| Previous | Contents |
Tuesday, June 24, The Hartford Courant
18 Keep Going, Don't Quit!
Ignace Jan Paderewski, the famous composer-pianist, was scheduled to perform at a great concert hall in America. It was an evening to remember---black tuxedos and long evening dresses, a high-society extravaganza.
Present in the audience that evening was a mother with her fidgety nine year old son. Weary of waiting for the concert to begin, he squirmed constantly in his seat. His mother was in hopes that her son would be encouraged to practice the piano if he could just hear the immortal Paderewski at the keyboard. So -- against his wishes---he had come.
As she turned to talk with friends, her son could stay seated no longer. He slipped away from her side, strangely drawn to the ebony concert grand Steinway and its leather tufted stool on the huge stage flooded with blinding lights. Without much notice from the sophisticated audience, the boy sat down at the stool, staring wide-eyed at the black and white keys. He placed his small, trembling fingers in the right location and began to play "chopsticks." The casual chit-chat of the crowd was hushed as hundreds of frowning faces turned in his direction. Irritated and embarrassed, they began to shout:
Backstage, the master overheard the sounds out front and quickly put together in his mind what was happening. Hurriedly, he grabbed his coat and rushed toward the stage.
Without one word of announcement he stooped over behind the boy, reached around both sides, and began to improvise a countermelody to harmonize with and enhance "chopsticks." As the two of them played together, Paderewski kept whispering in the boy's ear: "Keep going. Don't quit. Keep on playing...don't stop...don't quit."
-- Charles R. Swindoll from Stories For The Heart
Likewise, our role as Scouters is to accompany our kids so they can be
stars. So at those meetings or activities where someone is taking the
risk of doing something out of the ordinary---accompany them and
whisper "Keep going. Don't quit."
19 Leader's Day Poem
To be accompanied by the appropriate 'gifts' in packet.
By Marlene Gerba
by Philip de Montmollin
First, Girl Scout volunteers care. They care about each other, they care about other people, they care about their families. Not just plain old "care," but sincere, deep-down, bottom-of-the-heart kind of care. They care about people who have less than they do. They care about people who have more. They care about their council, they care about the national organization. They care about the youth of the world and, of course, most especially, they care about girls.
Next, all of the Girl Scout volunteers I've met are committed. They have a deep sense of commitment to the purpose of Girl Scouting. They believe in what they are doing. They have made personal commitments to help our country's young women. They support the Girl Scout promise and law, and live them both in their daily lives.
Girl Scout volunteers work hard. Whatever you say about Girl Scout volunteer work, you can't say it's easy. It's hard work. That's okay because Girl Scout volunteers are busy active people, full of energy and enthusiasm. They work hard and they enjoy it. And they get a lot done.
Successful Girl Scout volunteers enjoy life and they share that joy with the people around them. They're happy people. They smile a lot. They like to sing.
Girl Scout volunteers are understanding. They are open to the ideas of others, and take the time to listen. They are skillful in perceiving the needs of others, and react with sensitivity to those needs. They understand the need for compromise and mutual support.
Girl Scout volunteers are generous. Generous with their time, generous with their talents, generous with their treasures.
Girl Scout volunteers have a sense of humor. They have fun and can laugh at themselves.
Girl Scout volunteers are confident. They are positive thinkers. They are persons who know we can succeed and convince others of that.
Finally, Girl Scout volunteers have faith, they believe. They have faith in themselves, faith in the Girl Scout Movement, and what we're trying to do. They have faith in others, especially in little girls. They have faith in their council, faith in their community, faith in God.
Girl Scout volunteers are special, very special. Not everyone can be
one. Some try and don't succeed. But those who do are special, some of
the most special people in the world. People just like you.
22 Ode to a Girl Scout Troop
[A Cadette/Senior Troop/Group Philosophy]
January 1992,line>Susan Shabica
23 Our Dishes Went Unwashed One Day
Author Unknown
24 Potted Plant Appreciation
A few weeks ago the leaders in our districts received from the area commissioner a plant pot with tulip bulbs in it. On the side of the pot was this note:
Combine one level head and one loving heart with equal parts of enthusiam and energy. Blend in ability to work with others and appreciation of individual differences.
Add a double measure of humor and the desire to help girls grow. Fold
in the imagination of an elf and the memory of an elephant. Top with a
rugged constitution and resilience to adapt to new ideas. when seasoned
with the training and steeped in experience, this recipe will serve
many girls well.
26 Salute to the Girl Scouts
I'm still prying the smores from the bottom of my sneakers, and I'm not sure I'll ever rid my hair, my clothes and my nostrils of the smell of campfire smoke. But there's one remnant of my weekend in the woods that I don't want to give up, ever.
It's an image. Of sunlight. Of water. Of pine needles on the ground and grasses around the knees and mountains in the air, all of it cast in the gauzy luminescence of June.
