Calendar Brainstorming

Thank you so much to the leaders who came to brainstorm our calendar and to flesh out our committees last night! It was really a wonderful meeting. I came home so happy and excited about the upcoming year and I think many of you felt the same way! For those of you who missed it I’ll recap a little of what we discussed and share the calendar with you.

Next Meeting: We’ll have our first “official” service unit meeting on August 19th at the Elk’s Club at 7pm, after that we’ll be meeting on the 3rd Thursday of the month at 7pm. I’m still looking for the perfect meeting facility, a big room with a microphone and with a separate room where we can offer childcare during the meeting and it would be great if it didn’t cost anything… so stay tuned for an update on the meeting location in September! I’m considering looking at other churches in our area or at one of the Recreation Centers or even one of the schools. If you have connections with a facility that we might use please let me know!

Committees: We broke into 8 committee groups and brainstormed What do we want to offer for the year or what would the committee like to accomplish

and  Who are the people willing to work on the committee and what different jobs are there to do. All 30 leaders at the meeting joined one of the committees and got the ball rolling! Consuelo designed some terrific “Team Sunny Trails” t-shirts and each one of the new committee members received one! We’ve still got plenty of room available on each of the committees for YOU! We’ve also got plenty of t-shirts! Come on August 12th and find a helpful task that interests you.

• Financial – (chair) Beth Ann Coleman (member) Sherrie Jancasz – Collect financials from each troop. Try to get more troops to turn them in on time in June. Handle Service Unit budget and check requests for SU events and encampments. Beth Ann says that the service unit is solvent and we have enough money to support some great programs for the girls this year.
• Administration – (communication) Kris Young, Beth Parry and Tina Summers – Debbie is going to construct a new website for the service unit that will be searchable on google with places for leaders to share information, a calendar of events, contact emails for service unit team members and lots of . We’re hosting it at gssunnytrails.com and we will have the potential to offer space for any troop in sunny trails to host their website with us at no cost. The address would be “www.troopxxxx@gssunnytrails.com“. More on that later. Debbie is going to run a workshop on how to do a troop website and help you get hooked up. The communications committee will forward council emails and will break down our service unit emails by age level so that you are getting pertinent info by level, they’ll maintain the SU calendar for all to view and will take notes at the service unit meetings.
• Volunteer Development – (trainers) Dolly Purification, Robin Jones, Greta Kanegae, Frances Bordenave and Cherry Bigornia – They’ll give orientation to new leaders and level trainings (to groups of 10 or more confirmed leaders) in the service unit. They’ll provide 10 minute “mini-trainings” at each service unit meeting so you’ll leave each meeting with great tips you can use. Ideas for mini-trainings include: meeting ideas for new leaders, organizing your meetings and different formats that work, planning out the troop year, co-op how?, parent involvement, how to run an event and create patches, program aide, cookie and nut mini-trainings for leaders, camping/outdoor progression, financials and registration how to, recognitions forms and awards, how to create a troop website, swap workshop, conflict resolution and at the August 19th meeting Frances will do mini-training on how to do a flag ceremony!
• Recognitions – (chair) Nancy Amaya (members) Kristine Porto Madurski, Dolly DK, – Leader appreciation at meetings, nametags, mixers, meeting refreshments, volunteer dinner at the end of the year, Get list of committee members, troop leaders adult volunteers that assist, knowledge of recognition forms (where to get and how to fill out), recognition for those working on planning events and encampments.
• Teen Girl Scout Leadership Experience (chair) Consuelo Quintanar (members) Colleen Coleman, Beth Ann Coleman, Sherrie Jancasz, Michelle Echevarria – Training for Babysitting Certification (red cross? but cheaper) Adventure Zone @ gs Balboa, Travel – hostels cultural kitchen Point Loma/downtown, Girl speakers for destinations and other activities, celebrity speakers – motivation, cookout potluck, career days in the community, gold and silver award share/show/inspire, ice blocking, program aide training, journey’s workshop, wilderness hiking, cosmic bowling, backpacking, white water rafting, ice skating party, host hot chocolate & brownies for parade marchers, holiday sing- a-long, Teen Conference @ ODU,100 year camporee, ski trip, thinking day event for older girls-empowering women around the world, cluster encampment, backpacking- minarets of Mammoth, Earth Day event service/event for younger girls, silver award ceremony, long term goals – visit Our Cabana or Costa Rica or Girl Scout 100 year Camporee.
• Membership – Greta Kanegae, Annabel Bianes, Leslie Moore, Minerva Kellis, Dolly Purification, Ana Luisa – Distribute flyers to all our schools before roundups, Run 3 round ups July 29, August 25, November 16. Created a new form for new members to fill out at the round ups, Survey online for troops that have openings, Register troops, hold a recruitment event in the spring (maybe the Earth Day Fair), mini-training on online registration. gmails for each school..ie schoolname@gssunnytrails.com for info on troops at that school.
• Product Sales- (chair) Traci Emerick, (members) Stacy Becerra, Sandie Volpp, Greta Kanegae, – training, distribution, wrap up payments, incentive distribution, s.t.swap meet.
• Events/Activities – (chair) Frances Bordenave, (International Fair) Janet Castro (Starlight or Otay Ranch Holiday Parade) Robin (Sweetwater Summit “Outdoor Gourmet” Encampment) Debbie Lechner (Cluster Encampment Winacka) Consuelo (Father Daughter Valentines Dance) Teresa Gartiez, (members)  Sandie Volpp, Stacy Becerra, Traci Emerick, r – Daisy Events (Daisy Day etc.) First Aid, Workshops, Week long Summer Day camp, Mom and me Daisy/Brownie Encampment, Laser Tag, Cosmic Bowling, Beach Cleanup at Saltwater Creek, Songfest, Bridging, July 4th parade, veterans parade, Big Balloon Parade, Mother’s Day Tea, Carnival, Orange crate Derby, Girl Scout 5K

