sitting upon" the ground! They are also great for sitting any where the sitting surface is hard... a Girl Scout tradition for camping.

We made our sit upons out of heavy duty table cloths bought at Wal mart (60x102 inches Oblong @ $5.00 each), yarn, old newspapers & plastic shopping bags. We decorated the sit upons with permanent markers and stickers. Each table cloth made 16 sit upons. ("How To" directions below). Here, the girls are decorating their sit upon covers.

"Sit upons" ready to be sat upon!

It had sprinkled rain earlier in the day and the ground was a little damp.

Thank goodness we had our "sit upons" for enjoying the camp fire fun!

HOW WE MADE OUR "SIT UPONS":

• Pre-cut the tablecloth into rectangle sections with pinking shears. We cut our pieces into 12" x 15" sections since we had large sized table cloths for our large group of 24 Girl Scouts. Discard the side edge pieces since the corners are not square and it's extra fabric anyway.
• Place two pieces together, insides facing each other.

• Hole punch around all sides of pre-cut pieces. If your hole punch has a hard time going through, you may hole punch each piece individually. OR, forget the hole punch and yarn idea, and simply use Duct Tape to secure the edges.

  
• Decorate the pre-cut pieces with permanent marker. We used a variety of colors as well as stickers. Have each Girl Scout put their name on their sit upon.
• Cut long pieces of thick colored yarn to be used to stitch the edges closed.
• Wrap scotch tape around each end to create a tight, hard end for the yarn to more easily go through the hole punches.
• Stitch the outside edges on 3 of the 4 sides. The girls can stitch with a straight stitch or a whip stitch- whichever they choose. We also used colored pony beads to embellish the yarn as the stitches were done.
• When 3 of the 4 sides are completed, stuff crunched newspaper and/or plastic shopping bags in the open end. DO NOT OVER STUFF.
• Finish stitching the 4th side and tie securely.

Your "Sit Upon" is now finished and ready to be sat upon!

WHATCHAMACALLITS... A Girl Scout Tradition

Special
Whatchamacallits
Affectionately
Pinned
Somewhere~

SWAPS for short.

We started making our SWAPS back in April in preparation of our "camping fun". During our "camping fun", the girls were given colorful baseball hats to display their SWAPS. We also had time to make a few more. Although we didn't trade like part of the tradition states, the girls had a great time.

Thank you, leader Stephanie for coordinating the SWAP projects and supplying all the materials. This was such a wonderful idea!

Learning about Camp Fire Safety... and Singing Songs

... and having a fun time, too! Camp fires, singing song, and telling stories when camping... a girl scout tradition!

Before we ventured outside to build our campfire, our Girl Scouts learned "Camp Fire Safety" by building their own Edible Campfire (idea found HERE). We went step by step building our edible campfire, discussing what we'll need to do and NOT do when we are at our real camp fire outside. A Camp Fire "Fun Patch" was earned for our camp fire time.

Our "Edible Camp Fire"

Do's:
Keep long hair pulled back in a pony tail
Stay behind the fire ring of rocks
Enjoy our time singing songs and having fun
Put out the fire with water, followed by burying it with dirt
Be safe and follow rules

Don't:
Go past the fire ring without an adult
Throw anything in the fire
Go on the side where smoke is blowing
Be unsafe

Girl Scout, Lacy, holding our "talking stick", (made from a feather duster, decorated with ribbon and beads) sharing a funny story...

Songs led by Daisy Girl Scout Leader, and "Master of Ceremony", Kristi. Leader, Teri, gives thumbs up for a great time!

Lights Out...

Our goal was to have the girls ready for bed and "Lights Out" by 10 PM for lights out... BUT, we were having so much fun outside with the camp fire, we didn't get back inside until around 10:15. Several of the older girls wanted to take showers, but of course we said, "No"... our camping needed to having a little "roughing it", so we offered up "cleaning with wipies". The girls had bathrooms to use, a roof over their head, airconditioning, and a place to brush their teeth. They could survive not taking a shower for one night. The girls were in bed with lights out by 10:30PM. It took about 45 minutes for the giggles, whispers, and extra trips to the bathroom before the Daisy and Brownie Girls were asleep. BUT WAIT! What about the Junior Girls?... well, let's just say they had a little adventurous side to them -supervised of course!. (pictures below)

Daisy and Brownie Girls~

Several long strings of "rope lights", covering about 80 feet across the floor, served as a lighted path from the tents to the bathroom door in case any one woke up in the middle of the dark night and had to use the bathroom. The rope light path also was a nice night light for the younger girls; the bathroom lights were kept on all night and the door was cracked open as well.

Junior Girls~

Having a little fun exploring the halls, finding their way to the school office. WHY? Because how many girls can say they roamed the school halls in the middle of the night and hung out in the school office in their P.J.s? Only a few I think!

SSSHHHHHHH... don't tell any one we're in here.