Girl Planning
³As a leader, it may seem easier for you to make plans first, then consult with your girls. But girl-adult planning, the cornerstone of Girl Scouting, is too valuable a step to skip. . . Girl Scouting is all about empowering girls and encouraging them to make their own decisions in partnership with adults.² GSUSA encourages the Girl-Adult Partnership by offering tips and explains why it¹s worth the effort. GSC of Greater Minneapolis, MN expands upon this philosophy with their helpful Girl Planning Tip Sheet.
I¹ve listed a variety of troop-tested techniques below to help girls plan a new year of Girl Scout adventures.
All levels of Girl Scouts can participate in planning activities to some degree. Start simply with the Daisy GS Circle and the Brownie GS Ring. Junior GS and GS 11-17 have three troop government options to choose from: Executive Board, Town Meeting, or Patrol System (resources from Leaders Landing). Should the girls choose the Patrol System, they may want to include a Patrol Leader Cording Ceremony.
Should you wish to include goal-sitting activities along with Girl Scout planning, please refer to my Happy New Year page where I have compiled a variety of resources & ideas on this topic to coincide with new years resolutions.
A cute character calendar or a detailed planner can help girls keep track of dates in their Girl Scout binder. The Activity Plan Worksheet by GS Mountain Prairie Council, CO encourages girls to work together as they go through the steps of planning. And, here¹s a special Troop Leader Planner just for you, complements of Liz Ripke in Oregon! (note that it may not yet be updated for the 2007/08 school year, but much of the pages would still be very useful)
The following advice is from GS of San Gorgonio Council, CA
Remember,
council events supplement good troop program but are not intended to replace
it. Don¹t overdo the scheduling. Be sure the choices are girl choices. In
Girl Scouting, program activities include a balance of subjects and areas of
interest to girls. They enjoy experiences that broaden their perspectives and
enable them to interact with individuals beyond their immediate group.
1.
Before spending a meeting
going over the program events, the troop should set goals for the year. What
are the most important things the troop wants to do: badge work, outings,
career exploration, sports?
2.
The leader may want to
underline with a marker all events for which the troop is eligible (see age
limitations). Use one color for each event the troop can attend as a group,
another for individual participation.
3.
Discuss the various
events with the girls. How do they tie in with badge work, the troop budget and
goals? Have each girl list the events in which she is interested.
4.
List on a chalkboard or
butcher paper all the events the troop would like to do, with dates. List other
planned troop activities. Discuss the tie-in with troop goals. Vote on which
activities the troop will attend. Are there small groups within your troop that
would like to attend others? Decide on the events for which the troop or
interest group will register.
5.
You can follow this with
discussion on how girls register for individual events, the value of expanding
horizons by going places without the troop and the fun of making new friends.
Be sure to provide information to each girl¹s family on those events that are
for individual and family registrations.
Anne
DeFranks, a GS Leader and Research Analyist in Georgia, came up with a unique
way to help girls ³clean out their attic² of activities for the year. . .
On a poster board,
draw the frame of a house, mark off the (large) attic and then draw 10 to 12
rooms below. In the attic, have
the girls write ideas of things that they want to do for the year - ANYTHING -
meetings, field trips, activities, silver award, IP's! - THE SKY'S THE
LIMIT. (And if they forget some
important things - like doing some service - you can suggest it).
When they are done
with that, label each room with a month and include a room for summer and/or
the future. Then start
"cleaning out that attic" by putting each item in a month - that will
help give them some direction and they will be amazed at what they plan to
accomplish. Someone could then,
also, see what things would apply to what IP's or pins, etc
Here is a way to get input from all members by taming the loud overly assertive girls and encouraging the quiet hesitant girls to participate equally. The Teaching Effectiveness Program at the University of Oregon explains that, ³Students are often anxious about contributing to discussion because they don't want to look stupid in front of the class. The beauty of the nominal group technique is that it short-circuits that fear by soliciting anonymous contributions from everyone. The core of the technique is the use of anonymous cardsŠ² Try Leading A Discussion Using the Nominal Group Technique with your troop.
