Homemaker's Journal: Girl Scout Favorite Things

HJournal wishes Girl Scouts a HAPPY 100th ANNIVERSARY ;-) (3/12) These illustrations are from the Girl Scout Handbook, circa 1949 and Cadette Girl Scout Handbook, circa 1963. I was hoping this post might be of interest to fellow Girl Scouts enthusiasts. It's kind of a collection of my favorite Girl Scout Memoirs. I also like to collect old Girl Scout and Boy Scout books and memorabilia.

Parades

I was in charge of the t-shirts for our local Girl Scouts. They might be plain, but they hadn't made t-shirts in a few years and I really didn't have anything to go by. We had them in time for the Peanut Festival Parade, Dothan, Alabama (fall 2000). Our first parade was the Peanut Festival Parade in the fall of 1998. Shown with Mrs. Alabama and in the second photo--our troop leaders: me and Mrs. Lolley.

Then we moved north to Ozark and my troop and a sister troop sponge painted sweatshirts (a badge requirement of course!) for the Christmas Parade '01.

Thinking Day

My husband helped us by cutting the Eiffel Tower out of cardboard. Then he lit it up with Christmas tree lights. It was a sight to behold in the dark. I had my girls make the display for a homeschool project. I found striped fabric with France's flag colors. I helped with one Thinking Day '01 and made these "passports" for the girls to get stamped at each troop's booth. Every troop had a different country. I remember we did Ireland and France. We actually had a girl from Ireland in our troop. She was my daughter's best friend. We gave a Bon Bon candy to each "visitor" to our France booth (Feb. 2002).

Patches and Badges

My co-leader, J. Lolley, came up with this cute idea for our Daisies' and Brownies for a simple uniform. We decided not to use the Daisy smocks. That's why I put all of Elise's patches on a banner (shown above).
One of the girls from our troop, actually won the G.S. card design contest for our district. Woo Hoo :0)

Uniforms

I worked real hard with the parents to make sure the Try-its and official insignia were properly placed. With kids, it's real important to receive badges as soon as possible. It's not practical to have a full-blown ceremony every single meeting so we would announce at least two ceremonies a year and lock in the date. Badges earned in between those dates would be recognized as part of a regular meeting and the girls could go ahead and get them on their sashes.

I really wanted the girls to learn to sew on their own badges once they became Juniors. Occasionally we would use meetings to go over this. The girls were given needles and corresponding thread and we would sit in a circle on the floor while I went around to show each girl how to sew them on and give them help if needed. If there were a lot of badges to put on, I would sew them on myself rather than let them get lost. I rarely had to reorder badges because of this.

Activities

Every year we asked the girls what they wanted to use their cookie money for and the number one answer was, "Go to the Beach!!!" We never did do that, (except when we lived in Port St. Lucie-2000!) but we did use the money for practical things like going to Girl Scout Camps as a troop to earn badges. And of course we had parties. We went on a trip to Florida Caverns State Park, Mariana, FL which is close to Dothan.

Our troop did a lot of activities at Landmark Park in Dothan, Alabama. My Daisies and I were actually asked to be in a Girl Scout commercial for Alabama and it was filmed at Landmark Park! This was taken at Girl Scout Day at Landmark. Little Brother was a tagalong to many Girl Scout functions. We also gave service to Landmark Park '02 when we showed guests how to make Cornhusk Dolls. In 1998, the Dothan troop planted daylillies at the elementary school's garden (shown on bridge).

Making Corn Husk Dolls

Meetings

Meetings were usually held at a church or a leader's home. Most of the ones in Ozark were held at my home 2001-2002, but when we needed more room to make quilts for the children's hospital we held meetings at the local library's meeting room.

Swaps Collection

Swaps are small crafts that G.S. give as gifts or trade with other scouts. They are sometimes referred to as potlatch. Their origin is Native American. POTLATCH is the ceremonial exchange of gifts practiced by Native Americans of Northwest Coast tribes. The custom stems from the legend explaining why birds have colored feathers. As the story goes, two Indian girls plucked feathers of a magic bird and distributed the multicolored plumage to the colorless birds living in the forest. From that time on, birds have had brightly colored feathers, and those gifts were remembered at potlatch ceremonies.
Swaps can be simple or complex, cheap or expensive, whatever the maker desires. Each girl needs to decide how many swaps she wants to make. This is the same number she will receive. Larger troops may want to make several kinds of swaps so that the girls will have more opportunities to trade. Probably 10-15 per girl is a good number to aim for.
Swaps can be made during a troop meeting, during a special meeting called for the express purpose of making swaps, or examples shown at the meeting, with the swaps to be made at home. One suggestion,which might be helpful for younger gilrs, is to have a mother/daughter evening to mass produce the swaps in one night.
You can demonstrate some of the ideas listed below, or just provide an assortment of beads, ribbons, felt, pipe cleaners, etc. and let their imaginations run wild. Or you may want to have your group plan a swap and then consider the cost, materials needed, how long it will take, etc. Swaps are usually only an inch or two in size and attach with a safety pin. Traditionally they are pinned on a swap hat. This hat could be part of your troop identificationNall a certain color, with troop number decorated on with fabric paints.
On the day of the swap, each girl will come with a shoebox (or something) with her swaps in it, and will mingle with other girls, trading her swaps for others that interest her. Hopefully, the swaps will have small safety pins attached and can be pinned to a swap hat or jacket. Leaders may want to come prepared with a few extra swaps for girls who were absent when they were made.
Why swap? To promote friendship. To learn to talk to other people. To have mementos of a good time. To share our handiwork with other scouts. Girls on wider opportunities and adults at national meetings swap patches and handmade items. These often reflect the area the scout lives in. Camp swapping is a great background for this. (This was found on the internet many moons ago!)

I have a few more Swaps shown at my post: Some Favorite Campy Things.