Trainer's Newsletters

Trainer News from the Girl Scout Council of the Nation's Capital

Trainer's Tote Bag Another Bulletin Board combined with questions and answers, started in Sept '99. Not active.

Trainer's E-Mail Lists

Why would one want to join an e-mail list? The list is composed of trainers and those interested in training issues. The e-mail addresses of those interested are stored on a central computer. E-mail sent to the central computer is copied and distributed to veryone on the list. This is a method of passing comments or questions to others interested in training topics in Girl Guiding/Girl Scouting, and getting answers/responses back in your e-mail almost immediately. A lot like a bulletin board where you KNOW people will see the message -- or at least the title of your message!

GirlScoutTrainers

This list is one of the Yahoo! Groups, and is moderately busy (from 150 to 200 e-mails per month, unless youchoose to receive postings as a daily digest)very similar to TiGGGS-list (but has been more active of late). In addition to an e-mail group, it offers storage for files for members, and this has been used by trainers to store training outlines and handouts so that they can be shared with other trainers.

Go to Yahoo! Groups, sign up, and then join the GirlScoutTrainers (all one word!) forum. The files are available at the forum site under "Files" (surprise!).

TiGGGS-list

TiGGGS-list was created in March 1998 to provide a forum for Girl Guide and Girl Scout Trainers to share information relating to training adult volunteers, and older girls. Appropriate topics for the list can include training outlines, announcements of topics and reports from training conferences, discussion of training styles and techniques and any other aspects of training. The list has dwindled of late.

To subscribe to the TiGGGS-list mailing list, send the message

You will receive an acknowledgement of your request and a confirmation notice. You must resend the confirmation line to majordomo@lists.sonic.net in order to be subscribed to the list. Once subscribed, you will begin receiving the postings to the list individually as they are submitted.

What Do Other Councils Do?

Check out the web sites of other Girl Scout councils, and search for the word "training". If you have questions, try e-mailing that council's adult development director.

Training Outlines

for a number of courses are available:

• Exploring the Internet - Desired Learning Objectives from a course given at GSCNC and Links for Leaders, the hand-out for that course.
• GSC of Our Nation's Capital has put their training outlines on the internet
• The following are Outlines from ScottyGS, a trainer at Muir Trail Girl Scout Council:
  • Preparation for Troop Camping
  • Cooking (not really a formal outline, but rather notes on teaching cooking)
  • Solar Cooking
  • Orienteering
  • Cadette Leader Training
  • Exploring the Net - training leaders to help girls earn the various internet try-its, badges, and patches
  • Program Aide Training
  • Outdoor Program Aide Training
  • Dutch Oven Cooking
  • Gold Award Training
• Two excellent handouts (in Adobe Acrobat format) for teaching how to use Safety-Wise:
  • One-page chart showing the steps which must be followed to determine how an activity may be done safely. Good graphic for the three-step process, with page numbers for specific activities.
  • Two-page slider chart, with a cutout in the front page permitting a view of a sliding list of activities and relevant page numbers on the back page.
• Using Information Technologies for Scouting, which includes notes and handouts, from BSA's National Capital Area Council's College of Commissioner Science, March 1998. Contains discussion about building a troop web site, and use of the internet. Available in Adobe Acrobat format
• "Leave No Trace" Teaching Helps
• Internet for 4th/5th graders lesson plans -- that's about where we are, isn't it? Of course, the girls are way beyond that...

Las Vegas Trainers Conference Notes

I collected notes and handouts from the 1999 Las Vegas Trainers Conference. Since sessions were run in a number of parallel tracks, I was only able to attend a few of them, but this is what I have.

Albuquerque Trainers Conference Notes

I'm attempting to collect notes and handouts from the 2000 Albuquerque Trainers Conference. This area of the site may expand, if enough people give me their comments and notes.

And, in the

Trainer's Humor

category, we have Sue's ELC song:

The Experiential Learning Cycle
OR A Weekend With the ELCs (pronounce it elks)

by Frog (Sue Wichers) and Frodo
Tune: Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious by Richard M. Sherman & Robert B. Sherman, ©1963

The EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CYCLE, that's the way we train,
Even though the definition drives us all insane.
Listen as we follow it, as round and round we go,
The EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CYCLE is the way we go! Um diddle ...

When it is just beginning, the EXPERIENCE is all,
Doing something, having fun, or playing with a ball,
Write a play or make a craft, choose an active word,
EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CYCLE starts out with a verb. Um diddle ...

Next we share just what we saw and even how we felt,
By sharing information we must get the data out.
PUBLISHING is what we do to move it right along.
Data is the basis to the next step in this song. Um diddle ...

Now we must discuss and search for patterns to be found,
Sorting data, making graphs can make your head spin 'round,
Put it all together, just where does each piece fit?
We call this step PROCESSING, examine every bit. Um diddle ...

Next we pull a Sherlock Holmes and go from A to Z.
If this works here, then it works there, can this really be?
If one flame's hot, then so are two: we don't like being burned!
In GENERALIZING answers come from things already learned. Um diddle...

We now prepare to change the world, but first we make a plan,
APPLYING what we've learned so far, of course we know we can!
We change our ways, we get new toys, do we have graphs for you!
The EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CYCLE helps to see us through. Um diddle ...

EXPERIENCING, PUBLISHING, then PROCESSING it all,
GENERALIZING, and APPLYING, even if we fall.
Then we start a new cycle, for we learn from the past.
The EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING CYCLE goes on and on ... at last.
(on and on and on and on and on and on ...
interrupted by um diddle..)

©1998 Susan R. Wichers. Permission freely given to Girl Scouts and Girl Guides to copy and distribute without charge. Permission to charge for copy and distribution denied except with previously arranged permission.

If you know of any other Trainer's resources on the web, E-mail me!