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Cookie Moms - This One's for You! Girl Scout Cookie Booth Scheduling & Sign Ups Simplified

Start Scheduling Now!

In our neck of the woods, it's almost THIN MINT SEASON and I couldn't be happier!! I've already cleared a shelf in the freezer to store the case I plan to buy so I can snack on them all year.

Before having a Girl Scout of my own, little did I know what kind of competition, chaos and confusion goes on behind the scenes of signing up and staffing Girl Scout Cookie Booths.  First, some heroic mom volunteer meets with each retailer, getting permission and parameters for each booth location and time.  The Service Unit Cookie Mom then makes a master schedule and signup sheet for all the available booth slots ....and the games begin!!

Troops participate in a lottery to capture prime cookie booth locations and times.  The home improvement store on a busy Saturday at 10am beats a quiet coffee shop at 4pm by a mile!  5pm in the Grocery Store any day is better than 9am Sunday at the movie rental place. There's a lot of jockeying for position, location and days.

Seasoned Girl Scouts know all the best times and locations.  Seasoned Cookie Moms work hard to make sure there are plenty of cookie booth options available so each Troop gets the opportunity to sell and meet their goals.

Once each Troop knows their cookie booth schedule, it's up to the girls in the troop to sign up to staff each booth. Enter another brave volunteer - the Troop Cookie Parent!! Usually there is even more competition and coordination to ensure all girls get the chance to sell their cookies and staff a booth.  But once the cookie crumbs have settled, the troop looks back on a lot of hard work time shared with friends, a healthier troop treasury to fund activities and a lot of parents scratching their heads and noting "Hey that wasn't SOOO bad!!"

Scheduling and reminding are still pretty time consuming aspects of the coordination task and to help make this whole process easier, VolunteerSpot has automated the Girl Scout Cookie Booth Sign Up form.

Creating a Cookie Booth Scheduler online makes it point-and-click simple for the Cookie Parent to schedule Cookie Booth slots, and the Troop Leaders or girls' moms to go in and sign up for the booth time and location they wish.

 At the troop level, the booth parent coordinator can then let the troop parents know the booth dates and times, and parents can point and click from the email directly to the troop cookie booth calendar, claim the shifts their daughter (and perhaps their daughter's friend) wants. The booth parent coordinator and the troop parents sees the entire calendar up to date in real time -- cookie booth scheduling is now automated, simplified and wonderful.

 

So if it's time for you to dive into Girl Scout cookie season, click this Link to sample our New Cookie Booth Scheduler for Yourself right now!

VolunteerSpot has also created a great FREE ebook to guide Troop Leaders and Cookie Coordinators and make this year's cookie sales the best ever!! Ebook: Simple, FREE Cookie Booth and Girl Scout Troop Activity Scheduler by VolunteerSpot

Happy Cookie Sales!  Cookie Moms - this one's for you!!

The BEST Holiday Gift for Teachers in a Tough Economy - TIME

Giving the gift of time resonates with both parents and teachers, especially when budgets are tight.  With VolunteerSpot, classroom parents sign up to share some of their time to supervise at recess,or bring the teacher lunch, turning an individual small gesture into a collectively generous gift.

Recognizing our childrens' teachers with a holiday gift from the class is a tradition at our elementary school like many others.  Each classroom typically takes up a collection and presents the teacher with gift cards, spa treatments, or restaurant certificates. (yes, I realize this is very generous).

This year, given the economic crisis and being sensitive to family budgets, our PTO has directed homeroom moms NOT to collect money for teacher gifts. I applaud this move - in our district, we have several parents who have recently lost their jobs.  At the same time, I want to encourage parents to work together to make a meaningful gift recognizing and celebrating our teachers – who are with our kids all day long (how do they do it?!).

At our school this year, parents will gift teachers a daily break by taking over recess duty.  We set up a recess monitor schedule using VolunteerSpot.com and parents signed up to take turns supervising kids on the playground each day.  With a class of 20 kids, it turns out to be about one day a month per family. Moms and dads both participate (even us working moms) - and our teachers LOVE their new found free time! Our teachers also appreciate that time is a GUILT-FREE gift.  If something comes up and a parent can't make the schedule, no problem – just try to send a message ahead of time.  (This gift works best in smaller communities where commutes are short and parents can get away for 45 minutes during the day.)

