PROGRAM NEWS

GS Express is a monthly e-newsletter to provide timely news and updates about programs, events, registration and other issues pertinent to girl and adult members as well as staff in a Web-friendly format. In being Web-friendly, the content of GS Express will link from the e-newsletter to additional information/expanded articles on the GSWCF website. GS Express is e-mailed to volunteers, girls, parents, adult members and staff.

Did you know you can access archived copies of GS Express on the GSWCF website? Visit the publications page of the News Room where you will find archives of previous issues of GS Express, as well as past issues of Connect! and various fact sheets regarding different aspects of GSWCF.

 

Tell Your Girl Scout Leadership Story – Win a FREE Trip

We are looking for girls ages 14-17 to represent Girl Scouts of West Central Florida at the National Girl Scout Leadership Institute, Oct. 29-30, in Indianapolis. This event is sponsored by Girl Scouts of the USA and the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana.

For more information on the Girl Scout Leadership Institute, please see the FAQs outlined in GS Express.

Would you like to attend the 2008 Girl Scout Leadership Institute, but don’t have the finances to help get you there? Share your Girl Scout story and win an all-expenses-paid trip to the Leadership Institute.

Consider the topics below to help frame the story of your Girl Scout Leadership experience:

  • Girl Scouting builds girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place. How has Girl Scouts helped you to build courage, confidence, and character? How have you helped make the world a better place?
  • Girl Scout program activities are organized around three keys to leadership: Discover (explore your values, skills and world), Connect (team up and relate with others in a multicultural world), and Take Action (make a difference in the world). How has Girl Scouts helped you to discover, connect, and/or take action?
  • The Girl Scout Leadership Experience follows three key processes: Girl-Led (girls decide on activities and help lead the way), Learning by Doing (girls learn by doing hands-on activities, and then reflect on the activity after it is completed), and Cooperative Learning (girls work together towards a common goal). How has one of the Girl Scout processes helped shape your experience?


    • Tips to consider when writing your story:
    Stories are most successful when they can stick in someone’s mind. Sticky stories are:
  • Simple – short and deep.
  • Unexpected – leave them curious; tell something that is uncommon.
  • Concrete – use examples; use sensory language.
  • Credible – make it meaningful; use anecdotes.
  • Emotional – tap into something people care about and will remember.
  • Narrative – give your story a plot.
    • Challenge Plot – talk about overcoming an obstacle.
    • Connection Plot – talk about developing a relationship that bridges a gap (racial, class, religious, etc).
    • Creativity Plot – talk about a shift in thinking or tackling a problem in an innovative way.

Story entries should be typed and limited to one page. Entries must be received by Friday, May 30. A Live Healthy, Lead Healthy Registration form must be included with your story entry. Three to five winners will be selected and notified by June 15. Stories may be shared at trainings, events, in print and with funders. You may also be asked to attend a fall event to share your story or what you learned at the Girl Scout Leadership Institute. Entries may be mailed, faxed or e-mailed to:
 

Girl Scouts of West Central Florida
ATTN: Director of Program Services
P.O. Box 18066
Tampa, FL 33679-8066

Fax: (813) 282-8285
E-mail: afoster@gswcf.org

 

FAQs About National Girl Scout Leadership Institute

You’ve got questions? We’ve got answers. The Girl Scout Leadership Institute Planning Committee has compiled some of the most frequently asked questions regarding Girl Scout Leadership Institute.

What’s this all about?
Girl Scout Leadership Institute is a mock forum brought to you by Girl Scouts of the USA and is planned by girls, for girls. At Girl Scout Leadership Institute, girls debate issues that are important to them and then present them to an adult audience at the 2008 Girl Scouts National Council Session, which is being held Wednesday, Oct. 30, in Indianapolis.

Who can attend the Girl Scout Leadership Institute?
Girls who will be 14-17 years old at the time of the event and are registered Girl Scouts are eligible to attend. However, GSUSA limits first round selections to 12 girls for our Council size. Additional spaces may be available on a first come, first served basis after July 15, 2008.

When is the Girl Scout Leadership Institute?
The Girl Scout Leadership Institute will take place with a kickoff on Wednesday, Oct. 29, at 1 p.m. and will close Thursday, Oct. 30 at 5 p.m.

What is the cost to attend?
It costs $125 per girl, plus transportation, hotel and meals (approximately $605).

What happens at Girl Scout Leadership Institute?
Girls bring proposals to Girl Scout Leadership Institute about issues affecting girls today. These proposals include a statement of issues with direct actions, or recommendations of a plan to impact the issues. The proposals are debated by girls. Issues that are deemed most important will be reported at the 2008 National Council Session. The Washington, D.C., office will even try to take some issues to Capitol Hill!

