It’s time to renew memberships for your troop. Whose responsibility is Girl Scout Early Bird registration?
As the scouting year winds down for many of us, leaders have a point to ponder…whose responsibility is Girl Scout Early Bird registration? Does it belong to the troop leader or to the parents/grown-up of each child?
Many Councils give incentives for Early Bird registration, including a fun patch (girls just love those!). But are the incentives worth your time and energy?
As the leader, you are responsible for a lot all year long. In my opinion, registering your girls for next year is not your responsibility.
First of all, you are now creating extra work and stress for yourself. There is no need to chase parents down with reminders. It is not a big deal if the girls miss out on a patch. Sign up your scout and let the other parents sign up theirs.
Girl Scout Early Bird Registration – We’ve Come a Long Way!
It’s may be hard to believe now, but when I was a Daisy leader from 2008-2010, registration was still done the old fashioned way, with paper forms.
Via email, I let the parents know that if they did not get the forms to me by a set date, they had to register their daughter on their own time. I had to make an appointment with the registrar to go over the paperwork at her home on my personal time. There was no way I was doing this twice if the deadline for handing in the papers was missed.
In fact, there was a parent who did miss the deadline and had to register her daughter on her time. Not on ounce of guilt did I feel…and it never happened again.
When online registration became the norm, I was relieved to not have to travel to the registrar’s house on the other side of town! I would communicate to the parents, via email, when registration opened. I gave them the link to register.
That was all.
Months later, in my late August Back to Troop email to parents, I would remind them to register if they did not do so already.
In mid September, in my first email of the new scouting year, I would tell parents of unregistered girls that their daughter could not attend any meetings after September 30th because their registration will be expired.
These were all short, sweet and easy to write.
Who Pays for Girl Scout Early Bird Registration?
This topic comes up often in the Girl Scout Facebook groups. While it can be a source of pride to be totally self-funding, it is also a source financial loss.
Why is that?
Parents do not value anything that is free. After all, it isn’t their money being lost is their daughter does not return to scouting. They may move, have an activity that interferes with the meeting time, change troops, or are no longer interested in scouting. Your troop is out that money if you pay for the girl to register. Unless you are in a low socio-economic area, where the girls cannot be in your troop if it does not pay for things-let parents shoulder this responsibility. They do it for all of their other activities, they can do it for Girl Scouts as well.
How are you handling Girl Scout Early Bird registration this year?