Della
Martin, a GS leader in North Carolina, shares how she successfully helped her
girls sort through the many activity options to develop a troop calendar for
the year, , ,
Here's something I
did with my Cadettes this year. My girls are the type that want to do far more
activities than they have time to
do--trying to plan 10 pounds of activities with the proverbial 5 pound
sack (calendar) is tough. Rather than taking their requests and attempting to
fit it into a calendar, I made them do it, AND THEY ARE HAVING A BLAST!
Each girl gets a
bunch of sticky notes. I gave them as many as they wanted. Then they went
through the list of council events (our council puts out a GREAT
"magazine" just for Cadettes/Seniors) and they could write down each
activity they wanted to do on a sticky note, along with the fees for the event.
If they saw someone else had written it down, they didn't need to write it down
too (but they could if they wanted to). Chatter amongst them was encouraged
(trying DESPERATELY to keep it to GS activities they'd like to do!).
Once they were done
writing down the activities they wanted to do, they posted the sticky notes all
around the room, trying to match up any duplicates. (Spread 'em out---WAY out).
Then each girl gets 7 self-stick stars of any color, and one red one. The red
one means, "I'd rather die than do this event!" (not everyone used
theirs!). Any other color means, "I want to do this event." Let 'em
loose and put their stars on each activity. Letting them mill around helps
eliminate
clique
voting, because they're so worried about using their stickers the way they
want! Yes, they can vote for one item multiple times if they really want to do
it.
Then we tallied up
the number of stars. All starts count as one point, except for red which
subtracts a point. Only those that got votes were considered, and were ranked
from most to least points. We added up the cost of each, and fortunately, came
in under what we had anticipated, so we didn't have to deal with further discussion
on that point.
For each of the
activities, we listed (each on another sticky note) everything that needed to
be done. For example, for the Camporee, we need to do: SWAPs, a banner, a small
float, meal planning, a kaper chart, and shopping for the food. We also have
our annual fundraisers. Cookies needs a meeting to go over the info, at another
we collect pre-orders, and another to cover booths. We go over each event to
make sure each has the proper number of sticky notes.
On a loooooong sheet
of freezer paper (about 12 feet), I made a large calendar of the year. The
month took up about 1.5 feet, and underneath the name of the month, I put only
our meeting days, weekends, and any pertinent activities. We meet on Thursdays.
I also marked the dates of council events (especially "individual"
events like PA training), put Cookie/QSP dates on the calendar, major holidays,
and anything else I can think of. I only put down the dates that we'd likely
schedule something to save me some time. Each day/weekend on the calendar is
big enough for a sticky note (another reason for not writing all the dates!).
Now, one event at a
time, place the events where they need to be. For planning work, put the
post-its on the meetings--no, we can't do SWAPs, the banner, the float, meal
planning AND shopping all in one meeting!!!
Now we see how many
meetings are still empty. That's when we decided
how
many IPs we wanted to try to accomplish (remembering we're going to try for
Silver projects, too!). We determined two.
We used the same
process with sticky notes and stars to come up with the list of IPs. We'll work
on planning the activities tonight. We have spent 2 meetings on this so far,
and they have had FAR MORE FUN planning than I thought they would. They feel
VERY much in control of their activities, they are VERY interested in what's
coming down the pike, and (the best part for me), I keep hearing, "Ms.
Della, this is HARD to figure out how to do all this!" One even thanked me
because they didn't know how much work planning a GS year is! We had to make a
lot of difficult decisions, because there's only so much time during the year,
and so much to do! I saw a lot of teamwork, consensus building, compromising,
and other good qualities that we're trying to build in GS!
This can be scaled
back for younger troops, but I wish I would have thought of the calendar on the
freezer paper a few years ago! It really shows the girls how much time they can
plan. Plus, it rolls up quickly, and we'll use it to track our progress during
the year (repositioning sticky notes if we need to).
Expanding on Della¹s idea, Jennifer Swayne shares how her troop in Tennessee had a successful planning session. . .
My troop used this
(Della¹s) method of planning at a sleepover... I changed it a little. I made a twenty five foot long calendar
on freezer paper and filled in all the pertinent info for our girls (holidays,
school schedules, etc.). I set out
handbooks, badge books, STUDIO 2B books, Safety Wise, a list of service project
ideas, and a list of local resources for trips.
