A new year begins! We are now a troop of nine girls looking forward to fun, adventures, and challenging ourselves.
As always, at our first meeting, we discussed our interests and our ideas for the year ahead. We the reviewed the Girl Scout Promise, the Girl Scout Law, and the special Girl Scout ways (the Brownie Ring, patrol circles, the Girl Scout handshake, the Quiet Sign, the Talking Sign, and the Friendship Circle). We helped our troop mascot, Effie the Unicorn, prepare for her year of travels in the mascot exchange program. Although we miss Effie while she's traveling, we enjoy hosting the mascots from other Girl Scout troops and are looking forward to reading about Effie's adventures when she returns. This year, Effie's travel itinerary includes Massachusetts, New Jersey, and two Brownie troops in England.
We started out the year by trading in our Brownie folders for new binders. We needed more space to hold all the information we have been accumulating: our favorite songs, graces, outdoor skills, Leave No Trace principles, etc. Then we began to make plans for our fall camping trip to Camp Carver's Falls. We decided to have our investiture/rededication ceremony there. We decided on our menu, the format of our ceremony, and discussed what we might want to do while there.
As it turned out, we had to delay our departure for Camp Carver's Falls. Heavy rains that lasted all day meant that some of the roads were flooded so, instead of leaving Friday afternoon as planned, we left early Saturday morning. Amazingly enough, the weather by then was perfect! Upon arriving, we unloaded all our gear, had lunch, and then set out to explore the site. What a beautiful place! We had two Cadette Program Aides who came along with us and led a craft activity. We then held our investiture/rededication ceremony right next to the waterfall. Afterwards, our Brownie Brother taught us about trail signs and we set out on a hike following the trail signs he had laid out for us. We made our dinner (French dip sandwiches, salad, and cherry dump cake), cleaned up, and then had our campfire program. Our assistant leader led the "Ceremony of the Campfire Ashes"; we performed some skits; our Program Aides taught us a couple of new songs; ate s'mores (of course!); and then retired for the night. The next morning after breakfast, we held a Scouts' Own ceremony at the top of Carver's Falls. Two of us had completed the requirements to earn our council's Camper Corps patch and were awarded the insignia during our ceremony. We returned to our campsite, performed our kapers, and then packed up all our gear for the return trip. Wonder where we'll go camping next?
Our leader had told us at the beginning of the year that we were going to be leading more of the troop meetings ourselves. She wasn't kidding! Our next troop meeting was planned and led by two of our own girl members! They led activities to earn the Math Fun Try-It. Creating our own code and writing "secret" messages using it was lots of fun!
And there's still more to come!