Busy August

For the rest of the summer we are suspending regular meeting times because we’re going to have a lot of other stuff going on. See below for the July/August schedule. If you are having trouble finding a way for your girl to get to daycamp, please let us know and we make be able to arrange a ride for her.

We are going to be working on our camping skills and the girls will need some supplies of their own. Some they are required to have:

Whistle with neck cord, mess kit (polypropylene plastic plate, bowl, cup, fork and knife in a dunk bag), bandana, refillable water bottle, compass, flashlight, bedroll/sleeping bag, light weight backpack, small personal first aid kit, small lightweight tarp and at least 6ft of cord.

And the following are optional and should only be supplied if you think your girl is responsible enough to safely handle them:

Jackknife, sharpening stone, and lighter/matches in waterproof container

If you do give your girl a knife or lighter/matches, please make sure you go over how important it is to be safe with these items. We will, of course, be going over safety with them as well, but reinforcing the message at home is important. Any girl who has these items and uses them in an unsafe manner while with the troop will have them taken and given to their parents and not allowed to bring them back with them.

July / August Schedule

July 28th though the 31st : 1PM – 5PM each day @ Miss Tia’s house – Amuse Journey Daycamp – Bring a refillable water bottle .

Saturday August 2 : 6PM – 9PM at Little Pee Dee State Park – Camping skills (Staying Safe: 10 Essential items to have when camping/outdoors & what to do if you’re lost) and campfire night. (Items needed: Whistle with neck cord, compass, tarp with cord)

August 4th through the 7th : 1PM – 5PM each day @ Miss Tia’s house – Agent of Change Journey Daycamp – Bring a refillable water bottle.

Saturday August 9th: 6PM – 9PM at Little Pee Dee State Park – Camping skills (Jackknife & knots) and campfire night. (items needed: Jackknife and sharpening stone)

August 11th through the 14th: 1PM – 5PM each day @ Miss Tia’s house – Get Moving Journey Daycamp – Bring a refillable water bottle.

Saturday August 16th: 6PM – 9PM at Little Pee Dee State Park – Camping skills (Fire building & Safety) and campfire night. (Items needed: lighter/matches)

Monday August 18th – School starts back, no meeting

Saturday August 23rd : 6PM – 9PM at Little Pee Dee State Park – Camping skills (Cooking & Cleaning up) and campfire night. (lighter/matches, mess kit)

Friday August 29th through the 31st – Survivor Camping! Can you make it through the challenges to say you’re a Girl Scout Survivor? Location TBD (Camping Badge, Geocaching Badge)

Saturday September 6th : Awards and Bridging Ceremony. Time and location TBD

Things to move to your new uniform

(Most of this applies to both new Brownies and Juniors unless otherwise noted)

Year pins, they go right under the numerals

Bridging rainbow, under year pins and numerals. If you don't have year pins yet, leave a space for them.

Wings (Juniors), they go under the bridging rainbow but leave a space in case she earns her "Junior Aide" award later, see diagram.

Cookie participation pins. Brownies, under rainbow or year pins. Juniors, under wings.

100 year pin, above tab

JGL Birthplace pin, above tab

World Trefoil pin, on tab above membership pin

Summit Awards, below tab.

Safety Award and My Promise/My Faith pins DO NOT get moved to the new vest.

Awards Day Uniform Review

For Brownies:  Triangular badges or a pins (Cookie Participation pin, Safety Award) go on the front, everything else goes on the back. Here's a link to the Brownie Patch Placement page.

For Daisies: You can put the petals on in any order that you want, the leaves go below. Anything that isn't a petal, a leaf, or a pin goes on the back. Here's a diagram.

Some of the girls got pie shaped pieces for participating in Early Bird, Fall Sale, and the Cookie Sale. If you got all three it goes together like this. Kinda. I'm sure you'll do a better job sewing it on than I did putting it together on my scanner bed. (The dang thing moved every time I closed the lid!)

If for some reason your daughter didn't get a badge, patch, or pin that you think she was supposed to, please let me know. I am human and mistakes occur.

****Update****
I forgot to add the Nut Sale Patch configuration, here it is:

May Dates, Senses Badge

Don’t forget we have our Court of Award’s Ceremony Sunday!

