Investiture and Rededication prep

Raise your hand if it feels like our little girls were just babies!!! Ok, it's nice to know I'm not the only one with my hand up. Our fearless leader and I started planning our investiture and rededication ceremony the other night. We have a few girls who were Daisies last year, but most of them are new. We did the generic Google search for Girl Scout ceremonies and got a lot of good material to work with. The short version, we took pieces from a few ceremonies we found and smooshed it all together into one big happy thing.

First site we looked into was this one. We thought it was a good jumping point, and we knew we liked the idea of having each girl being able to say something. That lead us to this gem. We took the second part and put that into our ceremony. After that, we started looking for something that we could do to involve candles. Our fearless leader thought it might be a really nice touch (and I agree!). While searching, we stumbled upon (literally, used Stumbleupon) various candle ceremonies and got an idea for what we wanted to put in there.

In the mean time, we worked out the rest of the kinks for the ceremony. Seeing as how each girl will have a line, we made index cards. Each card had the girl's line on it, as well as who she would follow. The lines are short, and very easy. Some of the lines, as you can see from the ceremony above, are representative of the GS law. Next up, was making the board we would be using for the petals. Now comes the fun....

What you will need:
2 poster boards (1 can be in green)
1 roll of velcro, with sticky backing
hot glue gun
glue stick or a bottle of glue
scissors
1 cut out in each of the Daisy colors- blue, light blue, yellow, spring (light) green, red, orange, purple, magenta, green, rose, violet

For the full photo, head over here

2 short candles
1 tall candle, wrapped in yellow ribbon (or already yellow)


For the petals:

Step 1: Print out the petals over 4 sheets of paper (to do this, I used the program Print Shop, which allows you to "blow up" posters)

Step 2: Put together your 4-page "poster" of the petals over a poster board (to give it a "solid" backing)

Step 3: Begin to cut out your petals, but do not cut all the way (this allows you to properly line then up

Step 4: Place your velcro over each petal and the center

Step 5: Place the petals on your green poster board

Step 6: Finish cutting out your petals

Step 7: Using small post its, label each petal (so the girls know where to place it)


Ok, so maybe that was a little bit of overkill, but I'm a bit of a perfectionist (or as my husband puts it, slightly neurotic). In addition to the lines on the note cards, we also wrote which petal each girl will have to place, and who they will speak after. As you will see from our program below, not every girl has a petal to place, but it ended up working out to our benefit. Most of our troop is comprised of first graders, but we have a few kindergartners mixed in. We gave those girls the short lines that had no petals to place (we tried to make it easier on them). It killed me a little because those girls are super smart, but we had to be fair all around.

Obviously, the girls who are rededicating, will not be receiving their pins this year (since they got them last year). We didn't want to leave them out though, so I had a nifty little idea. I love working with Fimo (polymer clay), so I decided to make them some cute pins that we could give them (a "fun" pin). Now, onto the fun stuff!


Ceremony

Girls will line up and walk in, then line up at designated spot

ALL: Pledge of Allegiance

Leader: Welcome and thank you everyone for coming out tonight for troop {troop #}’s Investiture and Rededication ceremony. I’m {leader name}, and this is my Co-leader {co-leader name}.

Co-leader: Tonight we will be inducting our new girl scouts and welcoming back our returning girl scouts. We’d like to start out with one of the songs we start our meetings out with.

Opening song, I’m a Little Daisy

Petal Ceremony.....

Leader: Troop {#}, you are about to become Daisy Girl Scouts. Together we will
explore all the fun and adventures of Girl Scouting. Do you know about scouting?

Girl 1: The founder of Girl Scouts was named Juliette Gordon Low.

Girl 2: Her nickname was "Daisy".

Girl 3: We are named after her.

Girl 4: Together we will learn more about Girl Scouting.

Girl 5: The Girl Scout Promise is the pledge that tells us how to be good citizens and scouts.
(Place the blue Promise Center in center of felt board.)

Co-leader: In Daisy Girl Scouts, the girls will earn the 10 Learning Petals. Each petal is a different color, which represents a different phrase from the Girl Scout Law.

