Girl Guides in the Community: Volume 82, No.1

CANADIAN

W I N T E R 2 0 1 2 V O L U M E 8 2 , N O . 1

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Girl Guides in the Community

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Embracing Inclusivity

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GGC 1910 Society

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Ideas for Unit Meetings

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A Non-Camper Blogs

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Chief’s Message

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Dear De ar Gu Guid ider ers s...

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hether you’re a seasoned Guider or working in a Unit for the first time, it’s always great to get fresh, new ideas to try out. We all have our traditional favourites – those familiar activities that girls and Guiders look forward to every year. However, one of the things that keep our Members coming back every year is the challenge of trying something new and different. For Guiders, the challenge can also be coming up with those new and different ideas ideas in the first place. At Canadian Guider , we’re always on the lookout for new ideas, and we’re delighted to share with you some of the great Guiding tips we’ve recently received from Guiders like you. In this issue, our

of fun trying out the grab-and-go creative and eco-chic ideas presented there. Also in this issue are more ideas for making Guiding a truly inclusive environment, in which all girls and women feel welcome and and learn the value value of respecting respecting differences and considering other points of view.. And, in tribute view tribute to Our Our Founder Founder,, Lord Baden-Powell, whose vision of Guiding embraced and inspired inclusivity from the very beginni beginning, ng, we’ve include included d a Flashb Flashback ack Fun section (pages 14-17). On these pages, you and your your girls can enjoy enjoy reading reading some of the timeless words of wisdom from B-P’s B-P ’s wonderful wonderf ul book, book, Girl Guiding . One of the perks of being Chief Commissioner (and there are almost too many to count!) is attending Guiding camps across the country. This summer, I had the Adventuree RenRenchance to visit the Spirit of Adventur dezvous (SOAR) in Agassiz, British Colum bia. Some of the amazing women I was privileged to meet there are featured with me in the photo on this page. And, speaking speaking of amazing amazing women, women, take take a look at the seven finalists for our GGC Dove Woman of the Month award (pages 20-22). Choosing these from the many, many nominations we received was not an easy task. This partnership with Dove Canada clearly demonstrated just how many Women Worth Watching there are in Canadian Guiding.















In This Issue In her Chief’s Message, Chris Burton has mentioned many of the features in this issue of Canadian Guider . We’d like to also draw your attention to the camping items we’ve included. Outdoor Guider (pages 23-26) presents backpacking tips and winter activities, and Ideas to Go (pages 27-28) describes a camp/service project that provided 125 children with their very own superhero capes! And, in the spirit of Guiding inclusivity, Confessions of an Urban Guider (pages 18-19) supports those of you who prefer urban adventures to wilderness challenges. If these ideas inspire you, let us know – and please send us your own!

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Cover photo by Sara Rykov

Features Submissions from across the country and around the world

Challenges Challenges, contests and issues for Girl Guides today

Focus The business of Girl Guides

Ideas Ideas, thoughts and activities

Voice V oicess Guiders and girls

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Girl Guides in the Community Global Guiding: Guiding: Recognizing Recognizing Rights / Stop the Violence Violence From Our Heritage Issue GGC Dove Woman of the Month Finalists by Jaime Myslik Nepean Girl Guides Warm Warm Ottawa Hearts and Bodies by Charlene Winchester

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Embracing Inclusivity Disabilities Awareness Challenge by Brianne Arnold 2011 Photo Contest Winners Canadian Guider 2011 GGC 2011 NSP Wrap-Up Wrap-Up and NSP 2012

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Cookie Bits & Bites: Price Increase, Cookies Cookies for the CAF CAF and Cookies for the PM 42 Partners & Supporters: Estate Planning and the the GGC 1910 Society Society 43 fyi

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Ask a Guider: Ideas Ideas for Unit Unit Meetings Meetings Outdoor Guider: Backpacking Tips and Winter Activities by Laura Allgrove & Darlene Clark Capes for Children Children by Lynda Saunders 27 Ideas to Go: Campers Make Capes 30 Artzooka Crafts

