Before you get upset about this, I don't much care about badge earning either. At least not with the new badge books. The badges are dumbed down and an insult to current Girl Scouts. Everyone likes candy and badges are vest candy. Do not fall into the thinking that your daughter isn't doing anything because she isn't earning badges. What your leader may be providing might be 10 times better than whatever is on the badge books. My girls do earn badges, they choose to and they earn the badges they implement from the older books. I feel my job is to provide experience and to keep them on track for Silver and Gold.

Coming up with the idea and implementing it is taking charge in itself. The phone calls and visits to people are made to get people to help, again taking charge. Coordinating efforts is a part of all projects, there is no project without coordinating; that is leadership. I do find the comments made about the project disparaging. She said her council would not have approved the project and listed reasons that did not exist. It was a year long project and she said it wasn't enough because there was no sustainability when the sustainability was right there.

Now look at page 5, especially the example about the global link. Gold Award is not expected to affect globally, just be linked. Women and men everywhere deal with breast cancer, there is the link. Sustainability is in the brochures that can be reprinted over and over, shared to other hospitals, and used by professionals in support groups, counseling sessions, and outreach programs. Leadership is not only demonstrated by being in charge of a group of people and telling them what to do. Everything about the Gold Award demonstrates leadership; coming up with the idea, making the phone calls, inspiring those around her to want to help with the project, coordinating efforts of others, putting it all together. I really don't like how you made it sound that this project wasn't good enough for your council's approval. If your council would not have approved this, then your Gold Award board is short sighted and being ignorant. Google Gold Award recipients, read through the projects. Very few of them have what you are expecting. These are teens, they are not expected to solve the worlds problems, just contribute something to make it a little better.

She may do it because she likes to make a big deal of handing them out and have a ceremony. I can understand this, but it can be frustrating when the girls are bridging like you said. When DD was a bridging from Brownies to Juniors the girls did a bunch of Try-its right before so I decided to hand out the badges at the bridging. Big mistake. DD never got to wear the badges, plus I never got around to sewing those badges on. In a box is DD's Brownie vest with 4 badges wrapped up in it. She may do it because she doesn't want to go up to the council shop after every meeting to pick up badges. If this is the case, talk to the leader and volunteer to be the shopper. DD is now a Cadette, I hand out the badges as they earn them. Actually, one of the girls is responsible for handing out the badges.

I completely agree.

It sounds like they are meeting, but being poorly run. Like I said above, I am SU Manger and we put on two large recruitments in September. I have 9 new leaders, I am doing one on one orientations, helping plan and attending the parent meetings, setting them up with mentors in the SU, and helping them plan first meetings. It sounds like she is getting no help, no support, and being directed to a redundant dumbed down Safety book for all questions. This is how we lose leaders and don't retain girls. Our entire program being created based on focus groups of non Girl Scout inner city girls doesn't help either.

I have looked at Frontier Girls. If I was just starting out with DD I think I would be tempted to start a Frontier Girls troop. It says right on their front page they started because of the Journeys. DD is on her 9th year of GS so there'd is no changing at this point. For an older girl there are so many opportunities with GS that the other programs don't have. Gold Award is a big one closely followed by Destinations. There was a comment above about where my girls put their "old" badges. Everything my girls earn goes on the front.

Tabin- that link led to the same Safety Check Points link on my councils website. I have to admit that I am not familiar with it, I usually go to my Safety Wise book I was given 8 years ago when I first became a leader and it is not nearly as "thorough" I read through the Arts and Crafts, three pages is ridiculous but most of it is common sense and then it is reiterating all policies. The more you read through them, you will see most say very similar things. Your biggest problem is your "community leaders". I know the exact situation you are in, I have seen it. You unfortunately have control freaks, who want the title but not the responsibility, in charge. You can and should switch to a different community. Don't call, go up to your council. Talk to your membership manager and tell them you want a different community. She will give you the run around, tell you that it's not possible or a good idea, but it is possible. Here it is called Service Units, I am the manager of mine and I have had troops join my service unit from others because they did not feel they were getting what they need. That SWAP event your community leaders are putting on sounds like a fiasco. There is no way each and every girl is going to be able to swap with each other. Creating that many SWAPS is going to be overwhelming for your girls and it isn't going to be fun. I personally would probably skip the event.

That is awesome!! Incredible job. Probably one of the best Gold Award projects.