I gave each girl (and
leader- we got a vote too) 2 purple post-its, 3 yellow post-its, and 5 blue
post-its. The purple were for
service projects, the yellow were for field trips, and the blue were for
meetings and/or badges. We made
the girls sit alone to fill these out so they would feel free to write their
own ideas.
We pulled the
duplicates, and spread each color of post-its on their own table. Then we all
got six stickers to vote with, and one "I'd rather die than do this
event," sticker (They loved the idea of this sticker.) I told them they had to vote for at
least one of each color post it, and after that, they could vote however they
wanted. We voted, and my co and I tallied the results. Then we spent the evening plugging
stuff in on the huge calendarŠ
It was really hard...
they're used to picking stuff to do, and the leaders planning when and how
we'll do it. It was hard to keep
them on task, because they wanted to play and be silly. But we just smiled, and said,
"Fine, I guess we're done.
Looks like an easy year!"
And they came right back and got down to business. This morning, at
pickup time, every one of them took their parent over to the calendar and
showed them the things they'd planned, and they seemed really proud. I was pretty proud, too!
Jan
Schultz in Virginia prepared a free online survey for her girls to assist with
their long range planning. . .
1.
We had our Long Range
planning meeting where we set our 5 goals for the year (our troop crest is the
Falling Star, so we use the 5 points of the star as our guideline.)
2. Under each goal, we brainstormed ideas for about 15
minutes and wrote them all down (rules included "no discussion" and
"all ideas are good ideas.")
3. I went to http://www.keysurvey.com and registered for a
free one month, 20 response survey.
I followed the instructions to create my survey.
4. I used fun rating scales to choose favorite activities
or events (instead of 1 - 5, I used "Absolutely" to "No Thank
You"). I used radio buttons
to select their top four choices for IPA's to complete this year. They rated Service Project Ideas,
Fundraising options and more. I
ended up with about 15 - 16 questions. I asked for volunteers to lead
activities or events. When you create your survey, you can add color, photos,
etc. I added our troop crest at
the top of the form.
5. Just before I went on vacation, I sent the girls the
link by e-mail. When I return, the
survey responses will be complete (I asked for names in the survey so I know
who responded and who did not.) The online service compiles the information
into lists, graphs and charts that I can print out and use with the troop to
create our budget and long-range calendar. I thought this was a good method to
insure impartial responses and no peer pressure in a meeting where a hand vote
can sway a girl's preference.
This exercise (from GS training) is used to stress the importance of covering details as the girls develop a plan. It also helps the girls become more organized in their thinking.
1.
Divide the girls into
small teams. Give them 3 minutes to brainstorm all of the things that go into
making a muffin (preheat oven, get out pans, shop for ingredients, etc.), write
their steps on post-it notes and put them in order (yes, they¹ll be in a rush
and not get it all, but that¹s the idea). Remind them that the last card should
say, "the Muffin is ready".
2. Gather the teams together and ask girls to volunteer
their group¹s post-its as you all go through the steps of making a muffin. Post
all the steps in order on the front board. If a step is missed, ask "What
about _____?" Summarize with
the importance of covering all details and putting them in order when making
your muffin.
3. Immediately follow this activity with planning a troop
trip or event. Repeat the same steps as a group, except use ³our trip/event
happens² in place of ³the muffin is ready². Brainstorm the steps, put them in order, and review to see
if any are missing.
Crayola.com suggest the below organizational tool to help children count down and prepare for the first day of school. Your troop could easily use the same method as they plan for an upcoming event or activity.
1.
Draw! . . . Make a poster
to help you get ready [or a planned event]. Use Crayola Erasable Twistables® to
draw a large apple tree‹or any theme you choose. Draw the same number of apples
as there are days (or troop meetings) until [the event] or jobs left to do!.
2. Organize! . . . Inside each apple, write things that
you need to do to get ready for [the event]: find your book bag, buy art
supplies, label belongings, walk the route with an adult, polish shoes‹you get
the idea.
3. Countdown! . . . As you complete each activity, erase
inside the apple for that day. Keep erasing until you¹re ready for the first
day of school.
Updated September 2007