As Leaders, we know there are certain circumstances we can’t plan for no matter how hard we try. Not even a month ago our Founding Leader moved away and our Girls were sad and needed time to adjust to that change. With her leaving we had to change locations to our current one. We needed to accommodate our activities and still be in a travel distance acceptable to our parents.
Then just this week our Troop was notified that we will no longer be able to meet at our current location on a weekly basis. Due to changes in their regulations, we would now only be able to book the location for 2 weeks out of each month. The first reaction my Leader and I had been a mix of frustration and disappointment. Our Girls had been through several moments of change recently and we didn’t want to add to it by saying we had nowhere to meet. We now had to decide how to tell our Girls that we would most likely not be able to meet on a weekly basis anymore. How would they handle this news? Were we making the right decision?
We had a few options:
a. Find a new location
b. Find a 2nd location that we could alternate meetings with
c. Switch our weekly meetings to bi-weekly
After discussion, we decided to put the decision to a vote with our parents. We did have an option for a new or second meeting location with a building that the NCCP Girl Scouts has an agreement to share but we weren’t sure if moving between locations every other week was fair to our Girls or their parents.
At this point we think we may be eliminating 2 of our meetings and starting to meet on a Bi-Weekly Basis. We have several plans to help make this change an easy one for everyone involved.
When Things Change…Making It Smooth:
♥Be clear and communicate all options and why choices are being made.
♥Take every step to make the change happen as smoothly as possible
♥Stay in contact with your Parents to be sure all changes are clear and understood
♥Plan activities between meetings to help keep the Girls engaged and their moral high
♥Make each meeting completely engaging and memorable.
The Quantity of meetings should not influence
the Quality of the meetings.
How would you handle introducing a change
to your Troop’s Parents and Girls?
What would you do to make the change as smooth as possible?
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6 thoughts on “2 Daisies And A Leader: When Things Change…”
I too remember meeting at the troop leaders house, who was a single mom of twin daughters, who were in the troupe also. And she also had an older daughter who was with an older group of girl scouts. Too many rules for that now. I totally agree with how you handled it, communication is always the key and luckily kids are pretty resilient. Hope you have had a nice weekend!
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Yes. It would be a lot easier to simply rotate better our home but bit nowadays. Thanks so much for coming by 🙂
I think that being open and honest with the parents and the girls is the best policy. I remember being in Girl Scouts as a child and we would meet one afternoon at the troop leaders house. Of course, things have changed since I was younger and you have to be more careful. With them being young, twice a month would probably be something that is doable. Maybe you can plan some weekend outings with the girls occasionally.
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Yes meeting in the home has a whole new set of rules and paperwork. It isn’t as easy anymore. We plan on keeping in contact between meetings with planned activities and such. I think the Girls will need time to adjust but we\’ll make it work.
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