r/girlscouts

I’m trying to rebuild my service unit. At the moment, we have (I think) 6-8 troops and 3 are active in the SU. It’s not a majority of troops, but it’s up from 0, so it’s at least progress. My questions are:

(1) if you ARE active in your SU (you attend meetings/trainings/events with some regularity), what makes it worth it to you to be active in your SU? Why are you there?

(2) if you ARE NOT active in your SU or if you are only minimally active, (a) is there a reason you aren’t active in your SU? (b) is there something your SU could do differently that would make it a value to you?

Thoughts on this… first year brownies the leader wants to have 2 girls in the kitchen with her to make a meal/snack. While the other 2 new leaders (which I don’t care for) lead the meeting. Every meeting will be ran that way.. there’s been a lot going on with the leaders so I’m feeling torn on trusting them with my child around boiling water/ stove etc.
I’m thinking maybe we should find a better fitting troop. Not sure if that style of meeting is typical.
The leaders have drank at a girls event, 200 boxes are damaged after cookie season( hasn’t been disclosed to troop yet) and no money has been deposited for those,and troop leader and husband are paying for there memberships out of group funds and that was also never discussed.

I have a longtime troop of 9 Cadettes. They decided this year we aren’t doing badges, cookies, or uniforms. We will focus on hiking, camping, experiences, volunteering and hanging out.

We have hikes, a camping trip, and some volunteering planned, but what are some other easy or low cost ideas for meetups? We’ve done everything in the last 7 years, so I’m coming up empty. We are in suburban NJ, if that helps!

My daughter made a friend this year who quickly turned into "not so much" a friend. She became extremely clingy and would get very upset if my daughter tried to play with other kids at school. Her mom has kind of been hounding us for playdates and I keep having to nicely brush her off.. My daughter does not want to play with her or be friends any longer. Now, the mom is asking to join our girl scout troop and has asked several times. I am not sure what to do! We do have the room and I definitely don't want to exclude her. But, my daughter is absolutely miserable at the idea of this girl being in our troop. We were hoping to just keep distancing ourselves from this friend. But, we obviously can't do that if she's in our troop. I am wondering what would other leaders would do in this situation?

Hi! I am director of a NorCal Girl Scout Camp that has a "theme" of activities and decorations each week, such as outer space, pirates, Harry Potter, spies, fairy tales, ect. I am looking for some inspiration for the coming year. What are some themes you have seen in your time at GS Camp that have been executed well and been fun for both campers and counselors?

So Girl Scout cookie season is over. I just found out that my daughter’s troop had a little over 200 boxes left. When asking the cookie manager where the cookies are or the money she said summer was crazy and they were all damaged. It’s been 4 month. Never told anyone what happened with those cookies or made any money deposits into the bank acct for those.. also at the beginning of summer a mom sent her money for some extras she sold but hasn’t deposited that money yet. .. things aren’t adding up..

Also the troop leader and her husband both had their troop membership fees come out of the bank acct but didn’t tell anyone or let the other adult volunteers do the same. Thoughts?

I had my twin 1st graders on an interest list for our area but after never hearing from other troops, I am seriously considering starting a new troop.

I have a friend with a daughter going into 2nd grade who is interested in co-leading with me.

We will be looking to invite friends of both kids to take us to about 8 - 10 girls for this first year troop. Since the first graders will be Daisies and the second graders will be Brownies, they would be a mixed level group right? Does anyone have any tips for us?

Also, do you know if we would be able to get the Experience Box for both levels? The individual first year plans look different than the mixed first year plans so I'm a little confused on this piece and how to mix the two. I am being connected with my local GS Council lead too and I know she'll help but figured I'd start here with some initial questions! Thanks!

My Scout’s troop does a good mix of camping and STEMmy activities. As a former Boy Scout, I notice a marked lack of knife safety and handling skills among the Scouts and am thinking of doing a knife skills class akin to the “totin’ chip” … I don’t think GS has a formal badge or curriculum for this? Before I go leverage open content, has anyone else done something similar?

After seeing Cookie Queens, several of my middle/high school girls have asked me if we can get letter jackets. I know there’s the one at the GS shop, but it’s a sweatshirt, not an actual letter jacket.

