Jolie Rouge
03-20-2007, 03:26 PM
If I don't get this out of my system I will just burst. We have a Mom that has been involved with our Girl Scout Troop for about the last year. We had no idea that we had a "problem" until the last few weeks. She has been going around talking behind our backs and starting trouble between people... she is our Cookie Mom this year and things have been kinda "hinky" there too. This is an email she sent to our entire Troop plus members of the Council. She is leaving our Troop in two weeks and my sister and DH are telling me "just let it go".... I can't. I have to address this somewhere and you get to be the lucky ones :rolleyes: I generally try to keep my "stinky stuff" away from here - this is where I come to get AWAY from all that....
Here is the email ... my comments in red.
Sandra called me last night and asked if she could meet me this morning, but I am busy. I told her we could get together in the middle of the day, but she has to go to work this afternoon, so she said she would meet me at the library tomorrow. She gets off of work at 5 and said she could be there for 530.
This is to close out the Coookies Sales and alot prizes. My niece sold 525 boxes and my DD sold 300 - out of 1,200 between 9 girls; 2 did -0-. The Queen's idea is to divide ALL the boxes evenly between the girls. No - our girls did most of the work.
She told me that you said it sounded suspicious that I did not email her, too with my traffic. I hope that was not an indication that you think that I have done somthing illegal. I have had someone verifing me at each step of the way, just so I would not make a mistake. She said that she explained to you that I send them to her daughter's email because I don't have her address and also becaues she does not check her email regularly. This is true. She gave me her email address last night so I could email her directly. If you sift through some of the emails, you can see that I have emailed Shannon with some of this nonsense.
She started an email bombardment sending to everyone BUT the Troop leaders...
Sandra wanted to let me know that you said that I need to be aware that when I leave the troop, I can't take any of the money that my daughter contributed through her cookie sales. The thought never even crossed my mind. I would never do anything so petty as to even ask. She said that you and she talked and that she explained to you that they are no longer meeting our needs as a troop and she has no hard feelings. This is true, except that our needs have never been met. And, true, I have no hard feelings, either.
She has no hard feelings but then she goes on and on ....
BTW - this is a mom who drops off her child and leaves and shows up just in time to pick her up. Often we have had to sit and wait on her, so I think she has received garbled info ( or no info ) from her child on what goes on during the meetings.
If her "needs" have not been met, why didn't she just say something ? Isn't that the "adult" thing to do ? We can not address any concerns if we don't even know about them.
Do you realize that this troop has not done any service projects that were organized?
Wrong. We collected food in November for the Food Bank, and blankets in January for the Homeless Shelter. We also went Caroling at Christmas door to door and in a Nursing Home - but then they didn't participate in any of these, so I guess they don't exist if she didn't.
There was a tree planting that the cub scouts were doing (on the day of the cookie rally), and at the last minute, Lynne offered up to the troop if anyone was interested they could come. This has been the only service type thing since last cookie season.
The Tree Planting is done EVERY YEAR on the third Saturday in January because THAT is the Louisiana Arbor Day. It was planned 6 months in advance because it takes me that long to secure the 300 to 500 saplings that we plant. I have NO CONTROL over when the Council planned their Cookie Rally. I was promoting the Tree Planting as far back as November. We also plant trees every April and have quarterly Clean Up days at the Conservatory - but again since they didn't show up I guess it didn't really count.
Also, there has been one night, at my house, that the girls worked on earning a tryit. That was in preparation for the service unit campout. They watched Shannon make a camp stew, rolled up a sleeping bag, and I set up a scent trail in my home. The girls were told that they earned a tryit but I don't know which one and I don't even remember if they have gotten it yet.
They have earned Four Tryit's this year. Since January we have been concentrating on Bridging them up to Juniors so our program has changed slightly. Again, if she stayed at the meeting, she would know that.
I got on the internet and printed a form for the leaders to keep track of the tryits for each girl because Lynne and Becky said that they did not have enough money in the troop to get some sort of software to track the girls.
WE have the money - but it is not ours to spend - it is the girls. The software she is talking about is an online service that allows the leaders to input activites and the parents can check on the girls progresses but not input data. When the Queen suggested the charts we went with that to see how it works figuring we could spend the money later if it didn't. Then, as I said, we starting working towards Bridging to Juniors.
