Meeting Happenings: AN ENGLISH SISTER TROOP!!! by Selina

12/6/13
Hello everyone!
It's Selina and here's an update!
Last Friday night we had a meeting.

Food
We had delicious, mouth-popping Mexican food from Frontera, courtesy of Mrs. Donna and Brittany! Dessert was this beautiful winter themed cake with the man from Cake Boss adorning the box, which apparently was all that he adorned, since the taste was a bit of a disappointment to the buds!

Meeting
Professional photos: Lately we have been trying to get some professional photos done for our whole troop, but since funds are still running low, we were hoping to find a place that could give us a discount or even a free session including copyrights to the photos. The nice folks at Portrait Innovations from the Avenue are willing to do all this for a little more than $100 bucks. This will probably be our best option.

The Surprise!: All right, as you have no doubt read in the title, here comes the special surprise of the meeting...:

We've found sisters in England!!

On Friday night, Mrs. Susan broke the news to us! Our sister Girl Scout troop, or Girl Guides as they call it, are located in a cute place near London. They all seem to super energetic and hopefully just as ecstatic as we are over here! We got to read some of the letters they sent us and respond  to them with our one. There was a lot that we had in common! I absolutely can't wait to meet them in person, it will make this trip just a whale size more special!

England: Well, other than the amazing sister trip news, England team brought us more info on transportation with the Tube. Apparently, you can get on for free if you are a student, but we are not sure if an American student would count. Still looking into that!

Iceland: We found more info on transportation and activities we could do. Brittany found some good restaurants that we were told to DEFINITELY check out. (Including a very well known hot dog stand that serves LAMB hot dogs!)

Over the past few months, we have been increasing our vocabulary in some Icelandic words. We ran out of time to learn new Icelandic words this time, but here are the words that we have learned so far!

1. Yes - Jai
2. No - Nei
3. Hello - Hallo
4. Goodbye - Bless
5. Thank you - Takk fyrir
6. My name is... - Eg heiti...
7. I'm from... - Eg er fra
8. What's your name? - Havo heitir pu?
9. Sorry - Eg bid st afsokunar
10. How are you? - havo segrou gott?
11. I'm good, and you? - Allt gott, en pu?
12. Just fine, thanks - Baro fint, takk

That is all for this week!
New posts are coming up soon!

Takk fyrir en Bless Bless!!!!

Selina :)

Meeting Happenings by Emma

Hey Guys,

Emma here.  Tonight I'm going to explain a little bit about what happens during our troop meetings. Each meeting one girl's family is assigned to make the whole troop dinner. Now we have 9 people and that might not seem like a lot, but when you're growing and eating like elephants, can you really be blamed? Anyways, the first few people who arrive help Rosie and I set up the table. That includes putting in the extra boards {to make the table longer}, putting a table cloth on, silverware, napkins, drinks, and, of course, to set the mood, light a few candles.  At the same time, we have two girls go to the creepy, dark basement and get the white board.

After everyone arrives, we help put the food on the table and sit down to eat. It's always very delicious! A custom we have all gotten used to is when Selina brings diner there's always a... surprise. She's brought octopus, fish head, duck's foot, pig blood, goose egg, and every time, they've had an acquired taste. Ah, Selina, you never fail us.

During dinner we share stories, have laughs and enjoy each other's company. When everyone has finished their meals, we start the clean up. Everyone takes their own plates into the kitchen and then just helps making everything go back to normal.

We then go into the den and begin the meeting.  Usually, we start with an opening, sometimes we say highs and lows of our week or what we're looking forward to during the weekend.  We have a Troop President who leads the meeting, and every girl has a leadership responsibility in the troop.  We run the meetings but sometimes get a little off track, so our Troop President has to keep us going. 

After we go through everything, we go to the kitchen and eat dessert.  A few words to sum this up: delicious, chaos, dancing, and music.

After all this is done it's about 9:45, and it's time for everyone to go home.

Timeline by Brittany

Hiya! Brittany here! 

