Ellen,
I've thought of you so often this week. Can you believe this? I am about to become a girl scout troop leader! (OK, a "Daisy" troop leader to be exact, but we'll work up to girl scouts soon enough). I'm not exactly sure when or from where this urge arose but it's real and it's happening.
I vaguely remember doing Brownies for a year or two but don't recall many details. Sophie expressed interest a while back in girl scouts, not that she really knew anything about it. So I registered her and waited to be informed that enough other girls of her age were interested.
I really wanted this for Sophie as I felt she needed something to call her own. She does soccer ... but mainly because Kara joined a soccer team first. She's in a running club at school ... but mainly because I am a volunteer, and Kara does it too. She does art class ... with Kara. Ditto with basketball (which she doesn't really like anyway because "the ball is bigger than my head").
And because Kara is the squeaky wheel, so to speak, she gets a lot of attention. It was time I found something special for Soph. I started reading up on girl scouts and began to realize how cool this would be for Sophie. Awesome in fact. I had no idea of what it all meant! Then I thought heck, why not actually be a co-leader for Sophie's troop - I could just envision her face when I told her!
So tonight I met with my co-leaders (there will be 3 of us) and next week I start my training. One of the co-leaders was like me and had done Brownies for about a year, but that was the extent of her knowledge. But oh my, the other lady had done the whole thing, including being a camp counselor when she finished school. She explained what it meant to her and how it had shaped her and her own beliefs. She is who she is today because of her experience. And she has been waiting for her daughter to be old enough to start her own troop and begin the experience all over again.
Listening to her, I finally got it, what girl scouts is all about. Sold!
Oh the things we have planned already (planned loosely ... as I know it will be the girls who work out the details). I gotta say that I am damn excited about this. We have a framework of what we want for this troop and it's amazing. I have to say that the Northwest will be an amazing setting for this too.
And Sophie's face tonight when I started telling her some activities that she will be doing with her new troop ... well, I'm bottling up that moment forever.
Fiona xx
PS: Of course I will HAVE to do this for Kara too (not co-lead her troop, but find a troop for her). But she understands that I am organizing this for Sophie first, that it was important for Soph to have something separate.
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4 comments:
I'm so excited for you and for Sophie - how wonderful ! It sounds like you've got an amazing setup with the other co-leaders. Our Daisy troop has been so easy here because the other leaders and I planned out the meetings and the curriculum for the year and then had each girl (and her parent) sign up to host a meeting - that girl and her parent are responsible for running that meeting from a pre-assigned section of the Daisy guide. It's so much easier this way. Also, DON'T start with the Daisy journeys - start with the blue binder book, which I think is officially called "A Girl's Guide to Girl Scouting, Daisy Edition." It's super easy and fun and the girls can earn a petal each meeting.
Oh, one last piece of advice: I've really enjoyed getting to know the other leaders in our Service Unit - make sure you go to those meetings. Even though it's one more thing to do, I actually find that the more information I know, the easier it is.
Oh, one more thing - your troop doesn't have to sell cookies if you don't want to. Two of the other parents can be the "Cookie Moms" and it takes a lot of pressure off the leaders. I don't even go to the cookie meetings because I want to have benign ignorance about it !
I love that we're going to have this experience together.
A neighbor started a new group and asked me if Natalie would join. I did not do it thinking that I could not fit that into our week-end schedule and that Rachel would be upset if Natalie would start before her as Rachel has been asking for a long time.
It was a big mistake of my part. They meet 1x month and not once a week as I thought and yes we could have fitted it in our schedule.
Ah maybe with another group... . Would love to hear more about it.
How lovely for Sophie. I was in the Girl Guides as a kid and LOVED it.
Love that you are putting yourself out there. Sophie will remember this.
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