I love Cadette Essentials Training

It's true, I love the Older Girl age group!  So I have a BIG thank you to all of you leaders who survived Daisys, Brownies and Juniors with your girls. You have worked with them, loved them, coddled them and brought them to where they are now:  ready to be a Cadette.

I had a really great training the other night with only 5 leaders.  It didn't feel much like teaching. It felt more like a good chat for 2 hours in uncomfortable chairs at the Program Center.  4 of the leaders are current Junior leaders, so they're looking forward to the next level, getting ready.  And one leader who just jumped back into Cadettes after a long hiatus, to help a troop that lost a leader. She doesn't even have a daughter or granddaughter in the troop. But she does have a big heart, and she's ready to be the no-nonsense leader/advisor that those girls sorely lack.

So it was the 6 of us.  Chatting.  And I have to say, we all learned some things from each other.  And we all walked away with new things to try, new ideas on how to give more to the girls to do, and more courage that it was going to work out well.  

How to handle cell phones at meetings?  Trainer Barb has my favorite answer:  cell phones get switched off and put in a basket as the girls walk in the door.  If one rings out loud, Barb will go over, and text back, "so sorry, at a GS meeting."  She won't read the incoming message, but she'll send an outgoing one. I love it!  So, a leader asked last night, "so, has she ever had to do that?" I don't really know!  And I was at a fundraising luncheon today with 499 other women. The chair of the event said that if she heard a cell phone go off, the cell phone owner would have to pay $100 to get her phone back!!!  I loved it!  Each was a good solution, age appropriate and direct!!

How to do even handed ledger accounting?  How much goes to the troop's general operating fund? Should we collect dues?  Sashes or vests for the new Cadettes? Should we buy handbooks for each girl?  How will we know when our girls are ready for their Silver Award Projects?  Can the girls raise extra funds?  Can the troop help fund the project? Can we really do a different troop government?


Great discussion and solutions.  Yes, I love Cadette training!!!  Hats off to all of you Cadette Advisors who are making a difference in middle-schooler's lives.  You are giving those girls the opportunity to grow, learn, make mistakes and discover who they are in the safe GS environment.  


Thank you!  We couldn't do it without you!!!

Juniors - Keeping their interest for Cadettes - Part IV

(This is the last of a four-part series about keeping girls interested in Scouting as they bridge to Cadettes.  This series was inspired by a couple leaders who were looking for help with their girls, and spawned a 5-way email chain that had some great ideas.  Thanks again to Barb Christensen and Tara Offenberger for their help:  I tried to give them the credit they deserve!)


We've talked about keeping Juniors interested in Scouting as they bridge up.  We're going to end by talking about leaders and parents. 

 Tara Offenberger had a great comment:  "...what should a leader do if she feels more comfy with the younger girls than the older?  Perhaps there are teachers who are much better at teaching elementary school than middle school and for very definite reasons.  The leaders who are excellent at corralling a dozen girls who are 7, 8 or 9 years old, teaching them crafts, small service projects and the 6 out of 10 step badge work are not necessarily going to be excellent at working with older girls.  These girls are transitioning to young women - who need a real shoulder to cry on at times, who need someone to help them work out conflicts with friends, who are dealing with divorce in their family or even in choosing the right high school to attend.  Cadette thru Ambassador aged girls need ADVISORS who are comfortable with these kinds of issues and who can let go of controlling the meetings and simply GUIDE them in the right directions. If their leader can transition to a new style, those girls are very lucky." 

Well, these leaders are probably going to own a Cadette aged girl, whether they're ready or not!  And isn't Girl Scouting a safe environment for the leader to take the opportunity to learn with the girl?  How about suggesting they all take the Amaze Journey?  This is a great tool to use with 1st year Cadettes who are just starting middle school.  These girls are going to be living the peer pressure, betrayal, bullying, jealousy, cliques and frememies issues that Amaze takes up.  How about the not-comfy-as-a-Cadette-leader working with girls thru that Journey and supporting their girl-led efforts?  


This is also a transition year for girl planning, where the girls learn to run their own meetings (if they haven't already), be responsible for their own troop money, and start working on the Silver award.  As Barb says, make it look different!  Move the meeting time and place  - let the girls vote on the choices.  I'd say, make it different for you, too!  Maybe get a new co-leader?  Maybe merge with another troop and get the best Camping Mom in the council!  Learn to let go of the old and embrace the new.  Your daughter has to, and you want to support her, right?  Maybe you can do it together?!

