Cadette Girl Scout Troop 4715 Newsletter May 1, 2000

Things we’re remembering

May 7 Trip to Zoo Atlanta to work on the current Zoo Patch and prepare for our project – don't forget the permission slip. Sunday 1-6 PM

May 19 Our last regular meeting of the year!  Debbie Pompey, Junior Specialist from the Council Office, visits us to talk about redesigning the Zoo Patch or even creating an Our Council’s Own Panda Badge – bring your Silver Award Notebooks. Friday 7:30

May 20 or 27 Possible dates for our swap making day in May – please check your calendars so that you’ll know if one of these dates will work for you

ASAP Let Christina G., Stephanie, Nicole, or Afua know your summer plans so that this committee can find a date for a possible summer activity or fund raiser

Ongoing Committees

Katie, Diana, Evelyn, Aisha, Elizabeth, Nicole, Christina G., and Stephanie are exploring the possibility of selling a product, especially one that we can create or make ourselves (check out the website of a Senior troop that is doing this at www.geocities.com/heartland/5658/chalet2000.html)

Evelyn and Anne are researching Our Cabana. Help welcome!

Christina G. is researching Our Chalet. Help welcome!

Afua is researching Pax Lodge. Help welcome!

A couple of interesting things spotted in Connections

The Council Office publishes Connections, an information newsletter for troops that Mrs. Lott picks up at the Service Unit Meeting each month. Two items sounded like our girls:

(1) A lady named Cindy Mogil, who lives in Powder Springs, is writing a book for teens and has asked for short inspirational messages and advice from teens to teens. They should be about 150-175 words long. She will consider using your message as one of the daily inspirational affirmations in a book titled Please Listen! I Have Something to Say.

(2) There is an Antarctic expedition preparing right now. Two women are hoping to be the first women to cross the Antarctic alone – without even dogs! The Bancroft-Arensen Expedition will be tracked on the Girl Scout USA website (there’s a link to GSUSA from our webpage), and a patch project is planned for Girl Scouts who are interested in learning about the expedition. Right now you can read about it at www.yourexpedition.com.

Service Project Opportunities

Here are some opportunities for service, and for leadership hours if girls would like to take on the job of organizing our troop’s participation.

• Move a Mountain of Mulch: Simple, straightforward manual labor. We pick a date and arrange to spread mulch at the Abbotts Bridge Unit of the Chattahoochee River National Recreation Area, off Abbotts Bridge Road in Duluth. At the May 19^th meeting we’ll see who’d like to participate and whether a girl would like to organize the project.
• Suitcases for Kids: An Atlanta troop thought it was terrible that kids in foster care often have only garbage bags to carry their things in when they move from one foster home to another, so they decided to collect new and slightly used suitcases to give to these kids. They were successful last year, and are holding their second annual collection this year. They need troops to staff Lowe’s Home Improvement Stores to collect suitcases on June 20^th. At the May 19^th meeting we’ll see who’d like to participate and whether a girl would like to organize the project.
• Special Olympics: Memorial Day Weekend the Special Olympics will be happening at Emory University. Kevin at the Special Olympics office says that he’d love to have a bunch of Girl Scouts help out, and that he can use volunteers even if we don’t know how many and who until after our May 19 meeting. Trusty advisors Lott and Callaway have been talking with him, and you can check out the website at www.specialolympicsga.org. At the May 19^th meeting we’ll see who’ll be in town, who’d like to participate, and whether a girl would like to organize the project.
• Dress for Success Atlanta: Several people at St. Bede’s were interested to hear about our project last year when this group was called Working Wardrobe. Some contributions have been made that will need to be taken downtown. Perhaps other families would like to contribute new or slightly used women’s clothing (fresh from the drycleaner and still in the cleaner’s bag) that is appropriate for business offices. If you’d like to look, their website is www.dressforsuccessatlanta.org. At the May 19^th meeting we’ll see if a girl would like to organize this project.

Details for the Zoo Trip on May 7

At the Zoo we will work on the Northwest Georgia Council’s Zoo Patch in preparation for our meeting with a Council representative on May 19 to discuss redesigning the Zoo patch or creating an "Our Council’s Own" badge. The project that we choose will probably be our Silver Award project. Girls who intend to complete the Silver Award need to participate in all the steps toward it unless they intend to work on a separate Silver Award project on their own.

Rossie, Chandler, Jenny & Anne found out on April 1 that the Zoo trip was lots of fun, but we learned two things. If you get to the Zoo at 8:30 on Saturday morning and have even one Zoo member in your group, the whole troop gets in before the official opening time and can go straight to the pandas without any lines to wait in at all. When we left at 1:00 p.m. there were at least 500 people in a line that stretched up behind the Cyclorama. We were really glad not to have to stand in that line. May 7 is the date that we have picked because it’s the only possible one in all our incredible schedules. It’s a Sunday, and we have planned to leave from St. Bede’s at 1:00 p.m., arriving at the Zoo at about 1:30 p.m. Pat has called the Zoo twelve times and still not had an answer to the question of how long we might have to wait if we use the Members’ Express gate. If the weather is bad, we will have our ponchos and do just fine, but if it’s a lovely sunny day, we may do a lot of standing around waiting to get inside the Zoo gates and to get in to the Panda Exhibit.

If we’re inside the gates by 2:00 p.m. we’ll have time to complete the Zoo patch materials before the Zoo closes at 5 p.m. The Zoo librarian has agreed to try to find us a docent and to allow us to use the Zoo library. With luck we may be able to do it, but girls must be prepared to stand in line. We probably will not have time for any shopping.

Things to bring on May 7:

• Clipboard or other portable writing surface
• Pencil or pen
• Poncho if rain is threatening
• Hands-free water bottle or money to buy expensive drinks or snacks
• Comfortable walking shoes with socks, please
• Something to read while standing in line

Please eat lunch before we leave or bring it to eat in the car on the way.

We will leave from the upper parking lot of St. Bede’s at 1:00 p.m. Girls should already have eaten lunch or should bring along lunch to eat in the car. We will not have time to eat at the Zoo. We expect to return to St. Bede’s no later than 6:00 p.m. and will notify our contact parent in case of any change in plans. Our contact parent will be Janet Kennedy.

Website Reminder

Don't forget that all the troop newsletters are on our troop website (http://www.3leaves.org/4715) so you can easily refer back to them.  The latest news is always under the "Breaking News" icon at the very top of our home page.  Also, all schedule updates are posted on the website's monthly planning calendars and on the Calendar Details page. 

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