What I learned from Fall Sales

I do not remember doing a fall sale when I was a young girl scout, so this was a new experience for me. While my troop might have elected to opt out of the sale, we decided against it for two reasons:

1. As a new troop, our account is bare. If we choose to go anywhere or do anything special we needed to have some funds. The parents in my troop have no desire to carry the weight financially for everything, and they should not have to.
2. Troops are not allowed to (or supposed to) participate in any other fundraising activities if they do not participate in both the fall and cookie sales. I thought it would be a mistake to limit the potential of future opportunities...

So after a successful fundraiser, I thought I would share my reflections with the two other people who read this.

Communication

This includes regular reminders and updates. A big part of this is encouragement!
What made this sale so difficult for us is that it is right after our first meeting. So it really is important to constantly talk to the parents about it. LOVE social media!

Overall, It was really important to just relax for this sale. Yes, it brings 20% revenue to the troop. Yes, it is a good first sale for the girls and a chance to earn some patches and stuff. They have to motivate themselves a little for this!
This sale was mostly the parents effort. That was ok, but next year, we will have to include the girls more.

One thing that was interesting was that since none of the girls had sold the products before, they didn't know if they were selling Good Stuff. But everyone unanimously decided that they WISH they had ordered MORE! The chocolates were SOOO yummy! That is a good sign that 2017/18 will be even better.

Best Part:
Our troop was able to earn more money from our cookie sale because we sold a certain amount of products per girl. WooHoo!

Money Counts

Understanding Different Money Values
Printed out some paper money and we figured out how many quarters, nickles, dimes and pennies would make up a dollar.
I also printed out and made small cookie boxes (we used these to make necklaces) and we played a game with the boxes to count by 5s to figure out how many boxes costed how much. The girls had a blast and took turns figuring out the cost of the cookies.

The Cost of Fun
We finished our Money Counts leaf by discussing what activities cost money and which do not. We made a chart and figured out that more items went in the "Costs $" column. They decided that as a troop they would like to go camping, so we figured out about how much that would be.

Me: "What about food? Does that cost money?"
Girls: "No."
Me: "So when your mom goes to the grocery store, she can choose any food without paying at the cashier? Have I been doing it wrong?"
Girls: "uhh No." ::giggle giggle::