Girl Scouts Build a Bear Party

Last night we had our Daisy and Brownie End of the Year party at Build a Bear. It was so nice and I had so little to do. Much better than when we did this big picnic last year and I had all sorts of stuff to plan and get ready for. Plus I didn't have to worry about weather or parents. It was just the girls. And I think they had a great time. Unfortunately we were missing five of our girls, but all in all I think we ended up with a great turn out. We had a $20 budget per girl. We had each of the girls dress their bears in girl scout uniforms. We had seven girls bridge from Brownies to Juniors and four girls bridging from Daisy's to Brownies. So the girls who bridged put their new level on their bears and the girls who were still Brownies put Brownie uniforms on their bears. Each girl got a patch to put on their own uniforms and one for their bears to go on their uniforms. And when parents came to pick up they got their parents to buy their bears some new outfits too. It was tons of fun and I definitely recommend a Build a Bear party to anyone. My girls are already asking for a Build a Bear party for their next birthday. They've got nine months to wait though so we will see. But here's a peek into our Scout Build a Bear party for you...

Alls Quiet in Blog Land

Well, at least on the blogs I read everyday. Been a quiet day. I'm bored. I should be doing laundry, but I'm not really motivated to do it. Another hour until my Mets game comes on. I really hate those late afternoon games on the weekend. I just went to a tag sale that my friend was having to raise money for Autism Speaks. She'll be participating in the Walk Now for Autism next weekend so I was trying to help her out. Got some stuff for the girls which took forever. Well, I should say Natalie took forever picking something out for herself.

So now I'm just killing some time. Does anyone collect Box Tops for their school? I'm the Box Tops coordinator at our school. Okay, yes I do it all. PTA president, Girl Scout leader, Box Tops coordinator, and looks like next year I'll be doing PTA treasurer too as we have no volunteers for that. Anyways, I'm trying to wrap up our Box Top collection. We've been doing a Box Tops 500 race. Each class has their own race car which races to 500 Box Tops. The winning class gets an ice cream party. I told them that whichever class wins the most would get a special prize at the end of the year never once disclosing what this prize would be. And you know what? I still don't know what that prize will be. Problem is I don't have one winning class. We've had 4 different classes win so far this year. So I'm doing one final push to the finish. They have until June 13th to get their box tops in to me. One of the classes that had already won was in the lead, but now another class has come out of no where with over 200 Box Tops. This class hasn't won at all this year. Ahhhhh, they are making this so difficult for me. I just want one clear winner here not a five way tie. Oh well, I'll figure something out I'm sure.

We got our Girl Scout cookie incentives last night. I wasn't aware that our troop had earned $75 to use at the Girl Scout store. That will come in very handy with the end of the year approaching and Try Its to buy for each of the girls. Natalie gets $35 in camp credits which can also be used at the Girl Scout store. We don't do camping so she can get her Junior uniform with that gift certificate.

Well, I guess that's about it. School's out for the summer on June 17th. Kaitlyn has her Kindergarten Ceremony on June 13th. Next Friday is our schools end of the year BBQ. Lots of fun stuff coming up. I hope you're all prepared to see tons of pictures.

Girl Scout Sleepover on Hold

Well, seems that I didn't have all of my ducks in a row for this sleepover. Who would have thought that for parents to come with their own daughters on a sleepover they needed to have background checks? So the sleepover at the aquarium which I had scheduled for Friday night has to be put on hold until I can get all of the parents registered and background checks done on them.

I felt so bad having to tell the girls last night that we couldn't go. They were so looking forward to this. I have spoken to the aquarium though and they were very understanding about it. They have other dates in the future. One was in July, but it's a boy/girl sleepover which I'm not going to be able to get approval on. The other is in September. That should give me plenty of time to get everything all set up and this way maybe we'll get to have more of the girls come since a lot of them couldn't make it due to the Memorial Day weekend.

I'm still having trouble with a couple of parents though. The Service Unit manager and Membership Marketing manager have told me that I am right that the money is for the troop and not an individual girl. So I am not to give them something which would be unfair to the other girls. Now that we have to change the date and given how far in the future it is we shouldn't have too many saying they can't make it since they'll be able to save the date. I imagine that these parents have no intention of bringing their daughters to this though so they'll probably continue to request what they feel is their fair share. At least now I can put this on the Service Unit manager and Membership Marketing manager though. One of these parents has already told me that once she gets her daughter's "fair share" they'll be done with Girl Scouts at least as far as my troop is concerned. It's a shame that it had to come down to this with these parents being so selfish though.

My co-leader and I have been discussing whether or not we want to continue doing Girl Scouts next year. Both of us feel if we don't have to deal with these two parents then we could keep it going. I guess we'll have to see. We had an ice cream social last night with our troop and the others in town and we really had a nice group of girls. They were mellow and got along great and no fighting or she did this and she did that to me. The girls who weren't there were all the ones who are in this little click together. There are 5 girls that when they get together (three of them belong to these two parents who have been troublesome) are just awful to each other. They are fine when they aren't all there and I can handle a few of these girls in this little click when the rest aren't there. Our troop all around I think would be so much better without all of that drama. I was sure that I wasn't going to do Girl Scouts next year, but now I am definitely reconsidering.

