My Virtual Meetings

I have a troop of 16 girls--6 Daisies and 10 Brownies.  Generally I have very good attendance--usually no more than 2 or 3 girls absent per meeting.  This is our third weekend under a "stay at home" order and we've missed one meeting so far and will miss another this week.  We will also miss one more this month.  Our camping trip was cancelled and who knows when or if we'll have a summer cookie event.  On the plus side, our cookies were gone before this all got going, so we didn't have that to worry about.

I'm used to going places and doing things, not sitting at home all the time.  In some ways I like working at my kitchen table--though I admit it would be hard to do if I had small kids.  Since all I have is a teenager who does her own virtual schoolwork, I don't have a problem getting my work done.  The commute is great and I love the dress code.  On the other hand, even though (or maybe because?) I'm an introvert, I miss the people.  I have my own office and like it that way, but it is nice to say hi to people as I head to the restroom or kitchen or to get something in another part of the office.  Here, it is me and my computers.


I say all of that because I keep reading that we should journal about these times.  But, what about my virtual meetings?

I decided to try a virtual meeting via Zoom (I'd never heard of Zoom two months ago) and because I have so many kids I decided to split the Daisies and Brownies.  My Daisies still have two petals to complete (I spread them out over two years) so I just picked one--Courageous and Strong--to be the topic of our virtual meeting. 

I modeled my meeting off the GS River Valleys plan for the petal.  Three of my regular 5 girls participated. I read a story cally Tiny Whiny Rhino, and changed the pronouns to feminine. It was about a rhino who had a pink horn and who was afraid to do much of anything.  He (she) realizes all the fun she is missing out on and that it is good to try new things. 

In the note announcing the meeting, I asked the girls to draw themselves as a superheroine  and to write on the paper something they are good at.  We showed off our pictures and talked about what we were good at.  I talked about how we all had strengths, and that we needed to use them to help others. I also talked about being strong in doing things we know are right and we did thumbs up and thumbs down to the scenarios on the River Valleys plans.  We also talked about the difference between being brave and being stupid. 

I let the girls talk to each other for a while and then ended the meeting with "Make New Friends" .  All in all, I think the Daisy meeting went well.  I was a little disappointed the other two girls didn't participate, especially as I had scheduled it at the time I did specifically so one of them could.  Oh, well, can't win them all. 

I have 10 Brownies, but only three showed up.  One had audio trouble so we couldn't hear her, though she could hear us.  Another doesn't want to be in Girl Scouts and I'm guessing didn't want to be at the virtual meeting any more than she wants to be at the real ones.  I've asked her if she's told her mom, and she said yes, and she's figured out that as long as she doesn't bother me or the other girls, I'll let her sit by herself across the room.  I encourage her to participate but for whatever reason, Mom wants her with us, and so she's there.  The third participated enthusiastically. 

We worked on My Best Self.  My pre-meeting message to parents asked the girls to draw a picture of themselves and to write three words that described themself on it, and then to have each person who lived with them do the same. We shared those pictures and then I asked each girl to think of one nice word to describe each of the others.  I had also asked them to keep a feelings log, per the badge insert, requirement 4,  We talked about it briefly and talked about how they (didn't) like being home all the time. 

For Requirement 2, Eat and Play in a Healthy Way, I asked them to do three different types of exercise this week (I posted the requirement Sunday night before Saturday's meeting) and asked them to post pictures to our facebook group.  We talked briefly about what we did and how we liked it, but given that one girl didn't want to be there and the other had microphone trouble, conversation was hard.

From VTK, I took the charades game where girls acted out symptoms and then we talked about what we should do if we had those symptoms or saw a friend with them.  I think that was for Requirement 3. 

We still need to do requirement 5, to meet a health helper. One of my moms is a nurse, but she had to work this weekend.

All in all, this meeting fell flat.  Two of the girls would have interacted with each other and me,but one was not able to do so.  The three who showed up were not particularly close to each other so there was no excitement about being together.  I cut this meeting off after 30 minutes.