Gold Award GSCM ceremony

This past weekend, Gold Award recipients a few close friends and families got to gather for its annual celebratory event! I thought it would be fun to write a small blog post about my experience.

First and for most!

The ceremony was conducted in a Covid safe manner and each set of four people (participant and three guests) sat at their own table distant from the others. Safety percussions such as temperature tests and outdoor dining made the event possible while remaining safe.

Decorations

The tables were decorated with little goodie boxes filled with candy and other mementos. In addition each recipent got a Gold promise pin in place of the Gold Award (as they were still in the mail). They did a really good job of explaining this and telling us the symbolism behind the pins. Their was a booklet that had descriptions of all the gold award recipients. In total their were 66 Gold Award recipients in all of Girl Scouts Of Central Maryland. The book was a nice keep sake to learn about other local Gold Award projects. A big brown envelope was also on the table. This was stuffed with cards, congratulations letters, and more from local senators, state officials, delegates, and even past presidents! It was really special to see your name on a letter from Jimmy Carter and George Bush.

Start of the ceremony

The ceremony started with the Pledge Of Allegiance, GS Promise, and GS Law. Then a previous Gold Award recipient talked about the history behind the Gold Award. Hearing all the previous names for the Gold Award was really interesting. For example, did you know this award used to be called First Class from 1963-1980 before being called the Gold Award?

Dinner

Three courses were served for dinner including salad, chicken and vegetable, and cake for dessert. The venue did a really nice job of catering for special diets such as Vegan, Gluten Free, and Vegetarian.

Video

Once the dessert round was passed out, council started a video introducing the Gold Award class of 2021. The video was made by a local Emmy winning videographer who happens to be a Girl Scout troop leader and volunteer. The video was extremely well out together and featured recipents and local governmental officials. During the video, each recipent talked about their project, who they wanted to thank, and how it applied to the Girl Scout Law. Again this was really special to hear all the Gold recipients talk through their project. Projects ranged from planting sustainable gardens, painting murals in the community, packing period supplies to combat period poverty, providing self defense classes to girls in the community, and designing a website. (If you are looking for any Gold Award ideas feel free to reach out and I can discuss some of these in more depth!)

Pinning ceremony

Of course any GS ceremony would not be complete without a pinning. Since, the Gold Award pin was still being sent from Girl Scouts USA, the Gold Promise pin was used. This pin is shaped in a GS salute (the one you hold up when saying the promise). After the trying year and long journey it was worthwhile to finally be pinned and say “I did it!”

Girl Scout Humor

As a Girl Scout, we have the saying “Be prepared.” This evening was no different. For mid-April, it was a chilly evening with temperatures in the high forties to low fifties. Chilly enough that when sitting still for more than a few minutes it turned all your limbs numbed. In Girl Scout fashion, I wore a sweater, sweatshirt, and jacket but still found myself chilly. Despite many people preparing ahead of time, many of us still found ourselves frozen. People pulled out blankets and tin foil? Hahaha. This tin foil I am talking about is an emergency blanket. Using our resources in our car we stumbled upon one blanket and an emergency blanket to share among four people. So, this emergency blanket was pulled out of its container and utilized at a Girl Scout ceremony. This only goes to show the importance of being prepared. The emergency blanket was in place in the car from a survival kit I made in Girl Scouts at the “Survior“ event. I did not think of using it in this way, but ironically it came in good use. Miss Paula perhaps looked a bit silly, but she was warm and would have for sure won “Best Girl Scout fashion award.”