Another thing the class CAN do together is set up a Thank You Meal Schedule with VolunteerSpot's automated sign up sheet.  Parents sign up online to send lunch or a take-home-meal one day a week. If the parent is available, (s)he can also offer to bring the teacher lunch and supervise the class for 30 minutes while the teacher gets a well-deserved break. Of course, if you want to slip in a restaurant gift certificate when it's your turn, I'm sure it would be welcome.

What’s even more wonderful about setting up a meal or recess schedule, is your child’s teacher can enjoy this gift ALL YEAR, not just in December.

5 Ways VolunteerSpot can Save You Time & Money, Save Your Sanity, & Help you Give Back This Holiday Season

It's officially 'the Holiday Season', and as a busy, working mom, 'the Holiday Season' always sparks a mix of emotions -- excitement and  anxiety.  I'm so looking forward to sharing the joys of Christmas with my kids.  I want to make wondrous memories and instill longtime family traditions of baking, tree trimming, and making snow angels with cousins.  I want to share our good tidings and foster Helping Others as an important family value.  I want to pick out just the right gifts -- for everyone on my list. And, I want to get it all done without losing my mind and actually getting some sleep.  To complicate things, let's add a dash of economic stress and the challenge of doing it all, on a budget.

If you're feeling like me, even just a little bit.  Consider these 5 Ways VolunteerSpot can save you time and money, save your sanity, and help you give back.

1. House Full of Relatives Causing Stress? Schedule Cooking & Chores

2. What to Get Older Relatives that Have Everything? Schedule Visits, Meals & Helping Hands

3. How To Keep Your Kids Entertained All Winter Vacation?  Schedule Play Date Adventures

4. Want to Help a Family in Need? Organize a Giving Tree or Adopt-a-Family

5. What to Give The Teacher in a Tough Economy?  Sign up to Bring Lunches and Free Time

1) House Full of Relatives? Schedule Cooking & Chores:  Our family vacation includes a week of 9 adults and 5 small kids under one roof at my in-law's house, with 4 more joining for Christmas dinner. It used to seem like all I did was cook, clean and entertain kids - not much of a vacation.  Now, thanks to VolunteerSpot, we set up a family schedule before the big week and invite each adult to sign up for a few shifts - cooking lunch, cooking dinner, cleaning up, and kid-adventure duty.  I know when it's my turn to help; and when it's not, I can read a book or go for a walk - guilt free!!  Signing up for chore duty also got the guys more involved in the kitchen - which I welcome (and my mother-in-law is still getting used to).

2) What to Get Older Relatives that Have Everything? Schedule Visits, Meals & Helping Hands:  My Aunt is 87 and still lives on her own. Rather than another bathrobe, hand cream, or a food basket, this Christmas, we're presenting her with a VolunteerSpot schedule of visits, meals, and help around the house.  All us cousins are going to sign up taking turns bringing her a nice meal once a week, driving her to the beauty parlor, and helping in the yard.  She feels good because she doesn't need to ask us for help or call for us to visit and we feel good because we're giving her something she really needs - and we're doing it together.  Scheduling a caring calendar is also great for friends and family that just had a baby or have special health needs.

3) How To Keep Your Kids Entertained All Vacation?  Schedule Play Date Adventures:  If you're a little anxious about how to keep your children busy (and don't want to plug them into TV and video games more than half-the-day), consider scheduling special play dates with friends and neighbors.  Setup a VolunteerSpot calendar of special adventures like building a snow fort, ice skating, making a puppet show, decorating cookies, throwing a dance party, etc.  Invite a small group of friends to each sign up for a spot to host the play date adventure (2-4 hours).  The kids have a blast - the more the merrier!  The day you host, you plan.  Your scheduled day may seem downright chaotic; but on the other days, you get to sit back and relax! Bonus - you don't need to pay a sitter!

4) Want to Help a Family in Need? Organize a Giving Tree or Adopt-a-Family:  Gather a group of your friends, coworkers, or neighbors and Adopt a Family in need - bringing them joy and necessities this holiday season. Create a VolunteerSpot automated sign up sheet posting all the things the family needs (no clipboard to pass around).  Get specific, listing each item as it's own 'To Bring':  (e.g. Girls play outfit - size 6, Men's L work shirt, 2 toys for 7 yr old boy). Add to the list gift-cards for Grocery Stores and large retailers like Target and Walmart, and wrapping paper to make the gifts festive and extra special. Involve your children in making cards and holiday decorations to share. Need to find a family to help?  Many local nonprofits and social service agencies will be able to connect you with a family in need this holiday season - a good start is the Salvation Army and United Way. It's also likely your school, church or congregation is participating in an Adopt-A-Family program. Just ask.

