Take A Hike!

sending out notes for our next planned Girl Scout Meeting....
Friday August 7th 6-8 p.m. City Park

Brownies will earn Travel Right; Juniors will earn Finding Your Way; Cadettes will earn Backpacking; all girls will get an Advantage Fun Patch Adventure.

planned activities:
finding Mercer on a Missouri Map
drawing maps
learning how to use natural signs for direction: sun, star, moss, etc.
trail signs
using a compass
reading a map
symbol hunt
5 Safety Smart Rules
list ten things you expect to see
what should you take? (beach, car trip, friends house)
what could you bring home as a souvenior?
what to wear
prevent sunburn
hiking tips
"Gorp" trail mix & water for snack.

and of course the rainy day backup will be movie night...

Lets Go Camping

Jazmine (Hannah Montana), Breanna (Vegas), Morgan (Alex Ruso), Mackenzie (Gomez), Kayla (Leo), & Katie (Bubbles) chose camp nicknames & made camp hats, ate s'mores, told ghost stories, chased fireflies, made terrariums, made a campfire, sang Lean On Me (they decided they'd rather sing He Should Be The One, HoeDown Throw Down, or Ice Cream Freeze instead...). Jazmine was the recipient of "The Nice Book."
Morgan & Kayla's family have campers. Katie, Kayla, Breanna, Jazmine & Morgan's families all have tents.
Morgan, Breanna, Jazmine, & Kayla have been camping.
what would we need to go on a campout? toilet paper, food, water, light, flashlight, protection, flags to mark a trail, outhouse, portapotty, tent or camper, wood, air mattress, blanket, pillow, sleeping gear, bugspray, sunscreen, bandaids, first aid kit, ambulance, compass, tomato juice, sponge, underwear.

Scary Take Turns Story:
Mackenzie: There was one scary mansion with cobwebs & spiders.
Jazmine: A dummy lived inside where people could haunt him.
Breanna: And every now and then, an old man would visit a hotel mansion kind of and he would hear creaking up and down the stairway but no one was there.
Kayla: One time the man he went down the elevator, it got broken at the bottom, it wouldn't go back kup when he went to the bottom it was stuck and wouldn't go back up. Then he saw this person that looked like a real person was hanged, and then for some reason he was so scared he went back to the elevator and for some spooky reason it worked. And he went back up and he started crying and then this man came out and he laughed so hard that he coughed up snot and he told him why he laughed. He told him "You've been practical joked, sucker!" And then they both went back down to the basement floor and then he told him that the man was made to look real but it was a mannequin.
Katie: Then the mans face caught on fire and he laughed. The old man screamed and he ran down the stairs. He fell down the rest of the stairs and broke his hip and the mannequin came to life. No one ever saw that old man again. Some say his soul is trapped in the hotel and whoever comes in will be haunted forever and can never leave.
Morgan: And every night when they slept there they dreamed of the old mans face on fire and when they woke up after the dream they heard an evil laugh and then the ghost of the old man walked into the bedroom but the evil laugh was still there but it wasn't the old man. And it was the dummy under the bed. And then it came to life and grabbed the old mans soul and replaced his soul with the old mans. The mansion turned into a hotel but it was still haunted. A wife and husband went there it was their honeymoon. They had a baby, and the baby turns to evil and then the baby threatened the mother and father and it happened and the baby buried then in his evil fireplace. Their eyeballs caught on fire!
Mackenzie: And every time that family went out for their morning walk, the lightning struck and they saw the man on the horizon.
Jazmine: And then the man that haunted the house his soul was still there and he turned into a real person and then the people that were on a honeymoon they got killed and then there were two more people who came and their wedding was at the hotel and the ghost was at the hotel and he killed the people that were at the wedding. And there was like at least a hundred people there!
Breanna: And this one couple came they just got married and it was their very first wedding anniversary, the one lady was in bed, she woke up and saw a shadow walking into the bathroom. She thought it was her husband, and then she rolled over to his side of the bed and he was still there and she jumped six foot in the air, and the ghost saw here and Katie's dog Sasha turned into a flying sausage that saved the lady and the lady landed on Sasha-and Sasha had some snot stuck in her nose and it was full of boogers and it landed in Katie's mouth and the ghost licked it out.
Kayla: One time there was a lady and she was so fat she beat a semi truck and she was still alive and she went to the hotel with her fat husband the same size as her, and they went to bed they both woke up and they were turned into a gourmet meal. And they had a child that was the drink. The Juicer would come and juice his head into a drink.
Katie: The Juicer squeezed the fat mans head like a lemon-and then another person staying at the hotel walked in-The Juicer invited the person to enjoy this gourmet meal and he ate the whole thing and said that was delicious, and The Juicer opened his hands, he picked up the glass that he squeezed the mans head into and handed it to the person, the person said "May I have another?" and then The Juicer said, "Of course!" He opened his hands once again, he got a glass, and then he squeezed the persons head and said, "Enjoy!" Then he turned into the old man and did his evil laugh once again and said, "I do love lemon juice!"
Morgan: The people that had the first anniversary got divorced-and the woman and the old man got married and they had an evil baby-and they took over the whole world.
The End.
All 6 girls will get an fun patch "Camp Like A Girl."
Jazmine & Morgan will get Earth Is Our Home.
Mackenzie, Breanna, Katie, & Kayla will get Camp Together.

