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Volunteer Resources

Welcome, Girl Scout volunteers! 

You belong to a network of nearly 1 million adults who share an important commitment: preparing girls to lead successful lives.

Now you can prepare yourself to be a more successful volunteer!

Check out these online resources and training courses that you can access whenever it’s convenient for you.

Zoom Virtual Meeting Tips

 

Resources for Service Units

Girl Scouts – Diamonds Council is divided into 50 geographic areas known as Service Units. These areas are managed and staffed by volunteers and have three primary functions:

  • To deliver and extend the Girl Scout program to all girls grades K – 12 in all socioeconomic, religious and ethnic groups within the jurisdiction.
  • To give ongoing support to adults who work with girls.
  • To offer and promote opportunities for troops in the Service Unit.

Service Unit Meetings

Service Unit team members and troop representatives meet several times throughout the year to share ideas, receive training, and talk about important announcements. Service Units may organize events such as community-wide service projects, summer day camps, family events, Cookie Rallies, World Thinking Day celebrations and Award ceremonies.

Most Service Areas meet monthly during the school year and all Troop Leaders are encouraged to attend. If a Troop Leader cannot attend, a member of the Troop Committee should attend.

During meetings, Troop Leaders may network, give input about Service Area program opportunities for troops, receive information from council staff and receive pre-ordered items from the council shops.

Volunteer Position Descriptions

Service Team Members: The council requests that you have each volunteer sign their volunteer description for the Girl Scout year. Please turn in all signed volunteer descriptions to your regional Girl Scout office in the fall of each year.

Troop Pathway:

Event and Series Pathway:

Travel Pathway:

Service Team:

Resources for Troops

Journeys - Need a little help with the Journeys? Check out this page for Journeys-in-a-year plans and how to make a troop Journey map.

Girl Scout Ceremonies - A go-to, how-to guide for ceremonies of all types - flag ceremony, investiture, bridging and more. 

Girl Scout Bridging Guide - A comprehensive guide to bridging, from basics to step-by-step planning for every level. 

Silver and Gold Podcast - A place for Girl Scout adults to connect, grab great ideas, share cool stuff and feel like youre never alone, because you've always got friends — new or old — silver and gold.

Helping Girls Become STEM Superstars - Provides Girl Scout volunteers with the tools they need to keep girls’ passion and curiosity for STEM subjects alive. This guide offers something for everyone with girls in their lives, showing just how easy it is to make STEM matter for girls—through conversation starters, troop activities, and examples of STEM role models.

Safety Activity Checkpoints - What you need to know to ensure troop safety on your next adventure! Safety Activity Checkpoints Addition - Virtual Meetings

Virtual Meetings and Activities Agreement - This agreement is required for all virtual meetings or activities that are recorded with girl participation. 

Forms - From permission slips to awards trackers – we’ve got the forms you need! 

GSUSA Tips for Troop Leaders - With this informative resource from GSUSA, you'll be ready to meet any challenge that comes your way. By providing accessible advice and inspiring ideas from our panel of Volunteer Experts, Tips for Troop Leaders supports both new and returning troop leaders as they encourage their girls to grow into the leaders they were born to be!

Global Resources - The resources below include an overview of Journeys and Girl Guides to Girl Scouting for each Girl Scout level and where leaders can find activities to highlight global viewpoints, customs and traditions, as well as foods, songs, and languages from other countries. This will allow girls to learn more about different cultures and build a global perspective as they discover, connect and take action to make the world a better place.

Global Action Days Toolkit

Global Elements-Ambassador
Global Elements-Senior
Global Elements-Cadette
Global Elements-Junior
Global Elements-Brownie
Global Elements-Daisy

Girl Scouts Celebrate Faith Toolkit

Girl Scouts has longstanding traditions of celebrating with our faith partners during Girl Scout Week. We do this to share information with faith communities about Girl Scouts and its benefits, to thank faith partners and volunteers for their support, and to give girls the opportunity to be recognized as Girl Scouts by their faith community. Girl Scouts Celebrate Faith can be celebrated by any faith group at any time during Girl Scout Week or at a mutually agreeable time with your faith partner. Celebration days during Girl Scout week (the week containing March 12) include Girl Scout Sunday, Girl Scout Jummah, Girl Scout Shabbat and Girl Scout Sabbath.

Tip Sheets – These helpful tip sheets cover a wide variety of topics.

Resources for Virtual Meetings

Virtual Meeting Training

Girl Scouts – Diamonds Zoom 101: Hosting a Troop Meeting via Zoom webinar

The Virtual Meetings Playbook—A great step-by-step guide to virtual meetings

Check out GSUSA’s Tips for Troop Leaders blog for articles and insights about running virtual meetings!

Zoom instructional PDFs

Virtual Meeting Safety

Virtual Meetings and Activities Agreement—This agreement is required for all virtual meetings or activities that are recorded with girl participation. 

Best Practices for Securing Your Virtual Classroom (or troop meeting!)

