Key to Brownies Camp!

At the beginning of the year it’s sometimes tricky to get a good group dynamic going with the girls. With a mix of 2^nd years who know each other and new girls, different ages and girls from different schools I find that sometimes not every girl feels at home right away. My favourite way (and I think the best way) to get the girls to bond is to take them to camp! However, with the craziness of the beginning of school and beginning of Brownies I have never been able to pull off a Fall camp.

This year I was determined to get the girls out to an overnight as early as I could in the season. In May I booked a campsite for October at Camp Ma-Kee-Wa and over the course of the summer planned a “Key to Brownies” themed camp. I thought we could use this camp to do everything in a weekend that usually takes weeks of meeting time to sort out – fairy circles, traditions, songs, fairy circle flags, learning promise/motto/law, etc. Basically everything the girls need to do/know before Enrolment. This way we were able to incorporate more “information-y” stuff with fun camp games and activities.

We were super lucky because we had another Brownie Unit sharing our space for the weekend. Joined up with the 368th Toronto Brownies we had 28 girls up and enjoying camp with us. This not only added more girls for more fun, but also allowed us to have each of our leaders play to their strengths - running different crafts and activities with the group throughout the weekend. Our camp was a FULL weekend of fun and the girls had a ball. Perhaps you’ll like some of our activities and want to try them out at your next camp!

Since this camp was so early in the year we wanted to give the girls lots of choices for attending. We had some girls stay 2 nights, 1 night and some who came to do a day program. The girls staying two nights arrived Friday night and we had a sing along. The next morning the girls were hungry and ready to start programming so after a big breakfast we moved onto patrol duties.
When I tell parents about the girls doing patrol duties at camp they never believe me. They just can't believe that the girls will willing wash dishes, sweep and clean bathrooms. Since this was our first camp, and we were in a building we had very simple/streamlined patrol duties. The girls all washed their own dishes after meals but were split into patrols to help with: Graces & Setting the Tables for Meals, Cleaning the Bathrooms, Sweeping/Tidying our Main Program Space. The girls also had a competition for the cleanest room! The winning team was announced at Lunch and wow was the competition fierce!

Because our theme was "Key to Brownies" we wanted to incorporate lots of activities to get the girls prepped for enrolment. This started out with a Brownie Promise/Motto/Law Relay Race!

After this activity we split up the girls into their fairy circles and they began to make fairy circle flags. This is a new activity we thought up this year. The only 2 things the girls had to include on their flags was the name of their fairy circle and the names of all of the girls in their circle group. This was a great lesson in cooperation, planning and compromise. The girls worked together really well and the final results were amazing! We've since added these flags to our meeting space and use them every week as well as at special events such as Enrolment.

With the flurry of activity inside the girls certainly worked up an appetite. We met up with the 368th Brownies for a quick snack outside and then moved the fun outside for some outdoor games!

Look at that Friendship and Group Bonding!

The girls went on a hike with Guiders Katherine and Katherine. After a quick hike and some nature exploration the girls got to play some wide games including Huckle-Buckle!

Following the hike and outside games the girls came back to Highland Haven for lunch. Grilled cheese, soup, veggies and chips - a yummy lunch for busy Brownies. After lunch the girls went up for some relaxing time in their rooms. Many decided to complete the last few items for their "Team Together" and "Happy Hiker" badges and others decided to read and/or take a snooze.

All rested up, the Brownies were ready for some crafts! Since it was the beginning of the year we wanted to make sure all of the Brownies were able to complete their Glue Gun Training. This is a training we do with the 401st Brownies if they want to be allowed to use a glue gun by themselves during the year. In order to get their "Glue Gun Permit" the girl has to prove that she knows how to safely use the glue gun and knows what to do if she was to get burned.

After each Brownie had completed her training she was able to decorate her Brownie Backpack. The girls will use these backpacks every week to bring their things back and forth to our meetings. They also will double as hiking backpacks for camp!

While the girls were working on their backpacks we also had an activity set up for the girls to choose their interest badges for the year. Every year while completing Brownie Program Keys we also work on some corresponding interest badges as a group. In order to work on the badges that the girls are interested in we had them do a sticker vote. Each girl was given 15 stickers and could vote on whatever badges they liked. They could put all of them on one badge or spread out their choices. The badges with the most interest are the ones we will focus on completing as a group this year.

Once the back packs were completed we decided to meet up with the other group and head out for a hike. Camp Ma-Kee-Wa has a magical hiking trail that leads to the Fairy forest. In the forest the girls found mushroom rings, fairy statues, gnome messages and of course the Brass toadstool, perch of the Wise Old Owl. Here in the forest we did some exploring and then learned the Grand Howl to thank the fairies for letting us come see their home. 

