Basic Meeting Plans are designed to have minimal supplies and still hit the GSUSA Requirements. Most meetings can be done in a 90 minute time frame.
Meeting before Prep
At the meeting before this one…
Give each scout a Brown Paper Bag with their name on it at the end of the meeting to take home. Instruct them to put something inside it that they could show their Sister Girl Scouts to help the troop get to know each other better. Remind them it needs to fit inside the bag and the bag should be closed and not opened until the leader tells them to. Keep it secret for the mystery show and tell activity!
(Troops with a larger budget may want to buy the What’s in the Bag Printouts for the brown paper bag show and tell.)
Items needed:
- Printout of Manners Match for each scout.
- Each scout should bring one object that is small enough to fit inside a Brown Paper Bag that tells others about themselves. Objects should be inside the closed paper bag until it is their turn in the Show and Tell activity.
- (Optional) Printout of Princess Pat Lyrics (tune and actions in Princess Pat video).
- (Optional for Leave No Trace Fun Activity) Printouts for Durable Surface Walk – one set of 16 cards for each group of 3-4 scouts.
Manners Match
Info Needed: Good Manners is good practice for being considerate and caring no matter where you are. But using good manners should start in your own home.
Action Needed: As a group, match the correct responses to the questions on the Manners Match pages.
(Requirement 1 Earned)
Listening Show and Tell
Info Needed: Another way to be considerate and caring is to be a good listener. When you listen, you show you care about what people are saying. Do this by giving your full attention to whoever is talking. There should be no interrupting and when it’s your turn to ask questions, ask one about what they talked about.
Action Needed: Practice listening by doing a show and tell. All scouts should have a Brown Paper Bag, closed, with an object inside. They each take turns standing before the group and describing their object without opening the paper bag. All other scouts guess what it is. After the object is shown, it needs to return to their bag and closed up again so it doesn’t distract with the next show and tell object.
Follow Up Needed: After the activity, ask why listening was so important? What it difficult to listen?
(Requirement 2 Earned)
Movement Break (Optional)
Fun Activity: Learn the first part of the Princess Pat camp song. It’s a repeat and answer song. Listen for what to repeat and follow the actions for the song.
Leave No Trace
Information Needed: When we go to camp, it’s also important to be considerate and caring to the wildlife who life there and the plants and environment they life in.
Action Needed: Go over the 7 principles of Leave No Trace using the printout.
Fun Activity (Optional): Play Durable Surface Walk
(Requirement 3 Earned)
Meeting End
Scouts can continue to play Durable Surface Walk until it’s time to go home.
General Notes
Note to Leaders – No Basic Plan compiled by The Badge Archive will earn multiple badges in one level. Part of being budget friendly is not costing more than the price of one official GSUSA badge per meeting.
Some badges will take two meetings to finish. This helps scouts enjoy activities and keeps the troop budget in mind by only needing one GSUSA badge for every two meetings. Troops may choose to get a fun patch for one of the meetings if scouts want a badge/patch for every meeting. Scouts can earn the fun patch if they only attend one meeting and get a fun patch and the official badge if they go to both.
The Badge Archive 