Make your Survival Kit
Posted June 3, 2012
on:Several of our girls and a couple adult went to learn Survival Skills at camp last weekend. Whenever you go out in the wilderness, go letterboxing or geocaching, or go hiking or camping you should really have your survival kit with you. You might even choose to store this kit or a similar one in your car, just in case.
These are the bare minimum items for your survival kit:
knife at your hip and pocket knife emergency blanket and/or black plastic bag whistle and signal mirror steel mug 6-100 foot length of paracord, consider paracord bracelet water proof wooden matches (keep dry in old prescription bottle) cotton dipped in petroleum jelly (keep dry in old prescription bottle) old candle, like a broken taper large umbrella may be even more practical than rain gear hat and or extra bandana first aid at a minimum antibiotic ointment or melaleuca oil food – hard candy/mint, not peanuts dental floss (can make cordage) duct tape 6-10foot wrapped on itself for smaller size caribeener with tiny flashlight name card with your emergency contact info
STOP means Stop Think Observe Plan
You can always have your Positive Mental Attitude with you even if you forget your survival kit. You can live 3 minutes without air 3 hours without shelter 3 days without water 3 weeks without food
so the SACRED ORDER is 1. Shelter 2. Water 3. Fire 4. Food
We learned how to make a shelter from a garbage bag and from debris. We learned how to be found. We learned how to filter and purify water, but primarily we learned that if you need to drink unpurified water, you’ll have two weeks to get to the hospital to get antibiotics you’ll need from drinking unpurified water. Just focus on living long enough to be found. You can use your hip knife to make a bow drill, spindle, hand hold, and base plate to start a fire. The key here is PRACTICE. Practice with your knife; practice with your bow drill until you can actually make fire. Lastly, is food. We’ll have to go back to Survival Camp 2 to learn to fish and to learn about berries and plants, but all six legged insects are edible.
If you make your Survival Kit and bring it to a meeting to show us, we’ll get you a Survival Kit patch!
Celebrating Juliet Gordon Low
Posted August 18, 2011
on:Nick Jr celebrates Juliette Gordon Low
Possible Bronze Project
Posted August 2, 2011
on:Sarah thought these were super cute and thought of a neat way to turn this into a Bronze Award project.
http://www.instructables.com/id/FASTEST-RECYCLED-T-SHIRT-TOTE-BAG/
Her idea was to see if our church’s clothing give away ministry would like to give the Creekside Girl Scouts some old t-shirts that we could use to make tote bags. Then we could give the tote bags to the food pantry for people to use when they visit the food pantry to take home their food. Whaddya think??
Tent Air Conditioning
Posted July 16, 2011
on:To my Scouting friends:
My friend Christina Clarke bought an AC for her tent since she has to go to BSA Summer Camp and camp every month with the boy scouts. I looked it up and it seems to consist of a large battery – like from a UPS, or small car battery, a horizontal fan and a cooler of ice. Block ice would likely work better but bagged ice worked for us.
I recently had to sleep out in a tent at Camp Kinship and Brian performed an experiment. Here are the methods and the results. We used a large shallow cooler – like 25 quart – full of bagged ice. We put the lunch tray on top of the cooler with the lid open – any mesh shelf, like a window screen or plastic craft grid would work. On the grid we placed a small battery opperated fan blowing up. On
the edge of the top of the cooler we set an 8-inch battery opperated fan facing forward. The two fans blew the air from the ice up and out of the cooler with the lid open. Brian used duct tape and cardboard to try to keep the air only coming out of the cooler where the fan was blowing – like an AC vent. I think it would still feel good without this.
We set this cooler in the “closet” area at the back of my 6 man tent and put the rain fly on the tent. It worked!! Within 30 minutes the tent felt significantly cooler than the air outside. There was at least a 15 to 25 degree difference. It even felt like chilled air coming out of the fridge.
What didn’t work is at 1230am a 35+mph wind blew up in the 80+ degree heat and added too much outside air to our tent for the AC contraption to continue to work. Also we need something more sturdy to support the fans as the duct tape got cold and let go of the fan, knocking both fans into the ice water. We saved the fans by pulling them out and just letting them blow all night next to the cooler of ice on the ground. The ice in the cooler didn’t continue to cool the tent without the fans though. Try this and make your own improvements and add your comments!
