Girl Scout Campover

The campover satisfied the “Camping” badge. Our co-leader camps with her family, so she knew exactly what to do. She had it at her house. She made lists and assigned girls certain foods. I didn’t have to do much. I made a Kaper chart with patrols. There were 3 girls/patrol and they were either a puppy or a bunny or a kitten. I assigned certain tasks for certain patrols. It worked about as well as could be expected the first time. They still want to play instead of work. After they got there and got settled, we set up stations. There was a knife station, a knot-tying station and a station where we made sit-upons out of an old vinyl tablecloth. After we rotated through the stations, she took them outside to set up a tent, which was good for them. After that, we got stuff ready for dinner. We had roasted hot dogs. We had some set the table, some set up the fire, etc. It worked really well. We had a good campfire, then went inside and watched a movie. We lost 2 during the night – they couldn’t sleep. I don’t think we’re all ready for an overnight camping trip, but some of us are. So I have to figure out how to take the ones who are ready. In the morning, we had everyone peel and chop their potatoes, then we performed a flag ceremony. We practiced folding the flag with pillow cases. I used one of the patrols to do the It wasn’t perfect, but we did well. Then we ate and got ready to go. Success!

 

 

 

 

 

Now we are in cookie sales – a crazy, fun time of year. Grace is signed up for resident camp this summer, and she has the option of earning money toward that or getting junky prizes. She’s going to earn the money, or “cookie dough,” so I’m trying to make it a very successful cookie season for us.

Our local community has quarterly summits, which I’ve been going to. They are good – good information, good fellowship. There seems to be a good team in place and they are trying to bring in former leaders to mentor and take on new troops.

Girl Scouts

We’re doing Girl Scouts again this year. Grace is still a Brownie, but we have some girls who have moved up to Juniors, and I’m in charge of them. We went to the rallies held in our area and were able to recruit some girls for our troop, which was nice. Now we have 4 juniors and 5 brownies. The junior badges are more difficult to earn, which they should be, I guess. But just like in school, the girls are reluctant to work on their own or make their own decisions. They want to be told what to do, then they don’t listen.

One of the badges is “Independence.” It’s full of valuable information, but it’s stuff they have to do at home or with their parents. I told them to make a poster as they did the parts that show what they did. Hopefully that will be enough. There’s another on called “Practice with a Purpose,” again, filled with stuff I can’t do for them or with them. I’m not sure how to enforce that one. For some of them, they did a kid’s 1K over Thanksgiving. That works for me.

We’ve started pushing more of the decision-making and planning to the girls. Some of that is good, some is bad. I figured out a kaper chart, but it’s a work in progress. Some jobs require more than one person, and if you’re going to rotate instead of draw every month, that makes it difficult. I guess I’ll make a 1,2,3 spot for those jobs and move them between the spots. But then I’d have to make ANOTHER chart that would change as our troop changes. I’m still working it out.

So far this year, we’ve had our Halloween/Juliette Gordon Low birthday party, Investiture/Bridging/Rededication ceremony, an afternoon of learning camping skills from another troop, our Christmas party at Shangri La and a campover to learn some camping skills.

Ceremony

My fake campfire centerpiece

Grace and her friend Taylor

Halloween/JGL Birthday Party