Girl Scout Senior Troop 4715 Newsletter December 17, 2001

January Meeting Date Change: Friday, January 11, 2002, 7:30-10:00 pm

There are some conflicts with the Honor Band, swim meets, and the Brenau Opera on our originally scheduled date of Saturday, January 12, so at our December meeting we decided to switch the January meeting to Friday night.  We’ll get the meeting started promptly at 7:30 on Friday night, although you can come at 7 pm to chat & hang out before we get going at 7:30.  Evelyn, Christina, and Stephanie will be in charge.  Committee chairs please remember to let them know how much time you will need.  Please remember to check calendars for the Council opportunity dates so that we can discuss them in January.  Please get forms from your trusty advisors and send in registrations for the ones that need to be done ASAP.

Important Dates in January and February

Great meeting in November

Diana and Jenny did a great job of planning and chairing the meeting.  Katie took the minutes.  Anne, Christina, Karen, Stephanie, Chandler, Rossie, Diana, Elizabeth, Jenny, Evelyn, Katie, Nicole, and Jessie were present.  We drew names for Secret Santa in December.  The next order of business was to check committee assignments and then break up for committee meetings.  Here’s how the committees stand at present:

Committees broke up to work on their projects, then we got back together for reports and activities.  Liz and Katie presented a section of the Senior Girl Scout Challenge and had everyone make a personal time line and set some goals for things she’d like to change in her life.  We kept the time lines to use at a later meeting.

Rossie, Karen, and Nicole met with Pat to work on the camping application for our winter camping trip.  They filled out the form requesting one of the new bunkhouses at Pine Acres for February 15-17, which is a four-day weekend.  They planned for us to leave on Saturday and return on Monday, leaving Tuesday for homework.  We have received confirmation of our dates and the Lakeview Cabins Bunkhouse.  They have asked for horseback riding and archery, and Nicole will see if her little sister’s troop can come up and join us for activities on Sunday. 

The Camping IPP Committee is planning for us to work on Skill Builders #1, 2, 3, and 5, Technology #3, Service Project #3, and Career Exploration #3.  If the Brownie Troop can join us for some time on Sunday, we can work on Service Project #3:  “Teach camping skills such as selecting proper equipment, meal planning, or pitching a tent, to a group of younger Girl Scouts.”

Aisha, Jessie, and Stephanie met to talk about our fund raising project, the car wash.  They are thinking of Arby’s or Hardee’s for possible locations.  They think that having no set price would allow people to give us whatever they want to.  Probably the best time of day to do this is 12-4 on an afternoon sometime this summer.

Anne, Chandler, and Christina are working to set up a meeting at which we can all work on our resumés.  They are planning to make a template and have us all bring our materials to put into it.  They have asked that everyone who hasn’t read Chapter 3 in the Senior Handbook, please catch up, and everyone please read Chapter 4.

Secret Santa on December 15, 2001

We had a great time at our Christmas party.  It was a relaxing time with games, goodies, and presents.  We missed Christina, Aisha, Jessie, and Karen, but kind delivery persons will get their presents and party favors to them.  We admired Diana, Katie, and Nicole’s names in the Winter Program Points magazine and noticed that our Zoo Patch plan seems to have been approved.  We spent a little time talking about upcoming opportunities from the council, and we decided to change the January meeting from Saturday to Friday.  We’re also considering going to see the Brenau Opera production of Gilbert & Sullivan’s The Gondoliers on Palm Sunday afternoon.

The Gold Award Notebook

Many of us have been to our Gold Award Workshops.  So far Christina, Anne, Pat, Chandler, and Rossie went on November 3, and Jenny, Evelyn, Elizabeth, Beth, and Marie went on December 9.  These girls have their Gold Award Notebooks.  The situation is different from Silver Award Notebooks, which we could copy.  The Gold Award notebooks are numbered, and the Council keeps a record of who has which book.  You will need one, and you can only get one by attending the workshops. 

The upcoming workshops are January 13 in North Fulton (registration deadline 1-1), March 16 in Gwinett (registration deadline 3-1), and April 6 in DeKalb (registration deadline 3-15).  You can register electronically on our Council’s website, or you can use our handy-dandy online form, or you can use the one from Program Points magazine. You can even get a form from your trusty advisors, who are, as always, available for help with transportation. Stephanie, Diana, Jamie, Aisha, Katie, & Nicole need to register and go.

For those of you who have your notebooks, you can start filling them in with the work that we’ve been doing at our meetings.  Remember that the Gold Award Committee will review your notebook, and they are very serious.  Do your best to describe what you did, and don’t wait until later to fill these things out.  You’ll hate yourself! 

There seems to be a typo in the sheets for Interest Projects.  The way the activities are numbered from IPP to IPP is weird, but maybe it makes sense if you understand what they’re after.  Please, someone ask at the next Gold Award Workshop. 

Katie and Liz got us started on the Senior Girl Scout Challenge, and we need to figure out how to use what they had us do to work on the notebook pages.  We’ve done some work on Section I – Developing Your Potential and on Section II – Relating to Others. 

The Challenge is to design your own self-development plan.  On the notebook pages you are asked to take several steps in the process.  Here they are:

(1)             List your personal short-term goals in Education, Friends, Health, Work, Family, and Recreation. 

(2)            Then you are asked to list your long-term goals in the same areas. 

(3)            You are asked to make a time-line for how you plan to achieve your short-term goals.

(4)            You are asked what skills you think you need to acquire to meet your long-term goals

(5)            Then you are asked to describe a two-month Challenge Goal that you set for yourself

(6)            And describe what your plan is to meet your Challenge Goal

(7)            Then describe what activities you carried out for at least two months

(8)            And tell what you learned.

There are also Challenges on Relating to Others, Developing Values for Living, and Contributing to Society.  As you can see they will take some thought and time, and we may not be able to do these as a group activity.  Maybe, though, we can use our time to get started and brainstorm together, but it’s pretty sure that you’ll have “homework” - not the best news we’ve had all week.  We also need to be a little more respectful of our sister scouts when they’re trying to lead us through this work.  There was so much group talking and fooling around at the November meeting that we may not have done what we needed to do.  Let’s not have to do things more than once.

Upcoming Opportunities from the Council

Some of these have registrations that have to be mailed in ASAP, and some have mail dates before which you must not mail.  All but the Girl Scout Day at the Georgia Capitol and the Brenau Opera are in the new Winter edition of Program Points, which should be in your mail soon.  If you haven’t got your copy and you want to attend one of the ASAP events, you can call a trusty advisor for a form.

Check your calendars and talk with your parents.  Decide if you want to attend some of these and which ones.  You must apply on your own to all of these except the Brenau Opera, which we will discuss at our meeting in January.  We will have forms for you at the January meeting if you still need them.

Website Reminder

Don't forget that all the troop newsletters are here on our troop website (http://www.3leaves.org/4715) 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.