2_girls_Mommy: I call around to all the councils and service centers and see what they have available. We have ordered from all over the country. When I can't find enough badges I find a new badge that is kind of like the old one, do the old requirements but give the new badge. When that doesn't work, like when my girls earned their Horse badge, design one on https://www.gsmakeyourown.com They cost twice as much plus shipping but it get the girls their badges. We also have been looking around for someone with an embroidery machine that would be willing copy the original badges for a reasonable price. MelissaMathers: Since you are willing to go it alone to give your daughter the outdoorsy GS program she wants, I really urge you to become a leader. Find older books, the 1963-1969 books are excellent. Try online used books stores. Being the leader makes sure that you are able to pursue the program you want. Tabinfl: What council are you in? I have never heard of a blue card. Most of us register the parents and call it good. It sounds like whoever did your training went a little overboard. Most things are common sense, honestly don't worry about checking your safety binder unless you are going on a trip. Whoever told you to look up scissor safety in that book was ridiculous and is not in ANY training I have ever done. Just make sure you have your ratio. A good meeting would be to have the girls put together their own first aid kit and make them carry it where ever you go and make them carry their own extra water. Permission slips could have been left in the car and contact info put into your phone. Have you been in touch with your Service Unit Manager? Do you go to your Service Unit meetings? This is where you are going to meet the other leaders and ask questions. All leaders love to jump in with suggestions. If you haven't been given this info, you need to call council and demand it. Also- past leader books have really good information.

When DD was a Daisy it was only a one year program and they only earned their petals. The Journeys for Daisies allowed it to go to a two year program and I think the Daisy Journeys are a good addition to the program. For every other level they suck. They are nothing more than boring busy work for Girl Scouts. The new handbooks/badge books are a joke. My daughter is a Cadette, age 13. I am the leader of her troop. At the meeting today she and the other girls did every requirement for two badges in the new book. This was mostly done as a joke because my girls think the new program is a joke. Thankfully, any Girl Scout book/badges/awards are still considered official. We work mostly out of older books. When they earn an older badge we look through the new book to see if there is a dumbed down similar one so we can purchase that one for the vest. Which is why we were in the new book at the meeting. If there isn't, I use the Create Your Own Badge website. We do a glance at the Journey to meet the requirement for the bronze/silver/gold awards, but that is all. We are a multi-level troop, Daisy through Cadette. Brownie and up work out of older books. I love Girl Scouts. With all that is available, I think it is still the best program for girls. Hopefully Journeys will go the way of Studio 2B.

I haven't read through everything, I got to this post and had to stop. If this actually happened, the leader could have (and should have) her leadership pulled and lose her troop. Girl Scouts are not allowed to do anything remotely political or controversial (no matter what end of the spectrum) while in uniform. If you want to do it on your own time, fine. NEVER in uniform, never as a troop.

I think I may have been mistaken. FFL4 seems have broken everything down as in each type of pronoun gets its own chapter while AG has all the pronouns listed under one pronoun chapter. I went with AG because it is for middle grade while FFL is elementary. I went to look at FFL because I am thinking about starting my youngest earlier in grammar. When I saw the table of contents on FLL it just seemed to have more, then I posted without really digging into the book.

So after spending $100 on AG I decided to compare the table of contents to First Language Lessons 4 and it seems like FLL4 covers more. I am seeing topics in FFL4 that I can't seem to find covered in AG. My kids are middle school age and only have basic grammar. I went with AG because it said it was complete and after they were done they would know everything they needed to know and would only need a reinforcement lesson every couple of weeks. What is your opinion? Is AG complete or does it leave topics out? Is FLL a better overall program even though after 4 there is supposed to be another series?

We took the train two years ago from New Mexico to Michigan. We had so much fun!

Selena Gomez isn't going to do anything remotely like this. She has done her break the mold movies and songs and considering she won her category last night, I don't think she will feel the need to do anything crazy. I did find it humorous that Miley and Selena were up for the same award, Selena got her start as Hannah Montanna's nemesis. I can not stand shocking for the sake of shocking. Miley's preformance screamed "I am doing this just to shock you, this is not the real me but I will act like this to make you talk" Everything that Lady Gaga does screams the same thing. Everything just comes off fake. Pink, on the other hand, is crazy and outrageous, but you can tell that it's her just being herself. Raunch doesn't bother me, I have no problem with a performer trying to grow up and no longer be seen as a child but Miley's preformance last night was a travesty. It was just an awful preformance and I felt bad for her because when they showed the audience it didn't seem like anyone was into it. I really hope she finds herself soon.

Is the DVD worth it? Does it add anything to the lesson?

