User:Girlscouts210award

Thoughts and ideas on working on a Camporee for your Girl Scout group.

Researching Camps By Rachael When it was time for me to start my part of the silver award I first had to go on the internet to look up camps. This gave me a lot of options so I was less likely to get turned down by a lot of camps. Next I had to figure out how far on average people would have to drive to reach the camp. Now think would you be more willing to go to somewhere that was able to be reached by car in less than 2 hours or somewhere that took 3 hours to get there you may be more willing not to go to the farther one. So when I found a camp that was too far away I deleted it from my list of other camps. After that I had to create a formal letter asking the remaining camps if they could accommodate all the people that were coming on _____ day .Also you want to know what activities they have that people can do while they are there and, how expensive it would be. After you create the letter you have to figure out where to send it to, if by email or by mail. Once you have sent the letter to all of the camps you have to regularly check your email or the mail daily. You do not want them to think you have forgotten about them. Once the camps have responded to you about being open and free you should now meet with your troop and look at the camps website and choose the camp you think is priced the best and has good accommodations. When you and your troop have chosen one camp you should send out another email or letter to them asking for a contract so you can actually rent out the camp. Once they have sent you back a contract you should send it to council and have the correct people sign it.

Advertising By Tanvi Camporee is a lot of work, no doubt about it. We got over two hundred people who came to Camporee this year and my job was to get the word out. I had to create flyers and speeches to present at the Leaders’ Meetings. I had to create several flyers until I mad the perfect one. The flyers couldn’t be too lengthy but at the same time all of the information had to be conveyed to the readers. You had to let the people know what they were signing up for and tell them about all the details about arrival fees, activities, and more. There is always information in your head that you need to know but what good is there? I was already aware that I have a problem writing down what I mean. I will know what I was talking about but somebody else might not. To make sure this problem didn’t come out in my work, I got them proofread by somebody. If you were able to take my job in Camporee, you would have to make sure this problem doesn’t show up in your work. You would have to be able to actually make the flyers and use a computer programs like a professional. Another thing you should be able to do is talk in front of adults when you present in the Leaders’ Meetings you are the only person who can verbally convey the news of Camporee. The adults are very attentive and will also have questions and you should be on top of your game and come with answers before you arrive. All you really need is an organized mind to run my job.

How to Run Registration at Camporee By Amanda For my girl scouts silver award, our group did 2012 Camporee. This was a great learning experience. Al though if I had to do anything different with my job in registration, it would definitely be to have the whole system more organized. The next person running it should set up a new email just for this event. The person should also have a formulated spreadsheet and organized filing system. In retrospect, this will make the job of registration much easier.

Activities Paragraph By Julia In order to make Camporee the best experience possible, the activities need to be fun, creative, and convenient. To start, you would need to pick out x amount of activities for the amount of time that you have scheduled for the activities. These activities need to be fun and exciting, or else the girls will lose interest and they will become bored. Also, a new event to try is having a theme night on the evening the girls arrive. It provides something to look forward to after dinner and the opening ceremony and it’s a refreshing twist to Camporee. It also leaves each Girl Scout with a sense of mystery and excitement wondering what next year’s theme night is going to be. First, you would have to decide what the theme is. For example, in Camporee 2012, the event was a Masquerade Ball. Masks and glow sticks were handed out, games were played, and there was lots of current music that the kids love. Next, you need to recognize your budget when you decide what little goodies to hand out that has to do with the theme. There countless websites that can get you many objects for a miniscule price. For example, I was able to buy 240 masks for $45.00. Finally, you need to think of games to play throughout the entire time that are fun, time consuming, and exciting. Some examples are like freeze dance, interesting, cool games like snail, or simple dances like the Macarena or Cotton-Eye Joe. You may also want to theme all your activities in the event to match the theme of the event. All in all, there are several important features in running a successful Camporee and activities are part of it.

