The life of a Girl Scout Leader

Here is our schedule for the year: 3:30-4:15pm - Troop Meeting 4:15-5:00pm - Girls Split for their level badge and journey work Leaders and assistants help during our troop activity time Leaders and assistants run the Daisy, Brownie, and Junior levels once they split into those groups.  Since I do not have a level to teach this year I am able to be there for everything else. I am there to answer questions, collect money, make sure all the leaders have everything they need, fill in for leaders if they are sick, and anything else that may come up!  October 23rd was our first official meeting for the year with all the new leaders and assistants and new girls! During troop time for this meeting we played a game, girls did their level work, and we end every meeting with a giant Friendship Circle with our Make New Friends song! 

At the start of the new Girl Scout year on October 1st, 2016 we were way understaffed for Volunteers! It was just my Co-Leader and I for almost 40 girls, that just wasn't going work anymore. So we sat down and came up with a list of positions that we could use to help the troop run better without all the stress being on us alone. Here is what we came up with: Daisy, Brownie, & Junior Leaders- Plan meetings for their level Daisy, Brownie, & Junior Assistant Leaders- Assist with meetings for their level Daisy, Brownie, & Junior Communications Assistants- Send messages about events & meetings Daisy, Brownie, & Junior Cookie Assistants- Assist with cookies during cookie season Refreshment Coordinator- Remind parents when it's their turn to bring snacks and drinks Fundraiser Organizer- In charge of coming up with fundraisers to do during the year Decorating Committee- Parents who want to help with decorating for parties and parades So instead of d...

This year we only had 12 girls coming back to the troop which was good cause that was double the amount that we started with the year before. We started preparing for recruiting in August. We made plans to be at the local health fair, and all three of the Meet the Teacher nights at the schools! We had a couple girls at each event there to hand out flyers and bracelets to girls that might want to join Girl Scouts! We made a slide show video to post on our local city Facebook page. That had everything we had done for the past year in pictures! We went to the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd grade school to do a Girl Scout Rally at lunch time to get girls ready for the recruitment party! We posted some more on the local city Facebook page to advertise for the recruitment party. We also planned, with our service unit team, a Recruitment Party! Girls were able to come and go to 6 different stations. They got to learn the Promise & Law, sing songs, play games, make indoor Smore's, and ma...

We just finished out our year with a big celebration especially for the girls! We were able to use some of the cookie profits to throw the girls a Tea Party to follow their End of Year awards! End of Year Awards/Bridging We started by having all the parents meet in the Sanctuary of the church to watch the awards being handed out. This time we handed out all the event patches and badges separately. (In the past we have done awards by the girl, we can one up at a time and tell all the awards she earned)  The order we handed out awards: Events Cookies Daisy Awards Brownie Awards Junior Awards Bridging  Membership Pin- Had a family member come up and pin the membership pin on the girls. Volunteer Awards- Had each girl go awards their family member with the patch and award for being a volunteer this year.  We then did group pictures: Current Daisy group  Current and Newly bridged Brownies  Current and Newly bridged Juniors  Troop Picture...

Starting a new troop: "Girl Scout rules state that in order to do any kind of fundraisers for your troop you must participate in the Girl Scout Cookie Sales the previous year" No fundraisers until after you participate in the Cookie Sales in January/February You can have supplies donated to the troop. Our returning girls had not done their bridging ceremony or received the patches and membership stars for the previous year.  I had my normal summer garage sale and decided to use the money I made to buy supplies and donate it to the troop! Items donated to the troop from June to October 2015:  3 pencil containers for markers, crayons, and colored pencils 2 package of each: markers, colored pencils, and crayons. 2 pairs of scissors 1 pencil sharpener 6 binders (Daisy year 1 & 2, Brownies, Juniors, Troop, Cookies) 5 pencil pouches for binders 3 (3) subject spirals for each level 1 Plastic Box to use as mailbox 1 box of green file folders to use in m...

We have made it to the end of our first year with this new troop number, our first year using the church as our scout home, our first year with me as the leader, out first year doing awards ceremonies, our first year having lots of parents involved, our first year making a couple thousand dollar cookie profit, our first extremely active year. This makes me tear up just typing it. So much has changed in a year....... I was in a troop with a main leader and I was one of 3 assistant leaders 2 of the other assistant leaders decided they didnt want to lead anymore The main leader decided to leave scouts all together Me and one of the other assistant leaders, who was going to quit leading, decided to co-lead the troop The other assistant leader decided to come back to help out The last assistant leader decided she wasnt going to help out again Then the other co-leader decided she wasnt going to lead again Then the assistant leader decided to come back and help out for sure this n...