Rock the Fair!

What a morning!  Girl Scouts Orange County Rocks the Fair!  Thousands of Girl Scouts, young and old, and everything inbetween showed up for the festivities.  We didn't quite fill the amphitheater, but we came close!  Wish I hadn't had to come back to work....

How Golden was this really?

 "Ratchford’s project, “On the Right Track: Preparing for College in High School,” prepared other youth for their journey to college through a three-hour workshop.

She based her workshop on her experience getting ready for college as a senior at The Roeper School in Bloomfield Hills, she said.

“I found I was very knowledgeable on the topic of college preparation, and I received compliments on my presentation,” said Ratchford, member of Troop 43950. “I was able to overcome my shyness and transform into a strong public speaker.”

Participants in the workshop were able to ask Ratchford and her college counselor questions, in addition to learning about college and being successful through a multi-media presentation."


Like me, you probably get the GSUSA blog in your inbox Monday thru Friday, without fail!  It's exciting to see what other girls and councils are doing around the country.  And like me, you probably wonder about the quality of the Gold Award Projects they post!  Well, I wonder about today's for sure!  I have to hope that there was more to it than what was presented.

I think this girl identified a need to fill in her community. But did she identify a root cause? And did she create a Gold Award Take Action Project to address that root cause?  Might she have learned that there would have been a benefit to this information being given to younger students?  Or was it only for those who had successfully been accepted to a college? Was she able to post a link to her presentation online with the school?  district?  other schools for use?  How would she have create traffic to her site, if it were posted?

Did she gather a team of non-troop girls/boys to educate about the issue, and then help her create the multi-media program?  Was it truly only presented once?  Why not to the entire school district? county? state? Why not multiple times for different audiences?

How did she plan to ensure sustainability?  Was there an entity at the school to take it over?  NSF? ASB?  PTSA?  Is the presentation one that could have gone further?

As I've said before, I can't tell from what was posted on the GSUSA blog, but I have to hope that this Gold Award Take Action Project really was robust, and that it moves forward to help others.  

Say it to me AGAIN!

I received an email from a girl last week who is trying to find a Gold Award Project.  Her mom is her advisor, and I think that adding the Gold Award to their relationship was not going smoothly.  The mom said "the talk" always devolved to an argument.

That's a tough spot to be in, on both sides.  This is one of the reasons we have the Drop-in Sundays once a quarter so that girls can talk with a member of the Girl Scout Gold Award Support Team about their idea. Either with or without their parent/advisor.  Sometimes, the girls just need to hear the info from a different source.  Sometimes the Moms do too!

Sometimes, it is just wonderful!  This really nice 10th grader was sitting across the table from me, full of enthusiasm and excitement for her Gold Award Take Action Project.  She is there to talk about what she wants to do, how she wants to do it, and when she thinks she'll have time.  I try to hear her out, then be encouraging, and ask why this is important to her?  What is the issue she is trying to address?  The root cause or need she is addressing.

And sometimes it's about sussing out who can be a part of her team.  Who can she find to be one of her peeps?  Not all troop members, but club members from school, non-profit resources, etc.

And then I come across a project that doesn't fit that model!  I spoke with a girl who wants to advocate for the saving/creation of a park in a her city.  She wants to use her leadership to promote a cause, not support a candidate, but support a need she sees in her community.  I had to double check this was okay, which it was!

She had leadership and while she didn't need a whole team of people, I bet she will end up serving as a leader in the campaign to save the park.  Her project didn't take money, but it will take all those good skills she'll need to use to be a leader.  Win, lose or draw, she will see direct results of her efforts, and she will be able to measure success and failure.  And she will see that one girl's voice in a city can help make a difference in her community.

It's all good!  Looking forward to seeing both of these girls' proposals in the very near future.

Garlands for the Gold!

To have ideas is to gather flowers; to think is to weave them into garlands."

--Anne Sophie Swetchine,

Russian mystic and salon owner

I'd never heard of this woman, but I liked the image her quote brought to mind. I like the idea that our Gold girls are gathering ideas, these kernels of possilbilities, as they move through their daily lives.  And as they gather these ideas, they are thinking about which to select: the prettiest, the most unusual, the most interesting flowers to weave together.

Their Gold Award Project is truly a garland.  It reflects who they are, and how they think about the world around them.  It also shows how they took potentially disparate ideas and wove them into a Take Action Project.

In my mind, I see the garland as a May Day Crown - loosely woven together, pretty, not heavy, but with wonderful thought and heart put into its creation.  There's room to add more petals and flowers, and there's opportunity to shed some too.

We're asking the girls to reach high and come up with something wonderful!  As advisors, we are also here to nurture, to water and feed the growth of the ideas, to encourage re-invention and imagination.

These Seniors/Ambassadors can do it!  And we can help guide.  What a rich task of weaving that can become, as well.