First Brownie GS Meeting of the Year, Procrastinated and Desparate

Relax. You'll do a fantastic job.

I've never been a leader, but I've been a GS mom and volunteer for over 10 years. Both my girls are now ambassadors. My girls never did journeys, but since they do a lot of work with younger girls, we have some basic knowledge of the program. It seems like on the surface it's an excellent program, but in reality it just isn't working. It's boring, and repetitive and makes GS seem like school.

My daughters just had their 2nd meeting of the year. Typically the 2 meetings of the year (they've kept this schedule forever with almost every troop they've been in) are spent getting to know each other, setting up specific rules for your troop, deciding what activities they'd like to do, and a parents meeting to get all that paperwork completed.

For the younger troops the best badge or activity to start with is learning/reviewing the GS law and promise. I've seen this done many different ways. There's a coloring book. Reading and discussing a story. Giving examples of how their everyday life fits into the promise and law.

When it comes to badge work, it doesn't matter if it takes 1 meetings or 12 meetings to complete the badge. Often girls work on several badges at the same time.

You're off to a great start. Have a fantastic year!

Your meeting sounds good. Do you have another adult there to help you? Just be flexible, it's a learning experience for you and your troop. There aren't "Girl Scout Police" that are going to come in and tell you it's all wrong. You'll get in a routine and get the badges down. Don't worry if a stray activity has to be completed during the next meeting.

The Journeys ARE wierd! The ones I've seen are very cerebral and a lot of sitting, reading, talking and writing.

All the Best!

my daughter and I just had a meeting last night with her brownie troop, 2nd graders too. our troop leader donna had a whole new plan for this year and we all loved it!! it is to do it on sunday after noon once a month from 3pm-5pm so 9 total meetings. but the meeting will be in a different place each time. we all gathered to come up with ideas of helping the community. examples: volunteering at the humane society, green up day, handing out water to the runners on the marathon days, operation christmas child, helping the senior community, making pottery,bake sale for veterans. so many things you can do to get the kids involved. But each time a parent is there. activities are fine but get those girls involved in the community.

What time is your meeting? I guess I'm a little concerned about the "no snack" idea. If you're meeting right after school (maybe you're not, but we always did), they are going to be hungry. Could you give them a snack while you're reading the Brownie Story?

It sounds like you have a nice variety of activities. Arts and crafts, action songs, hearing a story ... I think the girls will have a good time and a great experience.

Good luck! I'm sure you'll do great!

I'm not a current leader just a long time girl scout so I am not up on the "journeys". Your plan sounds good and like enough different stuff for a meeting, maybe more than enough. You could always fill in with any game or songs the kids already know if you run out of stuff. I think Julliet Low's B-day is in March though. There are usually a lot of gs events then to celebrate it.

Ugh! I just typed a whole response and lost it!

Don't get too stressed out about it. I just looked in the Girls Guide (brown binder) and it looks like you have covered the steps to the legacy badge "Girl Scout Way".

I have a Brownie troop too (2nd graders), and we are having our first meeting next week. We always have an activity (something simple - even coloring something) to do as the girls arrive. Then we meet in a circle and do the pledge of allegiance and Girl Scout pledge/promise. Then we discuss what we are doing that meeting. Instead of a kaper chart, we use "Do It" and "Done It" bags. Basically I pick a name out of the "do it" bag to lead the pledge, pass out supplies etc and then once the name has been picked, it goes in the "done it" bag.

We are going to do a journey this year. I will read descriptions at the first meeting and have the girls vote. Don't be too intimidated by the journeys. They are meant to be customized. I had a Daisy troop last year and we completed one of the journeys. We would have the girls work on an activity (coloring, craft etc) while we read the story and then would discuss it. I think it would be way too boring to just sit and read all the time! For the Brownie Journeys, my co-leader and I were thinking "Brownie Quest" would easily lend itself to doing scavenger hunts. Some troops in my community have done the WOW Journey and did things like played with water at the meeting and visited a fish hatchery. I read about a troop on line that talked about water in different parts of the world. They talked about some parts of the world where people have to carry their fresh water. So the leader gave each girl a bucket and they had to walk to the "fresh" water and fill their bucket and walk it back. They even had some girls do it while carrying a baby (doll) or with a hurt arm (put in a sling) to show some of the difficulties people can encounter. Basically you can customize the Journey to be fun and meaningful to the girls.

In the Brownie binder, there are descriptions to earn each legacy badge. Each journey also has 4 awards that can be earned (how to earn them is described in the journey books). Then there are additional skill building badges that tie in (loosely) to the journeys (e.g. computer expert, my best self, dancer etc). I think there are badge activity sets that explain how to earn these badges.

Definitely feel free to message me if you want to share ideas this year!

Good luck!

I like your ideas. We did the junior journeys and earned our bronze award. The journeys are like having school work during scouts. We nearly lost every girl because our leader insisted on doing everything by the book. I would skip them but our council insists we Have to do them.

I love that you skip snack. We lose 20-30 minutes and the girls are 10 and 11. It's ridiculous. They don't even get 20 minutes to eat lunch at school.

Looks good we are working on that one too.

There is a How To Journey leader guide if that is the one that you picked up. It is confusing with no clear objectives.

I'm not sure about you question: Are teh badge activity sets different than what I think i got in my brown brownie binder??? Would you be able to clarify?

Have fun! Enjoy the girls! Don't let stress rob you of the fun.