Following the foray with the fairies our Brownies headed back home for some dinner. Once we all had full tummies we met up with the Pathfinders who led a campfire for us. After some songs and s'mores we were all ready for bed. A quick story and then everyone was off to dreamland.

We had such an AMAZING time at camp this fall. The girls learned everything the needed to know for our upcoming Enrolment ceremony and all of them earned their Key to Brownies Badge and their BC Fall Camping Challenge Badge. While taking so many girls to camp is a lot of work and sometimes a little overwhelming, seeing how happy the girls are makes it all worth it. We can't wait to try Fall camping again next year. 

Sparks Celebrate the International Day of the Girl!

This year our Sparks unit decided to try out one of the Girl Guide provided "Instant Meetings." We've never done one before - Im very much a Plan everything yourself-er but they had one for the International Day of the Girl so we thought why not.

Overall I was very pleased with the Instant meeting. We adapted a few of the activities but for the most part ran things as they were explained. 

First up was a quick activity called "step to yes" which had the girls look at all the ways they use science, technology, engineering and math in their lives. We talked about turning on/off lights, building with blocks, baking with family, etc. It was a great way to get the girls thinking about the daily ways we interact with these subjects. 

After the first activity I showed the girls a great Sesame Street video. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IB6L1UCPR6M

This one features First Lady Michelle Obama and her puppet friends Rosita and Zari talking about international day of the girl. It explains in a very kid friendly way that not all girls have the same opportunities, such as getting the chance to go to school. The Sparks really liked the video and it was a great way to help them understand why we celebrate international day of the girl. 

For the next two activities we split the group and ran them in stations. I worked with the girls to make homemade calculators and guider Alison worked with the girls to create milk paintings. 

The girls were So Confused when I told them we were going to make calculators with the craft supplies in front of them! Instead of pipe cleaners we used these thin wooden rods from the dollarstore. They worked really well. We also had the girls pick 2 colours of beads and put on 5 of each. It was really fun to try out different addition and subtraction challenges using our calculators. The girls were very proud of their math skills and were eager to share. 

While my group was making calculators Alison's group was exploring the magic of colours by making magic milk paintings. The girls got to pick out all sorts of food colouring to add to their milk dishes and then use their magic soap wands to make the colours dance. After exploring the chemical reaction the girls used diffusing paper to capture the colours into a painting to take home. 

It was a very busy meeting but we made sure to make some time to share the weekly journey of our crystal doll. This past week Emmeline got to take Crystal home and she had a wonderful adventure. Crystal got a beautiful new pink and blue dress and had a tea party at Emmeline's house. She sure had a great time!

We had so much fun with the Instant meeting to celebrate the International Day of the Girl. Thanks Girl Guides of Canada for the awesome activities!

Sparks, Sparks, Sparks!

When I first began my Girl Guide leader journey I joined up as "Glimmer” a leaders with the 401st Toronto Sparks. Joined by an amazing leader named Jasmin "Sparkle" we ran this unit for two amazing years. After year 2 we found out that our local Brownie unit was closing due to lack of leaders so we split up, I moved up to Brownies and she stayed with the Sparks.

Fast forward 3 years and I find myself leading Sparks again with my friend Alison. Now a member of the 78^th Toronto Sparks, “Glimmer” is back in action and having a ball with the youngest members of Girls Guides – the 5 & 6 year old Sparks.

We've had three meetings with the Sparks so far and boy have they been busy. First off the girls learned their opening and closing songs and most importantly, the Sparks Promise. The girls are working each week to commit to the promise of Sharing and Being a Friend.

To get the girls comfortable in the group we thought we’d start off with a name game. In this activity each girl got a pipe cleaner with one colour of bead on it. As the girls milled about the room they would introduce themselves to one another, switching coloured beads afterwards. At the end of the activity the girls had met a lot of new friends and were all sporting brand new rainbow friendship bracelets!

After bracelet making, the girls worked on a quick craft to help them remember their sparks promise. Using picture cards and popsicle sticks the girls put the promise in order and practiced reading it to their friends. They were very excited to take these home to share with their families.

The following week our Sparks continued to work on their Sparks memory books. We will be working on these books a little each week whether its doing a little colouring before the meeting starts or adding a paper craft we worked on in that meeting. These memory books are a great way to keep all of your daughters Sparks work in one place and from getting crumpled on the car ride home. We will be keeping the journals at our meeting space but please feel free to come and see your daughter’s book anytime. They will be sent home at the end of the year.

This week the girls were learning a bit more about the Sparks program badges and pins. They created paper sashes to see what badges they were going to earn this year as well as where the badges and pins go on their uniform sashes. The girls loved this craft!

Beginning a New Brownie Year!

Fall has arrived and that means its time for Brownies to start up again. We've had about three meetings so far and the girls have really started getting into a rhythm. Over the past few weeks we've been looking at what it means to be a Brownie including learning about our uniforms, badges, fairy circles, cookies and more!


