Author Archives: Carissa

Cookies Still Selling

Posted on by
Reply

Although “peak” cookie season has passed by now, some Burnaby Mountain units are still selling cookies. Just last night the 24th Brownies had a successful blitz at Lougheed Skytrain Station. Way to go, girls!

The 14th Pathfinders have shared a couple of photos of their recent Spring cookie sale efforts. One girl tenaciously took on Burrard Skytrain Station and did a great job. Also pictured are three girls at the District Cookie Day back in April. We love the handmade posters and the special brand of Pathfinder energy employed in these cookie sales!

The Pathfinders tend to stay more active through the summer than our other groups. Although they pause their regular meetings for the summer months, the group still gets together at least a couple of times events such as camp or day trips like hikes. Girl Guide Cookies help power these adventures all year long.

Guiding Reunion 2016

Posted on by
Reply

In May, Burnaby Mountain District hosted a reunion event for past and current members of Guiding. The planning committee worked hard to get word out to past members who were involved either as girls or as adults who were now over 19 whether they were involved here in Burnaby Mountain or elsewhere but now lived in the community. The event was intended as a fun evening to thank our current members and to share memories about what Guiding has meant to us throughout the years.

Reunion (2 of 7)

At the event, women enjoyed a wine and cheese reception, an interactive history timeline, nostalgia hat crafts, a 50/50 draw, and a campfire. The District Commissioner gave an address sharing information she had learned about the history of Guiding in Burnaby from the Burnaby City Archives.

Guests especially enjoyed looking at old photos of themselves and friends and sharing memories of camping trips, enrollment ceremonies, outdoor adventures, and friendship. Below is a photo of the current District Commissioner celebrating her birthday during a Girl Guide trip to Victoria in 1999!

Bethany 1999

Another highlight was the campfire, complete with a s’more treat. Past members remarked at how surprised they were to remember the words to classic Guiding songs like “Land of the Silver Birch,” “Princess Pat,” and “I Don’t Wanna Go to Girl Guide Camp!”

Reunion (7 of 7)

Thank you to everyone who came out to spend the evening with us. It is always nice, sometimes, for Guiders and Guiding friends to get together as adults to reflect on the spirit of Guiding and to remember fun times passed. Burnaby Mountain has lots of fun coming up ahead as well, and we made sure to remind all the past members that we’d love to have them back as leaders any time!

Fire Hall #6 Sparks Outing

Posted on by
Reply

Tonight the girls from the 1st Burnaby Mountain Sparks had a very exciting visit to Burnaby Fire No. 6 — a little bit more exciting than they had hoped! Every time the leaders book this outing they are warned that it is an active on-duty fire hall and should there be an emergency the fire fighters will need to respond. Tonight that actually happened!

Firehall (2 of 5)

The girls had barely arrived when the first truck had to leave. It was exciting watching some of the firefighters quickly gather their things and take out the truck. The siren was really loud too. Once that truck left, the remaining fire fighters started a talk about fire safety and the importance of calling 911… but only in a real emergency!

Firehall (1 of 5)

A few minutes later the buzzer sounded and the remaining fire fighters had to take the second truck and respond. The Sparks and their leaders were left alone on the grass outside the station. After talking for a bit longer about fire safety, the group decided to take advantage of the beautiful weather to play some duck-duck-goose in the grass.

Luckily, before too long one of the fire trucks came back. The fire fighters had responded to a medical emergency, but the ambulance had arrived allowing the firetruck to go back to the station. The firefighters told the girls a little bit more about fire safety and they practiced “stop, drop, and roll.”

Firehall (5 of 5)

There was just enough time left for each girl to take a turn using the fire hose. The fire fighters set up a cone to use as a target and each Spark got the chance to spray it with water. It was lots of fun using the equipment.

Finally, everyone got to have a popsicle, which was a great treat on such a hot day. Thank you to the fire fighters of hall #6! The girls learned a lot and it was great to see the first responders in action. They do amazing life-saving work and it was a treat to get a taste of what it’s like to be a fire fighter.

 

 

Art Studio Sparks Outing

Posted on by
Reply

A few weeks ago girls in the 1st Burnaby Mountain Sparks group visited 4 Cats Art Studio (Capitol Hill), one of their favourite outing places! Visiting 4 Cats has become a springtime tradition for the unit, an activity that is partially funded by their spring Girl Guide Cookie campaign.