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Chief ’s Message A Non-Camper Blogs by Tammy Sutherland Fast Facts about GGC Link by Lisa Donnelly















Features

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&

Outings Outreach Girl Guides in the Community

Girl Guide Units are always connecting

And then there are the more adventurous

with their communities. Throughout the

connections, through which girls explore and















City Farm Girls 14th Vancouver Guides Visit Heritage Farm BY ASHLEY REID

ooking for a fun adventure and learning experience, our Unit decided to tackle the Guide Farming Badge by arranging a sleepover at Southlands Heritage Farm, located inside the city of Vancou ver.. It was an ver an experience experience of a lifetime lifetime!! The girls arrived full of energy, which they put to very satisfying use in a relay flashlight game we played in the farm’s pumpkin-littered orchard. We slept slept in the hayloft above above the horse barn which, of course, course, was full full of interesting noises throughout the night. The next morning we rose bright and early to let the chickens and goats out. Throughout the day, the girls helped milk the goats, had a visit with the farm’s heirloom black pigs, pressed apples into cider and made bread from scratch in an outdoor cob oven. (A cob oven, also called an earth oven, is a woodfired oven made from a mixture of mud or clay, sand and straw.) Who knew that a hidden gem such as this heritage farm existed in our own community? We highly recommend other Units check out facilities like this in their own backyards!

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Features

“À vos marques, prêtes, GO!” Adventure Trek – Défi Aventure BY EMILY KOEHLER-LEMAIRE KOEHLER-LE MAIRE

ith an enthusiastic, “Ready, set, GO!” Yvan Cardinal, Mayor of Pincourt, Quebec, kicked-off the Quebec Council’s Adven Adven-ture Trek – Défi Aventure. And it was an adventure, indeed! Touring stations organized by Quebec Girl Guides on a circuit in and around the town’s Olympic Park, members of the community learned about a wide variety of Guiding activities, including geocaching, zumba classes, backpacking, nature survival, and service projects such as the Yellow Fish Road storm drain stenciling program. They also enjoyed a sampling of our international tapas (representing the four WAGGGS World Centres), and were treated to a flash mob surprise – Girl Guides style! As Quebe Quebec’s c’s flagship event of the Guiding year year,, uniting all Girl Guide branches across the t he province, Adventure Trek offered more than just a showcase to the public. “It was also a fantastic opportunity for girls to explore all that is offered leadership-wise through Guiding,” said Deputy Provincial Commissioner Amber Lebrun, who was a member of the Adventure Trek Organizing Committee. With an outst outstandin anding g turnout turnout on a very very windy windy and showery showery autumn afternoon, GGC Members and non-members alike participated in fun and informative activities illustrating how we enable girls to be confident, resourceful resourceful and courageous, courageous, n e and how we inspire and encourage them to make a difference r t s e in the world. To learn more about what the Quebec Council is n g r up to these days, please visit our blog at: http://guidesquebec. o M e i wordpress.com or follow us on Facebook and Twitter! n

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Emily Koehler-Lemaire is Coordinator, Membership, Marketing and Public Relations, at the Quebec Council.

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Ideas: Ask A Guider

We Asked –

You Delivered! Ideas for Unit Meetings For this issue of Canadian Guider , we asked you to tell us what you do to make your Unit meetings interesting, inspiring, organized or extraordinary. We received many great ideas and suggestions, and we’re pleased to share a few of our favourites with you here. Three tried-and-true ideas we received from a number of Units are always worth mentioning again, as they are so popular with both the girls and community members. One is inviting guests to meetings to share skills, knowledge and expertise, or to discuss current local, national and international issues. Another is to create ornaments and other simple crafts and give them to hospitals and seniors’ residences for special occasion food trays. And, just for some good old-fashioned Girl Guide active fun, there’s the spontaneous “choreography” of setting Twister games to music. For other great meeting ideas, try any or all of the following:

