Meeting Activities:
Celebrating a jam-packed Brownie year!
Announcing charitable gifts to The Empowerment Program and the Denver Language School Library Fund.
Distributing awards from the cookie program.
Screening the take-action video project and a photo memory reel.
Vote for Juniors’ curriculum.
Comments:
We met at DLS Whiteman to enjoy some refreshments and celebrate the girls’ accomplishments this year. The girls did an awesome job decorating the cafeteria. We then convened in the auditorium for a short closing-year ceremony.
Activities:
The girls blinged out the cafeteria for our gathering by hanging posters, arranging “badge boards” with our completed curriculum, and putting out tablecloths, sparkly garlands, and balloons.
We all enjoyed some yummy refreshments with nods to our year, including fruit (in honor of the Wonders of Water Journey), popcorn (in honor of the take-action video project), and ice cream with fixings, including Girl Scout cookies (in honor of the cookie program).
Thank you Anna and Meghan for organizing all of the food and decor, and to Annie for granting us access to the DLS building.
We then filed into the auditorium for a short ceremony celebrating the girls and their work over this year.
Girl Scout Promise
Harkening back to their amazing speech in front of 700 people at the fall Women of Distinction event, Mila, Anabel, and Aurelia kicked off our ceremony by saying the Girl Scout Promise in Mandarin, Spanish, and English.
Reflecting on Curriculum and Events
Girls paraded up on the stage with a badge board representing the curriculum we completed over the year. In turn, each girl said the badge name (or event) and what was her favorite part.
Outdoor Journey Take Action + Dinosaur Ridge Booth
Girl Scout Way
DreamLab Photo Shoot and Grand Opening
Front Porch article: Girl Scouts Dream Big in Lowry
We had some amazing experiences this year at the invitation of GSCO leadership and through some extraordinary speakers and excursions.
Journey Summit Awards
Journeys are an important part of the Girl Scout Leadership Experience. They are multi-badge experiences where girls “Discover” a topic, “Connect” with others to expand their knowledge, “Take Action” to make the world a better place, and “Reflect” on all they have learned and accomplished. They are meant to be age-appropriately “Girl Led” with hands-on, team-based activities to foster “Learning by Doing” and “Cooperative Learning.”
I’m proud to say that every one of our girls completed at least one leadership journey over their time as a Brownie. This is a great accomplishment and lays the groundwork for pursuing the Girl Scout Highest Awards in the coming years.
Nine girls completed at least three journeys, earning their Brownie Journey Summit Award Pin. Congratulations to Anabel, Analise, Aurelia, Berit, Cordelia, Eliza, Iris, Josephine, and Mila.
Their achievement was honored with a yellow rose, which in girl scouting represents friendship and sisterhood.
Gifts to Charities
Girls celebrated two gifts to local causes, inspired by their work:
Philanthropist badge, where the girls learned about basic human needs, the important difference between needs and wants, as well as ways to support organizations making an impact in our community.
Girls pledged 10% of their cookie program proceeds to The Empowerment Program. This ended up being $720 as they sold a staggering 8,372 boxes and earned $7,200 for the troop.
World of Girls Journey, where the girls learned about different cultures and how stories can inform and spark ideas to help others.
Girls celebrated the power of storytelling by making a donation to the Denver Language School Library Fund. Their $500 donation will make a sustainable contribution to the DLS community as the school fundraises to create a library for students in their target languages, Spanish and Mandarin.
Thank you to Maryellen for writing lovely letters to these organizations, which the girls signed. I will send them with these pictures and their checks.
Also worth mentioning, during the cookie program the girls designated the staff and teachers at Denver Language School as their “Hometown Heroes.” During May’s Staff Appreciation Week, the troop helped decorate the school and distributed 276 boxes of cookies to a very appreciative DLS community.
Cookie Program Awards
Our initial, nervously made troop sales goal was 5,000 boxes. We needn’t have worried as girls blew through that initial inventory in something like two weeks.
They sold a whopping 8,372 boxes, which meant that Michelle had lots of cookie program awards to distribute. She organized them in really cool, decorated drawstring bags.
A huge thank you to Michelle for being the best TCM, aka Cookie Diva, ever!
Congratulations to the girls who sold:
200-400 boxes: Allie, Analise, Kaitlyn, and Josephine
400-700 boxes: Berit, Cordelia, Eliza, Finnley, Gemma, and Penelope
700-1000 boxes: Iris
1000+ boxes: Anabel, Aurelia, and Mila
Take Action Video
After the girls had all their goodies, we settled in to watch their Love Water! Save Water! video.
March, April, and May were devoted to their WoG+WoW journeys and take-action video project. Leading such a complicated project and making it girl-led was a challenge, to say the least.
Pleased to say that the girls came up with the idea, workshopped ways to convey their story, wrote most of the water facts, chose their supporting images, and worked up their own save-water skits. They performed everything and made their closing signs too. Proud of how well they worked in small groups and as a troop team!
Thank you to Mona for crafting the super cute Brownie Elf hats. Parents, thank you for filming and sending in your clips. Special thanks to Meredith for acting as producer, original songwriter, and newly minted Canva designer and video editor.
We definitely wish to encourage less ambitious projects in the future. Nonetheless, it did turn out pretty cool!
GSCO will be “spreading the word to others” by featuring it on their blog: Troop 66735’s WoW! Journey
Photo Memories
Closing out our ceremony, Lynne put together an awesome memory reel from posted photos: '22/'23: Adventures of Troop# 66735
Thank you to all who shared your great photos on TeamSnap!
Announcements:
Votes for Junior Curriculum
Thanks to all who submitted a sheet with your girl’s Badges, Awards, and Pins vote! It will help me do some research over the summer, which I will review with the new, soon-to-be-formed Curriculum and Calendar Committee.
On the troop level, we will only be doing one journey, which is a prerequisite for the Bronze Award. Girls interested in the Bronze Award can work on it over their second and third years in small teams or individually.
The journey vote was overwhelmingly for the Outdoor Journey (Animal Habitats, Camper, Eco Camper, Take Action). My goal was to spread the journey out over lots of time, but most of this curriculum could be completed with a troop weekend in the Garden of the Gods at Hamp Hut with a visit to the Cheyenne Mountain Zoo… so hmmm… will look at options…
The top-voted badges were: Horseback Riding, Outdoor Art Explorer, Drawing, Jeweler, Flowers, Junior Snow or Climbing Adventure, Gardener, Programming Robots, Playing the Past, Cybersecurity, and Geocaching. My goal is to space these out at a comfortable cadence and, where possible, coordinate with the DLS calendar so families can kill two birds with one stone. For example, if the timing works we could do the Jewelry badge with a troop booth at the DLS Night Market.
Bridging
We will be “flying up” to Juniors in the fall. Our first meeting in August (Sunday, August 27) will be the bridging ceremony and family orientation. Girls will get their green vests and insignia and will vote on their troop crest. I will reach out over the summer to those interested in planning.
Summer Break
We will be taking a well-earned summer break from scouting. But GSUSA and GSCO are not. If you’re looking for something to do…
Check out the GSCO Events Calendar
Consider doing the GSUSA Girl Scouts Love the Outdoors Challenge
That’s all for now. Thank you all for your support over this terrific troop year!
Meredith, Mila’s Mom