The Court of Awards Ceremony will be this Sunday at 5pm. I'd like for us to meet at the shelter with the fireplace if it's available, I couldn't get the ranger on the phone to be sure, if not, we'll be near the playground area. We're also going to work on our Letterboxer badge so the ceremony will be really informal. We'll do a campfire night after.

May Dates:

The following is the handout about May dates I gave out to the girls last night. It's long. She will need a permission slip for each of these events, you can find it on facebook, or copy this image and paste it into word.

 
We’re going to have a busy month in May. Here are a few of the dates we have planned for the girls, some of the dates have timed deadlines to let us know that they are going to participate. Please be sure to let us know by the date because after we have finalized our ticket sale we cannot go back in and change it. 

May 3-4th Overnight Adventure at The South Carolina State Museum - Girls will have the opportunity to be a young detective discovering the secrets of the Maya! Campers will experience the thrill of an archaeological dig as they unearth artifacts, make spirit masks representing the ancient deities of Maya culture, use Mayan hieroglyphs to make unique clay and bead amulets, and enjoy unlimited access to the blockbuster exhibit Secrets of the Maya and permanent museum galleries. Pizza snack and continental breakfast will be provided and they will get to visit the Museum Gift Shop.
$25 per person. Miss Donna will not be able to attend so I will need one or two moms to volunteer to chaperon and drive as well. 
Anyone who wants to go needs to let us know no later than the *24th of April*. After that date I cannot make any changes to our roster. If you tell us you’re going and then cancel you are still responsible for payment of the fee because we have to pay in advance. Payment and permission slips will be collected the day of the trip. I cannot take your daughter with me if I do not have a permission slip, so please don’t forget to turn it in. I will hand out a list of items she needs to bring with her and our departure time and return at the Monday meeting before the trip. 

May 11th – Presenting the Dillon Shelter with a check and working on the “pets” badge – We will meet at the shelter at 12:45, in our uniform, to present the shelter with our cookie proceeds. It is possible that the newspaper or other news venue will be there so please don’t forget to wear your uniform and be on your best behavior. 

May 18th – Earning our “Dancer” Badge at the Palace Theater - This event will begin with a full tour of the theater, including the lighting, sound, stage, props, loading bay, dressing rooms, pain room, laundry and sewing, concessions, gift shop, offices, and marketing. Girls will have the opportunity to meet the owner and then have a question and answer session with performers before meeting with a mentor to work on their Skill-Building Badge. Daisies will earn a petal and Brownies will work on step two of the Dance Skill-Building Badge by getting on stage with the dancers from Le Grand Cirque. The days adventure will conclude with a live performance of Le Grand Cirque where girls will receive a Palace Theatre fun patch that can be shown at concessions for a discounted $1.50 popcorn and drink. Attending troops will be welcomed and announced during the live show!
$10 per child + 1.50 for concessions, $22 per adult. We will be taking a bagged lunch to eat between our tour and the beginning of the show. 
Payment is due by Monday *May 13th* for any who plan to attend. Permission slips will be turned in on the day of the trip. Again I cannot take your daughter with me if I do not have a permission slip, so please don’t forget to turn it in.

May 10th or May 24th – Sleepover Snacks Badge – We will be having a sleepover at SB Church to work on our snacks badge, date is dependent on Church’s schedule. Permission slips turned in at drop off. I will give a definite time/date as soon as I know it.

Senses Badge

If your girl missed the meeting on 4/8 (at Harmon Park) and would like to make up the Senses Badge, here is a link to the requirements, it's a pdf. http://mvtgs.weebly.com/uploads/1/1/8/1/11818180/senses.pdf

She must fill out and turn in a "Badge Requirements Form" and present her work to the troop to get credit. You can find the Badge Requirement Form here: http://gstroop674.blogspot.com/search/label/Forms

3/4/13 Meeting

We had a lot of girls out sick tonight so I figured I’d post a note about what we did and what we’re doing next week.

Tonight we went over our “Hear A Story” worksheet and the girls got their “Hear A Story” patch.

The patch is part of a larger set, you can sew it on now or choose to wait until she receives all of the patches. Here’s how the finished patch set will look. They will go above the WOW! Journey Patch Set. If you need help remembering where it goes on the vest refer to: Brownie Vest Patch Placement

The Daisies who completed their worksheet go the rose petal, for learning how to change a story "to make the world a better place." 