How do girls debate the proposals fairly and effectively?
They follow Parliamentary Procedure! Parliamentary Procedure is a method used in meetings to keep everything organized, help meetings run efficiently and make sure everyone has a say. You may have experienced Parliamentary Procedure – a lot of groups use it, including some school clubs, 4-H clubs and even Congress.

 

Share Your Ideas for Our 100th Anniversary!

Turning 100 years old is a major milestone and a significant accomplishment for any organization. GSUSA has formed a 100th Anniversary Advisory Group, comprised of girls, alumnae, volunteers and staff, that has been working since last fall to ensure that we maximize the opportunity of the 100th Anniversary, and they welcome your input! All ideas that are generated throughout our Movement will be carefully considered and vetted through a rigorous process (see below) to ensure they are in keeping with the 100th Anniversary goals.

Please submit your suggestions to 100years@girlscouts.org. In order to ensure that your ideas receive “early bird” consideration, please submit them by Sunday, June 15, 2008. The goals, criteria and process for vetting are listed below.

100th ANNIVERSARY GOALS

  • Showcase the Girl Scout Leadership Experience
  • Advance the brand
  • Raise a significant amount of money
  • Increase membership numbers and diversity

CRITERIA

  1. Strategically Aligned: Program, product or event should/must lead to meeting one or more of the goals set forth in the 100th Anniversary Strategic Plan (see goals above).
  2. Measurable: Preference will be given to programs, products and events that yield measurable results that align with the goals (see above).
  3. Contemporary: Program, product or event must have appeal for girls or other stakeholders.
  4. Aligned with Values: Program, product or event is in keeping with the beliefs and principles of Girl Scouting including our commitment to diversity and pluralism.
  5. Consistent: Program, product or event must not be in conflict with other elements planned for the celebration.
  6. National Scope: Ideas should be national in scope.

PROCESS

  1. Submit your ideas to 100years@girslcouts.org by Sunday, June 15, 2008.
  2. A small cross-functional Vetting Team will conduct initial review of ideas for programs, products or events, applying the criteria above.
  3. Vetting team will bring their recommendations to the 100th Anniversary Steering Committee and to senior management at GSUSA.
  4. GSUSA will communicate with councils, on a regular basis, to keep everyone informed about the 100th Anniversary plans.
 

May is Asthma and Allergy Awareness Month, Melanoma and Skin Cancer Detection Month, and Cinco de Mayo!

GSWCF offers patch programs that can help your girls discover, connect and take action with what is going in their communities.

 

“On the Right Track – College Bound!” – 2008 Florida University Tour

(For high school girls entering sophomore year and up in Fall 2008)

Are you interested in what Florida’s universities have to offer you? Girl Scouts of West Central Florida has been invited by Girl Scouts of Gulfcoast Florida, Inc. to attend the 2008 Florida University Tour where girls will be able to explore and learn about entering college life as they view six colleges within the state of Florida. The eight-day bus tour will involve visiting six campuses, including:

  • University of Central Florida in Orlando
  •  Florida College of Health in Orlando
  • University of North Florida in Jacksonville
  • Full Sail in Orlando
  • Florida State University in Tallahassee
  • University of Miami (Ocean Division)

Campus visits will include a tour of the school, workshops on admissions/financial assistance, campus culture, time management, personal economics, health, safety and more! A visit to at least one college-level class is also a possibility.

While on the tour, where possible, all meals will be eaten on campus so that girls will get the full college-life experience! The last two evenings of the tour will be spent at a local hotel where girls will learn all about student travel and work as a team to shop for and prepare a meal for the whole group.

Dates: Aug. 4-11

How to apply: Seven girls from GSWCF will have the opportunity to go on the all-expenses-paid trip sponsored by MetLife. Girls have to be in high school, and entering their sophomore year and up. Girls must write a one-page essay on “Why pursue a college degree?” and submit it to Rhondalisha Collins, Teen Program Manager, by Tuesday, July 1. E-mail to rcollins@gswcf.org, fax to (813) 282-8285, or mail to the Tampa Service Center.

Deadline: July 1, 2008

 

Bullying Prevention

Girl Scouts has many resources available to address bullying and other issues specific to girls and their friendships:

