Then best laid plans

I started off my scout year thinking, I will create this blog and post every week. I should have know better. I tend to get to involved in things and ideas like my blogs take the back seat.

My troop has been super busy and it is hard to believe that it is March and we are working towards the end of the year and bridging! I will create posts on our badge work in separate posts.

But I want to use this post to vent. It has been a rough few months. Not with my troop but with D.R.A.M.A. with another troop in the area.

I have heard that it is a problem everywhere but man it sucks. I have worked very hard to improve the view of the local community about scouting. When we started in Daisies, so many people would say, "We tried scouting but the kids were wild and parents just used it as an hour long baby sitting service." I did not want that for my troop. I wanted the girls to get the most out of scouting and to truly benefit from the community service.

The first year was horrible because of lack of support to a new leader.

The second year was drama because of infighting with the leader and parents, which lead to the leader stepping down and moving her daughter to a different troop.

Third year, I went from assistant leader to leader. Things were getting better until a crazy world- wind cookie season that divided our troop. The stress of selling over 4000 boxes of cookies with 9 girls was to much!

Finally this year, we had the idea. We have had an amazing group of girls and parents who let us do our thing. My new assistant is truly in the program to better the girls. We work well together and we are different enough to give the girls more variety but we still enjoy each other.

Our problem is with the other troop who originally started off as a 3rd grade brownie troop just like us.

Now we live in such a small area that there really is only about 100 kids in 3rd grade. The new troop was lead by our crazy  cookie mom from the last year.

I don't know why she left, but man am I glad that she did leave. It took all the stress about how my year would go away. I have my suspisions on why she left. I don't believe she liked that we were switching to a drop and go troop. I don't think she liked that I did not want her help. I dont think she liked when I said no men at camp. I think these are the reasons but I am not sure. All I know is that I am glad to be rid of her.

But she keeps popping into my life!

First she recruited girls from my troop who were no longer coming back due to other interests.One girl has soccer practice on scout night, one girl did not want to come back. She called parents up and asked them to join her troop and not mine.

I can not even begin to tell you how that hurt me, and it took me a while to get through to myself that it isn't about me or my numbers, at least the girls were still scouting.

Then came the Halloween parade and the news that a parent was run over by their float. WHAT??? Yes, her foot was run over causing her to need surgery on her foot. And the real kick in the pants was that none of the newly required paperwork was filed on the parade.

So council requires us to do a roster for insurance reasons, that troop leader does not fill out the form, takes the troop to something she doesn't have approval on, and THEN an injury happens. An injury SHE DID NOT REPORT! What happens to this woman.... Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

In November I found out that my former co-leader decided not to come back but to instead join her troop. I found out in the most horrible way possible. I saw on Facebook that she had joined this troops page. Nice! We were friends outside of scouts and to be told personally would have been nice. When asked what she was doing with her kids, she lied to me.

We learned that in order for this troop to hit sales goals, not only was she recruiting girls from 3rd grade but she was also recruiting daisy age girls. She had daisy girls under her brownie number and did not tell our council rep! In fact the service unit leader had no idea. I only found out about it when a parent asked if we were taking other age groups because a friend of hers had both her girls in one troop. What happened with that, oh they allowed her to keep two troops AND she was still given the big troop reward from selling fall product.

WHAT??? She not only recruited people from other troops but then LIED on registration forms and added girls on so she could hit the high numbers need for troop incentive. SHE BLATANTLY broke the rules and you gave her the reward she broke the rules for?? How is that teaching girls to be "honest and fair"???

In early January I start to get messages from that troops former leader who was in charge of the troops nut sales. She starts to tell me all these horrible things about the troop and ends with, I want to join your troop. Look I will never turn down a girl especially if they are being mistreated by an adult. Just because you are having issues with the parent, you do not take it out on the kid.

After talking with my assistant, we agreed to bring her over to our troop. This all happened right before cookie season. I did not want this troop leader to go all nuts so I asked the mom to not inform them that the daughter was coming to my troop. Honestly I didn't want to hear it. Why invite drama?

This little girl is loving our troop and she fits in so well. Her first meeting she ran over to her mom and said she didn't want to leave and that they never did anything like that in the other troop! That made us feel so good. Because at least we are doing what is right by those we are supposed to be serving, the GIRLS.