If you are going to do scouts, stick with Girl Scouts and Boy Scouts. They have the most resources and opportunities. If you stick with scouts long term, their awards are almost universally recognized and look great on a job/college applications. Call up to your council and ask if there is a homeschool troop or if there is a troop that is made up of different schools. When you call council, ask for your Service Unit Manager's name and contact info and contact her directly. Sometimes names get lost at Council. Our's is a homeschooling troop. We are going into our 3rd year and we have 26 girls, Daisies to Cadettes. If you put the word out in your homeschooling community there will either be one to join or a few other moms that would work with you to get one started. I have been DD's leader since Daisies. She is now in her last year of Cadettes. We started in Michigan and when we got to Texas I was going to put her into a troop, but the girls had been together for 5 years and they all went to school together. I didn't feel comfortable, so I put it out in my homeschool community that I wanted to start a troop and within a couple of weeks I had 3 co-leaders and 20 girls. I didn't have to do that with Cub Scouts, council gave me the contact info for 4 or 5 packs, I found one that drew from many schools. Now that DS crossed over to Boy Scouts we did the same things. The troop has boys from all the different middle schools. If you just want a group and it doesn't have to be scouting, I would go with 4H.

I recently started using MOTL and I have to say I like it. I switched from MUS, I am starting from the beginning with DS5 and using it to finish up with DS11 and DD13. DD13 is also using LOF. You said you purchased it a couple of years ago, I don't think they had the automatic spreadsheet then. If you contact them they will let you download it. It makes keeping track of the concepts taught and the scheduling the 5 a days so easy. I really do think it is a complete program and "enough". It is also very easy to add to if needed. Like I said DD13 is using LOF along with it. She needs LOF to help her like math. She gets her instruction from LOF and her review from MOTL 5 a days.

I really recommend the book 'Is This Is Your Child' by Doris Rapp http://www.amazon.com/This-Your-Child-Doris-Rapp/dp/0688119077 Read through the reviews. What you are describing sounds like allergy reactions. We deal with that here. Gluten causes emotional meltdowns and dairy causes anger rages. I also think that every parent who has been told their child should be medicated for ADD, ADHD, ODD or any other letter combination should read the book. I am not saying these don't exist, just that I think a lot of the time things are misdiagnosed and kids are put on medication when eliminating foods from the diet could have solved the issues.

The movie War Games was my first introduction to modems and computers talking to each other, but I really thought of it as science fiction. I was in High School '90-'94 and there was a boy I knew who was always always getting into trouble for something he had done on the computer. I remember him bringing in a list of area codes and prefixes from all over the country and out and us making random collect calls on the pay phones during lunch. He also got himself credit card numbers and would order things and have them delivered to whatever neighbor was out of town. I remember the AOL commercials and seeing emails being sent on Beverly Hills 90210 but I had no idea what they were called. I remember walking out of a 7-11 when I twenty and hearing a teenager call to her friend "email me" and being puzzled because I had no idea what she was talking about. In 1997 AOL went to flat monthly fee and the boyfriend I had at the time got it for his computer; we were never able to get online because there were too many users. It wasn't till late '97 that my brother finally talked my parents into getting a computer and AOL that I finally signed on. I thought the Internet was nothing but chat rooms and email. I had no idea about websites and didn't understand www.com I didn't go on all that often, usually my brother and I were fighting for the phone line. I wanted to be on the phone and he wanted to be on the computer. DH and I met and married in early '98 and it wasn't till I was living with him and watching him on the computer that I learned all that it was. The kids were asking me about the Internet the other day and when I said "there was no Amazon or Facebook then" they couldn't believe it.

Real. I think I have a moderate form as it only bothers me when I am tired, stressed, or pregnant. Calcium magnesium helps me a lot.

We were living in Georgia when we saw a huge roach in the bedroom right before bed. DH and I tore that room apart, even tipping over the hutch on the desk and breaking the knickknacks. We found it and smashed it. I have three cats, all rescues who must have caught and eaten bugs when they were strays. Now, they all watch the bugs scurry across the floor and don't do anything.

I live in El Paso, so I think Las Cruses for the Farmers Market, Cloudcroft for camping in the cool green mountains and escaping the heat, long stretch of I-10 on our way to Tucson or farther west, Alburquerque for the Balloon Festival, TKD tournaments, Trader Joe's, and Whole Foods. I look at Roswell with jealousy since the Girl Scout service center there puts on better events than our's does.

DH was scheduled to go on a 6 week field exercise when I was due with DS2. Every day I got a phone call from my MIL asking me if I was in labor and telling me I needed "have that baby" before DH left so he didn't miss the birth. EVERY DAY. DS was a week "late" and we had 9 days to spare.