Harry Potter - Girl Scouts style

DD#3 just completed her Girl Scout Silver Award, the highest award Cadette Girl Scouts can earn, by organizing, planning and running a Harry Potter-themed campout for 90 people in the middle of May. She worked with 2 other girls on the organization and planning, although only 1 other girl earned the award with her, due to illness. Fortunately, the other members of their troop helped with the actual running of the camp as House Prefects, with the additional help of many adult volunteers.

The girls attending the camp had a wonderful time and really enjoyed the activities, including such Harry Potter favorites as Quidditch, Potions, Wizard's Chess, Honey Dukes, and Madam Malkin's. Each person, girl and adult, was sorted into one of the four Houses, all of whom competed for the House Cup. The winner of the weekend's campout was Ravenclaw.

This was the largest troop campout in memory for the Taunus Girl Scouts Overseas Committee, part of USA Girl Scouts Overseas. There were 7 troops attending, from kindergarten-aged Daisies all the way to high school aged Seniors - and everyone had a great time! At the end of the weekend, the Taunus O.C. awards ceremony included the bridging of girls to each new level of Girl Scouting for next year, adult awards for leaders and volunteers, and the awarding of 3 Bronze Awards (the highest award for Junior Girl Scouts), these two Silver Awards, and the recognition of the Gold Award - the highest award available to Senior Girl Scouts and the recognized equivalent of a Boy Scout Eagle Scout award. The Gold Award is going to DD#1 for her project at the international school where she created a Senior Class Council, held spirit projects, parties, bake sales, sold t-shirts, raised nearly $10,000 and organized the first ever Senior Prom, which will be held next weekend.

The campout was a big success with many of the girls attending raving about the fun and especially about the Cadettes who planned and ran the events and activities. I think it was a great learning experience for everyone and introduced these junior-high-school-aged girls to a new level of leadership experience. Although it was exhausting and required a great deal of recovery time for this middle-aged Overseas Committee Chair, all-in-all it was an unqualified success! Congrats to the girls and especially to DD#3!