My assistant and I went where we shouldn't and were catty. We giggled and said, there is no way they will make it through cookie season in tact!

Queue cookie season.....

We start hearing that a troop has already been selling the presale cookies since Decemeber. Big no no.

We try to set up cookie booth areas, they have already been claimed for weeks, another no-no.

It just seemed like we were banging our heads on walls. The Cookie manager could not do anything because there was no solid proof. The grocery store only had it listed as Girl Scouts. The people who bought cookies could tell us the names of who they ordered from but there was no proof. We needed solid proof not just hear say that looked like we were out to get this rival troop.

In the mean time, my kids started to participate in the Odyssey of the Mind program with my service unit managers daughter. We were getting little bits of information all the time.

Like that troop ordered 5000 boxes to start the booth season with.

Like the troop had set up cookie booths in areas where council had already set up booths. Even after the cookie manager denied the booths, the leader called council and complained and they let her have them.

The pick up of cookies was nasty and ugly between leaders of the troop.

Girls were being removed from booths they signed up for to make room for girls the leader liked better.

I went into the grocery store and a mom says to me that she was told to "rethink her daughters involvement in the troop" when the mom told the leader that they were not going to sell at booths.

Found out and had pictures from 2 booths were there was not enough people at. Council says you must have 2 parents and 2 girls at booths. One booth was just a parent and the other one was a parent and daughter.

But nothing is being done about this from council.

She is being aloud to carry on because she is a P.I.T.A. and no one wants to deal with her. She is not a good role model for the girls and yet, nothing is changing!

I am so frustrated at this point. And disappointed with our council. I feel like they are letting her get away with this because of both high troop sales and high numbers of girls in the troop. When we confronted our rep about this all she would say is that we wont have to deal with it next year.

What does that mean???

This woman wont get a troop??? Or she wont be doing cookies???

What about the girls stuck in this situation?

What about the girl who over hears that their troop leader wants her gone because her cookie sales aren't good enough??

What about the girls who are being shown the WRONG way to run their cookie business??? What does that teach them???

What about the girls who don't want to go to scouting anymore because they do not do anything but go on trips?

Who is looking out for these girls??

I am so thankful that this is not in my troop. I am so happy that I have an amazing group of girls and parents. But I hate that all the hard work of those who really are passionate about scouts is turned to garbage by those like this woman. If that was your troop would you bring your girl back for another year? There is no way in hell I would, that is for sure.

Halloween Parade

We participated in two Halloween Parades this year and the costumes came out wonderfully. I had to do a bit of the work myself because I canceled a meeting due to family issues. Each box had a picture of the girls doing something at a Girl Scout function.

The first parade was at night, and I don't have any pictures of them! We bought 30 dollars in candy and would you believe that they threw out all that candy in about 2 blocks. And we had about 10 blocks left to walk.

A little girls brother and my son held the banner. I love when the brothers help out.

And the girls walked great. It was a bit chilly and it was a bit of walking, but there was not a complaint among them. I just love these girls!

We did not win or place in this parade, but that was OK as long as they had a good time.

Then we did a parade in our home town on Saturday morning. The weather was fabulous and the girls were in such a good mood. They stayed together and walked so well.

At the end of the parade, they stood before the judges and rocked the Promise in sign language.

We ended up winning first place inn the group category!

We are hoping that they won enough to help them go to a reptile zoo.

Happy Birthday Juliette!

Our meeting on Tuesday was a throw back meeting. We wanted a way to celebrate our founders birthday. I decided to have the girls make butter and I would bake a loaf of bread. After all, what is better than hot bread and melty butter?

I made butter once with my own kids before and it is fairly simple. It does take a while, especially with the little ones shaking, but when it goes from cream to butter the kids get a kick out of that.

I started the bread at home and was planning on bringing the dough into the meeting place.

Then the temperature outside dropped.

Now I was worried that by taking the bread outside in the cold air, it would flatten the dough.
I heated up my car and made the transfer from the house to the car as fast as possible. I left the dough right on top of the vents in the dash board. But it didn't work. However it smelled awesome and the girls loved it.

To make the butter I bought heavy whipping cream and I brought with me some small ziploc containers. I filled 3 containers about half way full, snapped the lids on and handed them to the girls. I have 5 girls that night and I figured that with 3 containers, once they pass it around, every now and then the girls arms will get a break.