Several of the moms suggested collecting 1$/ meeting for dues. The leaders did not think this was good idea.
Not quite. The idea was that the girls were to EARN money for their dues - not parents just give them $$. If the girls couldn't tell us, we didn't take the money and they didn't get a gold star on their chart. It was an effort to make them responsiable. We didn't collect a lot of money or gold stars.
So that in turn prompted me to begin to wonder what in the world the troop money had gone to from cookies from last year, because there was nothing done with the troop after cookies were done. I assumed that they were going to use the money earned to plan this year, but that was not done. At one point around November, Sandra told me that there was money in the troop account, around 900$ is what she said and the troop would start doing things, hasn't happened.
We are planning a trip to Savanah next year to visit Harriet Lowes home. We are planning a trip late in the summer for NASA in Houston - we had to wait until the girls were old enough. We have gone bowling and Skating - ice and roller which the Troop paid for. Since they choose not to come .....
Everything that I am telling you can be verified with moms in the troop, except our new mom, Patti, unfortunately she came in during cookie sales and can only verify this craziness. Once again, I am really sorry for burdening you, but I really feel that this troop needs to be looked into.
We have planned a number of things which they failed to show for - even when we went out of our way to accomadate HER schedule. She just doesn't show. She was our Cookie Mom; didn't come to half the booths, the last weekend she went out of town.
Part of the problem is that when they joined last Spring, they came from a High Adventure Troop in CA. They went rock climbing, white water rafting, mountain hikes, whale watching.... Quite frankily a lot of stuff that is simply not availble here - we are in South Louisiana - no mountains, no whales, we do go hiking at Tunica Hills .... Here you would have to have specailly trained leaders to accompany your Troop to do anything - even camping. We don't have thoses here because none of our other moms have taken the Training. Becky and I are the only trained Archery Instructors in the Council - we can't take our girls to the range until they are JUNIORS. Shannon and I are two of four Canoe Instructors, we can't take them on the water until they are JUNIORS. So many of the things we are wanting to do with the girls can't happen until they Bridge Up - and if The Queen had ever asked we could have told her that.
Oh and she also suggested in the email barrage that Sandra quit her job to devote herself to the Troop and I had to quit Cub Scouts for the same reason.
Thanks,
THE QUEEN
THERE ! I feel much better.
Here is the email ... my comments in red.
Sandra called me last night and asked if she could meet me this morning, but I am busy. I told her we could get together in the middle of the day, but she has to go to work this afternoon, so she said she would meet me at the library tomorrow. She gets off of work at 5 and said she could be there for 530.
This is to close out the Coookies Sales and alot prizes. My niece sold 525 boxes and my DD sold 300 - out of 1,200 between 9 girls; 2 did -0-. The Queen's idea is to divide ALL the boxes evenly between the girls. No - our girls did most of the work.
She told me that you said it sounded suspicious that I did not email her, too with my traffic. I hope that was not an indication that you think that I have done somthing illegal. I have had someone verifing me at each step of the way, just so I would not make a mistake. She said that she explained to you that I send them to her daughter's email because I don't have her address and also becaues she does not check her email regularly. This is true. She gave me her email address last night so I could email her directly. If you sift through some of the emails, you can see that I have emailed Shannon with some of this nonsense.
She started an email bombardment sending to everyone BUT the Troop leaders...
Sandra wanted to let me know that you said that I need to be aware that when I leave the troop, I can't take any of the money that my daughter contributed through her cookie sales. The thought never even crossed my mind. I would never do anything so petty as to even ask. She said that you and she talked and that she explained to you that they are no longer meeting our needs as a troop and she has no hard feelings. This is true, except that our needs have never been met. And, true, I have no hard feelings, either.
She has no hard feelings but then she goes on and on ....
BTW - this is a mom who drops off her child and leaves and shows up just in time to pick her up. Often we have had to sit and wait on her, so I think she has received garbled info ( or no info ) from her child on what goes on during the meetings.
If her "needs" have not been met, why didn't she just say something ? Isn't that the "adult" thing to do ? We can not address any concerns if we don't even know about them.
