First Email to Parents and Troop Rules

So, I had a lot of requests for these emails and at first I kept up with them but I've gotten way behind, so I'm finally doing what my co-leader suggested I do months ago and just post them.  It's weird looking at them because we sent them out a year and half ago and things have changed.   But this is what we started with as first year daisies:

First Email to Parents:

Dear Parents,

We are happy to invite you to join our new Daisy Scout Troop!  My name is Stacy and my good friend K and I will be co-leading.  My daughter is a kindergartener at _____ Elementary, and K’s daughter is a first grader at ________ Elementary School, so this will be a mixed troop.  Our goal is to have eight girls.

If you would like to join or troop we will be meeting from 4:00-5:30 pm every 1^st and 3^rd Friday at my house.  We are having a Family Meeting September 21 at 6 pm to meet everyone and sign paperwork.  The meetings will start on Friday, Oct 5, and if you decide to join I will send you our tentative schedule for the year. 

We also plan to have monthly field trips on Saturdays or Sundays (Sundays will be mostly during soccer season).  Our first field trip will be Apple Picking on Sunday October 28 to Mark Miller Farm in Winchester from 1-5:30.  Most of our field trips will not be this long or far away. 

We need families who are committed to coming to the meetings since this will be a small troop and we plan to be moving at a strong pace.  We want the girls to earn a petal or a patch at almost every meeting.  The meetings will be held in or near my kitchen which is not nut free, so if your child has a dangerous nut allergy this may not be the right troop for them.  We plan to have a very active and interactive group. If you are not interested in the weekend field trips please wait for another troop.  As a small troop we want the majority of girl’s at all events.

We will also need parent involvement.  We will need a female chaperone for each field trip.  We are asking all the parents to rotate “hosting” meetings, which means bringing a snack and hanging out during the meeting to help if needed.   For meetings, moms and dads are welcome (dads are welcome on field trips as well, but because of regulations we’ll need 3 adult females if all the girls want to go).  We’re also looking for moms interested in being Cookie Mom or our Troop Money Manager.

K and I have decided to purchase everything the girl’s will need to get started and hand it out at the first meeting.  We’ll expect each girl to come with $90.  For this we will register the Daisy, one of her parents (a parent needs to be a member of girl scouts to help out), the Blue Daisy Vest (we’ll have them at the family meeting for the girls’ to try on for size), all the petals and pins they will need to get started, and all of our crafts, activities, and field trips through the end of the year.  Hopefully after that, fund raising will start to pay for everything.  We are not requiring the girls to purchase the Daisy Handbook, but you may want to.  We’ll have one available to look at the meeting and if you want we can purchase a copy of that for your daughter as well.  It’s $22.50.

Please know that if you don’t think we are the troop for you and you turn us down now you will keep your spot at the top of the waiting list, but if you join the troop and then want to switch you will be placed at the bottom.

If you decide to join our Troop we promise an exciting adventure that is both fun and character building.  Please let us know as soon as possible if we seem like the troop for you.  We’re so excited to meet you and get started!

Thank you,

Stacy & K

Troop Rules

It looks like I over wrote out initial troop rules and these were the ones I put together before our second year, so you'll see the curriculum and books I've mentioned are what we did in Fall of 2013 when we had both Daisy 2 and Brownies.

Troop 000

Daisy Troop 000 is a small mixed group Daisy Troop with Kindergarteners and First Graders from ____________Elementary School, ____________  Elementary School and ____________Elementary School. 

Meeting Place: All regular meetings, including the Family meeting with be at Stacy’s house:

            XXXXXX

            XXXXXX, VA 55555

(I do have two small dogs.  I’m going to try to keep them in the basement for meetings, but they may get out so please warn your girls not to try to pick them up.  They look like cuddly, friendly teddy bears, but they bite if they get scared or have had too much.)  We will usually be on the main floor, but some activities may be outside.

Meeting Times:  Regular Meetings will be 4-5:30pm on the First and Third Fridays of every month.  Please be on time or early as we have a lot to do. 

Uniform: The Blue Daisy Vest or Brown Brownie Vest and patches/pins, Khaki bottoms (pants, shorts, skirt) and a white shirt should be worn at every meeting, field trip or event. If you would like to buy the official Daisy or Brownie skirt, leggings or shirt be our guest, but they are rather expensive.

Badges:  This Fall the Diasies will be working on Their Animal Journey Badges (and will get other fun patches along the way).  The Brownies will be working on 6 different Badges that either work well with the journey or that our current girls have chosen.  They incluse: Painting, dancer, My Best Self, Hiking, Snacks, and the Daisy Way. 

Books:  The Daisies will be using The Daisy Handbook and 5 Flowers, 4 Stories, 3 Cheers for Animals Journey Book.  The Brownies will need the Brownie Handbook and all three badge supplement packs. 

Dues:  We earned a ton of money last year in cookies and fall sales, but we also spent almost all of it with our many field trips, activities and badges.  We are asking for $100 from daisies and $115 from Brownies for the girl’s registration, mom’s registration, badges, vest, books, craft supplies and most field trips.

