Orange Memorial Day Parade

TO ALL TROOPS INTERESTED IN MARCHING IN THE ANNUAL ORANGE MEMORIAL DAY PARADE:

One form has already been submitted, to the Parade Committee, which covers all of the Orange Girl Scout troops.

If troops are interested in participating, they are responsible for completing their own GS of CT Troop Trip Forms and obtaining Permission Slips from parents. Troop Trip Forms must be submitted to Vicky Burford (by email ok) at least two weeks before the parade. Forms/instructions are available in the forms library at www.gsofct.org


The parade is May 26th at 10:30 am. Girl Scout troops will assemble in front of the entrance of the High Plains Community Center. Sashes/vests are required to march.

To clarify we WILL all march as individual troops. We just all fall in for the parade together - -troop after troop.
We DO NOT all march together.

For more information, contact Karen Sims.

Career Events - 3/31 deadline

There are some great CAREER events over April vacation.  Check them out!  www.gsofct.org

CAREER WEEK - APRIL 13-17

What’s in a STEM Career? Find out from women who know! Choose engineering, finance, marketing, technology, accounting, actuarial science, and more. Click on each event to see more information and register online, or check out this flyer. Register by March 31.

 
Society of Women Engineers: Be That Engineer - Berlin - Sunday, April 13

General Electric: What's in a Career? (Three locations, register separately) - Danbury, Norwalk,Stamford - Monday, April 14

Biomedical Engineering: Get Hip to Your Kneeds - Oxford - Tuesday, April 15

Travelers: It All Adds Up! - Hartford - Wednesday, April 16

Merrill Lynch: Financial Finesse (Two locations, register separately) - Stamford, White Plains, NY - Thursday, April 17

Meeting Minutes 3/13/2014

Girl Scouts- Amity Service Unit meeting

Minutes for 3/13/2014

Happy Birthday Girl Scouts! Yesterday was the 102nd birthday for Girl Scouts.  Vicky celebrated by handing out Girl Scout peanut butter bears from our QSP sales.

Treasurer Report-reminder again that the Service Unit assessment is due at cookie paperwork time.  $2/per registered girl in your troop. The April Service Unit meeting is mandatory for at least one rep from each troop to review the financial report procedures. Troop financials are due 6/1.

Girl Scout Day Proclamations were issued in Orange (3/10)and Woodbridge (3/12). Thank you also to Melissa Carrington and Deanna Driscoll for presenting their awesome Girl Scout cookie wreath creation to the Girl Scout museum at council.

Cadette Ephemia presented a slides how of photos from Girl Scout Day at the Capitol, Amity Service Unit Thinking Day and the Woodbridge Proclamation presentation.

Recruitment update: Anita and Mary hosted a table at Thinking Day.  A few inquiries but the most fun was meeting the two Girl Scout alumni who saw the ad in the paper. In other Recruiting news, Tara will work with Vicky to try and send a letter to Bethany kindergarten parents instead of just a normal recruiting flyer.  Problem is the lack of parent volunteers.  In Woodbridge, Karen is still trying to re-ignite the 5th grade troop.  Karen will brainstorm some sort of event to re invite those lost girls back.

Registrar report: good news is that Earlybird this year will save you money!!! If you Earlybird, the council service fee will be $10 instead of $15.  More info at the next meeting. 

Cookie Sales: goal getter sales continue! Keep selling! Let's break our service unit record!  If you need cookies, your troop cookie manager/mom just needs to contact the cookie cupboard to get your boxes. There isn't a full case requirement for goal getter sales.  Payments are due 3/21.  Information is forthcoming from Sue Leigh to your troop cookie moms.  Assessments are due at the same time (see earlier Treasurer report for details)

Secretary Update:  if anyone wants to be recording secretary for the meetings, please talk to Clio. It would help her get the minutes out more quickly.  If you want to see the Amity Pinterest board, search Pinners for Amity Girl Scouts (amity is the "first name").  Feel free to follow boards, suggest pins or send photos or links to be shared. This board is meant to help. Clio will be pinning (no pun intended) all the SWAPS from Thinking Day there.

Service unit Calendar:

• Thinking Day raised over $500 --yahoo!!! We collected almost 300 books. 10 troops presented countries, 3 troops registered as "observers" and many friends and families came (about 200 attendees). Mary C. Mentioned that she received a call from Steve, editor of the Orange times and he would love to know when other Girl Scout events take place in Orange.
• Recognition Dinner will be held 6/13 (with an alternate rain location). Allison M. Is hosting at her house and we will bring in trays of food to keep costs down. We are looking at some church spaces as the rain location. Vicky would like to invite our older Girl Scout alumni who attended Thinking Day.  In addition to the dinner, after much discussion, we decided to implement a Court of Awards event before the May Service Unit meeting in order to honor the following:  Lifetime membership recipients, Gold, Silver & Bronze Award recipients & Troop recognitions for QSP and Cookie Sales records. This is a great time for younger scouts to be inspired by older scouts. Save 5/8 6:30-7:15. We can also invite Themis Klarides, Joe Crisco and Ellen Scalettar. ****email Vicky if your girls have earned Bronze/Silver in the past year.
• Camporee June 6-8.  April 11 deadline is only to guarantee a sleeping spot. Troops registering to sleepover after 4/11 will be accommodated on a first-come, first-served, as available basis. (If our Service Unit cannot guarantee 80% occupancy of sleeping space then we have to give up sections of campsite to others or possibly open up Camporee activities to other Service Units.)

