VTK Updates for 2022-23

 

It's that time of year. GSUSA is updating VTK with new badges and new functionality.  I've been poking around and thought I'd write about the things I've found so far.

Preview Meeting Plans

Have a discussion about what people disliked most about VTK and the number one answer was that they hated having to add a badge to a year plan in order to read the plans for it.  Well GSUSA must have finally heard the complaints because now you can preview badges before you add them to a year plan.  "Preview" means that there is a hovering box asking you to add it to your year plan, but that you can read the plan without adding it.  Thank you GSUSA!

Revised and New Meeting Plans

The "big news" this year is that the Brownie Pets badge has been revised.  There is a new brochure available for download (for a fee) and evidently the VTK plans are being revised as well, though as of this writing (August 7) there is no Pets badge on VTK.  The financial literacy badges have been re-done this year and so have all the Daisy Petals--no more stupid stories.  The older girls now have STEM Career Exploration badges as do Daisies.  

New Year Plans

In previous years, VTK asked you to select a year plan and, unless you picked the "create your own" option, it would pre-populate your year with what its creators considered to be a well-rounded program. You could pick plans for each Journey and there was a badge-only plan that included a Take Action Project too (because who doesn't want to do another one of those?).  The Journey plans included an introductory meeting and a few badges.  

Now, if you pick the Journey tracks, they include an introductory meeting or two, plus the six meetings to earn the Journey and finally a bridging meeting.  While the "view popular tracks" tab takes you to a page that says that these Journey tracks have up to eleven meetings, the ones I saw were all eight or nine meetings long, depending on how many introductory meetings were listed.  Really all those Journey tracks do is add all six meetings to your plan with one click rather than six.

Daisy non-Journey tracks are "Fun and Friendship" (Petals) , "Explore the Outdoors", "Learn New Life Skills", "Explore STEM", "Build STEM Skills" "Becoming Me" and "Paint Your World Purple". 

Other Brownie  tracks include "Try and Explore", which is a well-rounded badge-only track recommended for girls in the first year of a level, "Explore the Outdoors"  "Learn New Life Skills", "Explore More Life Skills" "Explore STEM Skills", "Build STEM Skills", "Becoming Me" and "Paint Your World Purple".  Again the number of meetings  shown on the tab does not always equal the number of meetings added to our year plan, which is sloppy on the part of GSUSA.  

Juniors can pick from "Discover and Lead", "Take on the Outdoors", "Learn New Life Skills", "Explore More Life Skills", "Explore STEM", "Build STEM Skills", "Becoming Me", and "Paint Your World Purple".  

There are also similar tracks for Cadettes.  Seniors and Ambassadors have the two STEM tracks, "Paint Your World Purple",  and "Becoming Me".  Senior can also pick "World Changer, the Path to Gold" which is a 13 meeting track that includes two meeting for the Digital Leadership badge, two for Democracy for Seniors, six for Mission Sisterhood, and three meetings for Cookie Boss and the Cookie Pin.  

Badges and Levels and Journeys Oh My -- and Patches Too

 One question that makes the rounds on Girl Scout leader Facebook pages is how the various program parts fit together and how to use them with multi-level troops.  

Honestly, the program we have now was developed with the idea of single grade troops.  There was no consideration given to making the program easy to deliver to multi-aged troops, particularly those at different levels.  Pretty much everyone who has run a multi-level troop has figured it out on her own or learned from through unofficial sources--though recently Volunteer Toolkit has started giving ideas for multi-level troops.  

Shapes in Nature

 

My girls like art projects so I thought the new  Shapes in Nature badges would be a good fit.  Earlier I wrote posts giving the requirements and VTK activities for both the Brownie and Junior badges.  This post is about how we went about doing the badges and the results.  I had all the girls (Brownies and Juniors) do all the activities.  

Requirements for Juniors

According to Badge Explorer, Juniors

        1. Identify symmetry in nature

        2. Explore bilateral symmetry in nature

        3. Create nature-inspired art with circular symmetry

        4. Find fractals in nature

        5. Search for the Fibonacci sequence

When Juniors have earned this badge, they'll know about symmetry, fractals, and the Fibonacci sequence. They'll have identified patterns and shapes in nature.

By The Numbers

I've been wondering how things have been going to for my council.  Today I got an email telling me that the 2021 Annual Report had been posted so I decided to take a look at it.  Since numbers mean little without context, I also took a look at the reports for 2019 and 2020.  Here is what I learned.  

Family of God: A Brownie Award

 I am a member of the Catholic Committee for Girl Organizations that oversees the NFCYM programs for the Archdiocese of New Orleans.  In the past I've been the coordinator for the God Is Love program for Daisies, and this year I took on the Family of God program for Brownies.  

The NFCYM awards include pins that can be worn on the front of a Girl Scout uniform and patches which are worn on the back.  There are awards for each Girl Scout level and the books for younger girls are written for use in the family.  However, it is common in my area for Catholic school troops to do the awards as a troop and as a committee we have started offering programs for girls in any troops.  

While I certainly believe that parents are the primary educators of their children, and that religious education isn't likely to stick if it isn't lived at home, I've also been there and done that as a busy parent of kids involved in multiple activities and I know that homework, whether from school or church or Girl Scouts is not looked upon fondly.  We try to make our day programs fun and spiritually enriching, so they are something the girls look forward to rather than being a burden.

The Family of God book has six chapters and each chapter has a number of activities offered.  Girls (or in our case , the committee) select three to do.  The chapters alternate between focusing on the family and the Christian community,  

Time to Cook

 

Because of Covid, last year we met either outside or virtually.  Its funny, even though the numbers are far higher now than they were last year, I'm a lot less worried about it.  The kids have all had the chance to be vaccinated and we know that for the most part, the kids aren't the ones in danger from this virus.  Now that the weather has turned cold, we have moved inside and so we have been working on the cooking badges--Snacks for Brownies and Simple Meals for Juniors.

Brownie Cookie Badges Old and New

 This year GSUSA retired the ugly screen-printed cookie badges and came out with two new embroidered badges.  This post will take a look at both the new and old badges.