4Cats021

Girls who were in the unit last year remembered coming to this place to make awesome Van Gogh-inspired sunflower paintings. This year, they got to try something new — sculpting fairy princesses out of polymer clay and mounting them on starry painted backgrounds.

The staff at this art studio are absolutely amazing. The program leader, Dino, showed great patience and expertise working with girls of this age and helped them work through the art process one step at a time until each of them had created unique and beautiful art.

4Cats029

Visiting the art studio is a real treat because it exposes girls to supplies and techniques that are much more sophisticated than we can use for our regular unit meeting crafts. Girls love the chance to put on their smock, and make a mess… I mean, a work of art!

Guides Reach High Places

Posted on by
Reply

This past weekend the 22nd Burnaby Mountain Guides enjoyed a fun night of rock climbing at the Richmond Olympic Oval. Girls had a great time conquering the 44 foot climbing wall. For many of them, this was a new experience and they all had a great time.

IMG_0708

Each girl had the opportunity to take several tries at the wall and some were able to reach rather impressive heights. The climbing wall is appropriate for beginners or for people with more experience, and the staff was very helpful. Lots of fun was had in the spirit of friendship and active living.

This fun activity was a cool way for the girls to take advantage of visiting Richmond. They tied the event in with a sleepover at Guiding’s own Richmond Guide House. At Guide House, the unit met up with the 2nd Burnaby Mountain Sparks who were also having a sleepover there that night — the Sparks slept inside, while the Guides got to practice their tenting in the back yard.

13254282_10210144625602186_6685750870007079665_n

The Guides had a really fun time sharing some of their camping knowledge with the Sparks and everyone had a nice time sharing a barbecue hot dog supper and campfire (complete with s’mores!) together.

IMG_0729

Over all it was a really fun over night event. The girls loved trying the rock climbing, as well as developing leadership skills with the younger girls. Thank you to all of the hard working leaders who made the night possible.

Teddy Bear Picnic

Posted on by
Reply

For every bear that ever there was will gather there for certain
Because today’s the day the Teddy Bears have their picnic

TeddyBear_Picnic045

A couple of weeks ago two Burnaby Mountain Sparks units attended the West Coast Area Teddy Bear Picnic, which was organized by the camping committee for Sparks and Brownies all across the Area. The picnic was at Confederation Park in Burnaby and was a “beary” fun day!

TeddyBear_Picnic066

The girls had a blast participating in classic picnic activities like potato sack races and scavenger hunts. It is always a treat to have such classic outdoor fun with your friends. There were lots of fun teddy-bear themed games, stories, and songs.

TeddyBear_Picnic056

Of course, everyone took a break from the festivities to eat their picnic lunch as well. In addition to all that, each girl had the chance to get her face painted, and everyone got a ride on the miniature train!

TeddyBear_Picnic087

Thank you “beary” much to the West Coast Area camping committee for planning such a fun event. The girls all had a wonderful time.

District Science Day at SFU

Posted on by
1

Last weekend Burnaby Mountain District partnered with SFU Let’s Talk Science to hold an all-ages interactive Science Day at Simon Fraser University!

Enthusiastic university volunteers led the girls through a variety of activities and demonstrations touching on several disciplines within STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math). Girls got to work together to try hands on science activities and had a lot of fun.

2016-05-06 08.43.40

Sparks learned about good bacteria and bad bacteria and got to to design their own cute bacteria buddies. They also learned about weather and clouds.

2016-05-05 20.20.21

Brownies enjoyed dissecting owl pellets to reassemble whole rodent skeletons — they thought it was a little bit gross, but really cool! They also explored physics by designing bottle-propelled rockets that they got to launch for an audience of Sparks.

2016-05-06 08.45.22

Guides and older girls tackled environmental science, considering problems like how oil spills and water pollution can be safely cleaned. They also rocked out with a variety of lasers, using problem solving skills to power high tech gadgets.

Over all it was a really educational and entertaining day. Girl Guides prides itself on being able to offer girls the chance to try new things, especially by helping them develop interest in areas like STEM where women are underrepresented in the professional fields. Thank you to Let’s Talk Science for hosting us!   We in Burnaby Mountain are very lucky to have SFU situated conveniently in our district. Many of our Guiders are SFU students and it is always great to take advantage of the opportunities that having a world class university in our district has to offer!

Brownie Flag Meeting

Posted on by
Reply

Sometimes it is fun to catch up with one of our units during a “normal” meeting — that is, something that isn’t a special event like an outing, sleepover, or camp. At our regular weekly meetings, girls participate in all kinds of fun, hands-on programming. Recently, the 54th Burnaby Mountain Brownies had a meeting about flags and heritage. Jenn, one of the group’s leaders, describes the meeting below. 