Fred the Moose First Larkhall Sparks, St. John’s, NL

















Ideas: Ask A Guider

“Their Night” Riverwood District Girl Guides, Fraser Skies Area, BC

Since Guiding encourages programming about the girls doing what they want to do, we have each each of our our girls girls plan a meeting for ‘Their Night.” This way, everyone knows exactly what is planned for each meeting and the girls only need to organize their activity. The only rule we impose is that the activities involve at least one of the following: • elements of badge work from the program book • a challenge from the GGC website • a service project • an outing, such as a sport or activity For international education and awareness, we also plan special themed nights celebrating each of the four WAGGGS W AGGGS World Centres Centres.. We We invite invite people people from from our our community from the Swiss, British, Indian and Mexican cultures to attend, and have food, games, crafts and activities to celebrate the multicultural world of Guiding.

SSOWs, a Spark Doll and a Rubber Chicken 630th Toronto Sparks, Toronto, ON

Wee foun W found d a pin pink k hat hat at at a dol dollar lar sto store re and the firs firstt Spark Spark to arrive at each meeting gets to wear the hat and be the Special Spark of the Week (SSOW). She then gets her image traced on paper, and all the girls write positive things about her on the image. At the end of the meeting, she gets to take the image home, along with our travelling Spark doll. As an additional reward, the

A Chart, Two Tubs and New Things to Do 36th Ottawa Brownies, Ottawa, ON

To keep us organized, we create a meeting chart that shows the activity planned, the time allotted, the Guider responsible and the materials required. We keep the chart on a clipboard for easy reference. We also bring two tubs to each meeting: one with the weekly things we always use (toadstool, Brownie owl, clipboard, skipping ropes, etc.) and one just for the weekly craft. This means we no longer waste meeting time digging through one big bin. Wee also try to give the girls opportunities W opportunities to do things that they most likely aren’t able to try at home. For example, with appropri appropriate ate supervision supervision,, we do crafts that require require the the girls to use irons, rubber stamps and hot glue guns. We are now planning activities that will involve sewing machines and power tools. This age group really loves trying new things!

Discovery Walks and “Kids’ Koffee” 25th Ottawa Brownies, Ottawa, ON

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A Girl Guide Restaurant 38th Saskatoon Girl Guide Unit, Daylights District, Saskatoon, SK k c o t S i : o t o h P

Once a year, our Unit runs a restaurant. Our first year Guides are the bussers and hostesses; the second year girls are the “chefs;” and the third year girls are the servers. The jobs are well suited for their ages, and the girls who stay with our Unit from one year to the next get the chance to explore the range of positions. posit ions. We invite family and friends; keep the prices low enough to cover our costs; and, most of all, have lots of fun while learning new things. The food is made ahead of time and kept warm until serving. The “chefs” are assigned to various stations to plate food, including appetizers, entrées, desserts and drinks. At each station, we post a step-by-step instruction sheet with corresponding drawings on how everything is to be prepared and presented. To avoid getting a rush of everyone arriving all at once, we offer a 45-minute window for seating our diners. The hostesses offer to take jackets, seat customers, refill water glasses and clear the tables. It takes up to three meetings to plan this event, during which we: plan menus; discuss food allergies and personal tastes; establish costs and pricing; factor in th e number of customers we can accommodate; make printed menus; and go over basic training in m ock restaurant scenarios.

Annual Planning Feast 1st Sherwood Trex, Toronto, ON

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Challenges

For Every Girl Girl and and Every Woman Embracing Inclusivity Our

Founder, Lord Robert Baden-Powell, had a vision for Girl

Guides to include all races and nations and to unite them within a common framework of activities and attitudes. Over our 100year history, history, the global Guiding community has embraced girls and women of many faiths, cultures and abilities, empowering them to explore their own beliefs in the safe, informed and welcoming environment that Baden-Powell intended.

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oday, however, we recognize that many of the cherished traditions and practices we have been relying on may actually be causing barriers to membership for some girls and women. That is why Girl Guides of Canada-Guides du Canada has taken steps to consider new, and much more inclusive, approaches to activities, events and programming. Over the years, GGC has implemented multiple strategies to reduce possible barriers to membership. Two years ago, the Board of Directors established an Inclusivity Practices Task Force, with the specific purpose of auditing current Guiding practices and recommending best practices to increase or encourage inclusivity. The work of the Task Force was not easy. Each member had to first challenge her personal beliefs, values and attachments to some of GGCs embedded traditions. Offering alternatives to traditional prayers or rewriting the words to certain songs, so they become meaningful and relevant to all girls in the Unit, can be some of the easiest elements to change. However, altering some of our muchloved ceremonies or celebrating different reli-

















Challenges

Inclusivity in

Action

Disabilities Awareness Challenge BY BRIANNE ARNOLD

The Fall 2011 issue of

Canadian Guider featured featured

some ideas on teach-

ing physical inclusivity in your Unit. In this issue, we’re bringing you activities that focus on other inclusivity challenges, along with notes on debriefing after each activity is finished.

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ithout debriefing, some girls may interpret an inclusivity challenge as simply mimicking disabilities. However, the point of these activities is to demonstrate that many people who have disabilities live full and active lives, especially if they are not excluded by others. For younger girls, debriefing can be as simple as asking them what they felt during the activity; if they understand that we all have differences; and whether that’s a good thing or a bad thing. Older girls may wish to have a more in-depth discussion about their experiences. What’s important for all is that some form of debriefing follows each activity.

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Adapting Adapt and play your Units’ favourite games for someone who cannot see, talk, hear, or move around without a wheelchair. Introduce younger girls to the adaptations and have them play the game accordingly. Challenge older girls to adapt a game themselves to include girls who have disabilities. Discuss the obstacles your Unit faced when adapting the games. Discuss the difficulties the girls had playing them. How did everyone feel? Could they participate fully? Did ever yone have

Bring the girls back into one group, and ask questions. “Why did we exclude some of you from playing the game?” “How did it make you feel to be excluded?” “How did it make you feel knowing some girls weren’t



















Features: Global Global Guiding Guidin g

International Day of the Girl

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irl Guides of Canada-Guides du Canada has proudly joined the Plan Canada initiative to have September 22 proclaimed the International Day of the Girl. Since 2009, through its Becau Because se I am a Girl campaign, Plan Canada has been advocating for this day “to recognize girls’ rights globally.” As part of GGC’s 2011 National National Service Service



















Speak Out for Girls’ Rights

FREE Travel!

I

SEVEC Youth Exchange Program

n Canada, more than 50 per cent of women will experience e xperience an incident of violence at some point in their lives – the majority before they turn 25. Girl Girl Guides Guides of Canada-Guid Canada-Guides es du du Canada Canada has long believed in raising awareness of violence against women and in supporting efforts to end that violence. That is why we are taking an active role in the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts (WAGGGS) campaign, Stop the viole violence. nce. Speak out for for girls’’ rights. girls rights. “Many might assume that, in an affluent country such as Canada, we would have overcome the tragedy of violence against girls and young women,” writes 20-year-old GGC Member Rachel

Has your Unit ever thought about exploring other regions of Canada, living in another community, meeting new people, learning Canada’s other official language, volunteering in another community, or simply exploring Canada’ss cultural diversity? If so, this Canada’ program is for you!



















Guiding Connections

Fun

Flashback

From Our Heritage Issue A significant number of respondents to the recent Canadian Guider readership readership survey asked for some fun information from our past to share with their girls. In 1995, we published a Guiding Heritage issue, filled with historical bits and pieces. Many of you may still have that issue on hand, but for those who don’t, here are some selections from it that we hope will entertain,



















On Girl Gir l Guide Gui de Training Training

On Being Prepared The motto of the Guides, on which they work is, “Be Prepared,” that is, be ready for any kind of duty that may be thrust upon them and what is more, know what to do by having practised it beforehand in the case of any kind of accident or any kind of work that they may be asked to take up. Thousands of women did splendid work in the Great War, but thousands more would have been able to do good work also, had they only Been Prepared for it beforehand by learning up a few things that are useful to them outside their mere school work or work in their own home. And that is what the Guides are learning in all their games

From the parents’ point of view, Guide work gives character to the girls; secondly, skill at handicrafts; thirdly, service and helpfulness to others; fourthly, physical health and development. From the teachers’ point of view, it provides a healthy environment outside the school, and activities which tend to develop in practice many of these attributes indicated theoretically in the girls’ lessons. From the girls’ point of view, Guiding puts them into fraternity gangs among jolly comrades; it gives them a smart dress and equip- ment; it appeals to their imagination in results; and it engages them in an active open-air healthy life.