Girl Scout Camporee: Scheduling By Emily I ran scheduling for Camporee, which was made up of several parts. First, I received a spreadsheet with the registration information from another member of my troop. Then, I had to contact the troops that did not circle or list their activity preferences for Camporee. Once I received that information from a troop, I began to put together their activity schedule. To start, I listed each troop separately in a notebook, along with the numbers one through nine, to correspond to the periods. Then, I started developing the schedules for the troops as the information was sent to me. In the beginning it was easy because the activities could go in pretty much any order, but then it became more difficult as more troops were added. I used a chart from a previous Camporee for the master schedule and just changed the numbers. Each of the nine periods was listed on the left and each activity on the top, so I could add in the troops attending each activity in each period. The chart allowed me to have all the troop schedules in one place, and see how many people would be at one activity at one time. When scheduling I worked with any preferences the troops had, since there weren’t many. I put troops together that asked to be together, and if a troop asked to have a certain activity at a certain time, then I put them in for that slot. Besides that, I just tried to relatively balance out the activities, so there weren’t a ton of people at one activity at one time, and barely any at the activity at another time. However, I didn’t majorly reorder the troops once more started being added; I just tried to work with what I had. On another note, I also put together the basic Camporee schedule (which included meal times, general activity times and ceremony times). I based this off the basic Camporee schedule from a previous year. Since we were going to the camp that hosted Camporee two years ago, I just took the agenda from that year and changed the ceremony, movie, etc. times to reflect this year’s Camporee. (In order to make these changes I had to discuss the times with the members of my troop in charge of the Opening Ceremony, Masquerade Ball, Saturday Campfire, and Closing Ceremony.) Finally, I emailed each troop a copy of the agenda and a copy of their troop schedule. Again, I used a chart from two years ago for the individual troop schedules. This chart included the period number, time slot, activity, and meeting location, for each period. After the schedules went out, I answered any questions people had about them, and finalized the master schedule to so it completely reflected all of the schedules. To sum up, to run my part of Camporee a person would have to collect activity choices from the troops, create a master schedule, create individual troop schedules, construct an overall agenda, and send each troop an agenda and their individual troop schedule.

Cabin Assignments By Anna For Camporee, I was in charge of assigning cabins to every troop and overseeing everything that went on. In order to assign cabins to every troop, I had to learn how to use an Excel spreadsheet. Once I could work Excel, I used it to organize the troops and the number of people they each had so they would all be in a cabin that had the proper amount of beds. Many troop leaders sent in requests to have a cabin by some other troop or share one with another troop. I tried to take as many into consideration as possible, but had to do it within reason. For some of the troops, the original number of beds in the cabins wasn't enough. To resolve this problem, I contacted the camp manager a few days before Camporee and told him the cabins that needed beds and how many beds they were short and he had the number of beds added into the cabin. Also as a part of cabin assignment, I was in charge of communicating to each troop leader individually their troop's cabin number and if they were sharing with another troop. As an overseer for the Camporee, I was responsible for many jobs. At every meeting that we were planning for Camporee, I took notes on important points and updates on how things were going so that if somebody missed a meeting or needed to see something I would be able to help them. Also, I was in charge of handling the rosters for every troop. If a troop didn't have a complete roster, I had to get in touch with the troop leader and tell them the information they were missing. I scanned the roster sent in from every troop into the computer, after checking with Girl Scout Council to see if it was okay, and then emailed them to Council. My Girl Scout leader, the girls in my troop, and my parents were people I could always look to for help.

Opening Ceremony By Molly The main activity I was in charge of was the opening ceremony. I visited a lot of websites to find out what girl scouts normally do during opening meetings and what kind of things they announce. I found this website really helpful: http://www.scoutingweb.com/Scoutingweb/SubPages/OpeningClosingCeremony.htm This website told me that you can also do a flag ceremony so I searched girl scout color guard and I thought this was the website that explained it the best: http://www.girlscouts.org/program/basics/traditions/ceremonies/flag.asp. My troop and I had to decide what time to make the opening ceremony and we had to practice the ceremony too. This was how I ran the opening ceremony.

How to Run the Closing Ceremony at Camporee By Shefali During the closing ceremony, you have to take down the flag at some point (preferably the first thing you do.) In order to do this, you need the rest of your troop to form a color guard (same as opening ceremony). You need to have all the Girl Scout troops rise before you take the flag down. If you want, you can have them say the pledge of allegiance. After you finish taking down the flag (or reciting the pledge), thank everyone for coming to Camporee (suggestion- write up thank you note beforehand and memorize it. Keep it short and sweet.). You may sing a song at the end but not too long so people can get to their activities on time. You may sing “Make New Friends” or “Taps” or any leftover song requests from the Saturday Night Bonfire. Make sure to meet with whoever is in charge of scheduling in your troop to see how long your ceremony can be. Make sure you know how to properly fold an American flag. This should make putting together the closing ceremony much simpler.

Closing Ceremony Schedule (Camporee 2012) (8:40-8:50) 	Color Guard takes down flag 	Thank you note 	“Make New Friends” http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PcOWc5EJbVo This is a video on how to properly fold an American flag.