On our first night we worked on learning our Brownie Opening and Promise, Motto & Law. The girls are still working on remembering the songs and Promise but the 2nd year girls are being amazing leaders and helping the new girls out. 

Our second meeting was very busy as we worked on learning about our Brownie uniform and trying reef knots. The girls created paper dolls with special Brownie Uniforms and sewed dues pouches to attach to their sashes. The dues pouches were inspired by the belt pouches we had when I was a girls but the ones we made were much smaller.



At our third meeting we worked to complete our Cookies Rising Badge. Before we got started with cookies we wanted to create a group contract and list of rules we thought we should have at Brownies. Tawny Owl ran this session with teh girls, starting with looking at what the Brownie Promise, Motto & Law mean and how we can emulate those traits at our Brownie Meetings


The girls came up with some some amazing rules such as 

- Not Excluding Others

- Respect the People Around us

- Encourage Others

- Lend a Hand

- Be Honest

- Stick Together

- Share

- Be a Family

After coming up with our Brownie Meeting Rules all of the girls and owls signed the board and agreed to follow the statements. 

After the contract was created, we jumped into learning about cookies! 

First we started off by playing the Do/Do Not Cookie selling game. Brown Owl read off statements such as:

- We should walk on the grass when cookie selling

- We should always wear uniform when selling cookies

- You should always sell cookies with a buddy

and the girls had to run to a Do or Do Not sign posted in the room. Overall the girls' cookie knowledge was very good and this game was a good way to clear up any misunderstandings they had. 

Next was another running game called Birds nest. In the girls Fairy Circle teams the girls raced to find cards on the floor that covered all of the ingredients to bake cookies. They loved this game so much that we played it several times - lots of laughs and cheers with this one! 

The last activity we had of the night was to set a group and personal cookie selling goal. As a group we brainstormed what we wanted to spend our cookie money on.  In our group we divide the $12.25 of profit form each case of cookies sold in the following manner - $5 goes to the individual girl who sold the case for camp/other group outtings that have an additional cost, $5 goes to the unit for supplies, $2.25 goes into the hands of the girls to decide what to do with

The girls came up with lots of great ideas including - having a PJ Party, Donating money to Fort McMurray Guide Units, Going to a Musical, Going to the Movies and going to camp! All fantastic suggestions. We will see just how many we can cross off the list with our Fall cookie sales.

The girls have been having a great time at meetings and can't wait for our upcoming camp weekend. Its going to be a blast!

Summer Guiding Projects

** This Post was Featured in the Girl Guides of Canada Blog on Sept 1st 2016!
 https://girlguidescanblog.ca/2016/09/01/summer-guiding-projects/ 

I am a crafter. In the various areas of Girl Guide programming (and life in general), I have always excelled in the area of crafts, art and nifty things you can make. While this is a great skill to have, I have yet to find a fully time job where being excellently talented with sequins and immune to hot glue gun burns is a pre-requisite. Therefore, most of my crafting is reserved for Girl Guides and summer holidays where I can really dive in and go crazy with bits and bobs - only coming out of the craft room for food and sleep. Its an amazing thing.

This summer my family is back out in New Brunswick visiting our family cottages. We got to spend 3 full weeks out here this year so in between book reading and trips to the beach i've been crafting up a storm. Much of this time has been spent trying out projects i want to do with my Brownie and new Sparks units in the coming year or making things for them to use during our meetings. Below i've posted pictures of my efforts that will hopefully inspire some of you to use your crafting skills and make something beautiful. If you want to complete any of the projects below and are needing some help or explanations please feel free to drop me an email. 

This is a special box that is going to go under my unit's Brownie Toadstool. Each of the fairy circles have their own little treasure box (with their attendance and dues pouch in them) that stays in their circle corner. Once the groups are called to their fairy circle the circle leader will bring their dues pouch and it will go into the box under the toadstool after they do their dance. 

In our units, (Brownies and Sparks) we have dolls that go home with one girl each week. In Sparks we have the girls write down/draw pictures of anything fun they did with the doll and in Brownies we ask them to draw or write about a good turn that they did that week to help their families. In Sparks our doll is named Crystal and in Brownies the dolls going home are named Cindy and Brooke. The girls LOVE taking the dolls home and are so eager to share what they had done at home with the visiting dolls. These are our new journals that will go home in a bag with both our unit's dolls, a tent and a sleeping bag. Sometimes the girls make different outfits or jewelry for the dolls and they always come back with new and interesting stories to tell. 

