Prep and Planning: Bridging to Juniors

Since I was a little kid, I have loved to watch Christmas specials on television.  When I became a parent, I introduced our girls to my beloved Rudolph and Frosty.  About five years ago, Disney's Prep and Landing aired. This show features "a high-tech team of elves from an elite unit known as Prep and Landing (who) ensures homes around the world are prepared for Santa's visit."  It immediately became my favorite Christmas special.  I was most impressed with their attention to every detail.  This was my kind of team!  I enjoy taking time to plan celebrations for family and friends, vacations, and Girl Scout meetings and events.  

This spring, our Brownie troop is bridging to Juniors.  As I mentioned in a previous post, the girls satisfied Step 5 for the Celebrating Community badge by planning their own Bridging Ceremony.  We held a planning meeting in April, presenting ideas, discussing the possibilities, and casting votes.  We had another meeting to prepare for the event.  In this post, I will describe their process.

We began the planning meeting by reviewing our troop budget.  I shared our account balance with the girls, and then we added the profits from our cookie sale.  We talked about the outstanding expenses we have for the rest of the year.  We considered how to spend the balance, and budgeting for the Bridging Ceremony was part of this quick discussion.  Once we knew how much money we wanted to allot for this celebration, we worked through the 5 W's together: 


What/Why are we celebrating?  We want to recognize their accomplishments as Brownies and celebrate their graduation to the next level of Girl Scouts.
Who did they want to invite to the Bridging Ceremony?  They decided we needed to know how much space was available.
Where should we hold the celebration?  Options to consider included my house, a nearby park, and our Civic Center.
When?  We had previously determined the date and time.  This information helped answer the other questions.
How?  I presented some possibilities to the group such as:  reciting the Girl Scout Promise and Girl Scout Law, saying the Pledge of Allegiance, singing a song, reading a poem, performing a skit, sharing a meal or dessert together.  They also shared their ideas.  Prior to the meeting, I created a Rainbow Party Pinterest Board to provide visuals for various decorations for the girls.

By the end of the planning meeting, we knew our ceremony would be held at our Civic Center Ampitheater.  There would be enough space to invite parents, siblings, and other special family members.  The girls had amazing ideas for invitations.  Due to time constraints, I made invitations for them.  I was inspired by this invitation on Pinterest.  I was able to use supplies I already had on hand, so I avoided spending any money.  The event details are printed on the back of the card.

The girls unanimously agreed Kona Ice would provide snow cones for our troop and their siblings.  (Please note that our Township will not permit sales to occur on the Civic Center premises.  Our troop will pay for the snow cones in advance.  Kona Ice will arrive at our event to serve the predetermined number of snow cones).  

The girls decided they would use balloons to create a bridge.  They would make tissue paper flower decorations.  For the prep meeting, I purchased tissue paper at Dollar Tree (25 sheets for $1.  Each package included 5 sheets each of red, yellow, green, blue, and pink).  Four packages of tissue paper made 10 beautiful flowers.  

The girls would include the Girl Scout Promise and Law, and the Pledge of Allegiance in the Ceremony.  The other leader and I were surprised when the girls exclaimed they would write and perform their own skit.  We devoted a great deal of time during our prep meeting for them to write and practice their skit.

In this previous post, I described how I decorated gift boxes that we will present to the girls in our troop at the Bridging Ceremony.  We have invited three of the younger sisters to join us during the ceremony.  They are Daisies bridging to Brownies, but they will not be bridging with another troop.  I have prepared these boxes for them.  They will receive a packet of Daisy seeds, a homemade brownie, and their Bridge to Brownie Arc in this box.


The Bridging Ceremony is scheduled in late May.  I will be sure to post our ceremony agenda along with details of the skit and some pictures, so please check back.  Thanks for reading.