5)  What to Give the Teacher in a Tough Economy?  Sign up to Bring Lunches and Free Time: At our school, we typically recognize and thank our teachers this time of year by taking up a class collection and presenting them with gift cards, spa treatments, or restaurant certificates. This year, given the economic crisis, our PTO has directed homeroom moms to be sensitive to family budgets and NOT to collect money for teacher gifts. One thing the class CAN do together is set up a Free Lunch schedule.  Parents sign up to bring their child's teacher lunch each Friday. If the parent is available, (s)he can also offer to supervise the class for 30 minutes while the teacher gets a well-deserved break.  At our school, we also set up a recess monitor schedule.  Parents take turns supervising kids on the playground each day so our teachers can have some quiet time.  It turns out to be about one day a month per family, moms and dads both participate - and our teachers LOVE their free time!  (So you don't forget, VolunteerSpot sends automated reminder messages two days before it's your turn.)

Everyday Heroes Of Volunteering Can Make An Enormous Difference

I'm fortunate enough to get satellite radio in the mommy van, and between treks to work, doctors, music lessons and school volunteer activities, I flip channels a lot. I like to listen to the news, but I often have to flip it off due to the grim nature of some of the "news" stories -- really not safe for little ears. Oh and my favorite is when they report on a car chase on the radio -- from somewhere in LA (I live in Texas) - since it's hard to appreciate the "excitement" when you can't see the car being chased.

But as I flicked on the news over the weekend, I was glued to the CNN Heroes segment about Marie da Silva, a nanny from Malawi who donates a third of her paycheck each month to fund a school for AIDS orphans in her home country. I was struck by the simplicity of her calling -- she did it because she saw such a great need, and describes that she has been doing it for her own heart. Such simple generosity of time, money and spirit and idea has forever impacted the lives of children who will no doubt grow up to lead incredible, productive lives because of the chance they've been given by this one woman.

Each of the stories deserves as much notice as possible, because it is these stories of a single individual, drawn to solve a problem, with no infrastructure, no existing organization, just a drive and desire to really help show just how much one simple person can accomplish.

I find it especially refreshing, because most often the stories of individual achievement we hear are simply those about a celebrity who has lent his name to a cause, or perhaps truly invested themselves in working for something important -- but these aren't regular people making $36,000 a year, they are wealthy people who have every advantage in making these things happen. That's why the stories of everyday heroes, anonymous people of truly remarkable accomplishments are among the most inspiring I have heard in some time.

Last year, along with my daughter, I had the remarkable good fortune to meet Mohammad Yunus, who won the 2006 Nobel Peace prize for his pioneering work developing microcredit in Bangladesh. As founder of the Grameen Bank, his efforts have helped lift hundreds of thousands of people out of poverty and has inspired others throughout the world to make small loans to the poor.

After waiting for 2 hours, we finally had our brief moment to meet and have our book signed. When he saw me approach with my then 7 year old, he set down his pen, and spoke directly to her: "I am so glad you are here, because young people are the future, and you can do anything you want in this world. The only secret is to decide to do one small thing, and then achieve it. The you can do the next larger thing, and so on." He then signed her book, and we thanked him and left. Some months later, she announced that she was planning to do one small thing, enter a writing contest. She said she got the idea from Mr Yunas, because what she really wanted to do was write a book, but he said take small achievable steps, one at a time, and that seemed like a good step toward what she really wants to do.

This kind of personal inspiration from people who may start as everyday heroes, but grow into a Nobel peace prize winner, is critical to helping our children and let's face it, even us grownups, develop an excitement and renewed enthusiasm for what we can accomplish in our lives. And maybe by this time next year, we'll all be celebrating our own small heroic accomplishment.

New Thanksgiving Warm-up -- Family Volunteer Day

Use VolunteerSpot to Make Family Volunteer Day a New Part of Your Holiday Tradition

Did you ever see the episode of Super Nanny where the bratty kids just complain about how they don’t have the right iPods, shoes, jeans or fancy enough house? Super Nanny knew exactly how to straighten them out – march the family over to volunteer for Habitat for Humanity to see how lucky they really are, instill a little bit a productive guilt and ultimately let the kids see that their effort can make a real difference in the lives of people around them in the community.

Teaching our kids to make a difference in the community makes a difference in them too. Volunteering together is a great way to bond over something positive and it builds important family traditions.

