Meeting on September 15, 2015 at the Library Activity Room.
Volunteers in
attendance: Debbie Nearing (73891), Anne Valade, Kristin Puliafico (85118),
Lisa Alexander (86279), Amy Kelly, (73897 & 71901) Jenn Casoli Vant,
(85337) Kate Mahoney (71868), Sarah Stetson (76213), Marcy Nelson (76213),
Joanne Gibson (69175), Mary Hatton (78181), Barbara Gravel (69184), Cindy
DeWolfe, (85336) Bridget Easler (76212), Dorothy Lehane (76211), Kristen
Pemberton (69171), Joanna Maguire(78188), Ruth Kennedy (73899), Kerstin March.
The meeting started
at 7:45pm with the Pledge of Allegiance and the Girl Scout Pledge.
Anne Valade: Thanked
everyone for coming and announced the new Service Team volunteers. Anne and
Debbie Nearing will jointly share the position of acting Service Unit
Coordinator. Amy Kelly is the new registrar with a registration team of school
coordinators: Jo Gibson (Hood), Ruth Kennedy (Batch), Kristin Puliafico
(Little).
Registration: The registration event planned for 9/16 was
mentioned that it was being held at the LAR 6-8pm. You may also register
online. Troop registration deadline is 9/30. After the 30th, parents
will need to register girls themselves. If you are looking to transfer girls to
another troop, please go through the registration team. We try to accommodate
all girls. Amy's goal is to place every girl.
If you have any questions or concerns, please keep the
registration team in the loop.
The Ultimate Guide
from GSEM will be in your mailbox in a few days! This guide will have all the fun activities
for your troop and families that will be run by Council.
Also, the Service
Team directory went out in an email two weeks ago. This tells people about the
positions for the current year with emails if you need to reach out to anyone.
The troop directory will be sent out in a Monday email after the changes are
made.
Amy and the
registration team: If you registered before June 30, 2015, please see Amy to
pick up your early bird patches.
Jo Gibson: Jo has a 2nd year Daisy troop from the Batch and
Hood combined. Jo is the school coordinator for the Hood School. Talk to Jo if
you have any questions about registering girls from the Hood.
Ruth Kennedy: Ruth is
the interim Batch School Coordinator. If anyone has a daughter at the Batch and
would like to take on Ruth's position, please talk to Anne or Debbie.
Kristin Puliafico:
Kristin is the Little School Coordinator. She is also Cori authorized along
with Debbie Nearing and Kerstin March. Debbie will be sending a list of people
whose Cori's have expired.
Fall Products and Cookies:
Ruth and Kerstin: The Fall Product kits are ready! Volunteer agreement
forms need to be filled out to receive your online password for Fall Products.
We tasted the samples that Ruth and Kerstin brought. There are some new items
this year and items only available online. The products are magazines, nuts
& candy. Please collect the money when you sell the item, troops need to
pay for entire order upfront. Ruth loves the fall sale, they make great gifts
for teachers, babysitters, CCD volunteers, coaches, and your bus driver! The items
will arrive November 20, right in time for Thanksgiving. The prizes for the
girls are super cute. Girls can opt out of prizes and receive 17% on sales
instead of 15%. All information is on the Leader Facebook page. Create a
giraffe patch online incentive. All selling instructions are on the Fall
Product envelope. Sale date is September
25 to October 26.
Ruth would like all
troops to please spread the word for selling the honey roasted peanuts to be
donated to the North Reading Food Pantry. North Reading Girl Scouts will be
donating cans of peanuts for Thanksgiving day baskets to local families. The
donated cans of peanuts are $5 a can and we would like to sell 100 cans. Ruth
posted a video of how the toffee is made on the Leader Facebook page. The sale
runs 9/25-10/26. Please talk to Ruth or Kerstin with any questions. GSEM will
email you a password. If your troop wants to run a money raising event, the
troop needs to sell Fall Products and Cookies. Magazines and items can also be
ordered online and they will ship within 48 hours. Very easy!
Kerstin March:
Cookies went up to $5 a box for the upcoming cookie season. Kerstin is
interested in mentoring someone to take over the cookie position. The job is
done mostly online and could be split between two people, one to manage booths
and one for online duties. The position is from November to mid March. A very
manageable job!
Banking and Events:
Lisa Alexander is our new Treasurer and Event Coordinator. Lisa was talking
about Citizens Bank and how the Girl Scouts are grandfathered in for no fees.
Call Tony at Citizens Bank if you are getting a monthly maintenance fee. Also,
there is a fee for paper statements. Lisa suggests trying online banking, it is
free and easy and you can save $2 a month. Girl Scouts are tax exempt. You can
take the tax exempt certificate in a store and not have to pay sales tax. This
will be included to the Monday email.
Please see Lisa for banking questions.
The NRGS Halloween
Party is at the Moose on Oct. 25th 1-3 pm.
Would any older girls like to help? This is a drop off event, no
siblings allowed and only for registered Girl Scouts. Lisa, Joanne Gibson, and
Karen Buscemi are on the committee, talk to Lisa if you would like to join the
Halloween party committee. The flyer is
on the blog at www.northreadinggirlscouts.blogspot.com.
Star Gazing is on 10/19 at 7 pm. This is for juniors and up
and put on by the North Shore Astronomy Club at Merrimack College as a
workshop. The cost is $3 per girl. Please write one check to NRGS. The limit is
20 girls, so sign up ASAP if you are interested. The cloud date is 10/26 if the
weather is not ideal. Contact is Ruth Kennedy and the flyer is attached to the
blog and Monday email.
Encampment: Debbie Nearing: Encampment: Possibly in the
spring. Leaders will need to be "camp certified" Grab a date for
training on the GSEM website because they book up fast. More information on
encampment will be known in January. NRGS generally give lodges to younger
troops. Daisies may come and enjoy the day. They do not sleep overnight. For
ratio and safety wise you will need one trained CPR/FIRST AID and one Camp
Certified to attend. You could also go with another troop to meet requirements.
All activities are planned for the entire day. A date of Father's Day weekend
may be considered. More to come in January.
Parking Lot: Anne Valade:
The purpose of the parking lot is to put your thoughts and questions
down on a piece of paper and place it on the parking lot. All questions will be
answered at the end of the meeting.
There is also a small green bag for questions, comments and concerns if
you have any.
Service Team Openings:
Debbie Nearing: Service Team opening-- Media Manager: The Media Manager
is the contact for the Transcript, the Patch, NRGS Facebook page and NRGS
Facebook Leader page. Responsibilities are placing photos in the Transcript and
making sure the proper information gets to the right person. We would like to
utilize Norcam as well.
SHARE Coordinator:
Support the mission of Girl Scouts and please contribute. This position would
run an event to raise money for SHARE. SHARE gets one big push in April.
Blog: Melissa Audier – was not able to attend the
meeting but is still the blog manager and all information to be posted to the
blog should be sent to her directly with a copy to Debbie.
Thank you to Barbara
Gravel for her many years of service on the Service Team. The Service Team gave
Barbara a nice plant as a thank you gift.
If anyone needs to be
Cori'd please come to registration 9/16 or contact Debbie Nearing, Kristin
Puliafico or Kerstin March or come to a Leader meeting.
New leaders will need
training as well as current leaders who will need to train for the next level. Please go online and sign the volunteer agreement for the current year.
The meeting adjourned
at 8:57pm.
Kristin Puliafico,
Recording Secretary :-D
