Indoor Rock Climbing at Boston Rock Gym - Still time to sign up!

Contact Lisa Ayer at 781-820-1928 if you're interested. Open to Daisies, Brownies and Cadettes.

GSEMA Girl Scout CookieFest 2018!

 You’re invited to the first-ever GSEMA
CookieFest!

On December 1, celebrate Girl Scout Cookies and the leadership skills girls develop as entrepreneurs. This sweet day of fun at Bentley University Arena in Waltham features activity booths and games that embrace the excitement of cookie season, as well as the life skills girls learn as they take their cookie sales above and beyond.

• Girls can get a head-start on blinging their booths, setting goals, and practicing sales pitches.
• Bring your skates for ice skating around the brand-new rink, and watch a performance by the Boston Skating Club.
• Enjoy cookie tastings, including the new Caramel Chocolate Chip cookie (gluten and nut free)!
• Hear from keynote speaker Allyssa Beird, star athlete of American Ninja Warrior and Middleborough middle school teacher.
• Every Girl Scout receives a CookieFest patch and can earn a Cookie Activity Pin by participating in the five skills booths.
• You’ll also enjoy cookie-themed photobooths, live entertainment, and raffle entries for tickets to Blue Man Group, Disney on Ice, Pats Peak, and more.

Bring the whole family or make it a troop event! Lunch is included, and bus transportation is
available from Andover, Boston, and Middleboro. Registration is just $5 per person (free for
children under four years old).

Fall for Service Event – Reading Service Unit

Project Sweet Peas – Reading Service Unit invited us to attend this Forever Girl Scouts event where you will make scarves, hats, blankets, etc. to donate to homeless shelters and families in Boston NICU hospitals.  The event is November 4^th from 12 to 2 p.m. at Camp Rice Moody in Reading.  Contact is email girlscoutalumnae@gmail.com

See flyer here.

 

Community Holiday Party Service Project Opportunity

We want to let you know of an opportunity to co-sponsor a community holiday party at the Library on Sat, Dec 22nd. Last year, Lisa Ayer and Denise Kung and Brownie troop 62798 participated in this same event last year. Here's the list of things they did and they put it towards their “celebrating community” badge!

• helped setup and cleanup after the party was done
• made SWAPs and handed them out during the event (no pins, since these were little kids)
• handed out candy canes and Hershey kisses
• sang Christmas carols
• provided handmade funny signs (emoji's, hats, beards, glasses, etc.) and picture frames (cut out from boxes) used for a photo booth

Danielle Masterson (children's librarian) is asking whether Girl Scouts would like to be involved again, pretty similar to what we did last year (although she's pretty open to anything).  Another idea is to provide a craft (maybe related to girl scouting somehow!).

Maybe we could open it up to Brownies and Juniors? One note is the activity room will only hold so many people, and last year they got almost 70-80 from the Moms & Tots group alone, so in terms of Girl Scouts maybe 15 would be a reasonable number. If we ran a craft table maybe 20.

If you are interested, please contact Denise Kung and she will pass on your name to Danielle Masterson.

Fall Product Sale has been EXTENDED!!!

We just received the following message from council. If you were looking for a couple extra days for online orders, this could be your chance. Note: even if you hit "Submit", council is going to go through and double check submitted orders in case any additional online orders came in. This applies to online orders ONLY, not paper/in-person.

Thank you for your patience with our new database system Unify this season. Because of the slowdowns and delays in Unify this past week, GSEMA will be allowing Girl Scouts to continue to collect online orders only until 10/31/2018 at 10PM.

We hope this gives the girls in your troop a chance to fulfill all of their customers’ nut, candy and magazine orders. Girls who collect online orders until 10/31 will be adding to their recognition totals; we hope this opportunity will help them meet or exceed their recognition goals! 

I have been reviewing everyone's orders and everything looks great. Thanks for all your hard work! We amassed roughly $15,000 in total orders which is an incredible benchmark.   Denise

2019 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

GSEMA has the opportunity to nominate up to 9 girl members for the 2019 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards (7 middle school and 2 high school aged girls). The Prudential Spirit of Community Awards recognizes outstanding young people from across the United States. It is the largest youth recognition program based exclusively on volunteer community service. Since its creation in 1995, they have recognized more than 125,000 young people who’ve made a difference in their communities.