Wow. Planning this trip is a lot of work. So many things to do and so little time to do it. We only have 15 meetings left before we’re off to Iceland! To get organized, we created a spreadsheet of things we have to do and dates by which they should be done. We spent an entire meeting doing this. “This should go on that day, and this should be done by then.” It took quite a long time to complete this. A list was made of everything that needed to be done (hostels, activities, transportation, etc.) and then we placed each thing on a date that it would be done by. For example, our last meeting was focused around activities that we could do in Iceland and England. And the meeting we are having tonight is focused around picking places to stay. It may seem like a lot at first, but it gets easier once we split the work up between the members in our groups. The girls in our troop are split up into different groups. Lizzy, Coumbah, and Emma are the England team, and Katie, Selina, Rosie, and I are the Iceland team. This makes research easier in that we don’t have everybody looking up the same thing. Organization has helped a lot in the process of research and panning for our over-seas trip.

Another CMM Story by Selina

Hello Everyone!
I haven't wrote much ever since I became the editor, but here I am now! Okay, getting right to the story!

Campfire Meadow Magic (for those of you who don't know, it is an event where our troop brings other troops of Girl Scouts to our leader's giant meadow in her backyard, and teach them basic and/or advanced skills on camping, survival, and fun ways to enjoy, appreciate, and respect good mother nature) this year was loads of fun as usual.  It is a troop fundraiser, and we earned about $500 in one day towards our trip.

I feel that this year's girls got a lot out of it, and I really hope that they had fun! I even made a new friend with my same name! A shout out to Selena! I hope you and your troop are having fun with the new knowledge, songs, and memories you've gained during our time together! :)

It is really magical when you see their eyes just light up when that first spark flies. To watch this generation of girls get their little hands into the soil and enjoying the feel of earth between their fingertips! It brings me back to when I was their age, sitting in the backyard making mud cakes and splashing in rain puddles. I only wish that I had an elder brother or sister to play with me, and teach me all about the wonders of the natural world.

That is why, my only wish this year, is that there were more young girls bursting with curiousity  like all of you who participated this year, eager to explore, create, and understand. I wish our troop got to work with more of them, and hopefully change the way they view the outdoors for the rest of their lives.

We will post more information on our next CMM session in Spring. We hope to see more old and new faces then!

Until next time, stay safe, have fun, and we cannot thank you all enough for your kindness and support!
Selina

Campfire Meadow Magic (CMM) by Rosie

Hi! This is Rosie writing! We did another Campfire Meadow Magic for our funds to Europe. It went pretty well, even though we didn’t make as much as we wanted to. This year we introduced “Primitive Camping” as an option for the girls. In primitive camping, girls could learn different knots, how to put up latrines, tents, and a wash station. I think the girls enjoyed that! We also had the regular activities at CMM like songs, skits, and S'mores and beginning fire building. Overall, Campfire Meadow Magic was another great success! A shout out thanks to the troops who participated! We hope to see you guys and many more new girls in next year's CMM! :)

Show Us How You Get Down!!!

Huge Groups for Songs, Skits, and S'mores

A Few of Our New Friends

Kidnap Breakfast by Katie

Last weekend the troop put on a fundraiser called Kidnap Breakfast where the leaders of other Girl Scout Troops with younger girls brought their girls to us (without telling them beforehand) in their pajamas to eat breakfast, make crafts, play games, and learn Girl Scout songs! It took a lot of work to set up and clean up (two hours before and two hours after the event!) but it was worth it because we had so much fun with the girls! They all seemed really excited to be there and when I taught them games (with the help of Lizzy and Emma) they were really energetic. Overall it was a great event, and I even had some of the girls recognize me when they saw me again at my church the other day and told me about how much they loved it! I'm also looking forward to seeing some of them again at Campfire Meadow Magic this weekend!

Teaching the Penguin Song

This was a fundraiser for our trip to Iceland and England next summer - we made about $350 from the event.

Our Jobs for the Year by Coumbah

 Last Friday we picked tasks for everyone in our troop to participate in. I became The President and our Sponsorship Representative, Selina and Brittany are in charge of Kidnap Breakfast, Rosie and Emma are in charge of Campfire Meadow Magic, Katie is the leader of the Iceland planning, and Lizzy is in charge of the England planning. Everyone seems super excited about what they are in charge of and we can't wait to continue our fundraising efforts and planning for our trip this summer!

Organizing Responsibilities