Field Trips:  Outside the two meetings a week we will be planning a monthly field trip (Usually the second weekend).  Depending on the logistics it might be Friday, Saturday or Sunday.  We would like the girls to attend as many of these as possible, as they will be a very important part of the experience.  If all the girls attend we will need at least one other female chaperone.  There are extensive rules for male chaperones and while we welcome them as the fourth etc, we need three adult, registered female girl scouts on all trips. 

Snacks:  We are requiring that every family take turns “hosting” or bringing snacks, plats, cups, etc for each meeting.  Girl scouts very much emphasizes healthy snacks, so keep that in find when your turn comes.  Also, we’d like to avoid prepackaged snacks because we will use snack time to emphasize sharing and being fair and the small packages are just too easy.  There will be times when a specific snack ties in with an activity so we might ask you to get that.

Fund Raisers:   We do plan on having all the girls participate in Cookie Sales after the new year, including booth sales.  We will also participate, more casually, in a Fall Fund Raiser that sells magazines and Candy/Nuts. 

Absences:  We expect all the kids to be sick at some point this year and miss a meeting.  Since we will be earning patches at most meetings, if a girl is out we will get you a packet of things to do at home so they can still earn their badges with the rest of the girls.

We hope to have a wonderful, fun filled year!

Mommy Rules:

While I'm posting rules, I might as well post the set that we instituted these year for field trips and camp outs.  They've been invaluable and I often have parents quoting the "Mommy Rules" to the girls.  

The Mommy Rules

Troop 000

1.     Mommies do not carry a girl’s scouts stuff on field trips and events

2.     Mommies do not carry girl scouts

3.     When mommies are at meetings they do sit in the Girl Scout circle.  Girl Scouts do not sit on their laps (they may sit next to them).

4.     Mommies do not clean up the girl scouts’ mess (unless specifically asked by the leaders because we are running behind).

5.     Ms Stacy and Ms K are in charge, if they tell you to do something do not go to mommy to get an answer you like better.

6.     When mommies are at meetings they will be given jobs, girl scouts will not leave what they are supposed to be doing to go bother their mommy.

7.     Crafts at Girl Scout meetings are designed so the girls can do them mostly by themselves.  Mommy’s can help by using the stapler, opening glue bottles, and pouring paint, but they will not do a girl scout’s project for them.

8.     Ms Stacy and Ms K are in charge but all Mommies are to be respected at all times.  They are allowed and asked to tell any girl scout if they are misbehaving and all girl scouts are expected to listen.

Hope this helps.  I'll try to get out more blogs.  It's just been a crazy busy year.

Communication Interlude (aka an Ode to the Shutterfly Share Site)

First off I’d like to say, I am not associated with Shutterfly in any way. They give me no money, I own no stock, I have not a single family member working there. I just found the Shutterfly Share Site a Godsend for my troop.

A good friend of mine introduced me to Shutterfly Share for our troop. She used it for my daughter and her son’s kindergarten class to share information and sign up for volunteers (yes, it is soooo much more then about picture sharing). We were able to get all our information on there in an evening and it revolutionized the way the troop runs and communicates.

Sample of Share Site (took me 30 seconds to create)

Only drawbacks: The site “owner” has to have a Shutterfly account and has to buy something off the site at least once a year. I do that anyway so it wasn’t an issue. The other members don’t need to buy anything.

Calendar
Shutterfly has an easy to manage, easy to update, calendar available on anything that has the internet. The whole troop has access to it at all times, so they don’t need to call, email or text “when’s our next meeting.” Best of all, it automatically emails everyone 24 hours (or any other time period you select) before every meeting and event.

It keeps you organized and the troop informed.

Calender Sample

Sign Ups
This is really the best part. There is a tab for any kind of sign ups you need. And we needed them a lot. Sign up for meeting snacks. Sign up for food items for a party or field trip or pot luck. Sign up for a wish least for random craft materials we were running low in. We used it for whose turn it was to take care of the team mini-garden, for what people were contributing to our charity “Project Elf,” and for chaperones. It was great.

One of us simply created the sign up and instructions and the site would automatically email it to everyone. You can check to make sure people are signing up (most do pretty quickly). Then the site automatically emails each person who signed up 2 days before they need to do their volunteer job or bring in their item. Brilliant!

Snack Sign Up

Message Board

The message board quickly took the place of almost all email in our troop. Everything we wanted to communicate was a new topic and sent to everyone. This way, if anyone needed any information about what was going on and someone couldn’t find their email, it was easy to log on and find the massage. You can link permission forms and field trip websites as well.


Pictures

Even though this is Shutterfly, I’d say the pictures (and videos) are just a plus. A pretty good plus, though. It keeps an easily accessible series of albums for the troop. Best part: I take pictures on a field trip on my IPhone. As we climb into the car on the way home I hit my Shutterfly app. In 5 seconds it’s downloading all the pictures to the site. By the time I’m home all the pictures are on my Shutterfly and it takes me 5 minutes to get them organized, up on the Share Site, and out to all the parents. The families love this!




One of the biggest complaints I’ve heard from parents about other troops is “I never know what’s going on.” This makes that easy and fun. Seriously. It’s great.