Girl Scout happeningS

Brownie News

Holden Troop 30234 engaged in a number of activities to satisfy the requirements of the “For the Birds” Try-It. In February, Brownie parent Matt Friend led the girls in a discussion about birds in our area including ways to identify them from their physical features, behavior, and calls! The girls and their families also participated in the 2010 Great Backyard Bird Count (GBBC). The Backyard Bird count is an annual four-day event that engages bird watchers of all ages in counting birds to create a real-time snapshot of where the birds are across the continent. The girls who participated helped scientists document the distribution and movements of birds by observing and counting the number and species of birds in their yards (or wherever they were) during a brief period of time. They then reported that information to the GBBC and contributed to the total count of 602 species and 11, 226, 260 birds! To wrap up our study of birds, Matt Friend and several other parent volunteers helped each Girl Scout build their own “nesting box” that they will hang in their yards to provide a safe spot for birds to lay and care for their eggs. We are looking forward to spring to see what kinds of birds move in!

Brownie Troop 30922 was in the Worcester Telegram and the Landmark for participating in Colonial Volkswagen's "Gift of Caring" program. Colonial Volkswagen helped the troop by ship 170 boxes of cookies to the troops in Afganistan and Iraq.

Click here to see the telegram article

Click here to see the Landmark article

Junior News

Junior troop 30807 made fleece scarves as an Art to Wear project and donated them to Sherri’s House. Also Cadette troop 30250 took a tour of the kitchen and participated in a Q&A session while eating yummy pizza with the managers at Papa Gino’s as part of learning about careers for their Creative Cooking Interest Project. Papa Gino’s stated they would be happy to host a GS night there anytime or have any other scouts drop by to learn.

Cadette News

Troop 30417 is holding a "Middle School 101" night as a service to all girls going to middle school in the fall. Please forward the attached flyer to all parents of 5th graders. The girls can attend as a troop or individually as there will be plenty of surpervision provided. Also, you can use this as a Bridging Activity for moving to Cadettes!!!! April 9, 2010 6-8:30 PM Holden Senior Center Click Here to View the Flyer

Program Level Events

Daisy pajama Party

Daisy Pajama Party is April 17, 2010 from 5-8 pm at the Senior center. It is a town-wide event just for Daisies.
Girls can wear their pajamas, get their nails done, eat pizza, and watch a movie! Fun, fun, fun! Bring $2.00 and a new or gently used blanket for the blanket drive. You can view the flyer at: Click here to view the flier

Brownie Program Event

Save the date. The Brownie Program event has been planned for October 23-24^th , 2010 at Camp Laurelwood. Third grade Brownies are welcome to stay overnight and we will have a program for all Brownies on October 24^th.More details to come….

Junior Program Level Event

As of right now the Junior event will be as follows Place: Wachusett Meadow Wild Life Sanctuary, Audubon Society, Princeton Date: TBD (in the Fall) Time 9:30 - 12-30 All Juniors and their leaders, will have the opportunity to meet and greet . Then they will be divided in groups and have a guided ( Audubon experts) hike to different places at the site. They may be going to beaver pond and study their habitat. Bird watching, tracking, etc. It all depends on the season and what is available in this great natural habitat for so many local species. After about 1 1/2 hours of hiking and exploring nature, we will come back and have a bag lunch.

Encampment

Encampment is being held at Trout Brook May 22-23. There will be a program during the day for all girl scouts in Holden. You must have an Overnight Leader or partner with a trained leader to stay overnight with your troop. Click here for Encampment information

Becky Sullivan provided a registration form that needs to be filled out by April 15th. Click here for the registration form

To celebrate the 15th annual town encampment, we are having a patch design contest. All entries must be received by Thursday, April 15th to be eligible. Click here for more information.

Leader meeting summary

AGC Event Planning

We decided to split the International AGC Event into two different events. Our AGC Fundraising event will be in the fall. We talked about a bingo night or a spaghetti supper. The International Event will be moved to Thinking Day time (February/March) so new troops have enough time to prepare and participate.

Training

You need to take leadership essentials by September 30^th. Please email Pam at computer_mom@charter.net if you are interested in taking a class at the Senior Center and we'll see if we can schedule one here.

Bridging

If your troop is bridging this year, you need to coordinate an activity with a troop in the next level up. Now is the time to make your bridging plans if you haven't yet.

Future Plans

At the leader meeting we sent out a spreadsheet about future plans, as well as collected the forms. We would like tp have a clear picture of who is returning and how many girls we need to place before early bird registration.

If you or your co-leader is not continuing with your troop next year, NOW is the time to start talking to your parents about finding a replacement. It’s not fair to your girls to leave them without leadership.This happened to a few troops last year and it was not an easy task to assign them to new troops. Please help out and start looking for replacements sooner rather than later. Two adults are needed to reregister a troop.

If you haven't responded about your future plans, please email Pam at computer_mom@charter.net as soon as possible.

CORI Information

Monica Baldyga provided us with a list of leaders whose Cori checks are not logged in the council computer system. If you are on the list, please bring a copy of your license to the next leader meeting. It would be helpful if you also bring in a completed CORI form but we will have extras at the meeting if you need one. You can email Tracy tf.tracy@gmail.com or Pam computer_mom@charter.net to see if you need to fill out a new CORI form.

Spring Session of Welcome to Girl Scout Leadership

A spring session of Welcome to Girl Scouts leadership is going to be held April 28th at Pam's House. Its a good opportunity for new leaders taking over a troop to be trained before the fall. We probably won't offer this again until October. Call Pam at 508-829-8933 or email at computer_mom@charter.net to sign up for training.

Parent Newsletter

We are going to have a Parent Newsletter using the emails provided on the registration forms. There will be a feature on the website to subscribe or unsubscribe. The newsletter will be similar to the E-news from the council. It will let parents know about town events like registration.

Additional Information

The next leader meeting is April 15^th at 7 pm at the Holden Senior Center.

Submit Content for future newsletters to computer_mom@charter.net

Our web site is www.holdengirlscouts.org

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