COUNCIL COMMUNITY EVENTS

FEBRUARY 5th Edition
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ONGOING: STATE OF MISSISSIPPI VETERANS HOME
Service Project Opportunity with The State of Mississippi Veterans Home at 120 Veterans Drive in Oxford, MS is looking for troops or groups who are willing to volunteer at the home.

Volunteers can assist with various recreational activities – reading to those whose eyesight is failing them, delivering mail, walking with them inside or outside, pushing their wheelchairs for a short stroll inside or outside, giving them snacks, playing checkers or cards, writing letters for them, playing or singing music for them or just simply conversing with them.

If your troop is interested in volunteering at the home, contact Janie Lunceford, Recreation Director at 662-236-7641, ext. 24.

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MARCH 9: HARLEM GLOBETROTTERS

Scouts can save up to $12 per tickets to see the Harlem Globetrotter's 2010 World Tour at Tupelo's Bancorp South Arena on Tuesday, March 9 @ 7 p.m.

CLICK HERE for order form.

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MARCH 9: PROJECT BASED INQUIRY SCIENCE PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT

Please join us at the Memphis Zoo on Tuesday, March 9^th from 9:00 – 3:00 for a free professional development workshop with Dr. Mary Starr, leading author, on the concept of Project-Based Inquiry Science. This professional development workshop is guaranteed to provide educators with techniques on how to promote student learning. It is designed to facilitate hands-on experience and share strategies on how to teach students to investigate, gather evidence, and form explanations to real world problems. Dr. Starr is a Research Specialist in Science Education at the University of Michigan. She has developed instructional materials in several STEM areas, including nanoscale science education.

The workshop is sponsored by “It’s About Time” a division of Herff Jones Education (publishers for the National Science Foundation (NSF) which specializes in Inquiry-based approach pedagogy). Come prepared for a great exchange and commardre. To reserve your space, call the Memphis Zoo Education Department information line at 901-333-6600 by 3:00pm, Thursday, March 4, 2010.

A professional development certificate for 5.0 hours will be provided to each participant at the end of the workshop.

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PLAN AHEAD
MARCH 20 & 21: DAYTONA 500 EXPERIENCE GIRL SCOUT SLEEPOVER
Spend the night at one of NASCAR's premiere attractions, the Daytona 500 Experience!

This program will accomplish the mission set forth in Girl Scouting by focusing on the following Outcomes of the New Girl Scout Leadership Experience: Discover: 1,4 & 5 Connect: 2,3 & 4 and Take Action: 2,3 & 5

CLICK HERE for more information.

Girl Scout Day at the Nature Station

Attention Girl Scout Leaders!

The Nature Station in Land Between The Lakes is happy to announce the return of Girl Scout Day at the Nature Station, which will be held on Saturday, March 27, 2010 from 10am to 3pm. All activities will be ongoing throughout the day, so you can arrive any time between 10am and 3pm. We hope to see you and your girl scouts there! The Nature Station is located in Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area in Cadiz, KY.

Girl Scout Day is a day of programs and activities devoted to Girl Scouting! Girl Scouts of all ages will be able to work toward their various badges and accomplishments. Brownies will work toward their Eco-Explorer and Animal Try-Its, Juniors on their Wildlife and Earth Connections Badges, and Seniors/Cadettes/S2B on their All About Birds and and Wildlife IPs.

Activities will include live animal programs, a scavenger hunt, using binoculars to identify birds, and more. Scouts will learn about topics such as food chains, backyard birds, animal adaptations, and more. Plus, they will enjoy viewing all of the live animals on exhibit at the Nature Station, such as a bobcat, endangered red wolves, owls, and snakes. A complete schedule of the day will be available in early March.

You do not need to pre-register. Admission is $4.00 for adults and $2.00 for kids.

Contact Aviva Yasgur, School & Group Programs Coordinator, Woodlands Nature Station,
Land Between The Lakes National Recreation Area at 270-924-2299 if you would like more information about this event, or if you have any questions about the program.

It’s Your Journey-Customize It!

There are all kinds of fun activities for girls to do in Girl Scouting, like earning badges, going camping, taking trips, selling cookies, enjoying traditions and aiming for their Bronze, Silver or Gold Awards. What ties all these different activities together? The Leadership Journeys, Girl Scouting’s core national program!

Research tells us that girls and their parents think it’s important for girls to have a national experience – something they have in common with all other Girl Scouts. That’s what Journeys offer. However, each girl’s Journey can be customized to fit her own interests and to take advantage of local resources. An online resource has been developed to give you a few ideas to get you started – online Journey maps for each grade level.

You will find that this page has links that lead to interactive Journey maps for each grade level that show you how to tie Girl Scout activities into journeys, descriptions of what’s inside each journey, and the awards girls can earn. The journey maps also include information about the adult guide for each grade level, Bronze, Silver and Gold award.

Once you’ve explored the journey maps, start thinking about ways you could tie activities into journeys. Share the maps with girls and get their ideas, too. Have fun! After all, it’s your journey – customize it!

Teens Susceptible to Coerced Reproduction

Experts are studying a phenomenon that brings a whole new meaning to the term 'unwanted pregnancy.'