What recognitions are granted by this award? 
Honorees are granted at 3 levels.
   1. Local Honorees. Chosen by GSEMA. Will receive a certificate and if they qualify will also receive the President’s Volunteer Service Award. Prudential will review all local honorees and determine if girls move up to state-level judging.
   2. State-Level Honorees. One middle-level and one high school student will be named in each 50 states and the District of Columbia in February 2019. Those selected will receive: $1,000, a Silver Medallion and an all-expense-paid trip with a parent or guardian to Washington, D.C. in May 2019 for gala awards ceremony and other exciting events. Chosen by Prudential.
   3. National Honorees. In Washington, five middle-level and five high school students will be named America’s top youth volunteers of the year by the program’s national selection committee. Those selected will receive: an additional $5,000, a Gold Medallion, a trophy for GSEMA and $5,000 grant from The Prudential Foundation for nonprofit charitable organizations of their choice. Chosen by Prudential.

Who can apply?
An individual student enrolled grades 5-12 as of November 6, 2018.
A legal resident of any U.S. state or Washington, D.C.
A girl who has engaged in a volunteer activity after September 1, 2017.
Any girl member who meets these criteria is encouraged to apply. Previous honorees selected
by GSEMA have been girls who have earned their Bronze, Silver or Gold Award as well as
others. Keep in mind that girls must apply as an individual.

How can girls apply?
See website for specific additions
Complete the application at here.
Applications are due by 11:59pm on November 6.

Girl Scout Leader Meeting Minutes 10/23/18

Agenda for Leader Meeting

Tuesday, October 23, 2018

LAR – 7:30 p.m.

Meeting start time: 7:30 pm

In attendance:

Debbie Nearing, Lisa Ayer, Jo Gibson, Denise Kung, Rebecca Lowe, Anne Valade, Amber O'Driscoll, Laura Cherwek, Kerri Antonuccio, Kristen Pemberton, Lisa Coroa-Bockley, Erin Sewer, Amy Kelly

GSEM information will be posted directly to blog separately - hidden codes prevented Monday email from going through to all Leaders - Monday email was resent Tuesday afternoon after Debbie found out no one received it but her

• Salute and Pledge to the Flag and Promise –

·         Led by Brownie Girl Scouts Elizabeth Ayer and Julia Pemberton

• Registration & Early Bird patches available on table – Debbie

·         215/254 last year 85% girls and 113/149 last year 76% adults with 26 troops

·         We lost several troops last year to sports-our numbers are down

·         Troops still needing to pick up patches: 66232, 69184, 78188, 85336, 71868

• Troop Directory Update Information – Debbie

·         Correct and Edit any errors directly on the paper and initial

·         An updated directory will be distributed through the Monday email

·         Troop directory to be used strictly for Girl Scout purposes only

• Fall Product Sale – Denise

• 5 more troops participating this year
• As of last Friday, we have exceeded last year’s sales by $1700 -
• Correction to minutes after the meeting - the numbers in the fall product system were not accurate.  We are very close to last year’s numbers of $15,000 in fall product sales.  An update will be given at the November Leader meeting.
• All sales must be put in by Thursday, October 25th

• Past and Upcoming Events and New Ideas

·         Halloween Party Success - Jo Gibson

·         116 girls attended, and many gave positive feedback

·         Nursing facility parade was very quick as residences weren't in the hallway like they were in previous years. This will be addressed directly with staff for future visits with NRGS

·         Thank you to all those who helped run the event

·         Great job being a sister to every Girl Scout at the event - Ava Colbert, Hood School 5th grader - gave her prize-winning selection to another GS

·         Spooky Tales – Anne/Amy        

·         This event is being postponed for lack of participation

·         Watch for it at a later date in the year

·         Rock Climbing – Lisa Ayer

·         Please turn in your permission forms now for this 11/17 event

·         We have about 13 girls signed up

·         Most girls for afternoon session - considering moving to one session

·         CookieFest  – Jo

·         First Ever Cookie Fest is on December 1st at Bentley Arena

·         Information from GSEM will be on the blog

·         Jo will be away - Lisa Ayer will give out Troop Cookie kits at November Leader meeting in Jo’s absence

·         Troops should send someone to pick up their cookie kits

·         Cookie season will start in December

·         Cocoa and Caroling –

·         Kristen Pemberton and Amy Solomon will co-chair the event.