Virtual Meeting Activities

Video and Audio-Conferencing Tools with free versions

While all of these options have a free version, please note you may be prompted to consider their upgraded versions for a subscription fee.

Chat and Collaboration Tools with free versions

Microsoft Teams - Support

Slack – Help Center

Facebook Groups – Help Center

Google Classroom – Help Center
    Getting Started
    Tips and Tricks
    How to create digital assignments
    Google Classroom for Parents

Additional low-cost tools for collaboration and conferencing to consider if the above options do not meet your group's needs.

Resources for Conflict Resolution

In Girl Scouts, we hope that most, if not all conflicts and disputes can be resolved informally by being sensitive and respectful to each other. Many complaints and concerns can be resolved if they are brought to the attention to the appropriate individual with a genuine intention to discover a resolution satisfactory to all parties involved. We believe in living by the Girl Scout Promise and Law . We ask that all Girl Scout parents, volunteers and girls do the same. Below are helpful resources in managing conflicts. 

Conflict Resolution Guide

Ban Bossy Troop Activity 

Resources for Financial Management

For troop and service unit financial information, please refer to the Girl Scouts - Diamonds Troop Financial Management, as well as the Troop Finances section of Volunteer Essentials.

You may also find financial management tools and forms on the Forms and Documents page

For questions, please contact your service unit treasurer, or email the Girl Scouts - Diamonds troop finance liaison. 

 

Resources for Marketing and Public Relations

For logos and other branding materials and information, please check out our Brand Center.

Public/Media Relations at the Service Unit/Troop Level

What’s the challenge? At Girl Scouts – Diamonds of Arkansas, Oklahoma and Texas, we do our best to report on exciting stories and important information relating to Girl Scouting within our council, but, with 79 counties and thousands of girl and adult members, it would take considerable resources in staff time, energy and funding to issue media releases on everyone’s activities! That is where service unit and troop PR volunteers come in! You can work with your Service Unit Public Relations Coordinator to promote your Girl Scout news and activities in local media.

The Service Unit Public Relations Coordinator will work in conjunction with troops and individuals who would like to assist with Girl Scouts – Diamonds public relations activities.

Positive media coverage is one of the best ways to promote the Girl Scout Leadership Experience. When we share our Girl Scout news and activities it:

  • Increases our visibility in the community
  • Promotes our brand and signals value for the Girl Scout Program
  • Boosts our membership
  • Increases financial support

Including a picture with your news release increases the chances that your news will get printed! Here are some helpful tips:

  • Take pictures that support your event and try to take a lot of pictures so you will have many shots to select from.
  • Unless your intent is to wow people with the number of girls you can put in a straight line… avoid those dull group shots if you can. The group shot has its place but action shots are more fun and can make your event look more interesting. Get in close to capture faces and girls doing something!
  • Only submit bright, focused, good quality photos. Pictures should be saved as Jpegs and be at least 300 dpi (dots per inch).

Emergency Situations: If an emergency situation occurs, Girl Scouts and volunteers must follow the Girl Scouts – Diamonds Emergency Procedures which include making NO statement of ANY KIND to the media. Do NOT give out any names or information. Ask the media to contact the Communications Department, at 800-632-6894.

STEM Training Toolkit (DBJ Coding Basics)

Welcome to the STEAM Badge training toolkit. This toolkit was designed for volunteers wanting to learn more about how to deliver STEM badges or journeys with their troop. This toolkit focuses on the Daisy, Brownie, and Juniors Coding Basics Badge but knowledge learned can be transferred to other STEM badges.  This toolkit contains a webinar that covers information on STEM programming, how to use VTK, advice on how to do a STEM badge with your troop, and you will learn how to successfully deliver badge activities. There are also activity videos to assist volunteers that are wanting to lead their Daisy, Brownie, and Juniors through the Coding Basics Badge. Lastly, this toolkit contains a training guidebook for Service unit volunteer that would like to lead a STEM badge training and Coding Basics badge training.

How to use the STEM training Toolkit:

  • Badge Activity videos: 
    Please watch the Intro to Coding Basics before proceeding through the rest of the videos.
    Daisy Activity 3
    Brownie Activity 3 | Brownie Activity 4
    Junior Activity 3 | Junior Activity 4

  • Webinar: This webinar was created to help volunteers feel more comfortable with doing STEM Badges with their troop. In this webinar you will learn about why stem is important for girls and best practices for doing STEM badges. You will also learn more about STEM Program content on the VTK and do a deep dive into the Coding Basics Badge with hands-on activities.

  • Guidebook: The guidebook was created to serve as a guide for service units and staff members that would like to deliver an in-person training for volunteers that would like more guidance on leading STEM badges and journeys.

 

You're invited to join the world of Girl Scouts! Join Us
You're invited to join the world of Girl Scouts! Join Us
You're invited to join the world of Girl Scouts! Join Us
You're invited to join the world of Girl Scouts! Join Us