And amid the glow there are girls. Girls, girls and more girls. A score of them, age 9. Singing, working, embracing, arguing, making up, sneaking an illicit swim in their cotton underwear. Exuberant. Expansive. Triumphant. Limitless.
It's an image whose value need extend no further than its momentary beauty. But it is also a vision of female pubescence that despite all the real-world realities of gender bias and barriers gives me hope---not only for the moment, but for the future.
I'm no Girl Scout, but thank God my daughter is. Thank goodness she is reveling in the company of other girls and women in a way I never did, not at her age anyway. I've never been a joiner, never been able to take a pledge without secretly crossing my fingers, never been able to wear a uniform or a sashor a badge without chafing at the constraint. My daughter, praise the serendipity of genetics, is at ease in a troop.
And so she begged me, pleaded with me, nagged me until I had no choice but to scare up a ragged sleeping bag and head for the hills in a caravan of Scouts. (Except for a brief stint in the early '70s, when I swore off meat, let my armpit hair grow and spent a lot of time sleeping in tents, I'm no camper, either. I'll take a Marriott any day.)
Only out of a profound sense of motherly duty, and abiding working-mother guilt, was I prepared to whittle. What I discovered, though, is that the whittling (which, as it turns out, I totally dig), the badges, the sashes, the pledges, pins and salutes aren't the half of it. What the Girl Scouts are really about is girls, in the company of other girls, experiencing their individual and collective possibility. They're racially, ethnically and economically diverse, and largely urban-based. They chop wood, climb ropes and share each other's strength. The Girl Scouts are, in a word, hip.
One of the chaperones on our overnight was a young professional woman---a lawyer with no husband, no kids and a consuming passion for assisting young girls in tapping their infinite potential, a kind of emergency medical technician committed to reviving Ophelia. "Girl Scouts taught me I could do anything," she told me. "They're why I went to law school."
The others of us were moms with varying degrees of non-family responsibilities who simply crave time with our offspring. And we, too, were dazzled---not only by our own daughters' worth, but by the group chorus. A couple of us got tears in our eyes when the girls sang "Over the Rainbow" around the campfire. Why, then, O why can't I? But you can!
There are many routes to a weekend in the woods with a score of girls, and any one of them is worth traveling. But the Girl Scouts now stand out in my mind as a beacon of feminism that was there well before I had any notion of women's rights, or their limitations. It burned for me (though I never noticed), for my sisters and for my mother, who, somewhere in the chaos of raising six kids, managed to lead at least a dozen different troops.
One of my sister's kids recently came across her sash in their attic. Now she keeps it in her bedside table, treasuring the heavy dark green cloth, the fine embroidery of the badges. It's Proustian, she says. "It's my madeleine." We're thinking she should wear that old sash to her next business meeting or client soiree, just in case she starts feeling intimidated by all those suits around the table. Or perhaps she should wear it around the house, out to dinner with her husband, jogging, rollerblading, shopping---wherever and whenever she needs a reminder of sunlit girls without limits.
Barbara T. Roessner is an associate editor of The Courant.
27 Skit/Dialog
Purpose:
To stimulate adult involvement in troop activities which will result in:
Simply put, the aim is increasing adult participation with the program their daughter(s) is/are involved in.
Requirements:
A girl must have at least one adult family member or adult friend complete ONE starred or FOUR unstarred requirement during the course of one year. (October 1 - September 31st.)
Recognition:
The troop will purchase a patch to wear on the back of her sash or vest. The adult who completes the requirements will receive a certificate. If a girl and her adult partner(s) participate in the program the following year, the girl may purchase a "rocker" to add to the patch. The adult may receive a new certificate.
Complete (1) starred or (4) unstarred activities to earn patch and certificate:
If two adults participate with one girl, they may share the needed four activities. That is, one adult could perform three services and the other adult complete the last service.
If an adult has more than one girl in Girl Scouts, a girl may receive credit for any combination or four activities completed. The four services may be divided among or between sibling Girl Scouts or the four activities may be conducted with any one of the girls. In either case, all sibling Girl Scouts may purchase a patch.
Receiving recognition:
Patches (small cost) and/or certificates (free)
29 Ten Commandments for Parents
Thou shalt:
I went looking through my files and found a gathering activity that I had used for a District meeting. Because the Guiders came at staggered times, I always had activities available to keep people busy.
I had two separate poster boards on either side of the room. On one it read, "What frustrates you the most in Guiding?" The other said, "What keeps you in Guiding?" At that time, we had difficulties with the Guiders and this exercise helped re-direct the focus. There were post-it notes available and everyone was to stick a comment or two on the two posters. The comments were discussed by the group and knowledge was shared. We were able to assess where help could be found for some problems and ideas came up for further trainings.
Some of the comments for "frustration" were:
Some of the comments for "staying in Guiding"
I'm sure some of these thoughts are echoed around the world.
--Tiger
Cadet Guider, District Guider, Trainer
Quebec City, Canada
| Previous | Next | Contents |