Brownie Troop # 234 Ice Cream Social 

Brownie Troop 234 will be hosting our first ever Ice Cream Social/ Recruitment Rush event-and the girls are beyond excited! Above is the invite, which the girls can hand out to friends who they believe will be a great addition to our troop!  This will be a really great time for all! I'm asking that the girls please arrive no later than 4:30 for set-up. As you know, we've already postponed this event once-so whatever you were planning on bringing, please bring it on Wednesday! I'm hoping this will be an annual tradition, and one the girls will learn from and improve upon annually!  Thanks in advance for you and your girls excitement and participation!

My brief time as a leader has definitely taught me a few very important things about having a successful troop!  Here they are below:

1) God is the most important element of this troop. Prayer is essential. I pray that God always guide me as a leader, keeping me positive. I pray he surround me with encouraging friends, family and parents who realize my sacrifice and devotion to this troop. I pray he is with each of my girls daily, along with their parent(s)-who realize the short amount of time the one hour meeting is, helping me make the most of it for their girls as they walk through my door weekly.

2) Keep it simple. It's all about the girls having a good time, making memories and bonding. Who cares if you didn't accomplish your goal this week-the girls will only recall the fun they had at the meeting!

3) Remember the concept "It's only one hour." People ask me all of the time, how are you able to juggle the Girl Scout Brownie troop along with three kids, a household, a very chaotic and demanding business you run from home, and all of your other obligations? Well, first off, I try not to think of it as a burden. I always tell them, "It's only one hour." When I say that, it doesn't mean that I haven't spent hours upon hours planning and scheduling-it only means I have that one hour of time I have dedicated to make an impression on those girls. Whether I have a defined plan or not, and it will most likely be far from perfect-I still can know whatever I do, the Brownies will love the activity, me as their leader and definitely the time spent together! 

4) Don't let the flow of girls in and out of the troop cause a panic. When I first started our troop, back in the days when I had no idea what I was doing, I thought a huge troop meant success. That isn't truly the definition of the type of troop experience I would like to create weekly. Quality weekly meetings, over size of troop-now, that's success. At the start, as Girl Scout Daisies, we had 16 in our troop! At the end of the year, I believe we had officially registered over twenty and had had a few other girls who visited briefly. Lots of times, entire meetings were devoted to a new person visiting, or showing them how we do certain things. What was even more discouraging was that after all of that-sometimes a new member would just disappear into the wild blue yonder. Our troop, we all say as Brownie Moms, is basically a neighborhood troop. We have other girls in our troop, but pretty much all of the girls live within a few mile radius. We are open to any girls, it has just worked out that we have a core of five to seven girls who are extremely devoted to our Brownie troop. I have parents who are positive about Girl Scouts, are encouraging to me as  a leader, and I know that they are a big reason their daughters have such excitement weekly about coming to my home for meetings! So, I've learned that as a leader, I need to know I have devoted members. If I have a girl who drops out, at least my girls and I will have done our best to create a great memory for them. Thats all that matters.

5) Delegate! Ask Parents and your Brownies for help! The Siblings of Brownies love to help out too-that was why we created our "Green Knight" designation (for the men in our Brownies lives, more on that later!).

My parents have never minded helping. My brownies all have "Offices" they hold, changing monthly. These offices are Patrol Leader, Songmaster, Keeper of the Secrets, Treasurer, Hostess, Etc. My Brownies have really reacted in an extremely positive way to these offices! Having help really is essential. The one hitch is this-in order to ask for help, you absolutely must be organized enough to know what you need help doing. So getting organized is a must to be able to delegate!

6) Have a set meeting template weekly. We start out our meetings weekly by lining up as the Brownies arrive, parallel to the front door, uniforms on and being arranged by our troop hostess and "encouraged" by our troop peacekeeper. The troop hostess will show up ten minutes early and make sure the flag ceremony area is set up. She will also line the girls up as they arrive. The girls will stand at the door and shake their troop members hands with the Brownie Handshake, welcoming them to the meeting. We remain there until seven minutes after five (our meetings are from five to six). At seven after, we continue with our flag ceremony, which we do the same every week, only rotating girls monthly. We continue with getting into our horseshoe and talking over troop business, guided by the patrol leader. The troop treasurer will collect dues and the hostess will take role. We continue by getting into the main part of our meeting, which lasts until seven minutes till six o'clock. At that time, our troop tradition is to gather in a circle, hands crossed. We do our friendship squeeze and every week we are led by our troop songmaster in singing "Make New Friends." The best part of our meeting, I am convinced my girls would say, is when we create a tunnel with our joined hands in my front foyer and sing together-"Brownie, Brownie, Time to Go, Girls name, Girls Name, time to go. We do this until every girl has had a chance to run thru the tunnel (anyone else who may be at the meeting)  I am absolutely convinced 100% that having this weekly routine laid out for our meetings has encouraged the girls love for our troop. We are consistent and we have a fabulous time every week!!

7) Try to encourage girls and parents to go as electronic and phone free as possible. It's only one hour. Enough said.

8) Keep it cheap. Basically Girl Scouts is not a business. I have been completely turned off by other leaders focusing solely on cookie sales and whatever happens to be the fundraiser at that time. My Brownies did not join this troop to have six to ten weekly Girl Scout meetings devoted to making money for our troop. I've learned not to fall into that trap. Most of the activities our Brownies do are free. We collect one buck a week from each girl, which is optional. If I need money, I will ask for it, and parents have always been very happy to help out with money supplies, whatever. This year, as always, our troop will be cheap. This year our cookie sales will be an experience, and super fun. We will focus on building character, service work, bonding and creating memories together. 

9) Always remember what Juliette Gordon Lowe had in mind for Girl Scouts. This is so important to me. I moved around lots as a child, so I never knew what to expect from place to place. When I was nine years old, I moved to Laurel, Mississippi. Every Monday, after school, myself and six or seven other fourth grade girls, would take a tree lined four mile walk to a local church. I can remember that even the walk was ideal-but once we arrived, our leader, Ms Cupp, made our meetings wonderful. We learned our flag ceremony, we had speakers come in, we wore our cute little green uniforms with our patch covered sashes to school. We all bonded, and even though I moved from Laurel just a few years later, I still talk to those girls. I cherish those memories, that feeling of belonging and accomplishment. I wanted my girls to have that, just as I feel Juliette had the same goal for that small group of first Girl Scouts in Savannah, Georgia over one hundred years ago. I am convinced that I know what creates a great troop, I will make my girls have that same feeling I did, and carry it into their adulthood. That's what Juliette wanted, and our troop has it, and will build upon it. Thanks Ms. Cupp!

10) Earn Patches! Wear your uniform! My girls love having the entire uniform-they really do! They wear it on our meeting days to school, and then to every meeting. (Unless we are doing an activity like swimming!) The uniform has bonded us as a troop, believe it or not! There is also something very sweet about the Brownies in my troop obvious effort to wear the entire uniform weekly, and wear it correctly! The uniform is expensive-for every piece, its around $100. When I realized that, I gave the moms the option to wear a cheaper, modified version of the uniform. We could do khaki on the bottom with a blue or white top and the vest. My Moms and girls were pretty headstrong on purchasing the entire uniform, socks and all! So, my investment, having two girls was over $200! I have discovered since then, you can pick up uniform pieces at usually around 1/4 of the price new on ebay. I've bought several, many with tags still atttached. So, with the costs not really being a big factor- I say shop ebay and buy those uniforms! I'm really glad we did, and I know my Brownies and their parents are too!!!