Getting ready to be a Junior Girl Scout

have 12 Brownie scouts that will be bringing over to Juniors in 2 weeks!  We finished all our Brownie badges so I decided to use today as a way to see where to start the plan for next year.
Girl Scouts is girl led and sometimes that can be a challenge.  I find for me the way I make it work best is to give the girls the options that I can work with.  There is no point asking the girl if they want to learn underwater basket weaving if there is no pool or reeds in site.  So the plan today was to give a brief description of each badge and have the girls rate the badges 1 to 3.  1 being, 'no I don't want to do that badge' to 3, 'oh my yes I want to do this badge'.  I explained to the girls that the plan was to earn all the badge like we did for Brownies, but I like to schedule the badges so we aren't do all the top rated together and have nothing left but the ones they don't like.  

Here are the lists I had the girls fill out.

After tallying all the badges I sorted them by number of votes.  The girls top picks were Camper, Drawing, Animal Habitats and Outdoor Art.  There lowest picks were Scribe, Inside Government (can you blame them..lol), Geocacher and Independence.  My plan is to rotate favorites and mix in a few of the lower favorite ones. 

In Brownies we were able to get all the badges completed and I hope to accomplish the same with Juniors.  I can hear some of you already "Girl Scouts is girl lead and you should do them in order of what the girls picked."  If I did that, that would mean in the 2nd year we would be doing all the ones they didn't want to do.  So by mixing them I am able to keep them happy while getting all the badges done!

The other thing I finished was my Junior tracker page!!  I have a book with all the girls badge trackers, medical form, volunteer mom's medical form and lesson plans.  The girls come in the meeting room and put their sticker on the attendance sheet (dollar store find!) and then my fabulous record keeper Marella uses the lesson plan and attendance chart to mark the girls record sheets.  

Below is the Junior tracker I use.  I found one similar online and recreated to match what I wanted.  I love it!

Now I'm off to work on bridging 12 little amazing girls to Juniors!!

Until next time...keep giving your time freely!!

Volunteering

vol·un·teer

ˌvälənˈtir/

noun

noun: volunteer; plural noun: volunteers

1. 1.

   a person who freely offers to take part in an enterprise or undertake a task.

   • a person who works for an organization without being paid.
   • a person who freely enrolls for military service rather than being conscripted, especially a member of a force formed by voluntary enrollment and distinct from the regular army.
   • a plant that has not been deliberately planted.
   • Law

     a person to whom a voluntary conveyance or deposition is made.

verb

verb: volunteer; 3rd person present: volunteers; past tense: volunteered; past participle: volunteered; gerund or present participle: volunteering

1.

 freely offer to do something.

I volunteer my time with numerous groups that I will talk about over time.  The main reason I'm starting this is to support all those volunteers who give their time freely.  The folks who some weeks spend more time helping others than themselves.  People who are always there for others.  This wonderful people are becoming harder and harder to find.  It's a challenge to fill spots in scouts, sports teams, churches, you name it; they don't have the time.

With so many groups to support it is hard to give of your time to everything.  But I encourage people to pick issues close to their hearts and give of their time.  You won't regret it, I promise!!

There are so many benefits to volunteering:

• you gain confidence in your self
• learn a new skill!
• meet new people
• be part of a group or team
• take on a challenge
• you make a difference
• and of course you will have a blast helping! 

I encourage you to get there and try to help!  Give half an hour, bring a snack, get on a committee.  There are so many options, just step out and VOLUNTEER!!