Communication Station!

Recently I have been struggling with figuring out the best way to communicate that works best for our parents/girls AND me.  I am very much a computer based person, because if you saw my office space, you would understand.  Paper falls into the enormous void known as my desk, and it’s never to be seen again until I find it and have no idea what it’s referencing.  Plus, I don’t do well when someone asks me what time their daughter needs to be at whatever event or if they’ve paid for something at the beginning of a meeting when I’m trying to get the girls settled.  My brain short circuits.  I also would like things to be as automated as possible and to not have to send multiple reminders.  I need a reminder to send reminders.

So I asked the Girl Scout Gab FB group how they communicate with their parents and girls.  Here are their answers (names removed) if that helps.  I haven’t researched all of these yet, but I have already tested out a few.  I can post my specific experiences and reviews of some of them on a later post.

• Signupgenius.com
• Rallyhood.com
• Google calendar
• Scoutlander
• Wiggio
• Shutterfly Share Sites
• Text messages
• Phone calls
• “Tried a bunch, parents still don’t respond.”
• “The girl led aspect shows them another piece of how hard it is to manage a group. Funny thing once a girl hold s this position she is never late or misses a deadline! Now that’s progress.  Make a girl position who is the reminder. She can call, email, text whatever. In our all level multi troop this is second tier job. Just under the major officers.
• Remind 101
• Facebook
• “Call patrol leaders who call their girls & report back to you.”
• Private website on blogger
• “Send out initial email blast and put info on calendar. Send out one reminder near deadline. After that, it’s up to them.”
• Newsletter – “I still have families with no net and email. We also do girl folders for permissions and newsletters.”
• Email via Google Groups
• “Troop Google Site that also has a Google Calendar that pushes to whoever wants that on their calendar.”
• “we use all sorts of communications, because no parents communicate (sad but true, can you believe that!!!!). we email, we use evites, we use facebook. now we have taken to printing out a sign up sheet and it’s on a table outside our room, as parents drop off, a few of the girls solicit them to read and sign. that seems to work real well. well, it works when it’s meeting season, we stop after the school year and start up again when school begins. we do things during the summer, so that’s email and evites, and if you snooze, you loose. oh well we notified!”
• “It would depend on how parents prefer to receive communications. Take a 5×7 business card and ask each parent to indicate how want to be contacted. My parents prefer email and Facebook communications.”
• Yahoo Groups
• “This year we are giving the girls the reins. They will have binders with the calendar. We also will have a girl who will be in charge of emails, texting and phone calls. We are cadettes this year. They will be running the show. “

I hope this is helpful for you!  Thanks to all who contributed on this FB post.  If you have more suggestions, feel free to share them in the comment section.

Edit:  Forgot to add the link to the category Online Resources from my Collection ‘O Links.