September 14 2019

The New YouTube SU 639 UNOFFICIAL Enrichment Channel

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    No Comments    , , , , , ,

We briefly interrupt this non-membership dues related post to announce that the Alaskan Supreme Court has ruled in favor of the Farthest North Council over GSUSA.  Overwhelmingly.   The case will sent back down to the lower court with a ruling on the GSUSA Constitution, and all that’s left is for the lower court to determine the financial relief.  I had been working on this blog post when the court ruling popped up suddenly.  I wanted to acknowledge it but know that I will be following up with a blog post solely about the ruling and my take on it.   It might be a couple of days because there’s a lot to cover.  And real life gets in the way as always!

This will be a quick hitter, but I just wanted to share that I’m creating a YouTube series.  I try to present some sort of enrichment after each of our service unit leader meetings, but not everybody can make them.  Last year, I sent out a survey to our service unit asking how they wanted to receive UNOFFICIAL trainings, and I was surprised at the number who wanted a webinar format.  Well, webinars are hard to schedule, so instead I thought I’d record my presentations instead.  I figured recording them live at the meetings wouldn’t be very effective, so maybe I’d try out recording the presentation directly from my laptop the same way I recorded the goofy VTK & You! videos and see how it went.  See, those VTK videos weren’t all for naught!  That’s what I’m telling myself at least. Continue reading

August 19 2019

A Picture is Worth a Thousand Words

Ideas    2 Comments    , ,

I would like to share something our service unit is using for our recruitment efforts this year.  Our catchphrase is “We Got It Goin’ On!” and we hit the ground running when it came to our Back to School booths.  A few months ago, I spoke with our SU’s Recruiting Coordinator about a few thoughts I had on the subject.

Later on, I rolled some ideas over in my head.  Our numbers were actually UP this past year – 14%, in fact!  This was after a steady decline since the merger, so we were very excited.  We live in an area that’s growing pretty quickly, so there’s no reason why our numbers shouldn’t grow too.  But even with the growth, we still didn’t create many new troops, and we feel that’s the lifeblood for continuing our increase.  Right now many of our troops are full, and we need to spread the wealth.  So this year, we wanted to put an emphasis on getting new leaders.

But how do we do this?  That was the $64,000 question.  Everybody these days is struggling to get volunteers.   Many parents want to find troops, but there aren’t very many that want to step up and take the reigns to start a brand new one.  I realized that we needed to take a new approach.  In the past, it seems like our organization just relied on recruiting girls but crossing our fingers that the leaders and new troops would follow.   We needed to be more aggressive.   We go all out to show that Girl Scouts gives girls opportunities and an experience that they wouldn’t necessarily have elsewhere.  Well, what if we showed women that they’ll also get that in return if they become a leader?  Side note:  I realize men can be leaders too.  In fact, we have a male leader in our service unit!  But for this, we specifically targeted women.
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August 13 2019

Cybersecurity & CEI

National Operations, Opinions    6 Comments    , , , , , , , ,

The Cybersecurity Basics badge for Seniors

Note:  The following is a very nerdy post about computers!

So unless you’ve been under a rock for the past month or so, GSUSA recently released 42 new badges, including cybersecurity ones for Cadettes, Seniors, and Ambassadors!  In a previous life, I used to be in the IT field, so I was very interested to see how these badges were presented to older girls.  So I logged into the infamous VTK to check out the Senior Cybersecurity Basics activity plan.

One of the first activities is to learn about the ten principles of cybersecurity according to the GenCyber program.  I won’t go through all of them at this point, but you can take a look at the cards with the principles and terms spelled out.   I’m going to refer back to some of them later on. Continue reading

July 18 2019

One Crazy Summer

Random Things That Don't Fit Anywhere Else Kinda Like Me    3 Comments    , , , , , , , , ,

You may have noticed I’ve been AWOL lately.  It’s been one crazy summer, but not like the John Cusack movie.  June started off kinda slow, but then July has gone into overdrive.  Here’s what I’m in the middle of right now, and I’ll keep it somewhat short because I’m going in a thousand directions all at once.  But I wanted to briefly check in so that you all didn’t think the Girl Scout mafia finally caught up to me.

Last week my youngest daughter and I had the opportunity to go to summer camp for a week at WaBak.  It was two childhood dreams all wrapped into one – I got to go to summer camp AND be a counselor.  It was about thirty-five years after the fact, but that’s okay!  Growing up, I vicariously lived through summer camp movies from the 80s since my family couldn’t afford it, and I never sold enough cookies to get a free week of camp.  I was so jealous of Caroline and Jenny who did!  And those carefree counselors looked so cool!  I wanted to be a cool counselor too!  Well I got my chance!   Here are some takeaways from last week:  Continue reading

June 9 2019

Built-in Civics Education

National Governance, Opinions    2 Comments    , , , , , , , , , ,

GSUSA has recently put a focus on bringing civics education to the forefront.  On June 3rd, they hosted a webcast that was livestreamed entitled Civics Education: Preparing the Next Generation of Informed and Engaged Citizens.  It’s described on GSUSA’s website as such: “This nonpartisan event is an opportunity for community leaders, public officials, and education experts to consider how out-of-school civics programs can prepare the next generation to be involved citizens with a deeper understanding of their government —both now and for the rest of their lives.”  It’s archived on their website and can be found here:  https://www.girlscouts.org/en/about-girl-scouts/advocacy/event-civics-education.html Continue reading

June 8 2019

Blue Ghosts and Christmas Lights

Experiences as a Leader, Hikes & Outdoors    1 Comment    , , , , , , , , ,

During the last weekend in April, our service unit held our annual encampment at Camp WaBak.  In case you’re not familiar with our troop, we’ve got two levels – Cadettes and Juniors.  Just the Juniors went for Encampment this year since the Cadettes were going backpacking a few weeks later.  We had beautiful spring weather for Encampment.  The Juniors’ behavior, not so beautiful.  We won’t discuss it.  Anyway, that Saturday night, I was in charge of the campfire program for the SU.  Afterward, our Junior co-leader took the girls back to the cabin to get ready for bed while I put the fire out, and then I’d head back on my own.

It was about 9:30pm, and I took the (established) shortcut through the woods to get to the cabin.  Right at the edge of the woods, a strange bug hovering in front of my eyes made me stop.  It sort of looked like a lightning bug.  Something told me to turn off my headlamp.  I couldn’t see the bug anymore, but as my eyes got accustomed to the dark, I turned and looked into the woods. Continue reading