Bridging Poem

All:
From Daisy Girl Scouts dressed in blue
When everything is fresh and new.
We learn our Promise and our Law
And grow strong as we grow tall.

BROWNIES:
As Brownie Girl Scouts eager to learn,
We try new things and Try-its earn.
We make the world a better place
With big Brownie smiles upon our face.

Juniors:
In Junior Girl Scouts, we venture on,
Exploring our backyard and beyond.
In a circle of friendship, hand in hand,
We are helping people wherever we can.

Moriah:
Girl Scouts 11 to 17 can really achieve;
There is much to do and so much more to see.
They can earn the Silver and the Gold
While making new friends and keeping the old.

Leaders:
Little girls into women grow,
Sharing with others all they know.
Adult Girl Scouts are there to lead
And lend a hand where there's a need.

All:
From level to level, step by step
With sister Girl Scouts, our futures we prep.
We meet the challanges each level brings,
And then we're on to bigger things.


we did this at our 2009 awards ceremony, with each group reading their parts. The girls have a lot of fun reading poems. When someone has trouble with a word, the other girls will help her. It is awesome to watch this group of girls growing up!

Juliette (Daisy) Gordon Low's Candle Ceremony- V.1

attributed to Lori Roach aka "Ladybug" Totem Council-GSUSA

equipment needed
candle for each girl
matches/lighter
water bucket with water in it

Long ago, a special ceremony was formed. Juliette Low wanted her original girls to carry a special spark with them as their Scouting group broke up. Some from the troop were moving away, wroking to help their families, or wanted to help a group of girls a little younger than themselves. But whatever their reasons, Juliette knew no other group would ever be quite the same.
As the girls stood in a circle holding candles (they had made), Juliette knew what spark it was she wanted to pass on. She lit her candle and spoke.
"With this candle, I give you each something very special to pass on. As I light the candle on my right, I ask each of you to light the candle on your right and pass it on. I want you to carry this thought with you wherever you go. This is the ETERNAL FLAME for Girl Scouts. Each of you, after having a lit candle before you, will repeat the Girl Scout Promise with me, then pause and recall a few of the things we have done together as a group. I will hold my candle up, adn as I do so, you will all raise yours and we will blow them out together. Before we seperate from our circle, I want to ask you to keep this candle as a very special flame. You may use it in other Girl Scout ceremonies, such as camps, encampments, campfires, bridging or court of award ceremonies. I'm glad we were able to start a special tradition based on our ETERNAL FLAME.

We used this at our 2009 awards ceremony...the girls love candle ceremonies, and these candles had been used in our previous awards ceremonies. Each girl took her candle home to keep the flame.

Girl Scouts Want You To Die

(found this online looking for project ideas!)

Girl Scouts Want You To Die
By Katherine Mangu-Ward
Monday, February 26, 2007

Filed under: Culture, Health & Medicine

My local liquor store is selling Girl Scout cookies, and last week I chose Thin Mints over gin, thinking myself quite virtuous. Little did I know…
According to MeMe Roth, who is the head (and may be the sole member) of National Action Against Obesity:

Girl Scouts have an economic, medical and moral imperative to dump junk food as their $700 million fundraising source….Girl Scout Cookies are high-calorie, high-sugar, high in saturated fat and nearly devoid of nutrition. Using young girls as a front to push millions of cookies onto an already bloated population further exacerbates an alarming [obesity] crisis, no matter how cute the uniforms are.

Could it be true that little girls are selling sin door-to-door in exchange for merit badges?

