Scarecrows - GE Opening Ceremony 2018

It's almost Halloween!  If you are looking for a costume idea, why not be a scarecrow? Easy Peasy!

Our GE theme this year was scarecrows, and our opening ceremony was about scarecrows and imposter syndrome.  If it can be useful to you, take with my compliments, and give thanks to the poets and artists whose works are included here.

Scarecrow Ceremony for Great Escape 2018

Good Morning Girl Scouts!

Please join us in our Flag Ceremony

Opening: Quiet Sign

3 flagbearers – Guard, American Flag, Guard – plus caller

 3 flagbearers come in with American flag.

Caller commands:

Girl Scouts Attention

Color Guard Attention

Color Guard Advance

Color Guard Post the Colors

Please join me in the Girl Scout Promise and Law. All say Promise and Law.

Color Guard Dismissed

Welcome to the 2018 Great Escape.  Once again we meet at our beautiful Camp, Wabasso, in the crisp New Hampshire fall air.   One of our Great Escape traditions is that each year we choose one symbol of fall to celebrate and think about.  This year’s symbol is the scarecrow.

A scarecrow is an imitation of a human being, but despite that, the scarecrow does an important job.

The Scarecrow

By Walter De La Mare (adapted)

All winter through I bow my head

beneath the driving rain;

the North Wind powders me with snow

and blows me black again;

But when that child called Spring, and all

his host of children come,

some rapture in my rags awakes;

I lift void eyes and scan

the sky for crows, those ravening foes,

of my strange master, Man.

 

I watch him striding lank behind

his clashing team, and know

soon will the wheat swish body high

where once lay a sterile snow;

soon I shall gaze across a sea

of sun-begotten grain,

which my unflinching watch hath sealed

for harvest once again.

In the beloved classic, the Wizard of Oz, the scarecrow felt inferior because his head was stuffed with straw, but with his questions such as “I wonder if” and wise counsel “It occurs to me” it becomes apparent (perhaps after a child has viewed it many times) that he’s the wisest of  Dorothy’s counselors.

A Proud Scarecrow

An old scarecrow stood with her arms akimbo,
Thinking her dull life was now in limbo,
She somehow, never seemed to scare the crows,
She had tried hard enough, heaven knows.

Her coat was torn and there were many more
Holes, where the crows had searched for straw.
Her hat was looking limp and out of shape,
Her shirt in the front, had begun to gape.

Then one day she found she was being moved,
Into a very large building, it was proved,
A place where important things can be found,
Where people stand and admire, and look around.

A Museum that's dedicated to our Country Art,
And a scarecrow her age, just had to be part
Of this collection, that was here for all to view,
An exhibit that stated that 'she' was 'New'.

In all her tatters, she stood straight and tall,
Not minding all the stares, no, not at all,
For her new life she felt, just couldn't be beat,
Now she's a proud scarecrow, feeling so complete. 

© Ernestine Northover (adapted)

Our new Girl Scout year begins on Monday.  One of the themes for  GSUSA this year is battling “Imposter syndrome.”  Imposter syndrome is a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud".  Like the scarecrow in the Wizard of Oz, women and girls often internalize the feeling that inside, they are not as smart or as useful or as competent as they appear on the outside, that, like a scarecrow, they are not ‘real.’

But as the poems we’ve just read point out, scarecrows are useful and beautiful.  They are real, and so are we, and so are our girls.  We are not imposters, we are competent and powerful, inside and out.  Like Dorothy’s scarecrow, we are wise – in the next Oz book, the scarecrow becomes the ruler of Oz.  When you see a scarecrow this fall, remember that we and all women and girls are real– beautiful, useful and wise, no matter how we appear.  Be a proud scarecrow!