I am a Brownie Leader - I was a daisy leader last year and I preferred that because Daisies don't fund raise.
It's a tough thing to balance as a leader. i HATE HATE HATE fundraisers, and cookies are no different. BUT - I also believe that the girls should have opportunities to try different activities, and most things cost money. So, we either have to ask parents for more money, or we have to fund raise.
Our council does a fall product sale (it's worse than cookies - nuts, candy and magazine subscriptions!) and then cookies come in the winter. Sounds like we do cookies differently too - we take orders from people (instead of getting a crate of cookies and having to sell them all).
As for paying for meetings, most troops require dues of some sort. We meet every other week and charge the $10 registration fee AND $40 dues annually. It's expensive to be a girl Scout - I just bought our troop their pins and 3 try-its they have earned and that came to almost $80 for 13 girls! Nearly 1/8 of our annual budget was spent in the first few weeks on justptches! It's really tough to plan any real programs for the girls because we don't have the money for it.
When I talked to parents about fundraising, I told them that we pretty much have to particiapte as a troop - but that didn't mean every member of the troop has to sell. Some girls really like fundraising and do quite well with it. Others, like my daughter, are lucky if they can talk grandma into buy one thing. But if our troop doesn't participate in council-sponsored sales, we are not allowed to fundraise on our own.
I also told the parents that ourtroop'[s budget was dependant on fundraising to do programs - and we would either need to raise some $$$ as a troop, or assess more dues. They were all okay with that.
Some people are just making a donation to the troop rather than selling a $10 tin of nuts and seeing $.70 go to the troop.
