Nothing financial. Nothing about finances but just write a vent. Please read with a grain of salt that this is just me complaining. I've lead my DK1 girl scout troop for 4 years now. I have lead it solo for the past 3 years. Even the 1st year I lead it (2nd grade brownie) I did everything and the co-lead showed up. Since then we've done a rotation of parents signing up to stay and help but never lead. Okay I was with the program but it's exhausting. I have always had 12 girls until this past year and covid. I started September 2020 with 8 girls and the parents were great. But it was mostly virtual until around May 2021. I had 3 girls drop/move away. So I was left with 5 pretty dedicated girls. I had 2 that I lead to a Bronze award (yay! cheers!) and the other 3 contributed intermittently.
That being said with such a low number and hoping I could finally have help yesterday I met with another troop out at a playground for pizza to see if we couldn't run meeting in parallel or merge. The other troop had 3 girls and 1 new girl. We had previously been combined but due to high interest split.
Well the girls got along great. But the other troop leader and new "co-leader", I was happy at the thought of not leading anymore weren't really interested. We discussed when we would meet and the answer was "whenever we feel like it." Where we would meet? Outdoors and then when the weather turns who knows. It's too far in advance than tomorrow. I said have we settled on how many times or how long or are we always masked and space? The other mom said to me "i don't know about anything more than today." It's too much planning. She said it's not about earning badges, learning things, activities. They just wanted time to socialize and get together and hang out. A clear case of this was her thought that she had earned a bronze award badge for doing paint collecting, but hadn't bothered to read the requirements or process to do it.
I went home disappointed. Fortunately I got a text saying we were way too different in expectations of running a troop. When I had heard of her activities I thought that it's because she's low key. Instead a lot of activities were just watching movies at home, eating pizza, playing, no camping, no learning, no contributing to society. I get it, it's a social activity and the main purpose is to make friends. But I sort of wanted something more. An expectation of doing more.
My husband gave me a hard time when I got home. Yes I'm a little controlling. But he also said truthfully there's a reason why people drop it? And this totally fits the troop leaders personality. Why didn't I see this? I don't know but I am thinking maybe it'll be totally easy and manageable with the girls getting older and 5 girls who seem to really like it? It's a big difference than babysitting those who don't want to do it.
September 9th, 2021 at 10:25 am 1631183106
We were encouraged to think big and then to work to achieve our dreams. At that time, compared to my brother's Boy Scout experience, we girls were more independent and our activities were self directed. For instance, we wanted to take a trip to Washington D.C. (from Massachusetts). We put on a play, and a spaghetti supper to earn the money for our trip.
So yes, girls that want to be scouts can be fun to work with, but as they get older, figure out ways to let them "lead themselves." Your job then is to encourage and guide, not do for them. They then gain the wonderful gift of self confidence!
September 9th, 2021 at 01:24 pm 1631193876
September 10th, 2021 at 07:35 pm 1631302524