October 31 2018

To You, Girl Scouts

The Grand Scheme of Things    1 Comment    , , , ,

Daisy with the Silver Fish. This award symbolizes the fish that swims upstream against the current instead of one that allows itself to flow with it.

Happy birthday J-Low and Happy Founder’s Day!  This message comes to you thanks to the lovely Ann Robertson who pointed out the History section of GS University via one of her blog posts.  Thanks Ann!  Unfortunately, it looks like the History portion of this website didn’t get very far, and I hope GS University in general isn’t going away because I think it’s a good start to something.  Maybe it can get a new makeover and integrate with whatever mega-system GSUSA is creating right now.

But back to the History section of GS University!  There’s not much on it, but there are a few neat entries like this one featuring a letter from J-Low in an The American Girl magazine issue from 1925 which features a nice surprise at the end.  Continue reading

October 9 2018

This and That

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    4 Comments    , , , , , , ,

There’s no overall theme or topic here other than to catch everybody up on some outstanding questions and updates to the blog.  And some random and nonsensical thoughts about whatever.

GSWAC (Not a Council) Survey Update

GSWAC (Not a Council) Surveys went into early retirement. No GSUSA pension plan though.

I decided to ditch the GSWAC (Not a Council) Survey series.  For them to have any validity, I need at least a thousand respondents at the very minimum.  The two largest Facebook groups – one with 29,000 members and the other almost 19,000 – do not allow polls to be posted.  In fact, one doesn’t even allow links to blogs!  I had to really scrape and beg to get over 800 for the last survey, so I think it’s going to be too hard going forward to get what’s needed in order to make this series worthwhile.  I’m bummed, because I thought it had a lot of potential, and I know the answers were used by people in various levels of Girl Scouting.  And I had gone to the trouble of making a cool graphic for the series too!  Oh well.  Continue reading

September 19 2018

Junior Think Like a Programmer Rewrite

Troop Leader Resources    5 Comments    , , , , , , , , , ,

This time last year I was up to my eyeballs in national governance and great excitement about the October 2017 G.I.R.L. National Convention!  I have no idea how I juggled service unit and troop responsibilities for the new troop year on top of becoming a national delegate late in the game, how I prepped for the National Convention, and how I kept up with the blog discussion about membership dues.  This year I’ve only (I say ONLY – ha ha!) had just troop and service unit responsibilities, and I’ve still been completely swamped along with my life outside of Girl Scouts going nuts.  I’m squeezing this blog post in while I have a few moments to myself.  Calgon, take me away!

But back to the World According to Girl Scouts.  Summer before last, GSUSA released a set of three STEM Journeys for the Daisy, Brownie, and Junior levels called Think Like an Engineer, Think Like a Citizen Scientist, and Think Like a Programmer.  The activities for these Journeys can only be found in the Volunteer Toolkit (aka VTK).  The Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador levels each received their own set of three STEM Journeys this past summer.  Continue reading

August 23 2018

A Moment of Silence, Please

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    2 Comments    , , ,

Today I came across the 2018 GSUSA catalog, and before opening it, I felt a disturbance in the Girl Scout Force.  As if millions of navy blue uniforms suddenly cried out in terror and were suddenly silenced.  I fear something terrible has happened.  And it has.

The Polka Dot OFFICIAL scarf has apparently been discontinued and is no longer available.
Continue reading

August 20 2018

WaBak Patches, Plaques, Porches, and Parks

Traditional Stuff    No Comments    , , , , , , , , ,

It’s WaBak time again, y’all!  Here’s an update with all sorts of WaBak tidbits!

Patches

If you haven’t seen the WaBak patch collection I’ve got going on, take a peek!  I add new ones (or old ones!) when I run across them, so be sure to visit the page every now and then.  I recently added the 2018 camp edition:

Thanks for the pic, Sarah!

Continue reading

August 17 2018

My Printer Weeps… For Joy!

Experiences as a Leader, National Operations    3 Comments    , , , ,

On the heels of my last complaint report about how printing one of the Journeys found in VTK clear cuts forests in one fell swoop, a fellow leader from my council brought to my attention a random file that she found while searching for something else.  It looks like a catalog published by GSUSA, and it’s called Girl Scout Essentials 2018-19.

She also pointed out that this catalog includes a resource that’s related to something I have been complaining about researching for a while now.  In fact, one particular post from last December about my frustration with the lack of printer friendly resources has the most views of any post on this blog, so it’s definitely struck some kind of nerve with volunteers.  It’s called Twelve Page Pet Peeve and it details how aggravated I get when I see something published by GSUSA that I want to print, but doing so would eat up an entire ink cartridge.  But I try to be one of those people that brings something to the table if I criticize point out an issue, so I wrote a follow-up that includes a mock-up of a Brownie awards log so that someone – anyone – could see what I was talking about.  Continue reading

August 4 2018

Junior Think Like a Citizen Scientist My Way

Troop Leader Resources    7 Comments    , , , , , , , , ,

Cabin Camper

I’m beginning to get ready for the new troop year and so I’ve been browsing through the available programming that’s out there.  As you probably already know, GSUSA released a slew of new badges and Journeys in July.  So between what they released last summer and this year, I have a lot to go through.   Admittedly the only thing we earned out of the new material last year was the Brownie’s Cabin Camper.  Technically we started on the Cadette Outdoor Journey (made up of the Night Owl, Trailblazing, and Primitive Camper badges) by earning Trailblazing, so I guess that counts too.  Continue reading

July 15 2018

Peruvian Brownie Quest LiA Journey Weekend

Experiences as a Leader, Ideas    1 Comment    , , , , , , , , , , ,

Because llamas!

I was thinking about this blog the other day, and I realized I should highlight my experiences as a troop leader more often.  I’ve shared what we’ve done as a service unit with our annual summer camp in previous posts, but I should step back from the big picture on occasion and show what’s going on in my world at the troop level.  I have to state for the record that this was best troop year I’ve experienced in my eight years as a leader.  We had a smaller troop this year, but we more than made up for it with activities, service projects, meetings, and trips.  I was very blessed to have a great set of co-leaders, parents, girls, and a very supportive service unit.  I’m going to share a couple of the highlights from this past year in future blog posts.  This one will feature the Peruvian Brownie Quest Journey LiA Weekend from this past January!  Continue reading