To start planning your time with girls,
visit www.girlscouts.org/MyCalendar.
There, you’ll consider the following
questions and begin to map out your Girl
Scout year:
How many times each month will
you meet? When do you plan to
break for holidays?
How many weeks do you need to
allocate for the Girl Scout Cookie
Program?
Will you have time in your
schedule for guest speakers and
other visitors?
If you’ve worked with this group before, what are their preferences: badge work? field trips? other
activities? For specific ideas on how to incorporate badges, trips, and other Girl Scout traditions into a
Journey, check out the online Journey maps www.girlscouts.org/program/journeys/maps for the grade
level of the girls you’re partnering with.
If your group will be meeting for less than a year (such as at a resident camp or during a series), you’ll be able
to adjust the calendar to suit your needs. In the same way, if you’re planning a multi-year event (such as a
travel excursion), add one or two more years to the framework.
After you’ve drafted a loose framework, ask the girls what they think. Or, create the online calendar together!
Remember that you want girls to lead, but younger girls will need more guidance, while older girls will require
much less. Seniors and Ambassadors may not even want you to draft a calendar in advance, so if they balk at
what you’ve done, let them take the reins. (Journeys for older girls include planning pages specifically designed
to help them customize their Journey.) Daisies and Brownies, on the other hand, may enjoy your calendar and
just fill in a few ideas here and there, which will clue you in to their interests.
As your group starts its Journey, get a discussion (or debate!) going on the Journey’s theme and what it means
to the girls. Probe to find out what they’re most interested in accomplishing during their time together, and
then help them connect those interests to their Journey.
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