One of the comments from before, was that the parents see Girl Scouting as a little girl activity, not an older girl one.  Time to tell the parents what the girls are learning!  Start now, in Juniors, so that when you get to Cadettes, the parents are seeing more of the changes that you're talking about.  I liked a comment in training, where a Dad watched his 7th grade daughter helped to set up a family reunion weekend.  He was amazed, and asked where she learned how to do all that organizing. Her response, (thank goodness was not a shrug of the shoulders!) "in Girl Scouts, of course!  We do this all the time."  The Dad got a refreshing glimpse into what his daughter had learned.  


We need to show this value to parents all the time!  Another leader said that in Cadettes, every quarter, one girl was responsible for taking notes of the meeting.  The leader took the girl's notes, and typed them in an email to all the parents, giving credit to the girl.  Another said she had girls doing a quarterly newsletter in powerpoint with photos and words talking about what they were doing/learning.  We need to keep that info flow moving!  It can only benefit the girls!


And to Barb's point, we need to stress to the parents (and girls) the flexibility of the program. It's not like Brownies, this is something bigger and better.  Girls can choose what to do. Girls can choose how to participate. And girls can decide what they want.  Okay, not all in one day. It's a process!


I'll end the series by saying thank you, to all you leaders out there!  What you do is so valuable to the council, the girls and the world.  You make a difference in a girl's life everyday.  I hope you want to continue to do that for your lifetime.  Old Girl Scouts never die, because what we have done for the girls who follow us, and who follow them, lives forever.

Juniors - keeping their interest for Cadettes - part II

Our last post left off with the question, "What else could you do to keep the girls engaged in Cadettes?"  

You're a Junior leader, and you're looking forward, to when the girls bridge into Cadetttes.  Perhaps you're asking yourself if you've done Juniors right!?  Have the girls made steps to lead the meetings?  Plan the overnights? Make their own decisions?  Choose their service projects? Execute a Bronze Award Project?  If your answer is "yes" to all those questions, kudos to you and your adult leadership for bringing the girls along so well in the GS Leadership Essentials Program!!!  Your girls are prime for Cadettes.  They might just not know it yet!

One of the best things about Cadettes for the girls is that THEY MAKE THE CHOICES!  They get to use the leadership skills that they've been developing all these years and steer their own course.  The girls need to know this, and you need to tell them AND their parents.  The girls take in the money, write the checks and keep tabs on the budget, with adult supervision, assuredly.  The girl gets to have her own ledger account of cookie money to fund her GS experience.  That's music to the ears of the high achievers, to be sure!  

As we say in training, these Cadette girls want to be in charge, and they want to be told the sky's the limit!  If they work hard, do their due diligence, they can achieve anything!!  Small steps to take in Cadettes include leadership in Day Camps, participating in destinations, being a Lookie Lou at GAM, and then completing a Journey and determining their own Silver Award Projects.  Plus having the opportunity to have a leadership role with in the troop is a big deal.  If your troop is large enough, the girls can experience troop government in patrols or with a Court of Honor.  All these great things are in front of them, and they need to know it!

But what if they "know it" or at least have been exposed to it, but are still thinking they might not have time for Girl Scout's monthly meetings or camping or Award and Journey work?  Well, Barb Christenson rightfully says, this is the time to be flexible!

"I think the key word for working with older Girl Scouts is flexibility.  We advisors need to be able to change how we run meetings to fit what the girls want.  We need to make the meetings look different from what they have been doing for the past six years.  (I often compare Daisy and Brownie meetings to birthday parties – craft, song or game, activity and a snack and also planned by the adults.)  We changed our meeting date, place and time to give it a different feel; instead of Friday afternoons right after school, which everyone knows isn’t going to work once they get to high school, we started meeting on Sunday evenings and included dinner.  I do know that half our Cadette meetings the first year looked a lot like an evening at the nail salon with a lot of chit chat, nail painting, and not a lot of anything going on.  But, that may be exactly what the girls need their first year!  Many of these girls are over-programmed with sports, church/temple, homework, and whatever else they participate in.  Granted, their parents may not see the value in that, but the bonding between the girls is priceless!

Because of the girls’ busy schedules and their many interests, advisors need to be willing to be flexible about how girls participate in the troop.  Establish what this flexibility looks like.  For example, I had girls who only wanted to participate in day camp; I never saw them at troop meetings so I didn’t charge them any dues and I kept them informed about day camp meetings and annual renewal dates.  I also had a couple of girls who only wanted to earn their higher awards; they would come to meetings when we worked on pre-requisites, and once those were completed, I would only see them at Silver/Gold meetings.  I did charge them dues for the years that they were attending the troop meetings.  Lastly, I had girls who only wanted to travel so they would come to the travel meetings.  Did that take more time for us, the advisors?  Absolutely, because we were basically running meetings every week (two troop meetings, a travel meeting, and a Silver/Gold meeting) but it was well worth it and it only happened one year in Cadettes and one year in Seniors.