I would never tell you that Pam! Trust me, all of the feedback I get here is valuable, or I wouldn't ask for it.
In principle, I completely agree with you. But here's the problem - the troop is in the red, and the cost for materials came out of my own pocket. So if we don't sell anything, I don't get reimbursed. I know that's not the girl scout rules - the volunteers are NEVER supposed to spend money out-of-pocket. But if we waited on funds to come in from other methods (like cookie sales), we'd have to wait a whole additional year.
The other problem is, I know my girls. If this fails too miserably, they will lose confidence and won't be willing to take any future fundraising risks. So my goal is to at least sell enough stuff to be able to reimburse myself for materials. Past that point, I expect the following to be the lessons the girls learn:
1. They all got to try making earrings. Some did OK, most of them acknowledged that it was much harder than it looked. I'm happy to let those who want to have another attempt, but I'm also willing to finish up the kits we already have and be happy that they tried jewelry making and learned that it's harder than it looks and takes practice.
2. We made a full set (24) clear ball ornaments that were filled with curled holiday scrapbook paper. They came out great, but it took 7 of us a full three hours to make 24 of them. Not difficult, but time-consuming. We will be analyzing all of the time these things took after the sale.
3. Even if I finish out (and neaten) some of the craft items, the girls will still have full responsibility for determining pricing and creating all of the marketing.
4. There is one more ornament that we're going to make several of, and it will be a "follow along and do what I do" kind of thing. Many of these girls are easily distracted, and if they don't pay attention, they'll quickly learn that their ornament is beyond fixing. I won't be making corrections to those - we'll only sell the ones that come out right.
5. This lesson is for the other leader (
). She's a bit of a Pinterest nut. She has proposed nothing short of a bazillion craft ideas for us to sell. And I have to be the voice of reason. Many things are simple to do (even for 12yos), but the materials could be expensive to procure, or take a long time to collect. Many things look simple, but I know by looking at them that they are not. These little tree ribbons are one example. I've made some already, and I screwed up several, and they are far more time consuming than they look. When I told her about my experience, she shrugged it off. She's going to be following along with everyone else when I give instructions, and I guarantee she's going to struggle just as much as the girls. She loves Pinterest, but she's never ever actually tried to make anything she's seen from there. Her ambitions way outreach our collective skills as a troop.
So anyway, that's why this craft fair will still have some valuable lessons, even if I go and sink far more time on it in the interest of quality control. I'm just trying to get my original financial investment back, and the girls do still learn a lot of lessons when it's all done.