Cookie Training - Oiy!

My head is still spinning...

I have finished the official
Girl Scout Cookie Training.

New to our area, is the direct sale concept.
This means, I have to GUESS the amount of cookies we will sell, pre-order them, and pray that we actually sell them all, LOL!

There are TONS of great gifts the girls can earn and this is the way we will take our almost
non-existing troop bank account and have some serious working capital!

I am ALL OVER this!!!

I have all our "booth" locations and dates/times in for approval, I roughly calculated our first cookie order and placed it, I have planned how to get the girls excited at our next meeting and have made sure all girls are attending the "Cookie Carnival" that the council puts together.

 

What IS A Cookie Carnival?

Here it is, right from our program listing:
Enjoy a Cookie Carnival while earning your 2012-2013 Cookie Activity Pin.

This event will be filled with cookie-focused games. “What Can a Girl Do?”

is this year’s cookie theme and you’ll get plenty of chances to answer that question

at the carnival by “doing” all the games and activities there.

You’ll meet the new cookie mascot (a dolphin) and enjoy fun crafts.

Prepare for the Cookie Program by attending “Cookie College” to learn how to be a

better and safer cookie seller.

Some of Council’s highest sellers will be at the Carnival to help

you set goals to earn your way to great adventures this year!

This event will be full of games, pizza, cookies and information to help kick off

your cookie-selling season with confidence.
Grades: K-12 ($5 girl / $0 adult)

 

This should help get the girls excited about their goal of 156 boxes.

They will earn a lot of gifts like:

A dolphin patch, a booth sale patch, a "set a goal online" patch, a "send out 12 e-cards online" patch, a "100" patch, a logo bracelet, a collapsible water bottle, a mood pencil set with sharpener, a dolphin necklace and ring set! Our troop is also using some of this cookie money to pay for their dues next year, new uniforms (they will be Brownies) and a "school is out" pool party!

 

Of course, they can choose to sell MORE than 156 boxes.

150 is roughly what each parent said they were going to shoot for...

and that includes sales from when they work a shift at one of our cookie booths! 

My daughter wants to sell 600 boxes!

That would also get her a Wisconsin Dells Pass, a logo Messenger Bag,
a logo Beach Towel, a set of logo Ear Buds in case AND the biggie:
 2 tickets to Mary Poppins at the local upscale theater in the spring.
We will see how this actually goes, but I envision my hubby and the red wagon,

taking her all over the neighborhood, LOL!

 

I can always order MORE boxes and pick them up,
and swap out if their magic formula was wrong for our area.

 

After all that cookie talk... I think I need a glass of milk.

Ha

Field Trip: the Library

Today was a field trip instead of our normal meeting: A quick tour of our local public library and then, they got to sit in on the normal story time.

Two of my Daisies had never been to the library before! I am SOOO glad we went because they now know what an AMAZING resource the FREE public library is! That, and our children's librarian is simply incredible.

I have "fun patches" on order for participating in this event... 6 of my 8 were in attendance.

Reminder slips were sent home for our next meeting - the first week in October, along with cookie selling permission slips - that I have to have back, before they can start selling cookies. I figured, if they have the slips ready for the next meeting (Cookie Kick Off), then the girls can go home with the pre-order sheets! I already have half of the slips back ... here is to hoping that the re3st come back!

What Is In My Reminders?

 After each Daisy meeting or field trip, I send home a "reminder" with the girls. What it simply states is the date of the next meeting, who has what "job" and what kind of preparation is needed. We only meet twice a month so, sometimes, I have them read a few pages at home. (I am living in the world that this is going to work...)Here is an example:    Our next meeting is October 3rd, 6-7PM

Getting Ready for the Road – learn about our own feelings, learn what you say to people when they take a trip, get their road trip journey base patches, make bookmarks, role play resolving conflict (easy with their school's Caring Bridge example), sing a Christmas Carol. And, Stem snack. We are also going to kick off COOKIE time and prep them for Sunday's Cookie Carnival.

As we will be talking a lot about plants for this Journey– it might be fun to keep the snacks on the same concept for the first five meetings: This week is Stems = Celery, asparagus, etc

Get as creative as you want and it’s OK to bring dip/ranch or whatever for them! For the rest of the year, as long as we stick with healthy options, we are following along with what they are learning. I have the grocery store field trip planned for when we are talking about “local foods”.  J

For this meeting:
Squeeze starter - M, Leader helper - S, Craft helper - A, Clean up x 2 – L and T, Snack - K, Beverage - A, Law Leader - L.

Homework:
Read pages 6-12 in the Journey Book before the next meeting

I hope that helps you -- I have a similar note each time, about the next event.

The First Daisy Meeting: Getting Started

My Early Bird project was simple: decorate white boxes with markers and colored pencils. I scored a BUNCH of them for FREE and thought it would be a great thing to use for the day we are caroling at the local senior center. Each box will have 2 Thin Mints in it and we shall pass them out to the residents after we are done singing. We need 50 boxes ready. We will have this project until they are all decorated. We stop this at 6:00 PM sharp, when it is time to start our meeting.

Circle time!!

·      We sang the make new friends Song – then talked about our new friends to the troop and the old friends we met last year - the Flowers. We reviewed the flowers and what part of the Girl Scout law they represent.

·      We talked about new things: Daisy Wheel. Our Journey Book this year, What awards were were going to earn this year and what field trips we were going to go on. We are working on a LOT of awards: Blue Bucket,  Firefly, Clover, Cookie seller, Finance, Safety, Bridging and they will get patches for each of our field trips/outings.

·      Theme of the day: Getting Ready For Our Road Trip! We read the introductory page of our Journey Book (Between Earth and Sky)

·      Girl Scout Law

·      Leader Helper: Pass Out Journey Books to all girls - they were SUPER excited to get them!

Craft time !!

·      Craft helper pass out craft bags. Each project was all ready individually bagged, in a one gallon baggie. I used the Girl Scout Promise, inside a basic Trefoil shape and had already cut them into circles. The girls could color them and then popped them into plastic "buttons" that I scored on clearance at JoAnn's craft store - 2 in a pack for $.50. They wore them proudly on their vests!
Here is my sheet - 5 to a page:

Snack Time !!

·      Snack and beverage helpers passed out treats - we are doing healthy stuff this year! Just look at the creative interpretation of the "FLOWER" snack - I LOVE it!!

Just in case you can't tell - it's cauliflower and dip, with a sliced pear stem. Uber Cuteness!

Circle time to close

·      What is next? I have a hand out that "reminds" parents about the next meeting but think the girls like knowing what kind of fun we will have at the next meeting.

·      Squeeze helper - the perfect way to end the meeting - with the friendship squeeze.

Clean Up helpers help pick up things and load up my cart so we leave the space as we found it.

How did our first meeting go?
Pretty awesome, I thought - with one exception: My Child.
The whole "my mom is the leader" thing grew old very fast. We had a little chat after the other girls left and made it clear that ALL girls are EQUAL in the world of Girl Scouts. I explained that they were all going to look to HER for an example on how to behave and that I really needed her on her best behavior.

She "got it".
(I hope)

Only time will tell - and a few more meetings...