FullSizeRender (3)

Tonight we worked on our Key to My Community which involved a flag ceremony and learning about Canada! Our circle leaders got to be in charge of the flags. We learned how to hold a flag, we learned they never touch the ground and we learned how to carefully roll our flags back up for storage. They loved seeing them (and do did I! We have a district flag? COOL) and learning about them all.


The last photo shows the girls together around their “where do we come from” map. The stones are decorated like a flag, some say “I love Canada”. They are all unique and each Brownie has marked where her family comes from to the best of her knowledge. (Note how many chose Canada)

IMG_5050

We also played a little basketball free throw tonight and learned a bit about the Canadian guy who invented it! Before we played, we had a lacrosse stick and a hockey stick and asked which one is our national sport? They all chose Hockey! Which is actually just the sport we are the best at, not our national sport. It was a good meeting and I know we sent home some tired Brownies tonight!

Thank you, Jenn, for sharing about your Brownie meeting. It sounds like the girls were really engaged and had a great time doing this GGC programming. 

National Volunteer Week 2016

Posted on by
Reply

Happy national volunteer week to all of our amazing volunteers! Guiding wouldn’t be possible without the hard work and dedication of all of our leaders, council members, and commissioners. We’d love to take this opportunity to share the following thanks from Girl Guides of Canada:

volunteer week 2016

As well, we would like to congratulate some of our amazing volunteers who were recognized with merit awards for their hard work in our organization. Burnaby Mountain had three Guiders awarded with merit awards at last week’s West Coast Area Awards dinner. Two were able to attend the event — congrats, Christine and Gerry!

The third Guider has not yet received her award, so we don’t want to spoil the surprise right now. But well done, everyone!

Looking ahead to next Guiding year, Burnaby Mountain is sad to be bidding some of our leaders farewell as they move on to other things. This means we have a shortage of leaders in some of our units. If we are unable to recruit more, some units are at risk of being closed. This would be a great time to consider volunteering! Guiding is a great place to work with amazing girls and women to promote girl greatness and empowerment in a fun and supportive environment. Guiding offers great opportunities to our adult members including training, scholarships, travel, and more. For more information, contact us using the comments or by email at the “contact us” tab above.

To all of the amazing volunteers who power our district, Burnaby Mountain District says a big THANK YOU!

Pippin Pen Pals

Posted on by
Reply

In November of 2014, the 1st Burnaby Mountain Sparks were surprised to receive a package, hand delivered, from a woman who said it came from her family member in New Zealand. The leaders opened it up and discovered it was from a group of Guiding members from Whitby, Wellington in New Zealand, who wanted to be pen pals!

NZ map

In New Zealand, the equivalent of Sparks is called Pippins, and it is for girls aged 5-7. Here in Canada, our Sparks promise “I promise to share and be a friend.” In New Zealand, the girls learn the Pippins saying, “Pippins care, so Pippins share with other children everywhere.” In keeping with both of those ideas, an international friendship has blossomed with each group sending the other packages periodically throughout the year.

The groups have exchanged greeting cards made by the girls, photos, crafts, friendship bracelets, postcards, and crests! In a recent package from the Pippins, each Spark in the unit got a cool crest like one of the ones pictured here:

NZ crests

The Sparks have heard the Pippins story and all about the different activities the Pippins group does. It is interesting to hear that many of the Pippins will be going to see Frozen on Ice in a couple of months, which is an activity that these Sparks did this year. The Pippins also take turns taking home a doll named Penny Pippin, similar to the Sparks doll, Crystal, who gets taken home by a Spark each week. The Sparks have also learned that New Zealand has opposite seasons to Canada, so when the Sparks had their winter-themed sleepover, the Pippins were having summer camp, and when the Sparks go to camp in the summer, the Pippins are doing winter activities!

Most recently, the Pippins sent the Sparks a package of their Guide biscuits! These biscuits, pictured below, are their equivalent to our Girl Guide cookies. Yum! The 1st Sparks will definitely be sending a box of our own cookies back to them.

2016-04-06 11.51.11

Having gone on for more than a year now, the Pippin pen pal project has been a lot of fun. What an awesome way to experience International Guiding, even at as young an age as Sparks. It really helps the Sparks understand what we mean when we talk about the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts having more than 10 million members all around the world. There is even a possibility that we might get to meet some of the Pippins in person one day!