Sunday, October 21, 2012

World of Girls: Session 7&8

The best laid plans.... that's how I need to begin this post. We finished up our World of Girls Journey in November 2011.... in Missouri. Our next meeting was scheduled for early December with our presentation of awards on December 20th. Well... school was cancelled because of an early snow. Then, the holidays kicked into full force and there wasn't a date to make up that meeting. So, we had to change our plan and figure out how to finish up our Journey.

I'm going to share with you "the original plan" and "the revised plan".

Session 7&8 is about telling people what you did and finding a way to help make the change "stick".  We were going to make posters and present them at a school assembly. They were going to say "Don't trash our playground" and "Pick up trash to throw away every day". They were great ideas and the girls were going to create them by hand on poster board. Then we were going to invite the school principal and a few teachers to our meeting for the girls to discuss the change they made and why it was important. It was going to be great, I tell you.

Instead, the girls had sketched out their ideas for posters in our previous meeting (I didn't include that in the notes, but they did that over snack time. I needed to know what supplies to gather for them, so we were making a plan). I took their ideas and turned them into digital posters created in Word. I emailed them to their principal with a short description of the project. Why rush, you say? Why not wait and do it after Christmas break? Because the girls were excited about Court of Awards and getting their badges and telling their parents about what they did. I didn't feel I could give them the badges if we weren't "done". So, I made a judgment call and decided the girls had put in a lot of work and effort. If I did this one last thing for them, it wouldn't matter in the long run and we could say the project was done. I'm sure I will get some feedback about how I shouldn't do the work for the girls, etc. and that's fine most of the time... but these girls worked hard. They gave all the ideas... all I did was turn their sketched ideas in Word document posters and email them.

My decision was clearly correct, too. These girls had learned a lot... about themselves, about their troop, about how making a small change can help the world they live in. That's the bottom line, folks. Give them the tools and watch them grow. At our Court of Awards, each girl took a turn to say something she had learned or done during our journey. The girls talked about our fruit flights, cleaning the playground, learning games from all over the world, understanding how girls in other countries don't have the same freedoms as we, and how we all need to make a difference by making small changes. Each girl reported they had talked to classmates about not dropping trash on the playground and how much time they spent cleaning it up. Yep... they got it. They understood how we could take a problem and resolve it. We made their world a better place. They found camaraderie in their Girl Scout sisters. They saw they can make a difference.

In my book... that's success and fully earned.


  1. Thank you so much for sharing these ideas! I've been worried about getting through our first journey since I've heard from a lot of other leaders that the reading can be difficult to get through. I have been taking notes from your posts, and I think I have a better understanding of what kinds of activities to shoot for.

  2. I can't thank you enough for putting this website together and posting how you did your journey. I am leading 2nd grade Brownies next year and had just about given up on doing a journey. My goals are your goals, and I really struggled after reading the journey books and leader guides. If I were to have done them as the book suggests, I just couldn't see how they would be both meaningful and enjoyable. After reading this website, I am motivated to create an awesome journey experience. Your creativity is wonderful! In my opinion, women like you should reinvent the journeys! THANK YOU!!

  3. Thank you for sharing your journey. I too was struggling how to get this done. This helped me out a lot.


