January 10 2018

City Slickers 2017: Look to the Sky!

Experiences as a Leader, Ideas    3 Comments    , , , , , ,

In the midst of all of the membership dues discussion over the summer, our service unit held its annual summer camp in July called City Slickers.   To piggyback on all of the talk about the August solar eclipse, we decided on a space theme and named it “Look to the Sky!”  This is the 11th year of City Slickers, and it was originally created to give girls who have never been away to camp a way to experience one while staying relatively close to home and in town – hence the name “City Slicker.”  C/S/As start their week on either a Sunday night or Monday morning and stay overnight through Saturday morning.   Juniors stay overnight from Wednesday to Saturday morning.  Brownies attend Wednesday through Friday from 8 to 5 with a sleepover on Friday night through Saturday morning.  Daisies attend Wednesday through Friday from 10am to 2pm and also round out the week with Saturday morning activities.  Continue reading

December 26 2017

Ho Ho Ho Printer Claus

Experiences as a Leader, National Operations    4 Comments    , , , , , , , , ,

Whatchoo talkin’ bout, Amy?

This is a follow-up post to my last one called Twelve Page Pet Peeve that went viral almost immediately.  I read some of the comments that were made in two different Facebook groups where it was shared.  There may have been more, but those were the only two I saw.  The vast majority of people agreed that GSUSA should provide printer-friendly downloads, and others gave advice like sending it off to be printed at a Staples or Office Depot.  I’m not sure if the ones that suggested sending it off actually read the post all the way through, because I listed that as one of the options.  Oh well.  I’m sure there are also some who disagreed with me and don’t see an issue with what’s being released by GSUSA.   It takes diff’rent strokes to move the world, yes it does, it takes diff’rent strokes to move the world.  Continue reading

December 21 2017

Twelve Page Pet Peeve

Experiences as a Leader, National Operations    7 Comments    , , , , , , , , ,

I vented about this topic two years ago, but I would like to revisit it because it’s aggravated me again recently.  It’s almost Festivus and that means it’s time for the Airing of Grievances.  I got a lot of problems with you GSUSA people!  And now you’re gonna hear about it!

Some of our Cadettes will be working with our Brownies next month for their LiA award, so I downloaded the Brownie Quest LiA letter that each Cadette will need to fill out.  It’s three pages long and there’s three of them doing it, so I’ll have to print out 9 pages.  I want a copy as well to put in my Cadette Leader notebook, so that brings the total to 12 pages.

I opened up the PDF file.  Here’s what it looks like overall:

Pretty, right?  Not if you have to print it out.  That’s a lot of color even for just three pages, but make it twelve and that starts to eat into my ink cartridges.  Continue reading

December 12 2017

VTK and You: The Summary (not a video)

National Operations    No Comments    , , , , , , ,

Well, I never expected the VTK and You video series to extend to five videos.  I thought at the most there would be three.  If you’re just joining us for the VTK (aka Volunteer Toolkit) party, let’s catch you up.  Our council was one of the last ones to roll out VTK, so that’s why I’m just now writing about it even though it’s already been out for three years.

As someone who is both a Brownie and Cadette leader and a former IT professional who rolled out and tested applications in a previous life, I wanted to provide a summary of what I concluded from my recent experience with VTK.  This was not done as an exercise in bashing (although I admit that I become a little sarcastic near the end).  In fact, I originally created the videos to hopefully provide somebody (anybody!) a snapshot of what it’s like to use VTK from a volunteer point of view.  In other words, I was just trying to help.  I have more to say about VTK from a non-technical standpoint and how meetings are written and presented, but I’ll hold off for now because I want to stick to the technical issues and possible solutions.  Continue reading

December 11 2017

VTK and You: Ain’t Nothin’ But a Good Time

National Operations    1 Comment    , , , , ,

LOL.  That’s all that needs to be said.

I am back with the fifth and final (maybe?) edition in the video series VTK and You!  I didn’t really decide that I was going with a hair band title theme until I named two in row, so I figured why not make it three?  The Carpenters don’t really fit in, but oh well.  Anyway, I really didn’t expect to create this many videos about VTK, and I didn’t even cover all of the topics.  I did not test or go through the My Troop section because I am using my live VTK account and didn’t want to expose any girls’ information.  Our council has also not implemented the Finances portion yet, so I didn’t walk through it either.  I also wanted to test it from a parent account to see what it looks like on their end, but I haven’t been able to log into my husband’s account yet.  If he has one.  I’m not really sure at this point.   Continue reading

December 9 2017

VTK and You: The Final Countdown (not really)

National Operations    2 Comments    , , , ,

Fooled ya.

