Girl Scouts Update

If you build it, they will come.

When Sophia was in kindergarten, which was only sort of kindergarten, being mostly homeschooled with a Friday field trip with the group that eventually became her school, I wanted to get a daisy troop together. I loved being a girl scout and even though I knew things change with time I wanted to offer that for her.

I had 6 girls. It was cute, but we didn't do much. We did crafts and learned about the Chinese New Year and went caroling and that was about it. But it was daisies. I don't agree with the new "Daisies do it all" mentality. We met once a month and we didn't have any money and we didn't camp and that was a good thing.

The next year we jumped right into Brownies. I didn't want to lose the few 1st graders I had and I was hoping to do more with the girls since Daisies was a mystifying program with very little support. I couldn't imagine how to run it for two years in a row. Plus, we were the transition years when you could choose to have 1st grade Daisies or Brownies. So we jumped in with both feet and had a troop of 12 or 13. We did more: we went to see the eagles in Clarksville, we sold cookies, we went on field trips around town--things that all St. Louis kids should do at least a few times (Magic House, Forest Park, Zoo, that sort of thing). We earned 19 try-it badges that year, all during meetings, and participated in April Showers (the yearly collection of personal hygeine products for food pantries--soap, shampoo, toothpaste, and so forth).

Last year, we had a troop of 16, although we lost two during the year (meaning they dropped out, not went missing...). I was pregnant with Leo and so my coleader did a lot of the work. We saw the eagles again, at Chain of Rocks Bridge. Girls worked on several try-it badges. We sold a lot of cookies and therefore in the spring, we did lots of things: Dance St. Louis came to our meeting, as did Worldways Museum. We went places and still had lots of money left over for this year. Last year, too, got frustrating--part of our large amount of money was due to a mom's cockamamie plan to sell 1000 boxes for her daughter. Communication with HQ broke down. But I kept it out of the meetings and the girls still enjoyed themselves.

This year I have 18 plus 1. That one is a girl from the block whose mom is a leader at her grade school--in a troop that will not camp. So she comes on our camping trips. My girls live in the neighborhood for the most part and come from two main schools, with 4 other schools represented. We've had a great year but I'm exhausted.

If things continued exactly how they are right now, I will have 23 girls next year from 3rd-6th grade (only 1 6th grader and only 2 3rd graders) from 7 schools.

And I will lose my mind.

Something has to change. And so I wrote a letter to all my parents inviting them to come next Sunday the 7th to my house to chat about next year. I put it all down in black and white for them: "I will be leading a daisy troop for my daughter Maeve and will be the troop organizer for my daughters' school. I need help." In a nutshell.

The woman in charge of me at HQ (whatever her three letter abbreviation is) wants me to split it down school lines. My parish school becomes one troop, my daughter's school becomes the other. But then what to do with the huge amount of money we've earned this year from cookie sales (again!)? And what happens when the parish school parents can't come through like we'd all like? Does that mean those girls get cut out of the good years of girl scouting (juniors and cadettes, in my opinion)? I know, I'm not responsible for that, but I kind of am. There are moms at that school who have been behind me 100% and drive on field trips and bring their girls and help out in a pinch but are not the sort who will suspend their disbelief long enough to attend the soul-crushing training meetings the girl scouts require of leadership candidates. Seriously. I have sacrificed myself so that we can all have a good time. And we do.

It would also kill the best part of our troop--the diversity. I'm not talking about ethnic diversity (although we have that too--we are a true picture of the south side, I think). I'm talking about schools. Having 8 from the parish school, 3 from the neighborhood, and 7 from the charter school means there are enough people you know to have friends immediately but also allows you to branch out if you want. There are three girls from the parish school who do not mix well with others--meaning they are shy, not bad--but there are others who have blossomed in this situation. Whatever label you wear in the classroom, you don't wear it for half the girls in the troop. If all the girls come from my daughter's classroom, it's just really an after school program.

It could be that we split by school. But we could also split by school for one meeting a month and meet as a larger group once a month for a field trip together. Or maybe we could simply camp together as a larger group.

Perhaps I could drum up enough 2nd graders interested at both schools to start up a solid brownie troop for next year and really let girl scouts happen at the two schools together by grade level instead of massive groups like what I'm about to have.

Grade level meetings could happen, too, instead of school-based meetings. The 5th graders could meet, the 4th graders, and so forth, and then also come together for field trips/camping or even a monthly meeting.

We could split by time of day--my coleader would do better with evenings, as would one girl in our troop who has only been able to make one meeting (although she camps with us and so forth). We could split by interests (different badges, for instance), having girls sign up for what they want to attend.

We could do a lot of things besides simply dump one school and walk away. I'm going in with an open mind. Because since I sent the letter:
*A parish school mom who has always been a huge supporter of mine said "I want to talk to you because I want to make this work!"
*My coleader offered to lead one of troops if we split in some way
*Another mom has a friend who is a coleader in a different troop. She emailed me last night and is interested in joining us next year.

So I have a lot of hope that this will work. It makes me kind of kick myself for not doing this last fall (the meeting). But at that point we still had new girls and I hadn't proven myself, frankly, to a lot of parents. Now, like many small things that have converged, seems to be the right time to raise my hand and say firmly "I am drowning, I need someone else to help me get to shore."

Because lots of folks can swim, at least a little bit.