How does Girl Scouts work?

[Anonymous]

I want to sign up my 5 year old kindergarten child for Girl Scouts. The organizers told me that they need a leader for our grade, kindergarten, and asked me to be the leader. I don’t want to be the leader. There aren’t any monthly meetings we can attend either. It seems like it is a grade by grade group only.

How is your Girl Scouts troup operated?

[Anonymous]

It relies on volunteers. If there are no parents willing to be troop leaders, there will be no troop. You can just get on the waitlist at your school for your child’s grade and then just hope someone else is willing to do what you are not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It relies on volunteers. If there are no parents willing to be troop leaders, there will be no troop. You can just get on the waitlist at your school for your child’s grade and then just hope someone else is willing to do what you are not.

This. Everyone wants a troop, no one wants to lead. If you find a troop, please support the leader and volunteer when you can. Its a thankless job.

[Anonymous]

Our daughter has a troop that isn’t school-specific. I think you can search for troops to join by zip code on their website. Agree with PP that it is a thankless job to be a leader…don’t sign up for that unless you’re really enthusiastic about it.

[Anonymous]

Are you serious OP? If you want your daughter to have a troop, step up and be a leader.

I am a troop leader. It's not quite as thankless as people are making it out to be. I have a very good co-lead, which helps. It's work but you get to know the girls and it's very rewarding. My daughter loves that I am the leader. And I have a full-time job and other children, so yes it can be done.

[Anonymous]

Who are "the organizers" here? Someone from the council or someone from a troop?

We joined last year and a parent of another kindergartener had already started a troop, which was lucky. You can look on the Girl Scout site for troops (Join then Find a Troop) and filter by zip code and grade level. There might be one officially "at" a neighboring school but you can still join it if you'd like.

[Anonymous]

There is a hierarchy, there is a full time employee at council then there are association volunteers. The association covers a smaller group of area troops. Ours covers 4 or 5 elementary schools and the associated middle/high schools. The association runs events such as Thinking Day as well as coordinating fall product and cookie sales for the troops in the association. Ideally there is also a volunteer who helps new troops get started. New troops start when someone steps up and agrees to lead a troop. Yes you can look in the catalogue and see if there is a Daisy troop nearby with an opening if you don't want to lead a troop or you can wait and hope someone else steps up and has room for your child. But without volunteers, there are no troops.

[Anonymous]

This is how I became a leader. Our school had a big troop for all levels but expected someone to lead each grade separately. My older daughter was already in a troop and I was asked to lead when my younger daughter came of age.

I did insist on having our own troop number, which was a life saver because the book keeping was a nightmare for what were essentially independent troops sharing one number/account. During COVID most of the other grades stopped meeting . . . I think we might be the only troop that didn't fold.

I knew I could handle being a leader; I'm a former teacher and SAHM. I recruited a co-leader whom I'd met a couple of times; it was important to me that the troop not be filled with all my friends' kids like my older daughter's troop was. The next year we wanted to open our troop to all the girls in the grade, so I asked all my parents and two more moms signed on. So now we have four leaders. In some ways it's maybe too many cooks in the kitchen, but I still do most of the planning and only one mom is consistently helpful. It's still nice to have the others because they'll step up from time to time.

Our Council seems to be struggling (I think they barely avoided bankruptcy during the pandemic) and oversight and support is minimal. You have to be pretty self-sufficient to run a troop, and as a result you'll get a wide variety of interpretations of what Girl Scouts means to the leader(s). I'm not really gung ho about the philosophy or anything; I just want to provide a fun and safe environment for the girls.

In our council we do not have to list our troop on the online search function (when we were listed on there they kept adding girls who lived far away, when we're a school-specific troop, so I made them remove us). It may be that there are troops nearby that you can't see; you'll have to ask your council.

