Are you willing to take in new girls or are you maxed out? How do you determine what the right Girl Scout troop size is for you?
When I was an active Girl Scout leader, our Service Unit sent an email to all of us asking us to please let new girls into our existing troops. There were girls waiting to be placed into a troop. Twice I answered the call . The first time I called three parents and only one girl could make our meeting time. The second time was a few years later, when my troop was second year Juniors. A girl who was a friend of another in my troop had been waiting for years to join. I wish I had known earlier. She wound up staying until eleventh grade.
Taking in New Girl Scouts is a Joint Decision
Before you decide to take in more girls, your co-leader and you need to sit down and talk about what implications, if any, this will have on your troop. What is the maximum amount of girls both of you can handle? Are the personalities you have now working well? Do you want to upset the apple cart? Will another girl or two put you over the adult/child ratios? Do you have another adult to be a co-leader?
You cannot permit guilt to impact your decision to take on more girls. If your Service Unit tells you that you must, then you can tell them that a bunch more girls will need to find a leader as you will not lead a troop that has more girls that you want. You must always remember that you VOLUNTEERED for this role and you are not obligated to do more than you want to do.
As a volunteer, you do not have to do anything you do not want to do, and you do not have to feel guilty saying no to a family if there is no room.
Have you been asked to take in more girls than you could handle? What did you do about it?
We aren’t taking new girls anymore. 3 Ambassadors and 2 Seniors, one of whom is bridging up next year. My co-leader is the mother of our youngest, so we can’t take any girls who would not be graduating with her. And at our level, new scouts are rarer than hen’s teeth.
I understand your reason to not continue once the other leader’s younger daughter graduates. What if there was a stray Girl Scout who would graduate with the others, would you let her join? My co-leader and I found out at our last High Awards ceremony there was one lone older scout who went to high school with our girls. The three of them had no idea the others existed! We would have welcomed her if we had only known.
If you are looking for special patches and certificates for your troop, please visit my Etsy shop for my one-of-a-kind designs for older and graduating scouts. It is called Simply Scouts.