Troop Planner

     My troop will be a little more complicated this year with a Daisy, a bunch of 1st and 2nd year Brownies, and some 1st year Juniors.  That is a lot of different badges to keep track of!    I have badge trackers, finance trackers, and other info on Google sheets.  But when it comes down to scheduling activities, it is nice to have a calendar where I can quickly write down notes or mark out dates.  So this year I am going to be more organized with a printed and bound tracker.  I still plan on using my online trackers, but will use the printed trackers to keep notes on what happens during the busy scout and parent interactions. My planner is comb bound with cardstock cover pages.

I will have 15 or fewer in my troop, but if needed I can print another Troop Roster for a larger troop.  I also don't have many registered adults.  I wanted to make sure I knew what certifications, skills, and when their background check expires.

My emergency contacts page includes the council contacts, school contacts, and our troop's emergency contact (who keeps the activity roster in case of emergency during an outing).  We only have a couple health concerns with seasonal allergies.

We have adult and scout registration, annual permission forms, registered adult health forms, activity permission forms, transportation forms, and cookie activity forms.  Our dues are simple but we sometimes have fees for activities and field trips.

My important dates include cookie dates, highest award deadlines, financial audits, and recurring council events.

I don't follow the recommended activities exactly, so I write down what the requirements are and then how I will present them.  These are not detailed notes, more like reminders.

 Filling out the attendance tracker is part of our Kaper chart.

 These can be official badges or fun patches.  I keep a more detailed list on Google Sheets to combine both years at each level.

I buy badges after they are earned and I wait until I need several before making a trip to the store.

This is to keep better track of cash transactions.  I will keep using an online sheets that automatically summarize all the categories needed for the yearly financial audit.

Keep track of who earned what incentives during pre-sales, booth sales, transfers, and final sales.  I use other trackers at each booth sales to record inventory and finances, so this is more for goal and prize tracking.

Take notes of the different events occurring during each month and what the possibilities are for outings/events.  Then the Girls Scouts can help vote for what they would like to do!

Get your own copy from my Etsy store and start planning your year.  I can add extra pages to match the number of Girl Scouts and levels in your troop to make your job easier.

https://www.etsy.com/listing/714182020

Standard planner includes trackers for 15 Scouts:
To-Do List (44 entries)
Troop Roster (15 Scouts)
Registered Adults List (12 adults)
Emergency Contacts (6 Entries)
Health Concerns (10 Entries)
Forms Tracker (15 Forms)
Dues Tracker (15 Dues)
Birthday Tracker (1 page, 12 months)
Year At A Glance (1 page with 8 Important Dates)
Planned Dates (38 Entries)
Notes (1 Lined Page)
Monthly Calendar (1 Page For Each Month)
Meeting Schedule (28 Badges/Events)
Attendance Tracker (50 Meetings/Events)
Badge Tracker (50 Badges/Journeys)
Badge Shopping List (30 Badges)
Shopping List (30 Entries)
Finance Ledger (60 Transactions)
Fundraising Tracker (30 Entries)
Notes (3 Lined Pages)

Daisy, Brownie, and Junior Digital Game Design using Roblox Studio

     If your Girl Scout Troop is tech savvy like mine, they have probably discovered the world of Roblox.  If you haven't heard about it before, Roblox is a platform where any user can create a game using free software, and then publish it online for everyone to play for free!  After reading the new Digital Game Design requirements, I thought this would be a perfect platform for my Troop since most of them are already playing games on it and having their own game on that platform would really spark their interest.  This would also be a great time to introduce the Cybersecurity badges to make sure they stay safe online with their gaming profiles on and learn about hackers and scammers they may encounter while playing an online game.  Learn about Roblox's commitment to keeping your kids safe on their platform at https://corp.roblox.com/parents/

Here are the Digital Game Design requirements for all the levels:

     The Daisy, Brownie, and Junior requirements all include creating a maze game which is a great start to creating a game on Roblox.  This will teach them how to manipulate the objects, test, and publish their game without having to learn any coding.  The Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador levels can also benefit from creating a maze but they should take it a few steps further and learn how to create interactive GUIs to include decision trees with basic coding.

Check out our maze example here roblox.com/games/3608084265/My-Maze

    All you need to complete the Digital Game Design with your Troop is a Windows or Mac PC with Roblox Studio installed (free at Roblox.com/create), a free Roblox account for each Girl Scout or team of Girl Scouts, and internet access.  Once the game is created using Roblox Studio, it is playable on PC, Mac, Android, iOS, XBOX One, and Amazon devices.

Check out our 8-minute, step-by-step video guide to creating a Roblox maze game on YouTube and have fun!!

Band App for your Girl Scout Troop

When our troop first formed, all we used was email.  But for some users my email would go to spam and I had no way of knowing if the parents received my email or not.  So we started a Facebook group which worked out fine the first year.  The second year however, we had a parent who didn't login to Facebook frequently so she wasn't always up-to-date with the newest info.  Year three and we have several parents either without a Facebook account or with so many notifications popping up that they don't see our Troop posts in time.

So we switched to Band app.  This allows users to avoid Facebook if they like, separates the Troop notifications away from other Facebook posts, and allows me to see who has read the posts and who hasn't.  Band is available on Google Play, the App Store, or just a regular web browser.  And best of all it is completely free!!

Get started today at http://campaign.band.us/rp/nes

Once you signup for an account with Band, you will need to create your group.  You can have different groups using the same login and app with no worries about how they interact with each other.  Select "Create a Band" and then pick "Custom" as the type if you are asked, name your group, and choose a cover photo.  The name and photo can be changed at any time.  For the group type, select secret so nobody can get any information about your Troop unless they are invited.

With the group created you can now invite parents and other adults to join Band.  To start our group I used the "copy link" or url and sent an email to all parents.  With each new Girl Scout joining our Troop I sent the invite via SMS when I entered their contact info in my phone.  We invite all parents and even grandparents that regularly help bring the Girl Scouts to and from meetings and event.

Start out by setting up reminders for your regular meetings.  Create an event using the Events icon.

Set Event Name, Location, Start and End Time, and when to send the reminder.  The End Date/Time on the Google Play app says "Deadline", but is still located directly under the End Time.

Set a reminder minutes, days, weeks, or even months before the event date.  Repeat the event every day, week, 2 weeks, or month as needed.  If your troop meets the 1st and 3rd Tuesday of the month, create one event for the 1st Tuesday and set the repeat to 1st Tuesday of every month and then create another event for the 3rd Tuesday of the month and have it repeat every 3rd Tuesday of the month.  Select an End Repeat date if you plan on taking summers off.

In the events tab you can see all the scheduled events in a calendar view and also in a list.

Any special events are created with an RSVP option.  This allows me to know if I have enough interest or need to cancel the event.  Parents will show up as Join, Decline, Maybe, or Not participated yet in an easy-to-ready format.  I can also set an RSVP end time, so if a Girl Scout hasn't confirmed attendance by a certain date she will not be able to sign up at the last minute and leave me scrambling for supplies or reservations.  Users can easily click on the map for driving directions which is handy!!

At the bottom of every post I can see how many group members have read it and who hasn't.  This is my favorite feature.  If I see not everyone has looked at the post, I can open the post and click on the unread link to view names.

Other handy features are polls, signups, to-do lists, photo album uploads and group chats separate from the main group.  I started one group chat for our cookie booth design, and another for a camping trip where not every girl was attending.  This reduces the "noise" for members not interested in the conversation and keeps everything organized.

Overall I am very happy with this app and highly recommend it to other Troops!