We also played a couple of games, one of which was “Change a Story” relay, we’ll play again next week if there’s time. But the girls who were there this week got in some practice, so watch out!

You can bring your worksheet in next week if you missed. Here it is if you need to print it out. 

Next week we’ll be starting on the “Change A Story” part of the Journey. Girls need to think about real life stories in their community, find clues about them, and how we can change the stories.

I gave the girls a couple of examples:

A group Brownies looked for stories in their town and saw that there was a piece of sidewalk missing. Their clue was that it forced handicapped people to use the road which wasn’t safe. They changed the story by petitioning the city and getting local businesses to donate the materials to complete the sidewalk. They changed the story!

Another group of Girl Scouts was looking for stories in their small rural town and they had a really hard time doing it because they didn’t have a library! Their clue was that kids didn’t have a place to get new books to read and it’s expensive to buy a lot of new books! They changed the story by building a Little Free Library  (http://www.littlefreelibrary.org/), finding an adult to be its caretaker, and placing it near the park so that kids could come get books! 

So this week they need to look around our community for stories, find clues about them, and think of ways to change the story. We’re going to choose a project to start on next week from the ideas the girls bring in. Help your girls think of ideas that are

1)      Doable, we can’t build a swimming pool but we might be able to build a duck pond.

2)      Helps girls in our community

3)      That actually changes their community so that they will feel a sense of accomplishment after finishing. Ie. Not picking up litter that will be back again next week. Not that there’s anything wrong with picking up litter but in the examples I gave the girls get to walk by that sidewalk or that little library and think, “I helped do that!”

I hope everyone feels better soon! See you next week. 

Thinking Day 2013

 Every year on February 22 Girl Scouts honor their international sisterhood with Girl Scouts and Girl Guides around the world. This year we had our Thinking Day Party on Saturday February 23 and each girl chose to represent a different country and brought a food served or grown in that country to share with everyone.

(Click on the picture to see a larger version)

The girls listen respectfully to each other as they give presentations on their countries. 

Charlotte chose France

Kambell choose China and told us a story about Chinese New Year and a three mouse race. She brought in a bracelet that represented the story.

Caroline chose Mexico.

Mamie chose Italy

Jay chose St. Lucia which is where her father is from originally. 

Gracie chose Ireland

Macy and Maddie chose Mexico and are wearing traditional Mexican dresses.

Anna chose Japan.

Claudia chose Venezuela, which is where her parents are from originally, and she is wearing a traditional dress.

Dee chose Zaire Africa, and brought her Uncle to talk to us and show us some things he has from when he was stationed there.

All of the girls shared wonderful information about the different countries they were representing!

Dee's uncle stayed and gave us a very interesting presentation and answered a lot of questions that the girls had about his time in Zaire!

He brought a variety of items from Zaire, including traditional artwork, jade jewelry, and clothing!

Money from Zaire

The girls greatly enjoyed his presentation and asked a ton of  questions!

After we learned about all of these wonderful countries, we got to try some of the food! And it was all delicious! We had French Apple Clafouti, wasabi beans from Japan, A pistachio dessert from Italy, Chinese fortune cookies, Mexican dip and tortillas, a cookie from Venezuela, potato soup, and more! The girls obviously enjoyed all of the food because they kept coming back for more!

All in all we had a wonderfully entertaining and informative day! Caroline and Kambell even gave us a demonstration of the Mexican Hat Dance, without the hat!

February Dates

Awards – Due to the Girl Scout Shop revamping it’s website they will not guarantee a delivery date for the badges I’ve ordered, and also a few of the badges are on back order, so the Awards Ceremony will have to be postponed until we get the badges in. 

Feb 11th – Valentine’s Party at my shop, I’m bringing drinks and cupcakes, if anyone else wants to bring something that’s fine, but you don’t have to. 5:45 -6:45

Feb 18th – Regular meeting at the WC. 

Feb 23rd – Thinking Day 12pm – 2pm (meeting place TBA) We’ll have our Thinking Day festivities. Each girl should choose a country and learn something about it to share with the group and also bring a traditional food from the country she chooses to share. (A snack or desert, something simple) She can dress like they do in that country or bring a poster with some fun facts about it. It can be as in depth as she chooses to go with it. Girls will earn a patch for participation. 

Feb 25th – Regular Meeting at WC or Awards if badges are in.