  • Lesson plans for girls 11-17 are available to address bullying, conflict resolution, peer pressure and friendships. For copies of lesson plans, please e-mail afoster@gswcf.org
    GSWCF has training for leaders or youth care workers about Bullying, Bystanders and Victims. To request that this training be delivered in your area, please email jhalladay@gswcf.org
  • Mean Chicks and Cliques Program on the Go Tote for girls 11-17 is available through the Resource Centers in Tampa and Lakeland. Contact cmoll@gswcf.org (Tampa) or jbutler@gswcf.org (Lakeland) to reserve or check out this resource.
  • GSUSA is testing a pilot program called “Sister to Sister – The Darker Side of Friendship.” This CD is an interactive computer program that looks like a focus book, but has videos, quizzes and more to guide girls through the program. To receive a copy of this CD, please e-mail afoster@gswcf.org.
  • GSUSA has research and statistics to help educate adults on some of these issues. Log onto www.girlscouts.org and access the executive summary for “The Net Effect” and “Feeling Safe.”
  • The following earned recognitions address topics related to this issue:
    • Daisy Petals: Friendly and Helpful, Consider and Caring, Respect Myself and Others, Be a Sister to Every Girl Scout.
    • Brownie Try-Its: Caring and Sharing, Friends are Fun, People are Talking, Working it Out.
    • Junior Badges: It’s Important to Me, Being My Best, Celebrating People, Communication, Healthy Relationships.
    • Cadette and Senior Interest Project Patches: Conflict Resolution, Understanding Yourself and Others, Do You Get the Message?
    • Focus Books: uniquely ME! Inside and Out, uniquely ME! The Real Deal.
 

Want to Earn More Community Service Hours?

Cair Flight, a humanitarian flight organization headquartered in Tampa at the Vandenberg Airport, is looking for Senior Girl Scouts who need volunteer hours to help in their office posting mission logs and other data entry information.

Cair Flight is a group of pilots who work to move patients to essential medical treatment, cancer trials, etc.

For more information, visit their website or call Karen Knowles: (813) 677-6655.

 

Care about the rights of children? Need volunteer hours?

Girls are needed to assist with an event for a non-profit organization that provides advocacy for youth in foster care. The event will be held Thursday, May 15 at Carlton Fields law firm, near International Mall in Tampa.

Girls are needed to help direct traffic flow, usher and handle registration; they will also be invited to join the reception after everyone has arrived. This event honors organizations and individuals who support issues relating to kids in foster care.

Please contact Robin Rosenburg at Robin.Rosenberg@floridaschildrenfirst.org for additional information and to participate.

 

Girl Training Coordinators Needed!

Would you like to serve as a resource person a few times a year to older girls in your region working towards Program Aide, Leader In Training, or the Silver or Gold Award?

Adults are needed to assist Girl Scouts and troop leaders/advisors in their Service Units by providing training and ideas. Girl Training Coordinators are Council-level volunteers who are available to present various workshops throughout the Council and/or in their region.

Commitments are based on your availability and schedule! If you are interested, contact the Teen Program Manager at (813) 281-4475, (727) 447-3350 or (800) 881-4475, ext. 249 or e-mail rcollins@gswcf.org.

 

Camp Volunteer Opportunities for Senior Girl Scouts

This summer, two different volunteer opportunities are offered at camp for Senior Girl Scouts entering 10th through 12th grades.

Program assistant positions are available at Camp Wildwood throughout the summer. Volunteer for one session or many. Program assistants work with campers and alongside Camp Wildwood staff. This is a terrific way to earn community service hours by working in an assigned camp program station, or with an assigned unit as they travel to and participate in camp programs. This position requires hard work and long hours, and includes room and board. There is a limit of four program assistants per session.

Wranglers in training are camp volunteers who work with the camp barn/horse programs. Positions are available at Camp Dorothy Thomas and Camp Wildwood. Girls who are wranglers in training prepare the horses and barn for each day’s programs, help with lessons and close the barn each day. This is also a terrific way to earn service hours. Experience with horses is required. Please note, riding is not guaranteed – you need to enjoy hard work and just being around the horses! Position includes room and board; limit six wranglers per session.

If you’re interested in becoming a program assistant or wrangler in training, take a look in Discover! Resident & Day Camp and find the camp property or session that you’re interested in working with.

For more information, please contact Outdoor Program Manager Rebecca Amy at ext. 236 or ramy@gswcf.org.

To apply, download an application from our website. Positions will be filled on a first come, first served basis.

 

Teaching Thirteen Year Old Girls a Whole New Way of Life
by Jeffrey Leiken, M.A.

There is arguably no more challenging or unsettling a life stage than that of the budding adolescent girl growing up in our culture in modern times.

Adolescent girls are inundated with messages of how their self-worth and place in the pecking order is based on their bodies — and how their bodies compare not just to their peers but to the top supermodels on earth. They are overloaded with messages that what they wear can make or break their access to the next level of social acceptance. Whether they are “in” or “out” is often determined by other girls, usually without them knowing anything was wrong.

They are much crueler to one another than most boys will ever be to them. The worst is when we learn how cruel they can be to themselves.

There is also a myth that they are taught at a young age — a myth that dominates their psyche as they awaken to their budding sexuality. It is perhaps best called the “Cinderella Myth.” It is the story that someday their prince will come; that someday a man will come and find in them their true beauty which was held captive by their competitors (always other girls or women!) or which they never knew they possessed. Then it is his love, his kiss, which will awaken them and set them free . . . which will complete them.

