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

July 5 2018

A 1950 Camp WaBak Kind of Day

Traditional Stuff    1 Comment    , , , ,

In addition to random write-ups about Camp WaBak here and there through the years, I’ve been detailing its history in a series of posts.  The first two were Camp WaBak’s Beginnings and Camp WaBak’s Opening.  This one will discuss what camp life was like at its beginning!

A year after the successful inaugural summer of 1949, Camp WaBak expanded so that it could host 40 girls a week instead of only 30.  In 1950, a May 18th article in The Greenville News noted camp improvements included an expanded staff area, an enlarged dining porch, new campfire areas for outdoor cooking, a paved road leading from the main road to the camp, and a bridge over Gap Creek. Continue reading

June 26 2018

Death Spiral

National Operations, Opinions    5 Comments    , , , ,

Winter Storm Grayson

You might remember a storm from this past winter named Grayson that caused quite a bit of concern.  I live in South Carolina, so we weren’t really affected by it like they were up north.  To be honest, I doubt I would have even paid much mind to all of the attention it was getting on the news.  Except this wasn’t just any ole winter storm – it was a BOMB CYCLONE!  I guess naming winter storms a la hurricanes wasn’t sensational enough, so we’ve got to come up with attention-grabbing terms like BOMB CYCLONES!  Next thing you know, we’ll have SHARKNADOS!

A friend of mine and I were chatting during that time about the upcoming bomb cyclone.  We both agreed that it would be an awesome name for a band.  And a thrash metal one at that!  So what does all of this have to do with the title of this blog post?  Nothing really except I think Death Spiral would also be great thrash metal band name.  Continue reading

June 22 2018

Camp WaBak’s Opening

Traditional Stuff    No Comments    , , ,

In my first post about Camp WaBak’s beginnings, I highlighted how WaBak came to be with one exception – how did it get its name?

In May of 1948, Clyde Brooks sold ten acres to the Greenville Girl Scout council which included a five room lodge and an outdoor cooking shed.  What had his family called the lodge before he sold it?  Why, WaBak of course!  Because it was “way back” in the woods.  I’m not sure why it was abbreviated that way, but we’ll go with it.  I haven’t seen documentation as to when the lodge was built, but I did find evidence of the WaBak name prior to the camp.  Before Facebook status updates, newspapers way back in the day (see what I did there? 😀 ) published gossip – I mean – society news.  I guess people submitted their comings and goings to the newspaper, like the Brooks did to let everyone know that Miss Mary Lee Mies visited them back in May of 1936:  Continue reading

May 31 2018

The Yates Lodge at Camp WaBak

Traditional Stuff    3 Comments    , , ,

The Yates Lodge after a fresh load of mulch and newly planted irises

In one of my previous blog posts, I talked about visiting the Greenville (SC) Library in the hopes of finding out information about Charles H. Yates.  One of the lodges at Camp WaBak is named after him, and there’s a very interesting item in the lodge itself that has always piqued my curiosity.  When I arrived at the library, I found out that The Greenville News archives are not indexed, so my researching hopes went out the window.  The library staff did find Mr. Yates’ death certificate.  I didn’t ask for it nor did I really want it, but the woman who gave it to me seemed very excited to have found it, so I just smiled and said thank you even though it was a little morbid.  I ended up discovering articles about the purchase of WaBak instead, which was just as exciting to me if not moreso than what I had originally intended for my visit.  Continue reading

May 16 2018

The Customer is Always Right?

National Operations, Opinions    10 Comments    , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

This is a topic that’s been beaten to death everywhere else, but I’ve never gotten around to it here on the GSWAC (not a council) blog.*   And that is the word…

Customer.

Yes, the dreaded and hated word of volunteers and GS alumnae everywhere.  And as featured in the title of the ubiquitous Customer Engagement Initiative (CEI).  If you aren’t sure what CEI is all about, it’s basically a web-based technology developed by GSUSA.  The components we see as volunteers are the website framework, the online membership registration system known as MyGS, an Opportunity Catalog in which parents can search to see what troops are available and have openings in their area, and a troop management system called Volunteer Toolkit (as featured in many inane videos on this blog).  Almost every council in the United States including Overseas is on CEI at this point with the exception of the rogue councils Farthest North and Middle Tennessee.

When GSUSA and councils began to use the word customer a few years ago, volunteers everywhere got a strange look on their face and thought, “Huh?  Who are they referring to?”  Later on we realized, “Wait… WE’RE the customers?”  Continue reading