Leading a troop is a big ask and I try to make it as stress free as possible. Like I said, my council has basically stopped organizing events and offering programming. So for example I'm taking my troop to Colonial Williamsburg. We're staying at a rustic Air BNB nearby. I wanted to do this because our schools have stopped doing field trips thanks to the pandemic, and because I'm not really a camping person. Planning a camping weekend would nearly do me in. This is something I can handle. Likewise, we only meet once a month after school (and then plan about one weekend event per month). I don't have the bandwidth for more. If you do end up leading, you can make it what you want it to be.

[Anonymous]

We had a shortage of people willing to be leader, so one year, we created a schedule where each family lead 2 meetings. We had 2 meetings per month, so people selected what month they wanted to lead the meetings. We met in an elementary school classroom so no one had to host it in their home. Everyone had to take on an additional task, like being the money manager or the cookie sales organizer or organizing field trips or attending the monthly council meetings. You still have to have 2 unrelated adults as leaders on paper and who attend leadership training, but you can spread the responsibility around. When you start a new troop, the only funding you have until your first cookie sales is the membership dues, so collect those ASAP or you have no $.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We had a shortage of people willing to be leader, so one year, we created a schedule where each family lead 2 meetings. We had 2 meetings per month, so people selected what month they wanted to lead the meetings. We met in an elementary school classroom so no one had to host it in their home. Everyone had to take on an additional task, like being the money manager or the cookie sales organizer or organizing field trips or attending the monthly council meetings. You still have to have 2 unrelated adults as leaders on paper and who attend leadership training, but you can spread the responsibility around. When you start a new troop, the only funding you have until your first cookie sales is the membership dues, so collect those ASAP or you have no $.

This is similar to my prior troop. There was a leader who was the POC with the council and kept the paperwork, but we rotated off the weeks and activities. I was the camp mom and led a few badges (camping, first aid). One mom was the cookie mom and managed that. It worked out well.

My daughter's troop now has a leader who is really into it and organizes everything- i help out when asked, but it's a different vibe and I appreciate her enthusiasm!

I would say, esp for the 5 year old daisies, it would not be bad to be the leader as long as the other parents pitch in. You can also keep the troop small which makes it more manageable.

[Anonymous]

We just disbanded as a troop after 6 years ( kid is in 5th now) because no parents want to volunteer. It is very volunteer intensive but also has crazy rules and requirements. I was the assistant troop leader and managed activities and meeting and the leader dealt with the more official type stuff. You need a first aid mom, a camper mom, a cookie mom etc… and the training they have to do is a little too. To take our troop camping a mom had to do a 2 day 1 night training. No one wanted to do it so we never went camping.

[Anonymous]

Above.. training is a lot, not a little.

[Anonymous]

I wanted a daughter so I could be a Girl Scout Tripp leader. Counting down the days till 5!

[Anonymous]

i thought i would have wanted to be a troop leader, but the amount of training and rules you have to follow is unsustainable for me.

the way troops are usually organized is that they have a round up at the school at the beginning of school. you are seated by grades. they then say, look around. this is your troop. which one of you wants to be a leader? of course we all know there needs to be a leader, but i didn't really like how they did this.

parents are barely willing to help at all. it is annoying.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:i thought i would have wanted to be a troop leader, but the amount of training and rules you have to follow is unsustainable for me.

the way troops are usually organized is that they have a round up at the school at the beginning of school. you are seated by grades. they then say, look around. this is your troop. which one of you wants to be a leader? of course we all know there needs to be a leader, but i didn't really like how they did this.

parents are barely willing to help at all. it is annoying.

That's different from my experience, and I agree it sounds awkward. In both troops my DD has belonged to, a parent volunteered to be the leader and solicited members and other volunteers. The camping training might be the most time-consuming; others are pretty simple slideshows. But I think someone taking my kid camping or teaching her archery *should* attend a live training!

It's true that you need multiple parent volunteers. Parents of a Girl Scout should expect to at least help at a meeting or event from time to time, if not take on a role like cookie parent or bookkeeper. Most troops are 10-12 girls and there are like 4 or 5 distinct parent roles.