Now is the Summer of Our Discontent
Experiences as a Leader No Comments 
eeyore, leader issues, parents, pity parties, troop 2562, troop stuff
Welp, it’s the end of the school year, and it’s time to submit all of the fun financial and administrative paperwork for the council. One of them is the Troop Forecasting Form in which you attempt your best to give the council an idea of how many girls you’ll have in your troop next year. I sent out an email to my parents to get their input as has been done in the past by our primary troop leader.
I should preface that I’ve always been aware that with each passing year, you lose girls. I know it, and it’s just inevitable, especially when you hit the Cadette level. This has been the case since I was a scout, so there’s no reason to think this is anything new. The reasons have been discussed elsewhere ad nauseum.
To be honest, this past year was very difficult and disappointing for me. I had a few personal issues, one being a major unexpected surgery. These issues thwarted some of the events I had planned, plus since it was my first year being the primary troop leader, it took me a while to get my feet up under me and figure out what the heck I was doing. Now I realize I had no control over these things and did the very best I could in those circumstances, but it’s still disappointing to me.
Three Juniors bridged up to Cadettes, and two of those will be moving to another troop that has more Cadettes in it since we were losing a leader – plus in my opinion, I really believe it’s best to have at least four or five girls in a level in order for them to have the best experience. The third will no longer be a GS.
All that said, I was a little caught off-guard when one of my first year Junior girls interrupted me during our last meeting to declare very dramatically that SHE WASN’T COMING BACK NEXT YEAR! For a second, I was very afraid I would hear an avalanche of “Neither am I!” but thankfully everyone else held back at that time.
So back to the email! I sent this out to our 1st year Juniors and 1st year Brownies (another leader heads them up). By the way, thanks a bunch to the person on the GS Gab FB Group who gave me the text for the second paragraph:
We would love for all the girls to continue in Girl Scouting next year and recognize that there are more demands on their time the older they get. I think Girl Scouting is an excellent opportunity for girls to explore and do things they may not otherwise get the chance to do. Because of that, we are willing to work around schedules and do what we can to keep girls with us. We would rather see her when she can come to meetings than for her to drop out entirely. This is an individual choice, so if she decides to not continue, please reply so that we will know if there are any spots available for new girls who may want to join in the fall.
We’ve already got a lot of fun stuff planned for the fall! The Llama Trek trip has been moved to the fall due to scheduling conflicts, plus the weather will be a lot cooler.
Thanks for your support!
Like I said, I truly expected to lose a few Juniors, but I’ve lost half of them (not counting the ones that bridged). Half. 😐 I know I’m not supposed to take it personally, but I really don’t see how you can’t when you put so much time into what you do. Sure, the parent always tries to say that her daughter loved Girl Scouts and you were a great leader, but she wants to pursue other interests or put more time into [insert activity here]. Also known as, “it’s not you, it’s me.”
As I said before, I had already resigned to losing one or two (or even three!) girls a year when they hit 6th grade. But five (not counting the three that bridged) going into 5th? Half? I mean, you can sugarcoat that all you want, but Lord help, how can you not take that personally? Talk about an ego killer. Especially after the year I had from a personal standpoint. So if I’m down this many, how many will I lose next year bridging up to Cadettes? Will I even have enough to have a troop at that point? At least we’re not losing many Brownies. 🙂 So there’s that.
Anyway, as the summer passes, I hope I shake off these doldrums and get excited about the upcoming year. I’m sure I will the closer I get to August. So just give me my pity party right now with a big chocolate cake and chocolate icing. Add some colorful sprinkles and maybe some sparklers to top it off. Or cupcakes. I like cupcakes.
If things get really bad, send Cher over: