Trunk or Treat 2014

I just realized that I never posted the photos from our award-winning trunk at the Cucinella Trunk or Treat!

Colorfest 2014

Colorfest was a little anti-climactic with the bad weather and the age restrictions on some of the activities, but the girls rallied and managed to have a good time anyway!

Shop and support GSNNJ

With the holidays quickly approaching, I'm sure we will all be doing some online shopping within the next few months.  Why not support GSNNJ while you shop?  Become a member of Buy4.com, click on "Shop", and select Girl Scouts of Northern New Jersey as your cause!

2014 Nobel Peace Prize goes to...a 17 year old girl!

The Norwegian Nobel Committee has announced the recipients of the 2014 Nobel Peace Prize and the winners are Kailash Satyarthi and Malala Yousafzay for their work on children's rights.  Malala Yousafzay, a Pakistani girl who was shot in the head by the Taliban two years ago because of her outspoken advocacy for girls' right to education is now the youngest Nobel Laureate ever.  If you haven't seen her speech to the UN Youth Assembly, it is worth a watch:



For more information on this amazing young woman, I highly recommend her autobiography called I Am Malala: The Girl Who Stood Up for Education and Was Shot by the Taliban.

It is especially fitting that Malala receives this honor today, since tomorrow is the third annual UN International Day of the Girl.  This year's theme is "Empowering Adolescent Girls: Ending the Cycle of Violence".

The mission of Girl Scouts is to build girls of courage, confidence, and character, who make the world a better place.  Malala Yousafzay is an amazing example of what a girl can do!

Community collections

The following troops are collecting items for various service projects.  If you have something to contribute please let me know and I will put you in touch with the appropriate person.

Troop 95027 - Donations for Eleventh Hour Rescue (due 11/5)
Troop 95642 - Halloween costumes for Homeless Solutions/Market Street Mission (due 10/15)
Clare Webster is collecting used sports equipment for her Gold Award Project (due 10/14)

The Food Pantry is always in need of donations.  They especially need individually packaged snacks for lunches, hot cereals, pancake mix, syrup, muffin mix, basic baking/cooking ingredients and cleaning supplies.

Meeting Notes 10/2/14

It took the better part of this meeting to wrap up old business from the last meeting!

After much deliberation, we decided on a Troop Crest: the waterfall.

A waterfall is always in motion - but it always looks the same!  Choosing the waterfall shows you want to stay true to what you believe even though the world is always changing.

We went through the workshop options for the year and decided that as a group, we would like to do Gingerbread Wonderland, Happy Trails, London Bridge, Nighttime Exploration, Passport to Paris, Pen, Ink and Paintings, Rhythmic Gymnastics, Splish Splash, and the Wonderful World of Disney Workshop.

With the time left, we introduced this year's World of Girls journey.  We read the book Girls Hold Up This World by Jada Pinkett-Smith.  This is one of my all-time favorites, it was given to me as a gift when Bess was born and I practically know it by heart!

Then we played two games from around the world.  The first one, Cencino Mollo, is an Italian game where the object is for the girl who is "It" to make one of the other girls laugh.  If she does, then the laugher has to pay a penalty (in this case, five jumping jacks) and she becomes It.  As you can imagine, some of the girls did not hold out very long, but others were pretty tough!

Our other game was from Zambia and Zaire, called Banyoka.  The girls were split up into two teams and each team became a "snake" that had to navigate an obstacle course.  This one also produced lots of laughs!!!