While they shook the containers, I read the Brownie story out of the big brown book. The week earlier, we asked the girls to tell the new scouts the Brownie story. Now I wanted to read it to them. It is amazing to me how these little things make such an impression on them and that they remember them.

It took about 5 minutes before the first container became butter. That made the girls so excited and all of a sudden they no longer had tired arms and they were shaking like crazy. Just about the time when the butter was done, the bread was done as well.

The smell was amazing!!

The girls could not wait to put that butter on the bread. They were so proud of themselves.

Even with the flat bread!

The Meeting that Wasn't

I don't know if it is just my council or if it is a common problem, but reps just don't make meetings!

Yesterday my co-leader was supposed to meet with our council rep for her adult training. She gets to McDonalds at 5:15 because she had her daughter and figures that they would get dinner. She was supposed to meet the rep at 5:30.

5:45 I get a text saying that the rep is not here yet, WTH!

I know that the rep knows that she is supposed to be there because I sent her an email earlier in the day with a troop roster and to let her know the Miss B is going to have a new girl registration and check. She acknowledged that she would see B there.

And I know that Miss B is getting angrier with every passing minute.

5:55 she sends me a text saying she is leaving, and quiet frankly, I don't blame her.

Ten minutes later my phone is ringing.

Our rep called her and asked if she was running late. Miss B said she had sat there for 45 minutes before she left and that she was not coming back.

And really you can not expect a child to sit for 45 minutes and then go back and sit longer. Even the best kid will have trouble with that.

Turns out that the Rep was sitting there the whole time. Unfortunately Miss B had never met the rep before. And I guess the rep didn't know what she looked like either. 

Miss B offers to do it again next week and is told that it would be the 24th before the rep can come back and do the training.

BUT this is not the first time that this has happened!

Once with a different rep, my co-leader of the time and I sat for an hour waiting for a rep to meet with us. We called her several times, sent text messages and did not hear anything from her until the next day when she said that she had forgotten about us.

It is absolutely frustrating. These are supposed to be the PAID people who are there to help you and they can't be bothered to make a meeting or a phone call or even get up from her seat and walk around looking for someone.

As is becoming my mantra, "Thank god the girls are awesome!"

Halloween Prep

The last two year we have been in the local Halloween parade. For us it is a way to celebrate scouting and JGL at the same time. When we started scouting there was no real presence in the community. It has since grown to several different troops for the same age group and a definitely a bigger presence.

The first year the girls were still Daisies and we went as the Flowers from the journey. Each girl made a face mask and we marched behind the Brownie troop.

Last year we wanted to do something a bit more. My co-leader of the time and myself came up with the idea that the girls would dress up as something the represents the badges they were working on. They would then make a sign to carry that has their badge on it. We won second place in the group category.

My daughter as Billy the Exterminator for the bugs badge.

This year we wanted to do something better. We had originally thought of doing a float, but that is a big no-no and a lot of work!

We settled on the girls being boxes of cookies and when they are in front of the judges, they will do the Promise in ASL.

Last night we started on the costumes. We have 6 girls now in the troop. (Yay, we added one officially last night. She tagged along for the hike.) We are going with these cookies, Samoa, Tagalongs, Thin Mints, Dosidos, Savannah Smiles and Trefoils.

Did you know that trefoils are nut free and produced on equipment that is nut free. Making it perfect for those with nut allergies. I have a little girl in the troop with an allergy and we are making her the Trefoil. Plus as a mom of a kid with food allergies, it is so nice that there is something that an allergy kid can have without worry.

The colors of these boxes are pretty straight forward. Purple, red, green, orange, yellow and blue. I bought the big bottle of acrylic paints for the girls to use and sponge brushes.

We only meet for an hour, which translates to about 30 minutes of work time. Some of the girls got 2 coats of paint on their boxes, and some girls used a whole bottle of paint and only did one coat. But that is what you have with young girls.

After they painted the girls had to wash their brushes out and clean up. This is where stress for me and my co-leader, Miss B, came in. There was no way that I could put 6 wet freshly painted boxes in my car and neither could she. We needed a place to store them at our church. She found a spot, kind of out of the way, and we layer garbage bags down and then proceeded to transfer wet boxes to the bags. Needless to say that we got covered in paint. I get stressed out at the end of scout meetings because I have to leave right away. My husband works third shift and we have one car right now. I need to be back in time for him to leave. As I am seeing the mess, I am starting to worry about getting out of there in time.

