I began my journey as Girl Scout leader when my now 24 year old daughter was in second grade. Her older brother had been a Cub Scout and she had been waiting for the day when she could be a Girl Scout. When she was in first grade, the paper came home from school. She was excited. I filled out the form, duly checked the "volunteer" box and waited. Nothing happened. After more questions from my daughter, I realized there would be no Brownie troop at her school unless someone (yup, me) went to the trouble to start one. I called her best friend's mom, got her on board and then called the Girl Scout council.
In a lot of ways, I was the wrong person for the job. I was not one of the "in" group of moms. I worked fulltime and we could only meet at school if we were out of there by 6:00 p.m. On the other hand, my daughter was one of the "in" kids and I was willing to run the troop, so we gave it a shot. Once a month I would leave work early and we would meet after school. Once a month we would have a troop weekend activity. Some months we would also do activities with other troops in our area. We may not have been the most active troop in town, but we had fun and did so on a shoestring budget so that all the kids could participate.
About the time school started the next year I discovered I was pregnant. I spent much of the year not feeling good but we recruited a new group of younger girls and our older girls moved to Juniors with my co-leader. We managed a couple of camping trips that year and some other activities. I thought I had someone lined up to take the Brownies when my girls bridged to Juniors, but that did not happen.
The next year I had an infant and given the amount of sick/personal time that has to be dedicated to taking an infant to the doctor or staying home with a sick infant, I knew that afterschool meetings were out. I changed the meeting time to Saturday morning and got space at our church. We had a good year but I felt that I was carrying the burden by myself; my regular co-leader had things going on in life that made her unreliable.
At the first meeting the next year, I had managed to talk one of the moms into being co-leader. We were set for a good year until Hurricane Katrina struck. My most active girls and my co-leader did not return. That year I ran a combined Daisy/Brownie/Junior troop for the girls from our public school. Meetings were on Saturday morning at our church and my daughter was the only girl who had been a Girl Scout before. While it was interesting I was quite ready to be done with that troop at year-end.
My daughter wanted to continue with Girl Scouts and my church and the school affilliated with it have a very active Girl Scout program. The girls my daughter's age met in the evening so joining them was a logical choice. I served one year as Cookie Mom and then stepped back to the position of "available parent". I worked cookie booths and drove on field trips where necessary, but my daughter was older and I wasn't needed often.
When the baby was old enough for school I enrolled her in our parish school and when she was in Kindergarten, I told the woman who coordinated Girl Scouts at church that she had a Daisy leader if she wanted one. I led my younger daughter's troop through two years of Daisies and two years of Brownies before stepping aside. In short, I thought my daughter was too clingy and needed to experience Girl Scouts without her mother. Also, I had family situations that year that made me less interested in giving large amounts of my free time to a group.
After a year's hiatus, I returned to Girl Scouts. I had wanted to recruit a Brownie troop but few girls showed up. However, we had a large group that wanted to be Daisies, so I took them on and ended up having a great year. Half the troop bridged to Brownies and I went with them, leaving the Daisies in the capable hands of one of the moms who had been my assistant the first year. After a year in Brownies, I went back to Daisies when that mom and her daughter bridged to Brownies.
That year I got a large troop of girls from the parish school and the local public school, but due to a variety of factors, (none of which, hopefully, involved me or GS) less than ten came back the next year. We tried recruiting but redistricting had changed the demographics at the public school we we only got one girl. The next year, all but one of my girls bridged to Brownies, but I didn't figure I could drop the one. Also, one of the leaders at our church had a kindergarten girl, and I knew I should take her. We sent flyers home at the public school and struck out but picked up two in our parish school, and through the year I picked up a few more kindergarten Daisies.
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