I originally called this episode VTK and You:  The Final Countdown fully intending for it to be the last one in the series.  But more things came up for me to test while recording this one, plus a few volunteers from my council asked me to test out issues they are having as well.  So one more!  Right?  Just one!  And because I’m apparently a masochist, I’m going to go back to my previous posts and summarize what I cover during the videos just to be more specific and possibly help out some poor soul who randomly stumbles across these VTK blog posts.  Once again, I start poking around a topic thinking it’ll be something I can knock out pretty quickly only for it to turn into a long, drawn-out ordeal.  But I must push forward! Continue reading

December 6 2017

VTK and You: Here I Go Again

National Operations    No Comments    , , , , , ,

This is the third installment of the VTK and You video series with this one called VTK and You:  Here I Go Again.  The Whitesnake version.  But I can’t get my hair to look like those guys.  I bet hairspray companies made a fortune in the 80s!  Well, I’m not going to write a lot before posting the video because I’ve pretty much covered all the prefaces and what-nots in the last two.  But here they are again in case you’re reading this out of order:

  1. These are not “how to” videos at all.  If they help, great!  But that’s not the purpose of them.
  2. I do NOT represent my council’s viewpoints so please do not take it as such.  I’m just a regular ole Brownie & Cadette leader trying to navigate her way through the VTK jungle.
  3. It is NOT my intent to bash VTK.  I actually think it has potential, but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done.
  4. I have a background in IT and have worked with developers to roll out applications, so I will be looking at it from that standpoint as well.
  5. I’m just trying to help. 😉

Continue reading

December 5 2017

VTK and You: We’ve Only Just Begun

National Operations    3 Comments    , , , , , , ,

This is the second in a series of videos about Volunteer Tool Kit (VTK) and my attempt at using it and offering suggestions on how to fix and improve it.  It’s not necessary to watch the first video, but here it is if you’re interested.  I’m not sure how many of them there will be in total.  Probably until I feel like I’ve covered enough of what I think should be fixed, modified, or improved.  Or I get bored.  Or YouTube cries, “Uncle!”

I’ll let the videos speak for themselves, but here’s the rundown that you should know before watching:

  1. These are not “how to” videos at all.  If they help, great!  But that’s not the purpose of them.
  2. I do NOT represent my council’s viewpoints so please do not take it as such.  I’m just a regular ole Brownie & Cadette leader trying to navigate her way through the VTK jungle.
  3. It is NOT my intent to bash VTK.  I actually think it has potential, but there’s a lot of work that needs to be done.
  4. I have a background in IT and have worked with developers to roll out applications, so I will be looking at it from that standpoint as well.
  5. I’m just trying to help. 😉

Continue reading

December 4 2017

VTK and You: The Saga Begins (A Video Series)

National Operations    6 Comments    , , , , , , ,

I knew that at some point I wanted to do a series about Volunteer Toolkit (aka VTK) when our council finally got it.  I realize it’s been three years since it launched so I’m way behind the curve, but I couldn’t do anything about it since our council was one of the last ones to come onboard.  Originally I was going to put together a list of what doesn’t work and how it could be improved.  But after thinking through this approach, I realized it would be more effective if I just recorded me attempting to use VTK than to try to document every little quirk and bug.  Continue reading

November 26 2017

R.I.P. Daisy Brown

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    8 Comments    ,

I am utterly devastated.  If you’ve followed this blog for a period of time, you’ll know that last year we added three kittens named Penny, Scout, and Daisy to our family after our longtime family members Athena and Orion passed away.  Unfortunately, Daisy passed away suddenly this morning due to what was probably a heart defect.  She was much smaller than Scout and Penny but more than made up for it in spunk.  Her purr was twice as loud as Penny and Scout’s.  She was the first out of the carrier when we originally brought them home – and she didn’t just slowly ease out – she burst onto the scene!  Continue reading