Girl Scout Daisy to Brownie Bridging Ceremony

Tonight was the last meeting for my Daisy Girl Scout troop!  Tonight the girls (and myself and my co-leader) all bridged from Daisy Scouts to Brownie Scouts!  It's been a great year and it was wonderful to celebrate with the girls and their families.  I told my co-leader the other day that all year I find that I stress and worry getting ready for every meeting, trying to get loose ends tied up, make sure everyone knows about the meeting, what they need to bring, what I need to bring...  And then I get there and the girls are so much fun and things happen the way the happen -- either smoothly or not, but we always have fun and enjoy ourselves, and I always leave feeling so thankful that I have had this opportunity to share Girl Scouting with my daughters and their friends.  I highly recommend it, if you have the chance -- go for it!  Even if you aren't up for being a leader, leaders always love to have parent helpers and your daughter will love to have you help out her troop!  I've been particularly blessed this year with a wonderful co-leader, some really helpful parents, a great troop of girls, and also my 12-year-old daughter who helps at my troop meetings.  What a truly lovely thing for my two girls and I to get to do together!

For our bridging ceremony, I typed up the "inside" of an invitation on the computer and then printed copies out for the girls to decorate the outside covers.  They took these home to invite their families to our big ceremony.  We worked on learning two songs to sing to the parents -- "Amazing Daisies" an adorable little song we found on iTunes -- and "Make New Friends" a Girl Scout classic that I remember from when I was a Girl Scout (about 100 years ago...).  My little one made up a few hand movements to go along with "Make New Friends" so she taught them to the rest of the troop and they performed this little dance while singing.

We were able to borrow an actual little bridge for the girls to walk over to symbolize their journey from Daisies to Brownies.  We read a story -- another Girl Scout classic -- "The Brownie Story" and we had the girls cross the bridge and peek over to see their reflection in the "pond" (full-length mirror on the floor).  We handed them each a bag with an adorable certificate that we found on Etsy.com, the badges they earned this year, and a sweet dvd that my 12-year-old made on Windows Movie Maker.  It starts with a video clip of the girls singing "Amazing Daisies" (so cute!!) then there are still pictures from throughout the year and video clips of the girls individually telling what Girl Scouts means to them, all set to the Selena Gomez song, "Fly to Your Heart" from the first Tinker Bell movie.  At the end of the dvd she listed all of the girls names, the troop # and the year -- it's about 4-1/2 minutes long, but something I know I would (and will) definitely cherish as a parent!  I briefly thought about borrowing my dad's screen, projector and laptop to be able to show the dvd at the ceremony, but I decided simpler was better for a one hour meeting!  Aside from that we had certificates to thank our volunteer parents and everyone brought a snack to share. 

All in all, a really nice end to a really nice year of Scouting!  Now we can rest up and gear up our energy for next year!