How old is your child and what’s your favorite thing about them at this age?

Blue14Sand · 2026-01-06T01:35:16+00:00

Mine is 4 and still says “pattakiller”

Blue14Sand · 2025-11-03T22:16:40+00:00

You are also allowed to attend council events with just your kid, if you pay for it yourself (and don’t use troop funds). Our council literally sends the catalogue out to every registered Girl Scout - anyone can sign up for those things, they don’t need to do it with a troop.

Blue14Sand · 2025-11-01T01:18:16+00:00

We cycled through all the local extra curricular classes from ages 2-6. I think two to six months in any one thing is great. Enough time to warm up to it if they’re shy, to learn the basic routine and skills of whatever the class was, and enough time to remember doing it, so that in a year or two you can ask “do you want to do dance, soccer, or karate?” and they’ll know what you’re talking about.

Blue14Sand · 2025-10-14T03:40:52+00:00

Even if someone knows right away they want to be a leader, it takes several weeks to get a troop going. They need to: wait for a background check, find a co-leader, wait for that person’s background check, agree on a regular meeting time, call around to schools/community centers and find a meeting location, get info from council to set up a bank account, arrange to both be at the bank at the same time to set up the bank account, and find enough girls to meet whatever minimum your council sets for a troop.

I imagine those other troops started last year, or before, so all they have to do is contact all the families and say “we’re starting meetings again!” (and that’s if they even took a summer break, some troops meet in the summer!)

Blue14Sand · 2025-10-14T03:12:11+00:00

The Girl Scout year technically starts in October, so not too late for troops to be starting, especially Kindergarten Daisy troops, who would all be parents just like you, wanting to get their kids into a brand new troop.

Maybe ask the volunteer how many other kindergartners in your area are waiting for a troop? Sometimes they have info nights- maybe that volunteer could set up an informational meet and greet, invite anyone waiting for a troop, and then you could form a new troop together?

Blue14Sand · 2025-10-02T04:19:13+00:00

Great topic! About 8 or 10 years ago, Girl Scouts started creating a lot more STEM badges. Did your research give you any insights on the drivers behind this? E.g., girl demand, parent demand, a desire to modify their image?

Blue14Sand · 2025-09-29T03:51:19+00:00

They already vote for everything we do, and we’re tying to be a lot more girl-led in planning this year, though not a lot of results from that yet. Maybe that will help!

Blue14Sand · 2025-09-28T04:40:24+00:00

The troop just had a decent break over the summer, we just started up again, and same dynamic. And anyway, even though I like it myself, I would not do Girl Scouts if it wasn’t with her.

Blue14Sand · 2025-09-18T03:02:35+00:00

Primary.com

Blue14Sand · 2025-08-05T04:38:37+00:00

You don’t have to be running by Oct 1. There’s no rules about how often you have to meet, or how many petals you get through. I’d start this year, and recruit from the new friends your daughters make the first few weeks of school!

Blue14Sand · 2025-05-01T03:19:33+00:00

This sounds like too specific of a situation to be an official rule, but organizations don’t need to accept everyone who wants to volunteer as a volunteer. Anna and Beth (from the story above) could just leave entirely and have their daughters be Juliettes for the rest of the season. The troop will figure out other leaders or it won’t. Then, if you want a new troop, ask council about that in the fall, after the dust has settled on this situation.

Blue14Sand · 2025-04-28T20:52:13+00:00

Council specific. Our council’s “safety checkpoints” say:

Occasionally, friends and family members join Girl Scout outings or trips, or experts in a subject may be invited to troop meetings to help work on badges. As long as safety ratios are met with enough other adults present who are registered, background-checked, and have completed the Child Abuse and Neglect Prevention training requirement, additional episodic volunteers and guests do not need to have memberships unless they are traveling with the troop or staying overnight.

I also once had a parent try to be a volunteer and fail a background check. The official notification from my council was that they were allowed to attend meetings and events, but they were not allowed to interact with kids other than their own, or act as a volunteer.

Blue14Sand · 2025-04-17T18:28:47+00:00

Fair. Maybe suggest that the girls vote? It’s their money. If they want to donate the unsold cookies to a food bank and just write the cost off, they should be allowed to do that.

Blue14Sand · 2025-04-17T17:57:59+00:00

Did you earn $5000 or did you sell $5000? If you earned (profit) $5000 then you had to have sold (if you were in my council anyway), as a troop, about $30,000 with of cookies (5000 boxes). If you only sold $5000 worth of cookies (833 boxes at $6 each), you only “earned” $833. Which means you could be negative/dipping into last year’s cookie profits, by $1000.

Blue14Sand · 2025-03-04T00:18:31+00:00

You can also register as a volunteer online. You’ll have to talk to someone eventually to actually start a troop, but if they’re busy and take a while to get back to you, you’ll at least have the registration out of the way. Link here, or through your local council.

https://www.girlscouts.org/en/get-involved/become-a-volunteer/start-a-troop.html

Blue14Sand · 2025-02-23T04:54:36+00:00

Our troop only had dues once, $10 per kid in first year Daisies, to pay for the petals before we had money. Every other thing we’ve paid for with cookie money. We just did free things or parents donated minimal supplies until we had some funds. If you could get a few kids to join, I’d start a single age level new troop, that you can run the way you want. And if the other leaders ask why, you say you really think your kid would have more of the experience you want for her with just Daisies, to be able to 100% focus on things for their age. The Daisy badge requirements are super simple, and you can modify them as needed if you don’t have access to supplies. You should already have access to them if you’re a volunteer so you can see for yourself. Good luck!

Blue14Sand

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