I am a volunteer, like every Girl Scout leader! My troop is not a well oiled machine that has no issues and I never claim for it to be that way. This is only my second year of running this troop and I feel as though I'm doing a pretty good job, although I know there have been some hiccups this year!
Its been 3 months since our troop nearly tripled and I'm still trying to get the hang of it! It certainly has it's challenges with the increase in number of people in the troop. I always get some non supportive parents every year who get mad at me over the smallest of things. But I also have really supportive and encouraging parents who let me know that I can handle it and that I am doing a great job!
So far in 3 months (If I count the rest of this week through Sunday), I have:
- Recruited 2 leaders, 4 assistant leaders, 3 communication assistants, 2 cookie assistants, and set up a meeting time that works for a troop of 40.
- Collected money for and registered 30 girls and 11 adults
- Collected money, gone to the store, and bought 18 uniforms
- Collected money, bought shirts, dropped off and picked up finished 31 Troop shirts
- Collected money, ordered, and picked up 30 Service Unit shirts
- Met with new leaders to make sure they understood all of their level information for badges and journey stuff.
- Had troop participate in Service Unit Juliette Low Sock Hop
- Held 5 regular troop meetings
- Posted information for 2 Council patch programs
- Organized a parent cookie meeting, signed up for 60 council booths, set up a sign up site with all council booths for parents to sign up for shifts
- Organized clothing drive drop offs with over 115 bags of donations
- Had troop participate in Council blanket drive and drop off and had over 100 items
- Took initial cookie orders, scheduled to pick up the troop cookies, got a truck set up to get cookies, set up a sign up for initial cookie order pick up.
- Had troop participate in Service Unit Christmas card making for Meals on Wheels
- Had troop do a canned food drive for a local outreach
- Organized floats and costumes for our city Christmas parade
- Organized and bought all the supplies for Christmas card making in our city to go to CASA and a local shelter for women, children, and families.
- Did a Christmas card delivery at CASA and the local shelter
- Did the council blanket drive drop off at City Square who helps the homeless and those in need.
- Organized a Christmas Party with awards, food, and a craft for over 50 in attendance
- set up a sign up for parents to bring food
- bought all the stuff for the crafts
- ordered all the fun patches for awards
- went to the store and bought all the badges and journeys earned for awards
- Organized to take the troop to a nursing home to deliver Christmas cards, sweets and go caroling.
- Organized, collected money, and paid for 3 events with anywhere from 24-52 in attendance
- Organized and put information out for 2 future events. Will collect money in the near future.
- Make sure everything is ready to go for cookie pick ups on Sunday
- Wake up early (3:30am) to take my daughter and some other girls to a local news station to promote cookie season!
- Organized, with my cookie assistants, 34 girls cookie orders that totals to over 5,200 boxes of cookies to be picked up by their parents.
- Set up a weekly schedule to collect cookie money and hand out more cookies to those who order more.
- Let my house be invaded by over 2,000+ cookies for the next 6 weeks.
- And get Cookie Season Started.......
Seems hard to believe that all of this was done in just 15 weeks!
We have 6 weeks of cookie selling, meetings, and 2 events. Then 13 weeks of meetings and events before summer!
I tend to forget sometimes just how much has to be done to make this troop run as smoothly as it can, with some occasional kinks here and there. And I have a feeling most of the parents of girls in my troop have NO idea what all it takes to make this troop of 40 run, but I am very grateful for the few parents that do tell me often how Thankful they are for everything that I do for their girls! Its those words of encouragement plus the smiles on all the girls faces at everything we do that keep me doing this wonderful Volunteer position!
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