WEBMASTER'S PAGE!

Giving credit where credit is due...

This site developed over a period of time. It arose out of an idea I had to introduce the cyber world of Girl Scouting to our council, our leaders and our girls. One of the better Girl Scout laws is simply "to use resources wisely" and while many of us think of recycling when they see that, I have always thought it meant to seek out resources to further your own knowledge. The World Wide Web and the Internet bring us the chance and the opportunity to literally bring the sum total of the knowledge of the world to our desktop. Life is very much a learning experience and the more you jump into something, the more you just learn about it. It was almost inconceivable that I could help design a website when I first started this project, but voila, here it is!

I obtained the support of this project from our Executive Director, Ann Soots, at the 1997 Teddy Bear Fair. She has been very instrumental in guiding me and supporting this entire venture and I cannot wait to show her the results of our efforts! Our first page was created by myself, my daughter, Crystal, and Anthony Young, from Orion. We "threw" the site together to introduce it to our council and roll it out for our 1997 Leader's Weekend, Back to the Future. It actually went into cyberspace on the evening of April 22nd, 1997, Girl Scout Leader's Day! Anthony Young and all of the people at ORION have been wonderful in helping us get this done the way it should be! If any of you leaders out there have any leftover cookies =GRIN=, I happen to know that Anthony has a weakness for the Shortbreads and he has not turned down a box yet! Anthony, then, was one of our presenters at Leader's Weekend and he set up his equipment in the barn at Camp Finbrooke to show everyone what could be found on the Web about Girl Scouting. He has continued to help us with many E-Mail exchanges and phone calls to make everything work!

I would be remiss in my duties if I did not acknowledge the support and the main driving force behind all of our Girl Scout activities, namely, my wife, Barbara. If you are part of this council and do not know who she is, then you are not paying attention! She wears a lot of hats! She deserves all the credit for all that we do as a family. Even after 20 years, I still love her and all that she does for Girl Scouting!

I also want to acknowledge the efforts of Melissa Mace, our council's former Communication Director, who helped supply us with the information needed to make this site. This site builds the foundation for our communications into this new millennium and it is the perfect time to realize that!

My chief mentor on this project has got to be Judy Brennan from Mid-Continent Girl Scout Council. She gives new meaning to the concept of volunteerism! She has sent me an endless amount of information not just on Girl Scout websites, but also stuff on how to write HTML that has proved to be very valuable! She is setting the standards on Girl Scout web page writing, so make sure you check out her website for her troop. She also has a brand new Girl Scout Chat Room that I don't think she will mind if we use!

Troop #2099

Judy, by the way, is a Troop Leader, Council Master Trainer, Service Team Member, Junior Consultant, Day Camp Director and teaches the computer workshops at Mid-Continents Fall and Spring Program Conferences! And you thought you were juggling and balancing the things that you do!

I also want to thank all of the other people on council staff who have supported this volunteer effort: Linda DuBrul with the Backpacking page, Maureen Bittle with the Spotlight on Volunteers page, Mary Hermanski with the Council Shop page, and Ranger Roy with the Camp Finbrooke page.

Last, but certainly not least, I want to thank the efforts of three amazingly bright and talented young ladies who devoted some major time in helping with this awesome project and to finish up their hours in completing their Silver Award! Congratulations to Shawna F., Crystal L. and Stephanie M., from Cadette Troop #458 in Springfield VI Service Unit, for this well-earned award! I have got to share with you...their initial reaction to learning how to write with HTML (Hyper Text Markup Language - the language that supports web pages) was one of shock and disbelief! I think they thought it surely must have stood for "Hard-To-Make Language"! To see them, you would have thought that I was trying to teach them Chinese arithmetic! That certainly can't be any fun! However, nearing their completion of their pages, they were typing this stuff into our computer better than I was! See, girls, I told you that you could do it!