Potluck Supper and Court of Awards – Friday, May 18, 6:30 pm at the Callaways’

The extremely organized Rossie Kennedy has agreed to organize the food for this event. Please call her to let her know what you would like to bring. We will have our Court of Awards and discuss any details we need to take care of for that Sunday's Service Unit Ceremony.

Service Unit Bridging Ceremony – Sunday, May 20, 3:00 pm at St. Bede’s

Senior Troop 5880, our favorites, will be organizing this event, and we will help them as a part of our bridging activities. We need to "do something with a Senior troop", and this is it:

They have asked us to help with the food. We will be in charge of drinks, and we need to decide if we want to do punch and lemonade or just one or the other. Pat thinks we should also provide water. We can also contribute snacks and finger food. Uniforms could probably be in order for this event, or at least badge sashes & vests, so check to see if you’ve sewed on all your recent recognitions. If we need to have a sewing bee, please call Pat.

Our Silver Award recipients who are finished will receive their Silver Awards, and all our parents are invited to come and cheer. The first seven pins are already here, and they are beautiful. We will not bridge on May 20^th because we have our own plans for how we would like to celebrate that passage. We’ll probably be forced to have another party when the rest of the Silver Awards are done – not too much of a hardship!

As you know the Council likes us to register this spring for next fall. Can everyone please bring the $7 National dues to our Court of Awards/Potluck supper on May 18? Girl and adult registrations are each $7. Parents please be sure to stop inside a minute when dropping the girls off so that you can sign the forms. Checks can be made out to either Troop 4715 or the GSCNWGA. Thanks!

Also, remember that we wanted to try to cover camping costs individually so that we will save as much troop money as possible for our 'Switzerland/ Mexico/ wherever' trip in 2004. Your trusty advisor Pat forgot to ask you for horseback riding money ($12) for our February Misty Mountain trip. See why we need Marie handling the paperwork! Some of you have paid, but a few haven’t done that yet. Our trusty treasurer Beth will be contacting you, or you can bring the $12 on May 18, too.

We’ve just received notice about an interesting event that some troop members may be able to attend. We cannot plan a troop event with this short notice, but it really sounds interesting. The Experience Music Project’s Electric Bus is a traveling exhibit of interactive and interpretive exhibits to celebrate some of the greatest songwriters in popular music and explore the role of song in society. Visitors to the Electric Bus get to glimpse into the creative process through artifacts, graphics and multi-media exhibits assembled from the EMP collection. The exhibit was created in conjunction with the Grammy Foundation. Due to the complexity of this exhibit, it is best suited for children over 10 years of age. Marie is willing to act as facilitator if girls want to go together. You can call or email her to find out if she knows of anyone else who is going.

Show and Workshop at the Paper Museum

April 12-June 22 there will be an exhibit called "Forest Presence: Environmental Works" by Marjorie Alexander at the paper museum we enjoyed on the Georgia Tech Campus. Saturday, April 28 the artist will conduct a hands-on workshop on paper casting from 1-5 pm. To register or for information call 404-894-6663.

Service Opportunity

Carefree Lifestyles of Tucker (2076 Idlewood Road, Tucker, 30084) has asked our Service Unit for troops that would like to interact on a regular basis with the elderly residents. Activities could include games, especially bingo, arts & crafts, sing-a-longs, and so forth. The contact person is Dr. Vicki Patryla (770-938-4332). If a girl were interested in a medical sort of career, Dr. Patryla might turn out to be an excellent Gold Award mentor. Organizing the troop to do a project like this could also work for leadership hours. Of course, a project like this could be taken on just for the satisfaction of doing something to help others without regard for any recognition.

Arabia Mountain was great!

The girls who were lucky enough to be in town for this had a terrific day. The mountain is totally different from Stone Mountain, except that it’s granite. The service project was to clean out the butterfly garden and plant milkweed plants, and that was fun, too. We could really see that we had made a difference when we were done. Special thanks to Clayton Webster and Ray Callaway, who did a lot of the boring parts.

We met Mary Terry, who all by herself is half of the park rangers employed by DeKalb County, and two wonderful facilitators from Hands On Atlanta, Michelle and Erika. Lots of ideas for Gold Award projects were flying around. We were able to contribute some good ideas for attracting teen-aged volunteers to Arabia Mountain.

 Help Wanted for White County Senior’s Gold Award Project

A Senior Girl Scout is collecting used musical instruments to donate to White County Middle School to improve their band program. What a creative project! If you want to donate, Pat will be glad to transport your instrument to the Northeast Georgia Council Office in Gainesville.

Thinking Ahead About Dates for Next Year - These are not set in stone, so if you have feedback, especially better ideas, please talk to Beth or Marie or Pat or send email!

July 22-August 3 – Peachy Days Wider Op – We want to decorate doors, and some of us will have visiting girls from all over the nation. Maybe we can plan a social!

August 24-26 – proposed date for whitewater rafting trip and troop bridging

October 19-21 – proposed date for troop camping

February 16-19 – possible date for troop camping, except it’s a problem for Pat on Monday and Tuesday

March 1-3 – possible date for troop camping, except it’s probably cookie delivery weekend

May 10-12 – possible date for troop camping, except it’s in May

See you at our Potluck Awards dinner May 18^th!

Website Reminder

Don't forget that all the troop newsletters are on our troop website (http://www.gen.emory.edu/4715.html) so you can easily refer back to them.  The latest news is always under the "Breaking News" icon at the very top of our home page.  Also, all schedule updates are posted on the website's monthly planning calendars and on the Calendar Details page.