But then, like always, I get shown how my girls are truly amazing. Two cleaned the kitchen, where they were washing brushes, two scrubbed the tables clean, one gathered the garbage and then they worked together to clean the floor. I was so happy that these girls took the initiative to "leave a place better than we found it". I did not have to ask them to do it. They knew that we were done with the project and it was time to clean.

That is what scouting is all about.

Today my co-leader is meeting with our council rep to have her adult training done. Here is the problem with that statement.
1. She has been a volunteer for 2 full years.
2. She has been in some form of leadership for those 2 years.
3. It was done before.
So I guess my problem or complaint is two fold. First, if it wasn't done before this point then someone wasn't doing their job for 2 years. Her back ground check was done, so her training should have been done then. And Second, I know it was done because the rep before this came to our meeting (2nd year Daisy) and did the training for all the volunteer parents. Why wasn't it put into the system?

We have been working with this rep for over a year. She has never once been at a meeting. She doesn't come to our mini service unit meetings. We have no support at recruitment events unless the council sets them up. When we have our sign up nights, they are not there. We have no support at all from this woman. It is so frustrating.

 I am hoping her meeting goes well. My co-leader is a bit more outspoken than I am, and has no problem speaking her mind. It will be interesting to hear how it goes.

Hiker Badge

We had so much fun! We went to Rickets Glenn State Park in North Eastern Pennsylvania. It was quite a drive for us. I did not realize how far it actually was. We set out for the hike in a caravan. However every little town that we went through seemed to be having their fall festivals or fireman's boot drives. So not only was it a long drive, but now it was long with traffic. I do not think kids at any age a patient in traffic.

We headed to the visitors center and picked up trail maps. Then parked the cars and regrouped at the picnic area. We then proceed to make trail mix. The girls each brought an ingredient. Ours consisted of pretzels, goldfish crackers, honey roasted peanuts, raisins, and honey nut Cheerios. They all got to pour in their ingredients and then shake the bag.

We then looked at the trail map and came up with a game plan. We also laid out some ground rules with the girls. No running was a big one. Get girls in the fresh air and they almost always want to run.

We got to the first part of the trail and they had a big rule sign and trail map. This was a perfect chance to go over the park rules (not just our troop rules) and for them all to see on a big scale where we were going and what we were going to see. We also went over trail markings and what we should do if we got lost in the woods.

We walked for about a mile and all of a sudden the terrain changes. These trails are marked as mostly difficult and they were. The park starts off at a high elevation and you walk down hill to the falls.

The girls were dying to get into their trail mix and we agreed that they could break into it at the first fall. The girls walked great and then spotted a mini-fall and enjoyed their snack. This is the first time that most off these girls were seeing waterfalls in person. This one was about 5 feet tall.

After our snack we continued on. They found lots of wild life and bugs including this white caterpillar. The girls said that he was poisonous, but I am not sure on that.

At this point, I am thinking wow these trails really are tough. I am not in shape at all. We turn a bend, the sound of water gets louder and then another steep incline followed by stairs.

And the reason why I now refer to the first fall as a mini.

We continued walking along the path and saw three more huge falls. My co-leader got to the next set of steep stairs and we agreed, it was time to head back up.

We originally wanted to walk only about an hour and it turns out we walked about 3 and a half hours. The girls were A-M-A-Z-I-N-G! Not one complaint from them. Me, I was beat and at the point of whining, but these third grade girl had no issues. They just kept walking. At one point, they even broke out into song.

At the end of the day 3 girls earned their hiker badge and all 5 had a great time. (2 already had the badge.)

My daughter and her friend were asleep in the car before we were 20 minutes into the drive home!

Getting ready to hike!

After over a year from when this idea first came to mind, we are going on a hike. We picked a state park with waterfalls. I am so excited. I went there when I was in 6th grade and still remember the good time I had. I also went with an adult friend about 3 years ago. I am hoping the girls are prepared to hike, because it is not easy. Sometimes we "hike" and it is more like a walk. This is an actual hike.

We are making trail mix and planning the route when we get there. I will share pictures when we get back.