Tuesday's Tips: Summer Activities

The troop year is winding down (cue the sound of leaders across the US cheering!). Many troops have scheduled year end awards ceremonies. The sumer months are the time for leaders to rest, recover, recharge & research (some troop leaders never know when to stop! Myself included!)

Unless you take your troop core camping, the girls in the troop don't see each other for those 3 months. How about scheduling 1 troop activity during the summer. No strict meeting, no structure, just time to give the girls to get together.

Here are a couple ideas:

• Pool Party. (Remember to follow Safety Wise requirements - life guard on duty!) Buy a couple of pizzas and gather the girls at the local pool.
• Bowling. This can happen rain or shine & everyone can be successful (with the bumpers). Let those patrols battle it out for a "trophy".
• Roller or Ice Skating. Can seem a little individual at times, but the time off the rink/ice can be group time.
• Local minor league baseball game. Our local teams offer sleepovers on the field! The troop gets to enjoy the game, movie & sleeping on the baseball field! How many people get to say that!

Enjoy your summer! Only 90 days until your next troop meeting!

GSUSA is Blogging!

Welcome to the modern world - GSUSA! They are now all over the Internet. (Just like our girls are!) They can be found on Facebook (Girl Scouts on Facebook), Twitter (Girl Scouts on Twitter) and now they have their own blog (Girl Scout Blog)! Get the latest updates on Girl Scout news through these great sources! And let them know what you think, ask questions, let the girls who are online ask questions! This is a perfect way for us to access them and help our girls to make their voices heard!

Online Safety for Girls/Parents

I am working on a presentation to some leaders in September on getting our troops/girls on-line. The focus is social networking and how we can make it work for our troops and to teach the girls to use it responsibly. In my web-browsing last week, I stumbled across GSUSA's website in conjunction with Microsoft - Let Me Know: Life On-Line. I thought the site was well done and gives a lot of good information to leaders, girls, and their parents on how to step forward into the social networking part of the world wide web.

Girl Scout Summer

Usually during the summer, we rest and relax from all of our planning for the troop year. This summer is definitely different! We are planning a trip to Washington DC in August. We are going with another troop so the planning has been split, but each troop is visiting different sites. I wrote a page on the planning we have done so far: Take Your Scout Troop to Washington DC. I will update it when we return from DC with anything we have learned!