Decorah Daisies Troop 20021
February 2016 Newsletter
Quick Update
Just a brief update with a few of the upcoming events and information for our troop.
Since the school office started using this site for newsletters, we figured we'd try it too to be more resourceful, especially since the girls just earned their Use Resources Wisely petal at our meeting in January. :)
Important Cookie Dates
Here is a list of the upcoming dates for Girl Scout Cookie Sales:
- 2/20 - 1-3 pm - Cookie Pick Up
- 2/27 - 9 am - 1 pm - Cookie Booth #1
- 3/5 - 10 am - 12 pm - Cookie Money Due
- 3/12 - 9 am - 1 pm - Cookie Booth #2
If you haven't already, please sign up for your daughter's time slot for the cookie booths on our Shutterfly page.
All permission slips need to be turned in at our next meeting on 2/25.
Please refer to Shutterfly for more specific information.
World Thinking Day 2016
As Girl Scouts, the girls are part of a special network of girls that stretches across the world. On February 22 of each year, Girl Scouts and Girl Guides from 146 countries celebrate World Thinking Day (WTD) — that’s one BIG celebration! The World Thinking Day 2016 theme is “Connect.”
At the meeting on Thursday, the girls were given a small take-home assignment to earn the 2016 World Thinking Day badge. Please help your daughter to complete the assignment and return it to our next meeting on 2/25 to earn her badge.
This is not mandatory - it's just a fun activity for the girls to earn another badge during their time as a Daisy. :)
Troop Dues
If you haven't already paid the $20 troop dues for this year, please bring it the next meeting on 2/25. The dues offset the costs of the badges for the girls, and they have quite a few more to come. :)
With the cookie and nut/candy sales this year, we are hoping to be able to reduce or completely eliminate dues next year and be able to take the girls on more outings and possibly provide some money towards camp for each girl if that is something each of them are interested in. :)
If you have any questions, please let us know.
Journey Books
Just a Reminder: Each girl should have their Welcome to the Daisy Flower Garden Journey Book by the 3/10 meeting since we will be starting this Journey at the meeting.
To ensure that the girls are able to complete their Journey, there might be some take-home homework for these meetings.
End of Year Celebrations
This year is the final year of Daisies for the girls - soon, they will be Brownies! :) We are going to be working on the girls earning their 4 financial literacy leaves, their Flower Garden Journey patch set, and their last 2 daisy petals by the end of this school year.
We will be holding a Bridging Ceremony for our troop on a weekday evening in May. It will be in the Decorah gymnasium. The date is not set yet - as soon as we have it, we will send out information. This will be an event for the entire family as this is an important celebration of your daughter's achievements in Daisy Girl Scouts.
The Rising Stars Service Area (which covers all of the Girl Scout troops in our school district) also holds an end of the year ceremony for those who have completed major accomplishments during the year. Once I have more details on that ceremony, I will get them to you. The date is set for 5/20 at the West Bend High Schools.
Summer Day Camp
There are a few options for camp this summer.
There is a day camp that runs from June 13-17 at Camp Winding River from 1-7 pm daily that week. There is a shuttle that is included in the cost that meets at Badger Middle School at 11:45 a.m. and returns around 8:00 p.m. This camp is completely run by volunteers and the older girl scouts in our service area organize it and plan the events for the week with assistance from adult volunteers. It is organized that the troops stay together as a unit. However, this requires adult volunteers from our troops to assist (not necessarily leaders - parents can volunteer too as long as they are registered members of GS USA). If we do not end up going as a troop, your daughter would be able to sign up as an individual as well - she would be put together with another troop within her age group/girl scout level.
Another option available is Silverbrook Day Camp here in town. This runs all summer in weekly sessions. The girls are not necessarily kept together as a troop at this camp but are grouped with girls of their age/girl scout level. (We are going to look into this a little more to see if they could be kept together - more details to come). This camp may be more flexible for families to plan around their own schedules rather than trying to coordinate all of our schedules for 1 week in June. There is a slight discount for your daughter's rate if you volunteer to help at this camp.
Once we have a final total from cookie sales, we are going to determine what we can use from the troop funds to pay towards each girl who is going to camp this summer keeping in mind of course that we do want to keep a balance aside for troop start ups for next year and for any additional activities yet this year.
Any girls who select PACs for their recognitions from Cookie Sales can use this towards the cost of camp as well.
If you have any questions, please let one of us know. Here is a link to the camp information on GSWISE's website (http://www.gswise.org/camps.aspx) - the camp brochure and lots of other details are available on here as well.
There will be copies of information about the 2 camps mentioned above available at the next meeting on 2/25.
Troop Activities
There are a few activities that we have been looking at to do as a troop outside of our regularly scheduled meetings. For this to be able to work, we will need one more parent volunteer to register as an adult member of Girl Scouts in order to have enough car space for all of our girls to participate.
These activities are fun experiences for the girls and we might be able to use them to earn additional badges.
Upcoming GSWISE Activities
We are not organizing these through the troop, but please feel free to participate with your Girl Scout and/or Family as your schedules permit.
Flyers were handed out at our last meeting for the Geocaching Family Event Coming up in April. We are not planning to do this as a troop; however, if you and your daughter (or your entire family) are interested, please refer to the flyer that was sent home Thursday. I will also upload it to Shutterfly. One of the High School Girl Scout troops is organizing this event as a fundraiser for a trip to St. Louis.
The Girl Scout Birthday Sale event is March 5 - March 12 at the local Resource Centers. See the flyer below for more details.