ALL: I will do my best to:

Girl 6: (place light blue petal on felt board)
Be honest and fair

Girl 7: (place yellow petal on felt board)
Be friendly and helpful

Girl 8: (place spring green petal on felt board)
Be considerate and caring

Girl 9: (place red petal on felt board)
Be courageous and strong

Girl 10: (place orange petal on felt board)
Be responsible for what I say and do

Girl 11: (place purple petal on felt board)
Respect myself and others

Girl 12: (place magenta petal on felt board)
Respect authority

Girl 13: (place green petal on felt board)
Use resources wisely

Girl 14: (place rose petal on felt board)
Make the world a better place

Girl 15: (place violet petal on felt board)
Be a sister to every Girl Scout.


ALL: Raise right hands and recite the Girl Scout Promise
On my honor, I will try:
To serve God and my country
And to live by the Girl Scout Law!


Pinning Ceremony

Leader: Each living thing begins as a small ray of light, of hope. The seed needs to be nurtured in order to grow. In Girl Scouts, these rays of hope are the girls of the world. Each seed is planted with love. The value of each young girl is recognized by older people-parents, siblings, friends, neighbors, leaders, and community members. Our Daisies have been nurtured in their homes and in their community. They are now ready to bloom!

Co-leader: Troop {#}'s Daisy meetings will be a place where each girl's individuality is valued. It will be a place where the importance of caring for ourselves and others will be emphasized. We will learn about our world and ways to care for nature. We will have fun! Our troop will be a place for each girl to live the new Girl Scout motto, "Girl Scouts. Where Girls Grow Strong!" We are here to greet the newest buds in the Girl Scout world. It is time for our new Daisies to emerge!

Leader: Our precious Daisies, at this time, you will officially become Daisy Girl Scouts. As we place this trefoil pin on your ribbon, notice that we will be placing it upside down. Each time you do a good turn, your parents can turn it for you, until you have it right side up.

Co-leader: We hope that by our next meeting, all of you have your pins right side up. We can’t wait to hear about your good turns! At this time, we will call you one by one to receive your pins.

(pin girls)

Leader: In addition to our newest members, we have several girls who are rededicating themselves tonight. I've worked with these scouts, and helped them to grow. I'm sharing them now, but want you to know... These girls are precious, as precious can be. Love them, take care of them, and you will see a bright new memory with every day. They grow in such a special way.

(pin girls)

Candle Ceremony

Leader: This candle represents the spirit of Girl Scouting. It burns eternally to represent the friendship and fun we will enjoy together.
(lights center, big yellow, candle)

Co-leader: This candle represents tonight’s investiture by welcoming our new girl scout sisters
(lights first small candle)

Leader: This candle represents our girl scout sisters who have rededicated themselves to a new year of scouts
(lights other small candle)

ALL: Line up to do a semi-circle friendship circle (leader on each side) and sing the Friendship song, turning out when done

Make new friends,
But keep the old,
One is silver and the other’s gold!

Co-leader: Let us pause for a moment in this rededication and investiture, quite mindful of the Girl Scout Promise and Law to uphold, remembering our duty, to serve God and country, and to live our lives by the Girl Scout law. And so when we travel away from each other, we will still be alike in our hearts and our minds. Girl Scouting will guide us, our Promise will bring us together as the great world of the Girl Scouting sisterhood.

Leader: We proudly present to you the Daisies of troop {#}!



In addition to the pins, we made a few fun things for the girls. Our fearless leader is a nifty knitter, and knitted some fabulous hats for the girls. I made some awesome pencils for the girls much like these pencils, and we made some cool certificates for them. At this very moment, I still need to make rededication certificates, but I did finish these nifty investiture certificates:

Here's the full version in case you want to use it:
Investiture Certificate

And, we also made a rededication certificate that is very similar to the investiture certificate:

For full version, go here


The day of our ceremony is also going to be our kick off the year party for our meeting. Our plan is to practice the ceremony once or twice, and then let the girls let loose and have fun. We're going to have some fun games for them to play. An hour after our meeting we will be having the ceremony, with a pot luck dinner to follow. We still have a few weeks to go before our ceremony, so that means the girls should all remember their lines by then (we sent out the ceremony cards after meeting 3, and our ceremony will be after meeting 6).