• Don't let anyone persuade you that Scouting must be a mysterious club with many rules.
  
  
• Use your common sense about: how to call a new group together; getting acquainted with the girls' parents; when and how to gather membership registration information and money; how much extra adult help you need, and who might help.

If you don't know how to do something (or even if you do) ask the girls how they would do it - and if there is no clear danger to life, limb or other folks' property - let them.

• The worst 'wrong' thing you could do is shut the girls out of the decision making. Share the load. It's their group; you are there to help them. For a while, they will not believe you are for real, but stick with it.
  
  
• Examples of things they can decide: Ways to find out what the girls can do and would like to do (choosing badges); what supplies are needed for a project; how to welcome and invest new members; dues; ways to start and end meetings.
  
  

Polish up your sense of humor. Have fun!

• The skies will not fall if now and then a meeting sounds and looks like the fun house at an amusement park. Sometimes the girls need to blow off steam.
  
  

Speaking of mothers - If you are one, shift gears, love the girls and worry about them sometimes, of course, but you are not their parent, you are their friend.

• Think about a person you loved to visit because such wonderful things happened. Think about what this person was like and in what ways they were different from your mother and father.
  
  

Get the 'Lets look in the book' habit.

• The Handbooks, the Leader's Yearbook, Badge books, Safety-Wise, and other Girl Scout guides and pamphlets are like an encyclopedia; they are not meant to be read like novels. When a question arises, you say 'Let's look it up."
  
  
• Some examples of things you and the girls can find in books: how to honor the flag with a ceremony, how your troop government should work, the reasons for having badges, signs, challenges, games and activities.

Doing is a great way to learn and grow, and learning and growing are what Girl Scouting is all about.

• That goes for both you and the girls. They can try anything, and learn from what does not work almost more than from what does.
  
  
• That is a great gift to any young person -- a place to learn from mistakes without the penalty of being marked a failure.
  
  

Use learning events and watch other leaders; to experiment, practice and learn by doing.

• You can make it the place to explore and experiment with ideas and skills that the girls may not be able to help you with.
  
  

Most of all, learn with the girls, laugh with them, and Love Them!