It's parents like these...

that make people not want to volunteer for things. As most of my readers know I am the girl scout leader at my girls school. I have been doing this for three years now. This is my 2nd year as a Brownie leader being able to do cookie sales. Last year I seemed to have a nice bunch. We had a good group of girls who got along and while not many parents wanted to help out they were all pretty good about doing what I asked of them and not complaining.

This year couldn't be more different. Most of the girls are the same from last year, but for some reason they are a much harder group. They bicker about every little thing and they have even gotten to pushing and hitting each other. I have discussed it with the girls about Girl Scout behavior. I have discussed it with the parents about how difficult they are. On both ends it's like talking to a brick wall.

But wait, it gets worse. Last year we ended the year with a nice family BBQ with cute little bags for the girls with little prizes in it and the try its that they earned for the year. We didn't do anything big with the money they had earned because I was pregnant and had a high risk pregnancy. And because of that and when CJ was born I didn't end up starting up the troop until January unlike the usual October. Normally we met last year every other week so this year to make up for that lost time I told them we could meet every week instead. So that's what we've been doing. But there are two mothers of some of the girls from last year who were very upset that we didn't do a big trip over the summer with the cookie money the girls earned. Now keeping in mind that these girls were not huge sellers by any means. One of them did a decent job, but she wasn't the top seller. So these two mothers have been fighting with me about the fair thing to do with the cookie money from last year. I told them I wanted to combine it with this years money and do a really big trip. Well, that wasn't fair to them because there are girls who weren't in the troop last year. Okay, well how do they think they would feel if I did something for some of the girls, but not the others. And they are telling me well they'll just have to understand that these girls earned that money last year. They wanted a gift card for their girls. So I offered a gift card from Toys R Us, but they said no they wanted Walmart because then the girls can get toys, or clothes, or food if they want. What? Shouldn't the parents buy them food? I didn't like the sounds of that.

So I told the parents well since it's the girls who earned the money lets see what they want to do. So I had the girls vote on if they wanted to combine this year and last years money and do a big trip or if they wanted to get a gift card with last years money and then do something separate with this years money. Well, all of the girls wanted to combine the money and most of them chose that they wanted to do an overnight at an aquarium. Okay, so problem solved, right? Wrong.

So I've got the overnight all set. It's coming up two weeks from now. I'm trying to get a final head count on this so I can pay. Now these two mothers are complaining because it's Memorial Day weekend and their daughters can't go. So they wanted to know if they could get something for their girls in place of that. So being the nice person I am I offered them a day pass to the aquarium. Nope, that's not what they want. They want me to buy their daughter's season passes to a local amusement park. Ummmm, that's not how this works. The money is for the troop not for individual girls.

Now the even bigger kicker is that none of these parents have paid dues for this year. So when one of the mothers was complaining that the stuff the girls are doing isn't like what other troops are doing and the things they make go in the garbage and they want more I said well I can't do these things without people paying their dues. Well, this one mother informs me that she won't be paying dues this year. So I told her well without the dues the girls can't do all their activities and get their try its and have snack at our meetings every week. They don't feel they've gotten their "fair" share here. I've offered them things to try to make them happy, but if it's not exactly what they want they are telling me they aren't getting their fair share. This is crazy. This one mom I was talking to today told me that she was going to the Service Unit manager with this. I told her to go ahead. I said I'm sorry you don't feel that I've been doing a good enough job. Maybe you would like to have your own troop. She told me she's taking this over my head and it's going to escalate and I said fine go ahead. Then there was silence. She must have thought I hung up on her because I heard her say what a bitch and then hang up. No wonder her daughter acts the way she does.

So thanks to these parents next year I will not be a Girl Scout leader. There will probably be no troop next year of girl scouts at the school for the girls because I don't see any of these parents volunteering to do this. This is just sad that these parents have to act like this and ruin things for everyone else. I feel that I've been more than generous. I had no intention originally of offering anything to those who couldn't come and was just going to plan another trip based on how much money we had left over. But since they asked I figured I would be nice and offer the day passes to the aquarium, but they said no to that. Are you kidding me? It's not like you are paying for this or have paid a single thing this year. Why do they think they are entitled to things? Why can't they realize that this is not what girl scouts is all about? They are crazy! It's like they want something for nothing. I'm thinking since they are so concerned about exactly what money their girls raised I should figure out exactly what their girls raised and then subtract their dues and everything else I've ended up getting for them already from that and telling them this is what your daughter has left of the money she earned for the troop. I figure for one of them she's actually going to end up owing money to the troop. I'm not too sure that they want me to figure out what exactly their daughters are entitled to based on what individually they earned.