·         Debbie to reach out to Amy S.

·         Date and Location TBD

·         He and Me Field Day –

·         Amber O’Driscoll will chair the event.

·         Date TBD

·         International Festival for World Thinking Day in February –

·         This event needs volunteers to run - Jo Gibson willing to assist someone

·         The date will be around February 22nd as part of World Thinking Day

·         First time event was run on Girl Scout Sunday in March

·         In the past Amy Kelly's troop created a plane and they pretended to fly to each destination. Each girl presented information about one country

·         World Thinking Day theme in 2019 is Leadership

·         Amber to research Leadership theme ideas

·         Lego Challenge, Home Depot craft building kits – NEW IDEAS – Denise

·         Lego Challenge- have teams try to solve a problem using a Lego structure they build themselves.  The library has Legos we can use.

·         Date TBD

·         Lisa Ayer to investigate Home Depot craft building kits for troops

·         NEW IDEA – STEM Robotics Demo by NRHS – Denise

·         Brownies – Engineering Badge; and Daisies – Rollercoaster Badge

·         Amber to investigate contact information for Robotics

·         Encampment Spring - Dates will be June 8-9; 15-16 only dates doable for EDs

·         Looking at Camp Maude Eaton and Camp Runels – Lottery??

·         8^th Runels; 8^th Maude Eaton or 15^th Runels our choices for now

·         Update to the minutes - GSEM informed us that the 14th-15th is not available for Runels.  Also, the lodge is booked for the 8th in Andover

·         Considering 1st-2nd as a second option and 8th-9th as first at Runels

• Community Service Events for NRGS

·         Republican Committee – October 30^th at Kitty’s 7 p.m. flag ceremony

·         If interested, let Debbie know – Jeff Yull in charge of Event

·         Amber to post on Facebook

·         Veteran’s Day Ceremony – Monday, November 12^th at 11 a.m. flag ceremony

·         Correction to the minutes - Veteran’s Day Ceremony is Sunday, November 11th at 11am at the Common

·         Any troop wanting to bake or donate baked goods are welcome

·         Any troop wanting to make a patriotic poster is welcome as well

·         Service Project at Lazarus House – T-shirt fundraiser - Anne/Amy

·         Lazarus House is a shelter in Lawrence.

·         They have volunteer opportunities for all ages. Examples: creating decorations for the dining room, collecting for their needs, working on site.

·         At Lazarus House each family or person gets a room. The director is starting to re-do each room. They have Amazon wish lists for things they need and Amy Kelly and Anne Valade’s troop is selling t-shirts to help fund their service unit project there.

·         Two specific needs they have that can be immediately addressed at the Troop level are toothbrushes and men’s winter gloves.  

·         T-Shirt Fundraiser - Troop 71901

·         Great gift giving ideas - Flyers on Blog with ordering information

·         Mystic Valley Elder Services Emergency Closet

·         Accepts donations of new sheets, new towels, and unopened hygiene items for seniors in need

• GSEM Events

·         Mass STEM week and Girl Scouts - Monday 10/22 to 10/26/2018

·         GSEMA: New award that recognizes outstanding young people. Based on community service - See blog

·         2019 Prudential Spirit of Community Awards

·         GSEMA can nominate up to 9 girls - 7 middle and 2 high school level

·         November 4^th Volunteer Conference – Event full for girls and closed for adults

·         Rebecca Lowe will talk in November about what she learned

• Next Leader Meeting –November 15^th at 7:30 p.m. in the LAR

·         Rededication/Investiture Ceremony for all new Leaders

·         Each new Leader will receive a pin and a tab as voted at our ST meeting

·         Each Leader in attendance will receive a NRGS volunteer pen

·         Most replied NOT to do a December Leader meeting again this year - busy time

Meeting End: 8:55

Minutes taken by Rebecca Lowe, NRGS Service Unit Secretary

Read and Edited by Debbie Nearing, SU Coordinator