How many times has the story been told? How often is this plot line played out in movies, books, and television shows? How often is it reinforced in school, at home and, yes, even in camp — from their counselors who spend an hour primping in the mirror every night off and from the peers and counselors who make a big deal of looking just right for the big dance! It all sends and reinforces the message.

Thus they fight amongst themselves, lie to one another, say hurtful things to one another as they scramble to be at the top of the pack — the right pack, the “popular crowd” — to be attractive to the right boys and to attract to them their Prince Charming.
Being so dependent upon external validation and so vulnerable to peer attacks leads most girls to be massively insecure. We joke about their inability to go to the bathroom alone — to go anywhere alone! They can't make decisions without first taking into account the opinions of others and the social consequences that might come upon them. By thirteen most of them have begun to create and fortify a secret world from their parents, knowing their parents would never understand nor approve of some of the choices they make to fit in and stay with the pack — especially regarding how “far” they'll go sexually with boys. Recent movies like “13” (a true story written by one of the film’s stars) reveals the startling truth of how sexually active they are. Of the many recent books written about the “mean girl” phenomena, few offer resolution to this pattern of behaviors. Many suggest support groups for adult women who survived the horrors of their adolescent girlhood and are still haunted by the insecurity. Therapy groups for girls with eating disorders are popping up everywhere. Camps regularly receive notes from the psychologists who are working with them at younger and younger ages. So much of this takes such a defeatist, reactive approach!

It Doesn’t Have to Be This Way!

Young women can find a new direction — a totally different way of approaching their lives. When they do, the results are stunning.

To accomplish this, we must first and foremost define what that new way of living is. We must essentially recreate a reality for girls in which they wake up each morning and feel good about themselves and are filled with an abundant sense of possibilities. We must teach them the skills, the mind-set, the awareness they’ll need to make the choices to make this new reality, become their reality.

You must create reference experiences for them — experiences that once they’ve had them, they now know what's possible and thus can no longer say “it can't be done.” Then girls can begin to choose to do what it takes to make their lives this way, all the time, even — especially — at home.

You must act with great intention to offer your campers a whole different kind of learning than they get in traditional culture. It takes role models who live it and demonstrate it consistently. It takes a willingness to put the time in to teach them how to communicate — positively and cleanly with one another. It takes the willingness to put in the time to teach them how to use this new approach each time the old stimulus comes up, reminding them constantly that they have a choice. It takes a willingness to ban any negative comments about each other’s bodies. It takes a willingness to intervene each time they say something negative about their own bodies.

Nowhere can this be more easily or effectively done than in camps, but it requires going the distance. Camps cannot be content thinking that because the girls are happier at camp than at home things at camp must be great.

Originally published in the 2005 May/June issue of Camping Magazine.

Girl Scouts of West Central Florida camps are having success in moving girls effectively in this new direction using a multifaceted approach. Our approach is:

  • Intervene immediately and consistently when incidents happen between girls and make certain the issue is processed and resolved. We insist that staff intervene every time something comes up. They must be consistent and persistent about this. We don't always have the answers but our campers know that they will not slip through the cracks and that here it is never okay to be hurtful to another girl.
  • Empower by making ongoing comments that point to strengths and what is working. We have built into our activity program a series of achievable goals that our girls aspire to. We celebrate each of their successes — many times this is done publicly — and encourage our older campers to support our younger ones. This has become our culture. It is not that the girls don't ever have issues, but they are so much more oriented toward the positive and what they can do while at camp, that these negative issues do not come up nearly as often.
  • Encourage laughter of the most innocent nature. There is massive research supporting the positive impact of laughter and the subsequent release of endorphins. These are exactly the endorphins that the popular culture inhibits being present in girls’ lives. We only hire counselors who are positive, and we build silly, playful fun into their schedule every day. As a result of these intentional efforts, many girls who struggle at home thrive at Girl Scout camp.
  • Select, train and support the right counselors with the right personality type. We identified certain personality traits in counselors which certain age groups responded better to — and we knew we needed strong assertive young women who would be willing to intervene without hesitation the moment things went off track. We now are uncompromising about placing only strong, positive, confident role models as counselors — not young women with many unresolved issues of their own sense of security and self-confidence. In addition to placing the right counselors, we provide intensive extra support and guidance, including special training during orientation.

The Key to Success

The key to this whole process is to be uncompromisingly intentional about how we work with girls and to believe it is totally possible for them to learn what it takes to become happy, healthy and centered young women. With this attitude and this approach, success — though it may take time and much effort — is guaranteed.

Camp is an important part of the Girl Scout Leadership experience, which builds girls of Courage, Confidence, and Character, who make the world a better place. Why not send your child to camp this year?