Submitted by Staci Jansma
When I first became a leader I was so overwhelmed with these events, get this training done, thoughts of how was this going to work, how can you start a brand new Girl Scout troop!?!
Where Do You Start and What is a Daisy Day Event?
I’m sure you have felt that way too, but one thing I learned; is to ask for help, ask questions, and get support from other leaders. This was definitely the way our own Daisy Day event came to be. I first asked what Daisy Days was at our Leadership Conference Meeting we had during the fall of my first year as a Girl Scout leader. At this point my Girl Scout troop did not even have their first meeting yet and I was still trying to figure out what we would do our first year. I went through the required online trainings, I read as much information as I could find on my local council website and even stumbled upon these fun patches with one focused on Daisy Days. That patch I knew we had to earn – I mean we are Daisies and that seems very fitting. But how? I didn’t find any requirements – asked a few leaders I have met within the past few months and they had no idea. So I thought to myself how can they have a patch but no event? That doesn’t make sense at all.
My Service Unit Director and Council support was helping me to get an answer – soon we found out another Service Unit had a Girl Scout Daisy Day event every year. Okay – now we are somewhere – that’s awesome. But as soon as we found out that they hosted their own Daisy Day event; they also mentioned it was not available or open for others to register because the event is always full. She was willing to give us their structure of how they have been hosting their Daisy Day event so we could create our own. You can view her sample Daisy Day event (and helpful notes/tips) here.
So after reviewing her sample Daisy Day event, I asked other Daisy troops – are you interested? Should we have our own Daisy Day? Everyone was all in.
The Planning Begins
Matter of fact, they mentioned – let’s meet and start working on a schedule and see what help and support we can get within the community. We met at a local restaurant, after we all ate supper together, we got down to business and started to look through our main focus for Daisy Days – one of the journey’s: 5 Flowers, 4 Friends, 3 Cheers for Animals.
We decided to focus on this journey because of the request with my troop’s pen pal group – they needed to complete this journey before May because they were bridging to Brownies. If they could complete this – then they would all earn the Daisy Summit pin. This pin can be earned once all 3 journeys are completed. And that sounded like a great goal for everyone – soon we found out 3 troops were planning on attending – they have all started or were currently working on this journey too. So a complete win-win!
Next we figured out what was needed for the requirements, to the left is a snapshot taken from the journey book.
Creating a Daisy Day’s Event Schedule
Then we worked on our own schedule for Daisy Days and I did alter the Daisy Days Schedule so it’s general and ready for everyone to utilize and fill in their special guest speakers, events, swaps, etc.
Within the schedule, you can see what we focused on to ensure that our event met all the requirements for the girls. Then we focused on keeping it hands on and fun.
We also had a vision for 3 guest speakers and reached out and asked the community to help. We did not get a response that we liked, as only 1 speaker was available to come on that day, but we didn’t stop at that. We kindly agreed to accept their help to be our featured speaker of the day and we let them kick off the event for us.
So, we kept moving forward and the schedule came together nicely with shifting things around. The other troop leaders were so helpful as well. They offered ideas, provided support and when Daisy Days came – it was such a successful event. Really glad we were able to put it on for about 53 girls in attendance. And to make registration super easy for you – including the Daisy Days Registration Form I created – I also removed all personal information so it is general and ready for you to fill in the blank. Publisher (you can edit) and PDF versions are available.
Crafts for the Event
And this is where MakingFriends came into my troop’s life, I was searching online, eBay and pinterest for neat SWAPs that we could incorporate into the Daisy Days event. And I knew I could get massive quantities from Makingfriends of everything that was needed – and I’m always all for that – if I can order it online and have it delivered to my doorstep then let’s get shopping! Saves me time & miles/fuel with my vehicle and of course, some money!
Another great option from Makingfriends.com is the complete Daisy Animal Journey Badge In A Bag® there are a number of hand on activities and crafts for each girl to complete.
Recruiting Extra Help for Event
We had an abundance of parent involvement, as we strongly recommended parents should attend to help whenever it was needed. Another thing that helped our daisy days event to be sooo successful was our PAs. If you are a new leader you may not even know what that is – I can tell you when I was getting PAs to come to Daisy Days and help me I had no idea – but I wasn’t going to say no to other girl scouts attending and helping me.
Here is what a PA in girl scout terms is:
Program Aide (PA)
A girl who works directly with a troop/group under the supervision of an adult volunteer. The Program Aide is required to attend training sessions where she gains expertise in a particular field of interest, such as science, computers, or song leading.
A PA is really, really amazing. Little did I know that they just finished up the outside/camp experience PA training and had songs and fun games that could be played with the Daisies. Really? Wow – you have no idea how awesome that is. They filled in the empty time gaps that I didn’t even know we would have. I mean – if you look at the schedule you’d think it was completely planned out –but keep in mind most of us leaders were new – we didn’t really know how long things would go – so the heros that day for us – were our PAs and they knew it! I thanked them so much for their help and support – and look to have them helping us again at our Daisy Days 2014 event. Our future goal is to create Brownie Days as well. My girls can’t wait to be Brownies – because then they know they can eat Brownies – I know they are being silly but it’s a cute inside joke!
Helpful Resources:
My name is Staci Jansma. I am currently a Daisy Troop Leader and School Organizer. This is my second year as a leader for 2013-2014, and I have learned a lot within the past 12 months and I’d like to share that with you. My daughter is the main reason for my passion into Girl Scouts, plus I was a Daisy-Brownie when I was a little girl and my mom was my leader too. If there is a topic you are dying to know more about, drop me a comment and let me know. If I have some input on it, I will definitely share what I know. Here’s to a great Girl Scout year for everyone!
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