The Living End - Friday, May 23 - only two weeks away

It is still our plan that our truly-the-end Court of Awards be held at the Sundial Restaurant on the top of the Westin Peachtree Plaza downtown on Friday evening, May 23. We will have our last of all Court of Awards even though Laura probably will not be finished with her project.

The plan is to meet at the Callaway's at 6:00 p.m. and carpool to the restaurant in as few vehicles as possible, parking downtown being as expensive as it is. We have reservations for 7:00 p.m., but we cannot be seated at the tables by the windows. We will be at the large sections just one away from the windows. The troop funds will stretch to cover the three girls' dinners, but everyone else will pay for their own meals by writing a check to Beth Unger whose credit card will take the hit. The absolute final headcount will be done by Friday, May 16. Any leftover troop funds after Laura's project is completed will go to Camp Meriwether.

Final Head Count - Friday, May 16 - that's this week!

Here is our confirmed list so far:

Callie and her mom, Janet

Crystal

Laura (what about Aunt Maura?)

Pat and Anne

Marie

Yvonne

Beth and Evelyn

Audrey, Christina, and Karen

Jane and Katie Webster

Our total is 15 at this point. When last we communicated with the restaurant they said that they could get 14 into one of the large sections, but would not say exactly what the upper limit total is that they can squeeze in. They said to call them when we know our final number which is what Pat will do next weekend when the final head count has been achieved.

It has been suggested that we might want to change locations to accommodate all the former members who might wish to come if they were notified, but we've held off notifying any beyond the leaders' daughters because of trying to balance (1) the needs of the current girls to have their own end of Girl Scouts finale, (2) the leaders' needs to share this special day with the girls who are the reasons that they became Girl Scouts Leaders so many years ago, and (3) the need for a grand troop finale.

Pat's Suggestion

I am not certain that Jane and Katie actually are planning to join us, but I know that they wish and others are very likely to wish to have a grand finale. Since we will not be able to award Laura's Gold Award this month, perhaps we do need one more final finale with room for everyone and a Gold Award Ceremony. I think that we've been successful with a New Year's Day party, and I will be happy to commit to hosting one in 2009. We could invite everyone, including the long ago girls like Malika Shafiq and Katarina in Finland - you never know what happens with enough lead time! Frankly I'd jump at the chance to spend some December-January time in Atlanta rather than Helsinki. Katarina would probably show up in shorts and flipflops.

Several of the girls, older and current, want to do the Empty Stocking Fund and pizza next December, and that would let us work up to a big finish. So let me know what you think. Make sure I hear about the final details of who is coming by next Friday, and let's all plan to have as much fun as possible.

What will your leaders do without you?

Audrey and Beth are planning to take a break. Since Audrey has Christina's wedding coming up next winter, she sounds pretty firm. Beth doesn't sound too firm about anything except that she's not going to be the service unit cookie chair next year. Enough already! We are all certain that 3 Leaves devoutly hopes that Marie will keep taking care of their website and maybe ours, too. It would be so great if we had a way to keep in touch with each other through the website. Pat is already signed up for a Train the Trainers class in August. A secret leaders' meeting needs to be scheduled in October to do those midterm surprises.