Brownie Meetings - Ten Tips for a Successful Brownie Girl Scout Meeting

As an experienced Girl Scout leader, I still remember the first Brownie meeting days! My co-leader and I have taken our troop from First Grade Brownies to Fifth Grade Junior Girl Scouts and we have learned much in that period of time! Each year, the girls have grown and changed and we have adapted our meetings and events to meet those changes in maturity and interests. If you are a new Brownie leader, here are some tips from our experience as leaders that should make your meetings more enjoyable for you and your Brownie Girl Scouts!

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #1 - Schedule meetings carefully

Before you plan your meetings, think carefully about when you schedule them. For second and third grade Brownie Scouts, having the meeting after school in one of the available school rooms immediately following dismissal is tempting. Most families don't want to load back up in the car and head to a meeting after dinner and homework during the week. If it is available to you, using a room in the school is also convenient. If you chose to hold your Brownie meetings after school, you will need to pay special attention to the following tips. Young girls are full of energy that needs to be spent before they can focus on your Brownie meeting activity. We found that Sunday afternoons around 4:00 pm worked particularly well for our troop, but we have also held them after school. The girls were usually calmer and more rested and families typically do not have much planned late Sunday afternoon. No matter when you choose to hold your Brownie meetings, pick a specific day each month, such as the second Tuesday of the month, and stick to it. Parents will be happy and you will find it much easier when everyone knows when and where their Brownie will need to be.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #2 - Prepare for behavior issues in advance

Before you even have your first meeting, think about how you will handle behavior issues during your meeting. Our first year was fun, but also fraught with behaviors that detracted from our meetings. Some girls are always well behaved and ready to participate but you can count on having some girls who will not listen, talk and giggle when inappropriate, etc. At the beginning of our second year, we discussed with the Brownies the problems we had during the prior year and they all were aware that behaviors had detracted from our meetings. We asked them how we should handle those behaviors during the coming year. They came up with a simple plan that worked like a charm. Each girl got three small craft pom-poms when they walked into the meeting. If a Brownie does something inappropriate, you ask for a pom-pom. Each time you see an inappropriate behavior, you take a pom-pom. If they lose all three, they will sit outside the meeting room while you call their parent to come and pick them up early. Once the Brownies realize that classroom behavior is expected and they know the rules, you should not have any behavior issues to deal with. From the beginning of our second year forward, we never had a Brownie lose more than 2 pom-poms.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #3 - Prepare for the meeting's activity

It is imperative that you are well prepared for your Brownie meeting before you arrive to your meeting location. If you have a craft planned, make sure everything is cut and ready to go. You will lose the attention of young Brownies if you are not prepared and need to take time to finish prepping while the girls are waiting. Once you lose control of 20 second graders, you're in trouble! You should have every minute planned even before you walk into your Brownie meeting.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #4 - The first 5 - 10 minutes

While you are waiting for all of your Brownies to join you, have an activity that they can walk in, drop their backpack and dive into while you are waiting for all of the Brownies to arrive and join the meeting. This is critical. If young Brownies come into your meeting room and there is any waiting time to begin, your girls will begin talking and playing around and you will find you have lost control even before you begin! Our troop has been making fleece blankets for Project Linus for four years. Before the girls arrive, we lay out fleece, already cut and prepared, so that when the girls begin to arrive, they can plop down and start tying fleece blankets. They love it and it keeps them occupied, calm and relatively quiet.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #5 - The start of the meeting

We always opened our meetings with the Girl Scout Promise and Girl Scout Pledge. We had this printed in large letters on a thick poster board, Pledge on one side and Promise on the other, so that the girls can follow along. Eventually, you will no longer need the poster because all the girls will have it memorized. We also had a Kaper Chart. This is also on a thick poster board, with meeting duties listed and a round Velcro sticker next to the duty. Each girl's name is written on a laminated rectangle with the opposing Velcro sticker. We keep the names in a baggie and draw them out for each meeting so that the Brownies are always assigned different duties. Once a name is drawn, just stick it to one of the Kaper duties. Our Kaper Chart had the following duties:

1 Pledge Leader, 1 Promise Leader, 1 Attendance, 1 Dues, 4 Snacks, 4 Special Helpers, 2 Clean Up and 1 Friendship Circle Leader. You can adjust your Kaper duties to fit the size of your troop and the flow of your meetings.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #6 - Get your sillies out

This tip is important for younger Brownie Scouts when you are holding your meetings immediately following school. Often the girls need to burn off energy as they have been sitting quietly and attentively in class all day. Pick a crazy, fun song that the girls can sing and dance to. Play it once and let the scouts get as loud and crazy as they want! Tell them to get their sillies out during the dance so they can focus on the upcoming activity.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #7 - Break into groups for the activity

If you are working on a Try-It or activity that has 3 or 4 distinct parts, we found it easiest to set up stations. It is important that you divide the Brownies into groups before they arrive. This allows you to split up pairs or threesomes that tend to get each other wound up. Each group goes to a station and works there for 10 minutes or so. When the time is up, rotate. Let the scouts know they will need to complete each station in whatever time you have allotted.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #8 - Snacks

We discovered during our first year that, contrary to popular thinking, our meetings ran more smoothly when we had snack after our activity. I believe this works well for a few reasons. All of your Brownies will look forward to their snack. Knowing that the snack is coming when the activity is finished does help keep the Brownies on track and on time. There is also the issue of crumbs and messy hands. If you have snacks at the beginning, your Brownies will ask to be excused to go wash their hands, which will break the flow of your Brownie meeting. You also don't want snack messes on the tables you are going to be using for your activities. Our experience taught us that snacks work the best at the end of the meeting.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #9 - Clean Up

Clean up is for the Brownies, not the leaders! Brownie Scouts should clean up after the activity and after the snack. This should not be your job as a leader. How else will our little Brownie Scouts learn to be responsible if you do their work for them? Our rule was that we always left any place we were in better shape than we found it.

Brownie Scout Meeting Tip #10 - Wrap Up

Wrap up your meetings the same way, every time. We always completed our meetings with the Friendship Circle. A Friendship Circle is where all of the Brownies and leaders form a circle, cross their arms in front of themselves and take the hand of the Brownies on either side. We would then sing the traditional Girl Scout song, "Make new friends but keep the old. One is silver and the other gold." After finishing the song, the Brownie who was chosen on the Kaper Chart to be the Friendship Circle Leader squeezes the hand of a Brownie on one side. That girl squeezes the next scout's hand, and so on until it comes all the way around the circle to the original Brownie.

These tips were learned over several years in the Girl Scout trenches! Of course, every troop is different and will have unique issues and needs. I am convinced that these hard learned lessons can help you have smooth and successful Brownie meetings right from the start!

Source:

Personal Experience