• Carpool to Leading the Way – meet at 8:30am on Saturday August 21st at Terra Nova behind Einstein’s bagels. Sign up on the gs council website, cost $25, wear “team Sunny Trails” t-shirts, bring posters, noise makers, silly hats. Lots of great information, opportunity to buy newest council resource materials, discount t-shirts, mugs etc. great break out sessions and much more!
• Training for the Girl Scout 5K – open to any adults or girls in Sunny trails! Meet by the Bonita Library Saturdays from now till Sept 26th at 8am to stretch and walk/run together and train at your own pace. Motivate each other! Enjoy talking while we get an hour walk in together! Invite your troop! Training program online at gs council website where you sign up to race. (You don’t need to be signed up to compete to come train with the group!)
• Songfest – back by popular demand. Sept 18, 5pm and 6:30pm at Mountain Hawk Park amphitheater, BYOHC (bring your own hot chocolate and blankets) come together to learn new songs and teach new scouts the old favorites! Take turns leading songs. No cost (maybe we’ll order a patch if you all want one). Fun and Comraderie!
• Sweetwater Summit “Ourdoor Gourmet” Daycamp and Sleepover – Campout at Sweetwater Summit in Bonita Oct 15-17. I’d like to have troops sign up for different outdoor cooking methods (like: box oven, stick cooking, grill, griddle, dutch oven, solar oven, solar panel, wheelbarrow cooking, tin can cookery, foil packets, ziplock bag, non-cooking) or some classic camp recipes (like: armpit fudge, smores, woofems, dump cake) or some cool outdoor kitchen tools (like: chuck box, handwashing station, dishwashing stations, model kitchen, whittle a toasting stick) and then choose a dish to cook and demonstrate during the afternoon on Saturday Oct 16^th. We would all get a chance to walk from campsite to campsite sampling little bites of whatever is cooking and to learn about the cooking method or interesting tools being used and in some cases getting to try making it ourselves. Maybe we’d hand out recipe cards at stations to make an outdoor cook book. More info at the August 12th meeting. $60 deposit for troop camping. Fees- Aprox. $15/person to camp, $5 fee for daycampers.
• Round up – July 29th, August 25th, November 16th – These are our 3 big recruitment events each year. This is when we give interested parents the opportunity to become leaders and help to find every girl a troop to belong to.  We need leaders who can talk about the leadership experience or what girl scouts has meant to their daughters, we need girls to talk about what they do in girl scouts, we need TOCs to represent our schools, we need people to help with sign ups and to help form troops and troops to entertain the girls while we talk to the parents.  We’d also like to know if you’ve got room for more girls in your troop and how many you’d be willing to take.  We need YOU!

***I’m trying to clean up my contact list. If you would like to be taken off my Sunny Trails email list please hit reply and write “remove” in the subject. If you prefer to use a different email address or there is a new leader taking over your troop please send the address for me to add and put “change” or “add” in the subject line. You will possibly receive this same email from Jessica from the shutterfly email list if that’s the only one you get please write to me at manager@gssunnytrails.com and give me your address with “add” in the subject line. I’d like to be able to contact everyone from this contact list eventually. We’ll get it straightened out, thanks for your patience.

Debbie Lechner, SunnyTrails Manager