On Being a Girl Guide A Guide should have her head screwed on the right way, not as in this picture. A Guide is a lady. What is a lady? This is what I saw once in the Tube (subway) Tube (subway).. The seats were all crowded when a smart- looking girl got in. A wounded soldier with a bandaged foot and a walking-stick stood up rather painfully and offered her his seat. The girl plumped herself down com- fortably and she did not give him a word of thanks or even a look. A pale woman then



















Guiding Connections

On Lighting a Fire

g n i d i u G

Lighting a fire is like becoming rich; if you put your pennies in the bank, they will gradually mount up and become shillings and pounds, and in a short time mount up into a big sum. But many people, because they have not got a big sum to put in the bank, never begin banking at all. It is much better to begin in a small way and gradually let it grow, and so it is with lighting a fire. Don’t try to make a big fire all at once, but begin very small, On Posture with a little paper and a T.I.Y.B. (Tuck In Your Back) very few dry bits of stick and wood and gradually B.Y.B.M. B.Y .B.M. (Brace Your Back Muscles) make a small fire to start with and add bit by bit On Camping ‘till you make it into the large one necessary for One of the ripping things about Girl Guide work. work is the camp life. People talk of “rough- your work. ing it” in tents, but those people are gen- erally Tenderfoots. A wise Guide does not “rough it;” she knows how to look after herself and how to make herself comfortable by





















On Teaching Youth By encouraging a child in its natural desires, instead of instructing it in what you think it ought to do, you can educate it on a much more solid and far reaching basis. Sought knowledge lasts; unsought does not.

On Drawing a Robin Talking of birds, every Guide ought to be able to draw one. First, of course, you lay





















Voices V oices:: Guiders on Guiding

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I can’t say I woke up at camp feeling invigorated and at one with the world. Usually I needed a coffee and a painkiller. Fortunately, as an adult, I have been able to take camping out the Guiding equation. However, I wonder about girls and women who may also have had less than favour favourable able experiences with camping. Did they perse vere or did they leave Guiding Guiding??

An Urban Guider is still a Guider. Am I

less of

Guider because I

GirlGuidesCANBlog followers GirlGuidesCANBlog responded... I’ve worked with Guiders who loathe camping and just don’t go. I find screened, adult volunteers to go in their place. This works for us, but may not work for others. Whatever the case, as long as everyone is having a good time and fulfilling GGC’s Mission and Principles, more power to you!





















Features

Women

Wort orth h Watc Watchin hing g GGC Dove Woman of the Month Finalists BY JAIME MYSLIK

Since announcing the GGC Dove Woman of the Month award, we received a great many nomina-











































Features





















Ideas: Outdoor Guider

The Bare

Essentials





















Ideas: Outdoor Guider Clothing Review your standard camp kit list and determine everything you can do without in your backpack. Camp kit lists include a change of clothes for each day plus

Sleeping Bag Consider whether your existing sleeping bag might be too large. Desig Designers ners now make smaller bags for girls and women. My new sleeping bag is designed for someone





















Fill exterior pockets. In addition to holding your fuel containers, these pockets are great for your sunscreen, bug repe repellen llent, t, medi medical cal supp lies lies,, maps , compass, GPS unit, knife, flashlight, fire





















Ideas: Outdoor Guider

Fun in the Snow Winter Activities Night Snowshoe Hike: Snow creates light reflection and buffers noise, so going on a night trek will take you and your girls into a whole new world of outdoor adventure. If you have a clear



















































































































































































































































































Girl Guides in the Community: Volume 82, No.1

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