Hello! We are Brownie Troop #420 located in beautiful Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Our troop was established in October 1999 as a Daisy Girl Scout troop and bridged to Brownie Girl Scouts in June 2000. Our troop consists of eight Brownie Girl Scouts, five of whom are new to scouting this year. Our troop leader is Tricia Clemens and our assistant leaders are Catherine Mariakakis and Mark Clemens. We have been enjoying a year filled with fun and adventures!
At our first meeting, we learned about the Girl Scout Promise and the Girl Scout Law. We also learned some of the basic Girl Scout ways: the Brownie Ring, patrol circles, the Girl Scout handshake, the Quiet Sign, the Talking Sign, and the Friendship Circle. There's so much to learn about Girl Scouting!
We adopted a mascot, Effie the Unicorn, and are participating in the mascot exchange program. Effie travels to various other troops and, with the assistance of members from the host troop, makes entries in her travel journal about her adventures. She then shares this information with us so we can learn more about our sister Girl Scouts and Girl Guides in other areas. We, in turn, open our homes to visiting mascots from other troops and share information about our troop's activities and our home state. It has been a great way to learn about other people and places as well as making us learn more about our own home! We have managed to collect quite a few facts about North Carolina. We have hosted several mascots this year: Charlie Horse from Texas, Chirpie Cardinal from Illinois, Crystal the Dolphin from Maryland, Diamond the Rattlesnake from Arizona, and Froz Ribbit from Australia. If your troop is interested in a mascot exchange with us, please contact us at our e-mail address below.
We are pen pals with a Girl Guide troop in Australia, the 1st Wanneroo Guides. This has been helping us to learn about life and scouting/guiding in another part of the world. Effie is on her way there now and is excited to have the opportunity to meet our penpals very soon!
We discussed our interests and our ideas for the year ahead. All of us really enjoy games. We want to learn new ones and have opportunities to play a variety of games. With this in mind, we decided we would start out the year by working on the GirlSports Try-It and the Playing Around the World Try-It. So....at our very next meeting, we completed the activities for the GirlSports Try-It. It was fun practicing the different skills involved in sports and other games. Then we tackled the Playing Around the World Try-It: we learned about games from various countries and thought about how some of the games could be modified to play with younger siblings (since many of us have little brothers or sisters at home). "Mr. Bear," a game from Sweden, was definitely our favorite game to play.
In October, we had our first overnight event, a "Mamas in Pajamas" sleep-over! We made dinner for our moms (completing the requirements for the Make It, Eat It Try-It) and entertained our moms while we worked on some of the activities for the Dancercize Try-It. We also managed to watch a couple of videos before finally sacking out for the night. It was fun!
We went on a hike in Duke Forest and completed some of the activities for the Eco-Explorer and Outdoor Adventurer Try-Its. We learned about habitats and food chains, looked for signs of living things, and used our senses to explore the world outside.
Our parents have also been helping us by sharing some of their interests with our troop. One mom has been very active in the theater and guided us through some of the activities for the Let's Pretend Try-It. Another mom helped us with the Numbers and Shapes Try-It. It was fun to see how many different pictures we could make from the same tanagram shapes and pieces! We also enjoyed learning a bit of "magic" with Möbius strips. One of the dads led us through the activities for both the Science in Action and Science Wonders Try-Its. Science really can be fun!
Brownie Girl Scouts is not just about earning Try-Its though. It is also about getting out and doing things. We have certainly been doing that as well!
In December, we attended a special theater production of Cinderella. You can't imagine how funny "The Sneeze Polka" is! Cinderella was beautiful and Prince Charming was, of course, charming but Cinderella's step-sisters really made us laugh!
We went to the North Carolina Symphony's presentation of Folk Music in the Concert Hall featuring Klezmer and All That Jazz. We learned what folk music is, heard examples of folk music from around the world, and even participated in a line dance through the auditorium with Israeli folk dancers. A few of us also attended "Art Museum Fun," a special program at the North Carolina Museum of Art. We learned how to really look at the various objects to try to understand what the artist was trying to "say" or the feelings that the artist might have wanted to convey to viewers. Some things were funny, like the "Cheeto Chair," a simple wooden chair completely covered with cheese puffs. The Eygptian exhibit was fascinating. There were some paintings that gave us a glimpse into times long ago, like the British portraiture, and even a few that we didn't really like to look at. Our docent (that's a person who shows you around the museum and teaches you about the things you see) explained that's okay too. After our tour, we had an opportunity to create some of our own art work: wire sculptures and torn paper collages. Who knows? Maybe some day, some of us will have our own creations on display there too!
For Thinking Day, we focused on our penpal troop in Australia. We learned about some of the foods ("tucker"), crafts, and even slang terms unique to Australia ("strine"). Our council also sponsors Different Shoe Day, a celebration of diversity, to coincide with Thinking Day. Our school counselor - a former Girl Scout leader! - talked to us about diversity. We discovered what diversity means and why it is important in our lives. We learned why acceptance of diversity is important, how diversity enriches our lives, and ways we can promote an appreciation of diversity in our own community. We encouraged our families, friends, and school mates to participate in the Different Shoe Day celebration.
We participated in Brownie Fun Day, sponsored by Cadette Troop #59 and organized by two Cadette Girl Scouts as their Silver Award Project. The Cadette Girl Scouts helped us earn the Earth and Sky Try-It. We had fun getting together with other Brownie Girl Scout troops and participating in a short talent show. Each troop presented a song or skit for the entire group. We also discovered that a little bit of rain - okay, a LOT of rain,...five straight hours of rain! - doesn't dampen the spirits of true Girl Scouts!
One of our main goals for the year was to go horseback trail riding. We raised the money to do this through the Girl Scout Cookie Sale. Then we headed off to J & H Stables and rode along some beautiful trails through Ulmstead State Park. The horses were friendly, the weather was superb, and the scenery was awesome! It was great!
Speaking of great, we went camping! We spent an afternoon learning how to pitch a tent, build a cooking fire, and all about camp kapers in order to get ready. Our leaders weren't kidding when they told us we were going to have to do it all ourselves on the actual campout! When we arrived for the campout, we broke into our patrols. Each patrol picked a site to set up the tent and pitched one of the tents. We cooked Brownie Camp Stew for dinner and, mmmmm, was it good! After cleaning up, we had a campfire complete with sing-alongs and s'mores. We can hardly wait to go camping again!
For our community service project, we teamed up with Goodwill Industries of Eastern North Carolina, Inc. to have the first Goodwill Good Turn Day program in our area. We learned about Goodwill Industries and its mission in the community: to provide an environment for people to improve the quality of their lives through employment and learning opportunities with a focus on people with disabilities. We learned how our donations of "gently used" clothing and household items to Goodwill Stores, as well as our purchases from these stores, help Goodwill Industries accomplish this mission. We encouraged our families, friends, and neighbors to do a little bit of early "spring cleaning" and collected reusable items which we then brought to a local Goodwill Store donation site. The store manager took us on a tour of her facility, showing us how donated items are sorted and prepared to be put out in the store.
Please send us email; we'd love to hear what you're doing!