This strange little Girl-Scouts-cause-obesity trope has been making the rounds for a while now: The New York Times' Nicholas Kristof penned a column during last year's selling season in which he worried about the growing menace of "little girls intent on clogging your arteries and killing you with their sweetness." At least Kristof maintained a semi-satirical tone. He knew that he was proposing something on the silly side: "Actually, it's a pity that Girl Scout cookies are being sold by cherubs," he wrote. "If the sellers were Iranians with turbans and menacing frowns, then the authorities might be more alert to the dangers."

Even before Kristof, a television ad produced by the pro-business Center for Consumer Freedom put a Girl Scout on the stand to demonstrate the absurdity of obesity-related lawsuits. "You make them taste good on purpose, don't you?" a sinister trial lawyer asks a beribboned, beanie-wearing defendant.

But now Roth has done it for real—and with little discernable humor. "I’ve always cringed at young females identifying themselves with baked goods," she says. "And I’m not convinced more cookies makes the world a better place."

But of course, more cookies do make the world a better place—as anyone who has ever had a crunchy, coconut-y, chocolate-dipped Samoa can attest. People buy Girl Scout cookies because they are good cookies for a good cause. Most people buy (and eat) them in moderation, so a boycott isn't changing health outcomes for the vast majority of cookie customers. And as Roth rightly points out, the Girl Scouts rely on the cookies for $700 million in revenue every year, revenue that they are unlikely to be able to replace with other sources—even in the five-year transition time graciously allotted to them by Roth.

There isn't a single man, woman, or child in America who thinks that Thin Mints are slimming, name notwithstanding.They shouldn’t try. More choices don't make people fat, bad choices make people fat. In the case of Girl Scout cookies, more choices could even make you thinner. The Girl Scouts experiment with new flavors every year, and have removed trans fats from this year's batch. The new flavors tend to be low fat or boast some other health conscious modification. A boycott (girlcott?) against all Girl Scout cookies by the most health-conscious segment of consumers is unlikely to encourage more experimentation.

This isn't Roth's first anti-fat publicity stunt. She also hosts the Wedding Gown Challenge, which encourages women to do annual checks to make sure that they still fit into their wedding gowns: "Most women I know commit fraud on their wedding days—they weigh-in for the walk down the aisle with no expectation of maintaining that weight year after year." (When I visited, Google Ads for eating disorder treatments graced the right column of her main page—but, for the record, she also discourages "extreme" pre-wedding dieting.)

Roth's message of personal responsibility, and her use of a boycott rather than a lawsuit or a legislative ban are to be applauded. But she is still on the wrong track. Scapegoating particular foods or companies (remember the lawsuit blaming McDonalds for obesity?) isn't a sensible approach. There isn't a single man, woman, or child in America who thinks that Thin Mints are slimming, name notwithstanding. Adorable salesgirls in knee socks are not tricking buyers or leading them down the garden path, most people just buy a box or two of nostalgic cookies once a year for kicks. They know what they're getting.
And what could be more American than Girl Scout cookies? The scouts have been selling cookies since 1917. Roth says that they "sell up to 200 million boxes yearly—that's about one box for every overweight American." But one box of cookies a year each, for a total of 1,350 calories, isn't too bad—certainly not enough to add an extra roll to anyone's midsection or roll anyone into an early grave.

Actually, there is one thing that's more American than Thin Mints and Trefoils: apple pie. Grandmothers across the nation, beware. Unless you fit into your wedding dress—MeMe Roth could be coming for your pie pans next.


Katherine Mangu-Ward is associate editor at Reason magazine.

upcoming girl scout meeting ideas

1. Kelly Brieg offered to do a cake decorating demonstration
2. A horse themed meeting
3. a hiking meeting
4. movie night
5. photography
6. computers
7. hobbies
8. xmas caroling

Girl Scout Camp

sent out post cards today for a Girl Scout Camp in our yard on Friday evening July 24th from 6-9 p.m.
planned festitives:
almost s'mores
earning badges:
Juniors "Camp Together"
Brownies "Earth Is Our Home"
Cadettes: "Camping"
everyone a fun patch "Camp Like A Girl"
singing Lean On Me
making camp hats
glow bracelets & necklaces
ghost stories
star gazing
camp nicknames
making terrariums
weanie roast
listening to the night

and in case of rain (which we can usually count on anymore, it seems...)
will have movie & popcorn nite