- In: Membership
- 1 Comment
For girls who stay in Girl Scouts for five or more years:
-90% do not feel pressured to drink alcohol
– 96% avoid drugs
– 98% will not experience a teen pregnancy
– Only 1% of Girl Scouts will ever go before a juvenile court
Troop Leadership
Posted November 29, 2010
on:I wrote this to help other troop leaders find helpers with leadership for your troops and because some of you are trying multi-level troops for the first time. Sometimes you don’t know what question to ask to get advice, so I expect this will get you started and you might want to write me a question after you read it.
Subject: Assigning Responsibilities
Here are the helpers that I have and I will NOT do a big multi-level troop without these helpers!
HTH you as you customize your own troops. Key word is to CUSTOMIZE the troop leadership for your troop each year.
I am listed as 01 Troop Leader and I do the website, email parents, and dream and research all the plans. (I’m willing to share our plans with you to make your job of planning for your troop easier if it can help you.)
I coordinate all the events unless I get someone to volunteer, which is a few times a year based on their interest. Right now, I have a parade coordiantor and an international day coordinator for our troop, so I don’t have to do those events. I’m also inches away from assigning a “camp-in” coordinator – if she only had camp training. And I had someone else plan the events at the “Family Camp-out” and “Bridging Picnic” that our troop does. I coordinated those events but not the content of the event.
Monette is 02 but is our Daisy Ldr.
She has 1 of three available moms stay at her Daisy mtgs 1xmonth as a warm body – sometimes this mom is registered sometimes not… Monette is trained leader but her helper is not.
Jenna is 02 for Brownie co-Ldr.
She is getting training and I also am at Brownie mtgs and she has health issues (asthma) so she’s not at every meeting so she’s CO-ldr instead of Ldr. But she also is coordinating the International Day booth and the meetings where we prepare for it.
Kay is 02 for troop but is Junior Ldr. She has an unregistered mom who stays at mtg as second warm body. Kay is trained her asst is not.
Monette, Kay and I lead all the program level meetings when we meet separately. All FOUR of us HELP at meetings that *I* plan for when we meet together. 1st Tuesday all 30 girls meet together for GS theme meetings – J-L Bday, Investiture, International Day, GS Bday, Cookies, etc. On the 3rd Tues we meet separately as D-Br-Jr as described above. We have girls grades K to 4th.
My most beloved assistant is listed as 03 and is our Treasurer and Cookie Mom!! She was an auditor before kids and invoices all families for dues and events. She has software for invoicing where she tracks the troop checking account, income and expense categories, and girls invoicing. She can print an invoice (PDF or paper) for each girl/family showing what they paid and what they owe for whole year. Scary! It might say, “You owe $6 for the March badgeworkshop, and you’ve paid $93 so far for dues and this short list of events you’ve attended.” It adds up fast! She also tracks who is signed up for which booth and sends reminder emails once a week during cookie season. And she tracks who gets #boxes for cookie sales. This will be a big job as last year 11 girls sold 3,000 boxes and this year with 30 girls, I expect to sell 8,000 boxes!!
I also have parents helping with events. I send emails out saying… RSVP for this Service Unit event or this Troop field trip. Girls $8, Adults free. The adults who want to go RSVP as adult and they become the Safety-Wise adults for that event! (and the driver!) When we have enough S-W adults, then *I* don’t have to go to the event!
I am the only one who has CPR trng, camping training, primitive camp training, Bronze and Silver training, plus all program level training Daisy, Brownie, Junior, and Cadette. Since no one else would take CPR, I had the troop pay for it the SECOND time (in our third year of being a troop).
The EASIEST way to get help with a meeting or event is to SPECIFICALLY ASK. “Anne, can you come to meeting Tuesday to help the girls with the beading craft?” “Shirley, how many girls can you drive to the workshop on Saturday?” I often use text messages for these requests, and sometimes they say no and I have to ask someone else.
I hope this help you as you lead your troops.
Girl Scouts Rocks!
Jean Butts
Creekside Girl Scout Leader Troops 3763 & 3310
Service Unit 403 Placement Specialist
Brazil in November
Posted October 7, 2010
on:- In: Brownies | Daisies
- 2 Comments