Around Thanksgiving, once we’re stuffed full of yummies on the big day, and nestle in our couches watching the big games we start getting slammed with ads to buy buy BUY for the holidays. The kids often stop being thankful and start getting greedy. Wouldn’t it be great to inoculate them against a little of the consumerism before it starts up and instead take a moment to build a real joy of giving to others? With all the economic turmoil, some of it hurting our own families, isn’t it time to shift focus to bonding over the importance of being together and doing good, rather than just planning another trip to the mall?

Enter one of the coolest new volunteering holidays there is – Family Volunteer Day! Created by the HandsOn Network this annual helping holiday takes place the Saturday before Thanksgiving and is a great way to help kids see the value of giving rather than getting. It’s also a great way to strengthen family bonds and promote community service as a family tradition rather than just a school requirement. It shows that a group can get more done than an individual and creates pride in the achievement of helping. We can’t believe this didn’t happen sooner!

Feeding the needy is a traditional way that many individuals and families offer their help to the less fortunate during the holidays. But there are so many different organizations with needs that are overlooked. Part of the fun of participating in Family Volunteer Day is getting the whole family involved in deciding where and who they want to serve – and by focusing action on the Saturday before the big day, families can create new and innovative ways to share their service in addition to service on Thanksgiving itself. 

Families who have participated before have created some incredible contributions In one family, faced with boxes of old kid videos about to be carted to a thrift store, the kids thought perhaps local hospitals could use these in their children’s ward and in the process created Kid Flicks, an ongoing effort to cycle old videos to hospitals – which gratefully receive them on behalf of young patients.

Another family wanted to honor the passing of a senior member of the family by doing work to improve the lives of older citizens. Each member of the family created a project, and the others helped to service the project.

Think of all the ways your family can get involved and make a difference:

• Plan and replant a derelict garden area at a school, church, community or senior center
• Garage sale to raise money to buy books for the needy
• Trash cleanup in a local park – with a little exercise thrown into the mix!
• Hot cocoa stand to raise money for a local need
• Host a neighborhood pet food drive or collect toys and old towels for local animal shelters
• Coordinate visits to home bound seniors
• Any activity your family comes up with where you can do it together!

Family volunteering doesn’t have to be only your immediate family – it’s even more fun when you have more people!! It can be a family reunion activity, a neighborhood all family get together, girl scout families working together – the bigger the connection the bigger the impact.

VolunteerSpot can help make setting up and coordinating your activities easier, simply by using our FREE activity coordination and reminder tools so that your participants can just sign up for a shift with a click. You can let everyone know how many people you’ll need, you can also set up a list of things to bring. Here are some great examples of larger multi-family volunteer projects: 

• Neighborhood cleanup : there might be an empty lot that needs cleaned or a senior neighbor      having a hard time keeping up with raking leaves or mowing or putting up holiday lights – organize a group to get out and help – and let them know what tools to bring and work to be done, invite friends and neighbors to help.
• Baby Baskets – host a baby shower for babies of moms in need. Have friends bring everything new mom needs (diapers, wipes, clothes, toys, etc.), old baskets to hold supplies, maybe even cans of pink and blue spray paint to spruce up the baskets -- get crafty!! Use VolunteerSpot to have friends and family choose what to bring. Then, host a basket-filling party at your home.
• What if every family on your block helped at the local park? You could clean a trail, cut back weeds or paint park benches. Once you’ve checked with the local parks department, setup your activity in VolunteerSpot, let people know what to bring and you’re ready to go! 

Lots of organizations will be hosting special activities for Family Volunteer Day – as you start your plans, search local community volunteer sites for pre-planned activities in your area.

Download Family_Friendly_Volunteering_eBook.pdf

Getting more people Volunteering - Bring Friends Together

One of the hardest things to improve upon is the volunteering rate in our group, whether it's PTA, scouts, our congregations or communities. As coordinators, we ask and ask, and there are always people who say yes, but are they the same people time and time again? And are we eventually scheduling ourselves toward burnout because the pool isn't growing the way we need it to? HOw can we get more people volunteering?

There are so many places our help is needed, and so many demands on our time that finding the balance we all seek in our lives is probably the greatest challenge to us all. And trying to fit any volunteering on top of a 40 hour work schedule, plus kid activities, maybe even seeing our spouse - yikes, I'm feeling contact overwhelmed just writing about it.