By Sarah Kliff | Newsweek Web Exclusive

Jan 26, 2010

About a decade ago, Elizabeth Miller remembers seeing a certain teenage girl at a hospital clinic for adolescents in Boston. The patient thought she might be pregnant and asked for a test. When it came out negative, Miller started asking the standard questions, inquiring as to whether her patient wanted to be pregnant (she didn't) and whether she was using contraceptives (she wasn't). So Miller explained all of the birth-control options and, as she describes it, "sent her on her merry way with a brown bag of condoms." It was, by most measures, a pretty routine appointment.

Except that, two weeks later, the same patient was back at the hospital, in the emergency room after her partner pushed her down the stairs. "That was the wake-up call where I started thinking there might be a relationship between the two situations," says Miller, now an assistant professor of pediatrics at University of California, Davis. "She was coming in for a pregnancy test, not wanting to be pregnant, and not wanting to use birth control. And now I'm wondering what's going on for her, knowing she was in a physically and sexually violent relationship. I started wondering whether I needed to be asking her about why [she isn't using birth control] at that visit."

This month, Miller published a study in the journal Contraception detailing "reproductive coercion," when the male partner pressures the other, through verbal threats, physical aggression, or birth-control sabotage, to become pregnant. According to Miller's research, about a third of women reporting partner violence experienced reproductive coercion, as did 15 percent of women who had never reported violence.

Continue reading HERE.

GSUSA in The Wall Street Journal

Great news! An article about reorganizations taking place in nonprofits is on the front page of February 1st edition of The Wall Street Journal (WSJ) and it mentions Girl Scouts.

The article, headlined “Once-Robust Charity Sector Hit with Mergers, Closings,” notes that GSUSA “is touting the efficiencies it gained after five Indiana councils merged in 2007. After the merger, the councils had enough money to hire a fund-raising department—something they couldn't afford individually. As a result, donations increased 25% by 2008. Participation in the scouts' technology workshop, hosted by Purdue University in West Lafayette, Ind., expanded to 44,000 girls, up from the 4,000 who were eligible for the original program. By combining administrative functions, property management and audits, the organization is saving about $1 million a year. ‘Five councils need five executive directors and five fax machines, meaning that money is not going to programs,’ says Ms. Aviv of Independent Sector.”

This story was made possible by the joint efforts of Deana Potterf, Communications Director at the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, and GSUSA Communications department. For the story, the WSJ reporter interviewed Deborah Hearn Smith, CEO at the Girl Scouts of Central Indiana, former GSUSA Vice President Cathy Tisdale, Deana Potterf, and GSUSA Media Relations Manager Michelle Tompkins.

Haiti Awareness Project

Girl Scouts Heart of the South's AmeriCorps volunteers will be coordinating a project to collect supplies for the Haiti earthquake victims. They are tying the Haiti Awareness Project with the February 22nd "World Thinking Day".

The theme for this year’s Thinking Day is “together we can end extreme poverty and hunger,” and this project is a great lesson for girls on how they can really help those who have extreme poverty and hunger.

The items we are asking for are:

• Toothbrushesb & toothpaste
  
• Coloring books & crayons
  
• Stuffed animals
• Tents
• Blankets
• Water bottles (collapsible preferred)
  
• Soap
• Washcloths
  
• Band-aids
  
• Gauze pads
  
• Triple antibiotic ointment
• First-aid wrappings.

Please seal all containers and label contents and include your 5-digit troop # and area and take these items to your local Girl Scout Regional Service Center.

If you have any questions, please contact Laura Johnson, 800.727.8104 / laura.johnson@girlscoutshs.org or Rachel Hoyt, 731.668.1122 / rachel.hoy@girlscoutshs.org

Girl Scouts Celebrates Black History Month 2010

"…in diversity there is beauty and there is strength." —Maya Angelou

Black History Month is an annual observance of the profound achievements of African Americans towards making the promise of equality a fact in the lives of every citizen. Throughout February, Girl Scouts joins the rest of the nation in celebrating the perseverance of the men and women who fought for the justice and equal treatment owed them as U.S. citizens.

In 1912, when our founder, Juliette Gordon Low, declared Girl Scouts "something for the girls of America and all the world," she meant it. And though extreme adversity and oppression would be the rule of law for many years to come, "something for everyone" has been at the heart of Girl Scouting from day one.

Looking back, our first troop for African American girls was formed in 1917, 47 years before the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was passed, and by the 1950s, GSUSA began a national effort to desegregate all Girl Scout troops. Not long after, in 1956, Martin Luther King Jr. described Girl Scouts as "a force for desegregation."

In more recent times, GSUSA has partnered with historically black colleges and universities, companies, and organizations including Wilberforce University, Clark Atlanta University, Essence magazine, the National Urban League, the United Negro College Fund, Alpha Phi Alpha Fraternity, and 100 Black Men of America, Inc., to make Girl Scouts a part of the African American community. These partnerships have made our Movement richer with the addition of a multitude of new volunteers and scores of new Girl Scouts.

Today, close to 300,000 African American girls embrace the values and promise of Girl Scouting, enhancing the beauty and strength of our organization along the way.

Read more HERE.