I’ve been poking around online looking at the sites to make custom jackets. I think those girls may just start a trend.

I am disabled and have been all my life due to ADHD and a number of physical disabilities also. I was loosing my home to eviction due to my landlord sold all his rental property and the buyers gave all tenants  30 day notice. At the time thanks to auto bill pay I had not been late even once in over 6 years but that didn’t matter. 

I begged for extra time due to being both in my mid 60s and disabled mostly in a wheel chair. I had no money saved up and it was suggested that I start a Go Fund Me. I asked my sister for help as I was also scheduled for heart surgery. With my multiple requests for the reasonable accommodation of extra time to move I also included a letter from my heart surgeon about my surgery.

My sister told me that she was not allowed to help an other non profit. I am not a non profit I am her sister.

My question is does the Girl Scouts really have a rule that employees cannot help a close relative to avoid homelessness when not at fault? I ask because I was a Girl Scout and our mother a leader. I had learned about helping others, compassion and responsibility.

Do they not practice these things at the counsel? I should admit that she and I do not get along any longer as I found out that she had talked our father into signing over a life insurance policies on myself and our younger brother and not told anyone while at the same time she was trying to get guardianship of our father from our step mother.

As a result of the eviction I was homeless for over 2 years.

What is the best ink to use for getting fingerprints? This will be the third time I have tried getting good fingerprints, with a different group, of course) and the ink pads I have found are not the best. The prints don't come out clearly (or they are all spies who have removed their prints). Or, maybe I don't know how to teach them to put their prints on paper, Or maybe it's the paper we're using? Clearly, I'm not an expert, so I need some help.

Who knows a better way to do this than me?

I am a scout in Colombia, I am 22 years old which means I am no longer old enough to be a Rover, but I have been asking to leave and nothing has been done, it should be noted that I am a nursing student, What consumes me from Monday to Saturday all day, yesterday Saturday I left studying early and was able to visit my group at a regional camp, I went and everyone was very nice to me, But when night came, I received a message from a friend asking if I was at the campsite, to which I replied yes.Then he tells me that supposedly someone was saying that I didn't have to go to the scouts anymore because I was too old, and I quote "They said that since you were no longer Rover age and not a chief, you couldn't return" So I don't know, I felt really bad, because these people have seen me grow up for 13 whole years, and it was really disappointing

My daughter is a Junior, and we were wondering if anyone has done the My Promise, My Faith Pin with Pagan beliefs? How did you go about it.

I’ve come across mentions of a few different adult Girl Scout groups. But which one is more official, or more active? Anyone have any experience with these groups that might help me decide which to join?

Looking at who is coming back in reality instead of just on paper, and our troop is going to be 6-10 first year cadettes, and 3 second-year juniors. Our town has 6th graders still in middle school, so i see this as a critical year as far as keeping the troop going. I want the new cadettes to see GS still has a ton to offer them before they change schools. I'm hoping to lean on Council programming as part of that - Winter camping (wish me luck!), hatchet throwing, and our Older Girl Conference. The Juniors won't be left behind - all of them can still go to our favorite STEM event, and there is a council camp out that only Juniors can do. They are a little pod and enjoy just them time.

I also want to stick with what i know they love. So, friends, can you sanity check any of this for a troop with 8-12 kids at any given meeting?