Council Delegate update: membership meeting 3/20 in Norwalk. Contact Clio or Vicky if you plan to attend.  Long range property plan committee report is available online at www.gsofct.org

Training moment:  don't forget-if you are doing troop trip forms for "high" adventure, including laser tag or white water rafting, do them early!!!!!  These forms need extra attention.

Leader Success Stories/Best Practices:
1. Laurel shared the shadow box/diorama project that her troop did based on Anita's suggestion. She said it was a great peaceful activity.  It's still a work in process but all the materials the used were 'recycled' or 'reused':  scraps of material or leftover scrapbook/decorative paper. 
2. Karen shared about her Cadette troop's book drive for Read to Grow and All Our Kin.  The girls loved assembling the bookcase and then delivering the books to the  All Our Kin mentored daycare provider. 

Respectfully submitted,

Clio, Secretary

Amity Service Unit

Happy 102nd Birthday Girl Scouts!

www.gsofct.org

Service Unit Meeting Minutes - February 20

Amity Service Unit Meeting

Thursday February 20, 2014 (delayed from Feb 13^th due to snow)

·  We said the Girl Scout promise and Vicky asked us to say a prayer for Megan Luciano, a former Girl Scout volunteer and Beecher mom who passed away.

·  Treasurer Report (via Vicky):  just a reminder now that cookie sales are underway, that each troop is assessed $2 PER GIRL this year.  This Service Unit assessment helps to underwrite the Lifetime memberships that the Service Unit provides to graduating high school Girl Scouts each year.

·  Girl Scout Week Proclamation.  Orange Troop 60333 will be receiving the proclamation from the Town of Orange on 3/10.  Clio will email Gerry Shaw to get on the 3/12 Woodbridge Board of Selectman agenda.  Any troops interested should try to coordinate. 

·  Recruitment Update:  Thinking Day will be a recruiting event.  Ads have been placed in Orange Town News, Woodbridge Town News and in online PATCH.  Mary Cassidy and Anita Silvestro will man the Recruiting table at the event.

·  Cookie Booth info will be disseminated tomorrow by Sue Leigh to the COOKIE MOMS.  Cookie delivery is 3/1 and is also coordinated through the COOKIE MOMS for each troop.  If leaders have any questions, they should talk to their troop’s Cookie Mom first.

·  QSP Incentives Distribution continued.  If your troop did not receive it yet, please contact Vicky Burford.  Election Day Booth Sale patches were also distributed.

·  Communications Update/Secretary:  Clio reminded everyone about the opportunity to earn Faith badges or GS My Faith pins.  All major faith groups have specific guidelines for earning badges for their faith and Girl Scouts has guidelines (in the Girl Scout binders) for earning the My Faith pin (one for each year).

·  Service Unit events:

o  Bowling with the Boys made $103 profit with 25 people participating. Suggestions for future Man in Your Life events:  sports games, Lowe’s/Home Depot building projects

o  Camporee 2014 – plan ahead now for June 6-7-8.  4/11 is the deadline if the Service Unit wants to be able to reserve the entire campsite, we need to guarantee 80% capacity by this date.

o  Camporee 2015 -  Sponsoring troop 61099 needs to fill out paperwork to reserve weekend/campsite by 3/1.  Clio to coordinate with Karen.

o  Thinking day – we expect about 100 Girl Scouts + 75 parents/tagalongs.  Still time to sign up.

o  Big Girl Scout Sing & Swap – Vicky and her girls attended and it was fun.  It was held in the arena at Quinnipiac University with over 1000 girls attending.

·  Delegate Update (Karen, via Clio) – Property meetings are finishing up.  Anyone can attend and the results will also be posted online.  We will distribute that information at the next meeting.  In addition, the Board of GSofCT has added another membership meeting for March 20, 2014 in Norwalk, CT.  All Girl Scout volunteers are encouraged to RSVP and attend.  This is an open forum meeting.

·  Council Update (via Vicky):

o  This weekend, 2/22 is Yale Women’s Pink Zone.  Free admission to game if you wear pink. 

o  Rock Cats annual Girl Scout sleepover (on baseball field) is 6/21.

o  Girl Scout Day at the Capitol is 2/26.  Troop 61099 and 60437 plan to attend.

o  Online registration is coming soon!!!!

o  Bronze/Silver Awards – to clear up confusion from an earlier email.  There is no deadline for these wards.  There are webinars that the girls are supposed to take and when they have completed the award, p. 32 in the Program Book explains that they need to “register” for the award.  This just enables Council to keep track of who is earning these awards.

·  Service Unit project for ReRun Shoes – last meeting we agreed to collect shoes fro ReRun shoes.  If anyone wants to help coordinate this service project, please talk to Clio.  In the meantime, please ask your troops to start saving shoes for this project.  We hope to place some collection boxes around our towns.  One troop from MA collected over 1000 pounds of shoes in a couple of months.

·  NEXT MEETING: March 13, 2014

GIRL SCOUTS OF CT MEMBERSHIP MEETING

The Board of Directors for GS of CT has scheduled an additional Membership meeting for all Girl Scouts (adult and girls) on March 20, 2014.  This meeting is an opportunity for all members to share issues of interest and concern.  The last meeting in December was not well attended so it is great that the Board heard the members concerns and scheduled an additional one.  This is an open forum style meeting.  So, if you've got ideas, constructive or otherwise, don't be shy and make time for this meeting! Stop grumbling to each other and make your comments heard.  This meeting will be attended by the Board of Directors as well as senior management of GS of CT.

Meeting info:
Norwalk Public Library
Main Library Chess Room
1 Belden Avenue
Norwalk, CT

RSVP to Jackie Davis jdavis@gsofct.org or (860)522-0163 x3248