The other tough thing is that I'm having a hard time connecting as often as I need to with my friends. Shoe-horning in a planned dinner or coffee or a walk with a girlfriend can be more complicated than getting a dentist appointment. Especially when I'm trying to fit this in around work, spouse, kids, sports and more. That's why the idea of volunteering with friends is so appealing to me. And that's why I want to encourage more organizers to think about creating activities that let friends volunteer together.

One of the things that's unique about what we are doing at VolunteerSpot is we're creating a volunteering tool that's both very powerful and very simple. The ideal we aspire to is the Apple iPhone -- because clearly there were lots of phones before theirs came out -- but the genius behind the success of their product is that they made the user interface so easy to use that suddenly everyone was using it! With the VolunteerSpot tool, we've made lots of things, including volunteering with a friend, incredibly easy since we don't force a jump through hoops registration, we just try to power volunteering. Here's how it works:

Coordinator sets up a schedule in VolunteerSpot and sends an email to potential volunteers. The activity is billed as a Volunteer With A Friend!! request.

The email recipients read the organizer's message along the lines of "We need people for our park cleanup as part of our Keep Texas Beautiful campaign -- we'd love for you and a friend to help on one of our upcoming work days -- just click to volunteer and signup yourself -- and then click again to add a friend."

The volunteer then just clicks a link in the email and goes directly to the VolunteerSpot signup tool, click to signup herself and then clicks to signup the (unnamed) friend. The volunteer is letting the coordinator know she's bringing an extra person (or five, if she clicks five people) and the coordinator gets a higher rate of volunteering just by putting the idea out their of bringing a friend. The volunteer takes charge of getting the other person to show up and by putting this into the volunteer's hands, it solves a problem a lot of busy people have with finding time to see their friends AND it gives the organizer's activity a real boost of fun and more people power.

So if you're seeing the same, slightly burned out folks, time and time again, consider shaking things up and create your own "Volunteer with Friend!" opportunity.

Family Friendly Volunteering - Service Ideas from A-Z

Here's our great new eBook, Family Friendly Volunteering, and it's yours FREE to spark ideas for National Family Volunteer Day - the Saturday before Thanksgiving. This eBook is packed with service options for kids young and old volunteering through school, scouts, youth groups and with their families.  Please download it now by clicking the link below. Jumpstart your family volunteer planning!!  Share it with your friends!!

Download Family_Friendly_Volunteering_eBook.pdf

Give Thanks (and Heal Political Rifts) by Volunteering with Family

Here's our great new eBook, Family Friendly Volunteering, and it's yours FREE to jumpstart your family volunteer planning!!  Please download it now by clicking the link below.  Share it with your friends!! Download Family_Friendly_Volunteering_National_Family_Volunteer_Day.pdf

Over the last 20 months, there has been a palpable and continuing struggle going on in the United States of the direction of the country and its leadership. As the election reached its closing weeks, economic events unfolded to make the contest even more important to the average American. Within families there have been heated discussions, angry judgment, and arguments over who is right and who is wrong. Many of us have traded pointed emails between sisters and brothers, forwarded down party lines, and often crossing into family communications.

The election has now concluded and with a gracious concession from John McCain, a call for unity from President-Elect Barack Obama and a pledge from both to work together to take the country forward. A tough battle can now fade into the distance of time. But can we heal the rifts within families as quickly as these incredible politicians?

With Thanksgiving soon to be upon us, many of us will be seeing our families face to face for the first time since the election. Some of those wicked disagreements are going to be hard to put behind us very quickly. An evening of overindulgence may not be the cure that we're searching for - in fact a celebratory toast or two may loosen tongues and widen the rifts. How can we come together in the spirit exemplified by these two candidates and reach across the table and join hands again with our families?

There is somthing that can repair the bonds and bring us back together, and honor the peaceful conclusion to an historic election -- service to others. And there is a holiday designed for just this purpose -- Family Volunteer Day.

Scheduled for the Saturday before Thanksgiving, Family Volunteer Day offers families big and small an opportunity to give back to the community through service. It's up to your family how you want to take action -- but something of personal importance to a revered elder or perhaps to the younger members  could be the focal point.

We've made starting the discussion and deciding what to do a lot easier with our free eBook: "Family Friendly Volunteering: Service for Families, Students, Youth Groups and Scouts." Packed full of ideas, use the book as a way to get started on a holiday tradition that will heal the rifts after our national political battle, and set the stage for better family connections for years to come.