• Meeting/troop structure
  • Instituting snack while we do all the important announcements and do any 'talky' stuff. We meet during dinner time, many come from other activities and they love food. Thinking if we have families sign up to be the 'snack person', then everyone would do it 1-2x per year. We already have reusable dishware.
  • A physical troop newsletter with upcoming event info, fun facts, small challenges. Encourage them to submit drawings, poems or other things they want to share with everyone. Currently some parents don't tell their kids about upcoming non-meeting events and others just sign them up without informing them.
  • Improv games at the end of meetings when we have extra time. Most love theater and games like Telephone. They also still play pretend...so long as no one tells them to!
  • Entry activities - we've moved on from coloring and worksheets to minute to win it games, but sometimes those are too fast. With set up and families dropping early/late i need 10-15 minutes of "go do this thing" before our meeting actually starts. If they are not engaged, they will cause chaos. I need some ideas here!!!!
  • Formalizing kapers - I'd love to hear how Cadette+ troops handle kapers that don't feel kiddish. I am 100% cool with fun jobs like DJ, game leader, etc. Previously we drew a name from the stack of popsicle sticks, but they are over that.
  • Staying phone free/low tech during meetings/events - Not everyone has a phone or the same level of freedom on them. Some of the kids have little to no self-control around the phones and it just results in chaos, stress and non-girl scout behavior.
• Meeting/event ideas
  • Friendsgiving - Did i mention they love food? Thinking of doing this as outdoor cooking so there is more room and we get to incorporate fire building, another highly enjoyed thing.
  • Zines? Most already like to draw and/or write - when there are no restrictions or concerns about spelling! Some made a school newspaper last year with no teacher involvement.
  • Jackknives and soap carving
  • Having a friend teach about natural beauty products and letting them make their own product (incorporating steps from flowers & trees badges)
  • Woodworking. Maybe the bang nails into a shape and use string to fill it in? The school we meet at wants a little free library - could we build one as a troop and donate it?
  • T-shirt modification or no-new bags from t-shirts? Life skill or not cool?
  • Organize a field day in the late spring/early summer for younger kids in the community (probably associated with some other groups in town which focus on screen free fun and community building).

Before you say "What do they want to do?" - Between starting school as 'covid kids', a lot of neurodiversity, complex home lives and fear of being cringe or uncool, many of them won't say what they want to do. I get the blank stares or silly answers (to which i say we need to sell a lot of cookies to go to France or I'll take them bungee jumping if they graduate high school as girl scouts).

All of the above is based off comments from them, things they do outside of scouts and trying to increase their independence. We are still using a lot of scaffolding. Trying new things ranks really high. As does food and anything that is quickly hands-on. They are not generally interested in highest awards, but half will show up for SU service focused events like food drives.

I need some ideas of how to get organized like month by month.

I started a Girl Scout troop on a whim wanting to do something for my community - and did not realize the amount of work and paperwork and prep it took. it also didn't help that council dragged their feet and I didn't start a troop till January at the start of cookie season.

I just feel like I keep making missteps- tons with cookie season- I had to cancel a field trip because I didn't know about COIs - then my CPR cert expired. I never had an orientation and I feel like I keep saying I'm drowning and everyone one is not helping until there is an issue -but I need an overview of what is needed beforehand. I keep getting asked "what do you need to know" and I keep saying "everything"- because I don't know what to ask when I don't know what I need to ask.

And my co- leader is swamped with her full time job and going to graduate school so I'm doing 95% of the work. I'm just struggling. Tips are appreciated.

Does anyone have a troop run as an after-school program? I am trying to brainstorm ways to make scheduling easier for parents and looking for ideas of what it would look like to be run in this format. Thanks in advance!

Hi everyone.
So, we completed our second year as a troop in the 2025-2026 year.

The first year (24-25) we did cookie sales we ordered wayyyy too many cookies, and we were able to donate the rest to a hospital to get it “written off.” So we didn’t owe anything but the troop didn’t make anything, either.

This year, we learned from our mistakes and did not order too much. We sold all of our cookies, and made it to the end of the season….
Only to find out that council is claiming that the only money missing is the EXACT amount the troop was going to profit. They’re saying we kept our earnings. But we didn’t, and we sold all of our cookies and now have nothing to show for it…

We’re telling them that the initial amount of cookies we received in their system must be wrong, or something… because the fact is we don’t have any cookies left. We sold everything 🤷🏻‍♀️
They’re claiming we’re wrong and we’ve been arguing for months. We just need someone to get into their account and look around at the numbers they’re seeing.

When the cookies were initially handed off from a council member to the troop leader—- NOTHING was written down! No receipt. No total number. Nothing. And when my troop leader asked the council member about it (to get a receipt) she just shrugged it off like, oops. 😬

I’ve been talking to lawyers but no one will see us without a 100$ consultation. Has this happened to anyone else? What do we do?

We’re in Oregon btw

My Service Unit seems to be struggling a little with planning events that are fun and interesting to our CSA levels of Girl Scouts. Most events seem to lean toward being more fun for littler girls even if they're intended to be for all ages. What are some events that your troop or SU hosted for older girls that were a hit?