Daisies, Year 2, Meeting 21

Confession time- I am jealous of everyone who gets to spend Thinking Day at any of the World Centers.  After seeing this year's celebration photos online, I felt a little bummed that I wasn't around. BUT, in a few years, I figure I can get sneaky and convince the girls to save for a trip during Thinking Day (I know, I'm terrible!).

Sticking with the theme, and having little party shakers, I downloaded a bunch of music from this year's focus countries for the girls to listen too.  We basically had a listening party before we prepared for our Thinking Day feast.  Everyone brought in foods from a country they had relatives/ancestors from.  But before we could eat, we had to sing a song we had been working on for literally the past 6 months:

It's a hard song, but hey guess what, MY DAISIES SANG IT!!!!!  We sang this song during our opening at Girl's World Forum with the fabulous Melinda Caroll.  I knew it would be a challenge, but I brought it back for the girls and they learned it.  They knew it so well that instead of having us call out the first line, they called it out and had their families repeat it!

Before we ate, our new girls received their WAGGGS pins.  It took everything in me not to cry! I'm so proud of them all though.  It was something they will remember for a long time, and because I promised I wouldn't make them sing Babala Gumbala again until next year (they have made sure I remembered every week before we sang a song).  As for that food, we tasted foods from Egypt, Turkey, Poland, Sweeden and a few others I have already forgotten (sorry!).  No surprise, they all came back for seconds.

Though the focus countries for next year's Thinking Day have not yet been announced, I can tell you that the focus MDG is number 2, achieve universal primary education for all.  After that, it leaves one more MDG for us to cover in 2015!

SU Thinking Day Event

So, if Christmas is to celebrate the birth of Jesus, then Founder's Day (Juliette Gordon Low's birthday) is like Girl Scout Christmas.  With that being said, Thinking Day is to Girl Scouts what Purim is to the Jews (well, not really, but it was the closest analogy I could think of).  Thinking Day is a special Girl Scout holiday where all of us Girl Scouts and Girl Guides pause to remember and celebrate our Scouting/Guiding sisters world wide.

This year our focus countries were Venezuela (that we helped represent), Ireland, Jordan, Pakistan and Malawi.  Seeing as how we are in the middle of the Millennium Challenge, we have also added in the aspect for a focus MDG the past few years.  This year was the twin theme of MDG 4 and 5, reduce infant mortality and improve maternal health.  To make it easier on the troops, we split up the responsibilities   Take for example us and Venezuela.  My troop created the board/presentation.  Another troop made SWAPS and a third troop made food from Venezuela.  A few of the larger troops did all of it for one country or MDG, but most of us teamed up.  It went over fairly well.  We also had a station where the girls could make friendship bracelets to donate to the Sangam's store where they sell them to make money for programs.  We had so many activities, but the best part was in the end, we fulfilled the requirements to earn the WAGGGS Thinking Day patch which the girls can put on the front of their uniform!