Do you realize that this troop has not done any service projects that were organized?
Wrong. We collected food in November for the Food Bank, and blankets in January for the Homeless Shelter. We also went Caroling at Christmas door to door and in a Nursing Home - but then they didn't participate in any of these, so I guess they don't exist if she didn't.
There was a tree planting that the cub scouts were doing (on the day of the cookie rally), and at the last minute, Lynne offered up to the troop if anyone was interested they could come. This has been the only service type thing since last cookie season.
The Tree Planting is done EVERY YEAR on the third Saturday in January because THAT is the Louisiana Arbor Day. It was planned 6 months in advance because it takes me that long to secure the 300 to 500 saplings that we plant. I have NO CONTROL over when the Council planned their Cookie Rally. I was promoting the Tree Planting as far back as November. We also plant trees every April and have quarterly Clean Up days at the Conservatory - but again since they didn't show up I guess it didn't really count.
Also, there has been one night, at my house, that the girls worked on earning a tryit. That was in preparation for the service unit campout. They watched Shannon make a camp stew, rolled up a sleeping bag, and I set up a scent trail in my home. The girls were told that they earned a tryit but I don't know which one and I don't even remember if they have gotten it yet.
They have earned Four Tryit's this year. Since January we have been concentrating on Bridging them up to Juniors so our program has changed slightly. Again, if she stayed at the meeting, she would know that.
I got on the internet and printed a form for the leaders to keep track of the tryits for each girl because Lynne and Becky said that they did not have enough money in the troop to get some sort of software to track the girls.
WE have the money - but it is not ours to spend - it is the girls. The software she is talking about is an online service that allows the leaders to input activites and the parents can check on the girls progresses but not input data. When the Queen suggested the charts we went with that to see how it works figuring we could spend the money later if it didn't. Then, as I said, we starting working towards Bridging to Juniors.
Several of the moms suggested collecting 1$/ meeting for dues. The leaders did not think this was good idea.
Not quite. The idea was that the girls were to EARN money for their dues - not parents just give them $$. If the girls couldn't tell us, we didn't take the money and they didn't get a gold star on their chart. It was an effort to make them responsiable. We didn't collect a lot of money or gold stars.
So that in turn prompted me to begin to wonder what in the world the troop money had gone to from cookies from last year, because there was nothing done with the troop after cookies were done. I assumed that they were going to use the money earned to plan this year, but that was not done. At one point around November, Sandra told me that there was money in the troop account, around 900$ is what she said and the troop would start doing things, hasn't happened.
We are planning a trip to Savanah next year to visit Harriet Lowes home. We are planning a trip late in the summer for NASA in Houston - we had to wait until the girls were old enough. We have gone bowling and Skating - ice and roller which the Troop paid for. Since they choose not to come .....
Everything that I am telling you can be verified with moms in the troop, except our new mom, Patti, unfortunately she came in during cookie sales and can only verify this craziness. Once again, I am really sorry for burdening you, but I really feel that this troop needs to be looked into.
We have planned a number of things which they failed to show for - even when we went out of our way to accomadate HER schedule. She just doesn't show. She was our Cookie Mom; didn't come to half the booths, the last weekend she went out of town.
Part of the problem is that when they joined last Spring, they came from a High Adventure Troop in CA. They went rock climbing, white water rafting, mountain hikes, whale watching.... Quite frankily a lot of stuff that is simply not availble here - we are in South Louisiana - no mountains, no whales, we do go hiking at Tunica Hills .... Here you would have to have specailly trained leaders to accompany your Troop to do anything - even camping. We don't have thoses here because none of our other moms have taken the Training. Becky and I are the only trained Archery Instructors in the Council - we can't take our girls to the range until they are JUNIORS. Shannon and I are two of four Canoe Instructors, we can't take them on the water until they are JUNIORS. So many of the things we are wanting to do with the girls can't happen until they Bridge Up - and if The Queen had ever asked we could have told her that.
Oh and she also suggested in the email barrage that Sandra quit her job to devote herself to the Troop and I had to quit Cub Scouts for the same reason.
Thanks,
THE QUEEN
THERE ! I feel much better.