- By Dan Veaner
- Around Town
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Girl Scout cookies are one of the happiest parts of everyone's year. In Tompkins County Girl Scouts go from door to door, and can be seen on the side of streets, in parking lots, and at the mall selling crates of cookies. With big changes to the structure of the Girl Scouts from the national level on down to local councils, Girl Scout Cookies will be changing in the Ithaca area, as well. Local girls will be selling cookies from Little Brownie Bakers instead of the ABC Bakers cookies they have been selling. And while they will be selling cookies this Fall, starting next year cookie sales are moving to winter."This is our last fall selling cookies in this area," says Lansing troop leader Terrisue Krogh. "This is a big change for the girls and the leaders."
For this year there will be a two week pre-order period beginning in mid October, and deliveries and cookie booths will begin in November. Beginning in the 2011-2012 scouting year the girls will sell magazines and nuts in the fall, and then sell cookies in the winter and spring.Cookies from the new baker start this year, and while they will still offer the classics such as the ever-popular thin mints, Tompkins County cookie lovers will also have new kinds to choose from. Local leaders are especially excited about Samoas. Other choices will include Lemon Chalet Cremes, Trefoils, Do-si-dos, Dulce fe Leche, Thank U Berry Much, and Tagalongs.
Girl Scouts USA has been restructuring the many councils across the United States into so-called supercouncils that merge troops into larger geographic areas. This serves local troops more efficiency, and provides more resources for the girls because there are more troops to draw from. This area covers a vertical swath of upstate New York and Pennsylvania. That explains the cookie changes, as well as program changes they hope will make scouting more exciting and fun.
Krogh and Ithaca Leader Sarah Steuteville both say that recruiting girls for scouting is easy: you just announce recruiting meetings (which are currently underway) and the girls show up. They say word of mouth between scouts and their friends brings in even more girls. But the hard part is finding enough adults to lead the troops. TO address that Girl Scouts USA has developed 'Journeys, theme-based programs that are used in addition to the traditional a-la-carte badge-earning approach. The journeys are plug-and-play outlines that parents can just run with, and provide a framework for the girls to theme their activities.
"Girls do want to scout," Krogh says. "The challenge is finding parents to take on the adult leadership role. It's not as hard as it looks. They're trying to make it easy for new folks to become leaders and take on new age levels. The journeys are nice, because you can stretch them out over the Girl Scout year, which is normally from October to September of the following year. Or you can do it in six weeks. They're trying to show that Girl Scouting can be what you want to make of it."
The new journeys especially emphasize taking what the girls learn and contributing to their communities. Steuteville's troop will take part in traditional activities such as camping, and will be taking an 'energy journey', one of the new programs.
"One of the things I want is to see if the girls want to work with the environmental building tour," she says. "We'll see if we can learn about that and if there is a contribution we can make. They can actually see the different areas, and maybe help out and offer some service."
In teaching leadership skills, Steuteville says that the girls themselves decide on the specific activities, using the journey as an outline and a theme. She uses a 'kaper' chart that lists jobs, and girls are expected to take the initiative each meeting to do those things. One might get a snack ready or begin to set up materials for the meeting.
"We've looked through the journey book," she says. "But you never really know where they are going to take it. I have something in mind that I want to try to sell them on. Maybe as we lash together a structure we'll talk about energy stuff. Sometimes I just stand back and the girls go for it. That feels really good. And they love that."
"The programs really are girl led," Krogh adds. "We as leaders shouldn't just say 'this is what we're going to do today.' We're very democratic. We look at what the options are in the area based on the programs available for each age level. Then we take it to the girls and the troop then decides what they want to get out of it as a cohesive unit."
Registration sessions for local troops continue through next week.
Photos courtesy of Terrisue Krogh
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