Leading the Way

A group of about 15 of us went up to Leading the Way on Saturday. It was a terrific event! Great speakers, terrific workshops and lots of resources and networking opportunities. We all agreed that we’d like to share some of the things we learned with you and we’ll try to do that a little at each service unit meeting. We also met presenters who are willing to bring programs down to our service unit, like a new robotics program at council, cookie program ideas and wilderness exploration, and we’re working on that!

I attended a workshop called Uniquely Me about self esteem and it had interesting photos of models before and after photoshopping, they also shared a link to a video showing the magic behind the photo shoots for magazine layouts called Fabicating Beauty

all part of how the media manipulates girls (and women) into feeling like they’ll never measure up. There’s lots of information about bringing the program to your troop at: http://www.girlscouts.org/program/program_opportunities/leadership/uniquelyme.asp Dove has given Girl Scouts a grant to use toward the program and helped to develop the Self Esteem Journey Programs that are coming out in December.

Several of us attended another workshop on Girl Wars – Strategies that will end female bullying. The presenter was a therapist who works with teens. She had insight into all the ways girls hurt each other like: starting rumors, creating cliques, excluding another girl, eye rolling, manipulative affection, cyber bullying and forwarding hurtful texts and practical tips about how to make your troop a bully free zone. Consuelo and I talked to her about doing a series for Sunnytrails in the spring. Dr. Divya Kakaiya, the presenter, also had great suggestions for books you have to read if you work with girls!

  • Girls on The Edge by Leonard Max
  • Reviving Ophelia by Mary Pipher
  • 12 Strategies That will end Female Bullying by Cheryl Dellasega Ph.D and Charisse Nixon Ph.D
  • The Bully, The Bullied and the Bystander by Barbara Coloroso
  • Mean Girls Grow up: Adult Women Who are Still Queen Bees, Middle Bees and Afraid to Bees by Cheryl Dellasega
  • Mean Girls, Meaner Women: Understanding Why Women Backstab, Betray and Trash Talk Each Other and How to Heal by Dr. Erika Holiday

Sherrie and Jessica took a craft workshop called Just Junk?? and have some really great ideas for gifts and dolls and booklets to make and bows that cost next to nothing. Keep a look out for upcoming Craft Workshops for leaders in the fall and a Craft Showcase at our November service unit meeting.

Others went to a workshop on What to do instead of Screaming! that had great game ideas we’ll try to share some of those with you at the upcoming service unit meetings. Lynn learned about encampments, maybe we’ll do a leader swap exchange and display at our February service unit meeting to give you ideas for Spring encampments, Nancy learned some of the history of scouting and storytelling in Once Upon a Time workshop. Mark got some terrific ideas for service projects in a workshop called Be the Difference, he promises to share some of those ideas and we’ll ask you to share tri-folds of what you’ve done for service to the community at our April service unit meeting. You can see that we really got fired up at Leading the Way! We all agreed that we should encourage more Sunnytrails leaders to come with us next year!

For more information about the workshops that were held and to download some of the program materials check back with the Leading the Way info page on the council website:

http://www.sdgirlscouts.org/program/leading-the-way.php