Using Volunteer Toolkit (VTK)

In this tab, leaders can manage troop contacts, track awards and badges, track attendance, and communicate with parents/guardians.

• Click on a girl’s name to see detailed information like her address, birthday, and phone number.
• You can see a list of awards, badges, and attendance in each girl’s record.
• Click on email contacts to email all the families in your troop.

In this tab, leaders can plan out their troop’s year. Some features in this tab differ by troop level.

Features for All Troop Levels

Organize Troop Meetings

• The petal/badge and Journey Year Plans are organized by 15 meetings in default order. You can drag-and-drop these to reorder them.
• Use the Specify Dates and Locations tab to set your meeting dates/times and troop meeting location.
• Under Calendar, you can set meeting dates, frequency, and times (make sure to add in any holidays that will change your regular meeting times). Click “Update Calendar” to save your changes.
• Under Location, you can add your meeting location and address. Click “Add” to save your changes.
• To combine troop meetings, you can organize multiple meetings on the same date.
  • Click on the troop meeting date in your year plan.
  • In the pop up box, click on the calendar and choose to combine meeting dates.
  • Choose one date for both meetings and click save.

Milestone Dates

Look for Milestones in orange to remind you of upcoming dates for council events, product sales, and other important dates you need to know.

Customize Activities For Indoors and Outdoors

In each meeting where there are outdoor links, you will see an evergreen tree symbol you can click on to see a choice between doing the activity inside or outside. Depending on what you choose, the activity will be customized to the setting (and if you choose to do the activity outside, the tree turns green).

Features for Daisy, Brownie, and Junior Leaders

Daisy, Brownie, and Junior leaders logging into the VTK for the first time, will have multiple options under the Year Plan library:

• 6-7 Journey Year Plans
• one plan for petals or badges
• one “Create Your Own” Year Plan

Features for Cadette, Senior, and Ambassador Leaders

Cadette through Ambassador leaders will only see the “Create Your Own” Year Plan, as badge and Journey program resources are not yet available for these grade levels. Using these tools, girls can be more involved in planning their troop year.

Features for Multilevel Leaders

Multilevel troops will have a choice of Daisy, Brownie and/or Junior levels to choose activities for. In the Year Plan Library, multilevel leaders will have the option of “Create your Multi-Level Troop Year Plan”. The multi-level experience, also includes three STEM year plans just for Multi-Level troops, in addition to the “Create Your Own Year Plan”… where a troop can select from all content for Daisy, Brownie and Juniors.

Using Create Your Year Plan

• Choose what age levels you want (Daisy, Brownie and/or Junior).
• Once age levels are selected, you can choose between Badge, Journey, Award Earning, Intro and Closing.
• Choose your meeting plan type(s) and click View Meeting Plans.
• Choose the meeting plans you want. Make sure if a badge has two meeting plans (part one and two) that you choose both meeting plans.
• Click Add To Year Plan to add your meetings.

Combining Meetings on One Date

Combining meetings on one date allows multilevel leaders to have their Daisy, Brownie and/or Junior meetings on the same date.

• Inside the Year Plan tab and click on the green-colored meeting date box for the date you want to combine meetings.
• Find your meeting date and click on the calendar icon. This will open a box with the choice to Change Date/Time, Cancel Meeting or Combine Meetings.
• Choose Combine Meetings and click on the meetings you want to combine.
• Click Continue and use the calendar to choose the date for those meetings to occur.
• Click Save and when you view your Year Plan, you will see multiple meetings on that date.

In this tab, you can customize meeting activities, delete ones your girls don’t want to do, and replace them with new ones.

• Choose a meeting by clicking on the colored meeting date box. You must specify your meeting dates and location under the Year Plan tab to see your Meeting Plans.
• In each meeting you will see:
  • Overview – Click on the overview to see a quick summary of the meeting you are viewing.
  • Activity Plan – Gives you details of each meeting’s activities.
  • Materials List – Tells you everything you need for that meeting.
  • Edit/Send Meeting Email -Gives you a scripted email for families that you can edit as needed to remind them of what the girls will be doing at that meeting.
  • Record Attendance and Achievements – This is where you can keep track of what badges girls have earned and who was at each meeting. It is populated into each girl’s information in the My Troop tab.
  • Meeting Aids – Includes worksheets, songs, and other types of reference materials you will need for meeting activities. If there are outdoor components to the meeting, you may also see videos to help you get girls outdoors.
  • Meeting Agenda – Lists all the activities for the meeting with the recommended times for each activity. You can change the order of activities by “dragging and dropping,” or delete activities by clicking on the activity title. You can also edit the times allowed for each activity. Activities with an outdoor component will have an evergreen tree you can click on to get girls outside with the activity.
  • Add Agenda Item – This is where you can customize your meeting by adding additional activities (like celebrating Juliette Low’s Birthday) to customize your troop meeting.
  • Your Opinion Matters! – For meetings with an outdoor component, take the time to do a quick survey to let GSUSA know what you thought about the activities. This will help them to continue to improve VTK with your input.
  • Add a Note – You can leave notes to the other leaders in your troop to see. Parents cannot view notes.
  • Select Year Plan to return to your troop’s year plan.

Use this tab to search the Volunteer Toolkit for meeting aids. Search by typing in the name of the resource you are looking for (like a kaper chart) and you can add it to any meeting in your year plan. You will not be able to access resources from our website using this tab.

The VTK finance tab is not currently used. Stay tuned for more information on submitting your troop finance report later this year.

• Currently, you can only register or renew membership through the Volunteer Toolkit.
• To register girls for programs and learning opportunities, visit GirlScoutsRV.org/Events.
• To register girls for summer camp, visit Camp.GirlScoutsRV.org/Register.

In order to use our resources wisely, we had to narrow our focus when initially implementing the VTK. Since older girls have more experience making decisions and planning their own meetings, we chose to implement the K-5 meeting plans first.

Older girl troops can still use the VTK to communicate with families and plan meetings with the Create Your Own Year Plan function.

Additional resources for older girl troops will be rolled out in the future. Look for the new Outdoor Journeys available in pdf format in VTK in mid-August.

•  As noted above, you cannot access council events or resources found on our websites inside of VTK. VTK is an additional tool that is separate from the GirlScoutsRV.org and Volunteers.GirlScoutsRV.org websites.
• There is no Year Plan in the VTK for the It’s Your World Journey series for Brownie and above. Refer to the adult Journey guide or River Valleys activity plans.
• Financial tracking. Continue to access troop financial forms from our website.
• Information on Highest Awards, bridging, safety awards, and additional badges and awards are not included in the VTK. Refer to the Girls’ Guide to Girl Scouting or the troop leader section of this website.

• Parents/guardians can log in to their online account using the MY GS tab on our website and view parts of the VTK, although they cannot make any changes.
• Using the Troop tab, parents can view their girl’s membership, but cannot see other girls’ information.
• They can view the Year Plan and Meeting Plan, and search for resources.
• Parents/guardians can use their online account to make changes to their Girl Scout’s information (contacts, membership, family profile), but cannot change the troop information.

You can download and save your VTK plans into any digital device, laptop, tablet, or smart phone. You can also print VTK plans to take with you to your meeting.

The VTK can be accessed from any electronic device – tablet, smart phone, or laptop – with internet capability. Libraries are a great resource for those who don’t have access to internet at home. You can print meeting plans or download them onto an electronic device to use without internet access at your meeting.