Next up we have a super cool project that i saw on Facebook from a guider in - I believe it was Alberta. These are first aid kids made out of Pot holders! I'm planning on making these with my Brownies later on in the year to work on their Key to the Arts and Key to Camping. I've sewn the plastic bags to the ribbon with one set of stitches and then the plan is to teach the girls how to use the sewing machine to sew the bags into the potholder by placing a row of stitches on either side to lock everything in place. Then they will sew the button on the back for the loop to go through. I'm super excited for it!


Last but certainly not least I have to present my guiding Peg Dolls! These were a very big labour of love because they took so much longer to finish then i thought they would going in. I was able to paint a Spark, Brownie, Guide, Pathfinder, Ranger and a leader. My hope is to make more in the future that have vintage uniforms on them (Brownie dress with the dues pouch anyone?) but for the moment i'm over painting these little things. I am so happy with how they turned out!

Visit to London! Pax Lodge World Centre, Guiding HQ and Buckingham Palace

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For Christmas my wife Ashley and I got a wonderful gift from her Brother - plane tickets to come see him in England! Ashley and I had both travelled to England separately many years earlier so it was really exciting to go together, and to go stay with her Brother for 2 full weeks.

Of course as soon as we started planning the trip I decided that we HAD to go to the World Guiding Centre Pax Lodge. I mean if we were going to be in London anyways what a trip up to the world centre?

Luckily my wife understands my slight guiding obsession and happily took me to Pax on our first day in London. We were able to tour the grounds and see some very cool historical guide memorabilia. We saw a display of Trefoils from all over the world, a super cool phone booth inside the Pax Lodge stairwell, as well as Lady Baden Powell's personal set of guiding pins and cufflinks. Awesome! In addition to seeing all of the neat mementos I got to visit the World centre shop and purchase a plethora of London themed badges for my camp blanket as well as many Pax Lodge themed things.

The last thing we did was pick up 2 different Pax Lodge challenges that I could work on over the course of our London Adventure: the 25th Anniversary Challenge and the Challenges Around London: Harry Potter Challenge. 

When I was researching super cool guiding things to do in London one thing popped up about visiting Buckingham Palace. As many of us know Queen Elizabeth II and her sister were both Girl Guides "back in the day" and as a nod to their involvement in the organization they extend a special privilege to guiders. After an application process I received a letter from Guiding HQ that my wife and I got to watch the Changing of the Guard from INSIDE the Palace gates!!! How cool is that!? We weren't allowed to take pictures inside the gates but, we got to have a special place to stand, got to watch the full changing of the guard, touch Buckingham Palace and see the Queen, Prince William and Duchess Kate driving in through the gates. After we went to Buckingham Palace we stopped by Girl Guides HQ (it's quite close by) and I was able to purchase some challenge badges for my Sparks and Brownie Groups. The whole experience was really cool and I highly recommend applying if you are travelling to London. 

We spent our two weeks in London doing a vast number of guiding and non-guiding things. If you were interested, yes i did complete my two challenge badges and was awarded with these beauties. I had such a wonderful time and can't wait to go back to London as well as plan trips to visit the other 4 World Guiding Centres!

Note:  I also got a beautiful silver patch for completing the Pax Lodge 25th Anniversary Challenge but I have to take another picture of it to upload!

Community 18 Sharing Night!

A while back I was in a Facebook conversation with some frustrated guiders. It seems that as adult members we all love getting together and sharing ideas. However, sharing nights put together by provincial and local guiding groups keep getting canceled due to lack of registration. It seems that everyone is so busy, that getting a group of guiders together is a real challenge. Distance, cost and time/dates can all be stumbling blocks for these kinds of events. I put out an all-call, asking guiders in my community if they would be interested in a sharing night - a very informal one and got a good response so started planning. 

After conducting some surveys and polls on both the the Community 18 Facebook page, and Girl Guides Ontario - Unofficial Facebook Page we had a group of about 25-30 guiders interested in the event. Unfortunately, the only time that would work for the Church booking was at the beginning of Mosaic so some guiders weren't able to attend due to that commitment. On the night of we had 12 guiders from all over Toronto and the surrounding areas join us for an evening of sharing and fun. 

I wish that I was able to get more pictures during the event but i was too busy having fun with my fellow guiders! We had some wonderful chats about camp, unit procedures, and trips/events. Guider Maureen Robertson brought in a slew of crafts and resources from a previous training she did and we all learned how to make a fold out photo album! 

I was able to share my Brownie Interactive journals, various crafts and most importantly our Community 18 Google Drive. This online platform has become a HUGE resource for our community. Its been so nice to see everyone adding to this online resource. Its up to over 100 files so far! Feel free to check it our here: https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B7WJzZqx6Ug2dGEyUV9mTW8wZkU

Even though it was small, I think the sharing night was a big success. I received many emails from the guiders who attended saying that they had a good time and learned a lot. I am hoping to host another sharing night sometime closer to the Fall - maybe it will become a new tradition!