Tag Archives: Community

Pathfinders Urban Art Walk

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For a recent unit event, our 10th Pathfinders explored Vancouver through art! They found and viewed murals as they traced their way through Main Street with the previous year’s Vancouver Mural Festival map to view different styles of art with various mediums making up beautiful city walls and alleys.

As many of the girls hadn’t spent much time in this vibrant part of the city before, it was a great adventure for them! They were able to deepen their appreciation of local artistry at the same time.

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They enjoyed lunch in the park before making their way to a  4CATS art studio to create a panda planter from clay!

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On the way home, they checked out some Vancouver history from antique shops to record stores.  Learned lots and saw some real west coast gems!

Girl Guides at the Canucks

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This past weekend was a huge event for BC Girl Guides — more than 1000 members and their guests gathered at Rogers Arena for Girl Guides day at the Canucks. Highlights of the event included the awesome custom crest for all members in uniform, a members-only draw for awesome prizes, plus Girl Guides shout outs, members in the VIP High-Five zone, and an on-ice presence for the national anthems. To make the day even more exciting, the Canucks won the game against the Detroit Red Wings — Yay!

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Burnaby Mountain district commissioner, Gerry, started organizing these events with the Canucks a few years ago as part of her role as BC Membership Advisor. Her term in that position has since ended but she has stayed on as special events coordinator for this exciting day. Way to go, Gerry!

Some Burnaby Mountain girl members also got to participate in the colours ceremony, carrying flags for the US and Canadian national anthems. This was a very special experience for the Spark and two Guides who were involved.

Other Burnaby Mountain members were present helping to run the event with jobs at the membership table and selling Girl Guide cookies. Lots of Burnaby Mountain girls and Guiders were also in attendance to enjoy the game. Girl Guides from around the province filled the arena — people came from as far as Prince George, Lillooet, Ucluelet, Nanaimo, and Castlegar. Many Girl Guides (including some of the Burnaby Mountain ones) got the thrill of being featured on the gigantic trinitron in the arena.

What an awesome day! We can hardly wait for next year. Keep your eyes peeled for a save-the-date coming soon for a Guiding “kick-off” event with the Vancouver Whitecaps this coming fall.

Guides at Lafarge Lake

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The 49th Burnaby Mountain Guides recently journeyed into Coquitlam for a festive outdoor outing. Lafarge lake has the lower mainland’s largest free outdoor lights display! It was a beautiful night.

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It was also a fun way to be active together. The lights display around the 1.2 km path and since it was a bit chilly out, the girls were motivated to keep moving to stay warm! Hot chocolate also helped with that.

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Lafarge lake is really easy to get to on skytrain and well worth the visit. Learn more about this local event here. Even the unit’s shining star Guiders are all smiles, below.

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This is just one of the awesome seasonal outings happening this month. Several groups are also taking in the fun lights and displays at the Burnaby Village Museum. And at least unit is visiting the Aurora winter festival as well. So much fun stuff to do out in our communities!

Great Salmon Send-Off

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This past weekend Burnaby Mountain District had a wonderful presence at the annual local community event, the Great Salmon Send-Off. Organized every year by the Stoney Creek Environmental Committee (this was the 28th annual event!), community and environmental organizations gather at Stoney Creek School for a rain-or-shine day of family friendly outdoor fun.

Luckily, this year the sun did shine — it was a beautiful day for the event! A few of our volunteer leaders and Rangers were there with a station at the event. They were selling cookies, running activities for kids, and giving out information about registration which is on now for the 2018-2019 Guiding year.

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The district was also represented by some younger girls, as the 27th Brownies visited the community event as a unit, visiting all the different stations. The highlight, of course, was getting the opportunity to help release young salmon into the steam.

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It was a great day for learning about the environment and what we can do to help keep it safe and healthy for all the creature, including the fish, who need it as their home. Thanks for helping to do your part girls, and thank you to everyone who visited our table that day as well. We look forward to coming back next year.

Sparks tour an ambulance

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At the most recent meeting for the 2nd Burnaby Mountain Sparks, the leaders warned the parents not to be alarmed when the picked up their girls and saw an ambulance in the parking lot — it wasn’t an emergency, it was just some awesome hands-on learning with a friendly neighborhood paramedic!

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The girls had a great time learning about emergency response procedures in their community while chatting with a friendly paramedic who was very happy to show the girls the workings of his ambulance. They learned all about what is and is not an emergency and when it’s time to call 911. And should any of them ever experience an emergency involving an ambulance, maybe it will be just a little bit less scary now that they know what they look like up close.

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They even got to take home a cool craft that allowed them to build their own 3D model of an ambulance. It was an awesome day!

Art for Reconciliation

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The 54th Burnaby Mountain Brownies got off to a great start this year by finding a way to contribute to peace and friendship in our community. The group participated in the Reconciliation Art Project as part of the annual Walk for Reconciliation in Vancouver.

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The Brownies painted rocks with messages of acceptance and friendship and then placed them as part of a large art installation in Strathcona Park which greeted participants where the walk ends.

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It is great to see our girls taking acting to support better relationships among Indigenous peoples and all Canadians. Way to go, girls!

Welcome to Canada

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As we embark on a Canada Day long weekend celebrating Canada’s 150th birthday, it seems like a good time to post about Burnaby Mountain District’s Thinking Day event from this year — although this happened back in February, it is just as relevant today.

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Back in 2016 at our district camp, girls from all units in Burnaby Mountain District worked on Welcome to Canada cards which were donated to ISS of BC to help welcome immigrants and refugees new to Canada. When we delivered these cards, our Guiders were so impressed by the work of this organization that we wanted to do more to help welcome these newcomers.

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This is what inspired our Thinking Day 2017 Welcome to Canada luncheon. Working with ISS of BC, we invited six families with children aged 4-17 to join us for our Thinking Day celebration. Girls and their families from all of our units came out to this event, demonstrating how kind, friendly, and welcoming our community is.

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We began with a colour party and the singing of O Canada. We served a tasty lunch to everybody. Nothing builds camaraderie in a community quite like sharing food together, after all. Following the meal, girls gave presentations that they had worked on in their units which included sharing songs, dance, and artwork. At the end of the presentations, the entire district encouraged all the special guests to participate in a sing-a-long campfire. Specially chosen songs with big actions and repeat-after-me lyrics were chosen so that even those unfamiliar with our songs or language could still enjoy.

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In the closing remarks a representative from ISS of BC helped us hand out welcome gifts to the families. These were composed on donations from our girls and families of gift cards, transit tickets, and new gifts like Canucks scarves, toys, and treats — and of course, the gift bags also had Girl Guide Cookies! We were also able to donate a large basket of gently used toys, books, and games for ISS of BC to bring back to their welcome centre to use in their daycare facilities.

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This project felt more important than ever this year with the socio-political context in some parts of the world being less than welcoming to immigrants and refugees. Many parents commented on how valuable it is to have Girl Guides provide the opportunity for their girls to get involved and take action to welcome newcomers like this, to demonstrate their compassion and the warmth of our communities, and to get them engaged even at a very young age in conversations about why this is so important.

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The special guests all seemed to have a good time as well. They appreciated the warm welcome and their children had a great time singing the songs and then afterwards playing outside on the playground with our girls. Some of the families even made inquiries about how to join Girl Guides. Over all, it was a Thinking Day that we’re not likely to ever forget.

Happy Canada Day from Burnaby Mountain District!

Brownies Build Birdhouses

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This week the girls from the 54th Brownies went to Home Depot to try out some new skills with tools and construction!

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Each girl got to make her very own birdhouse. Leaders were impressed with how quickly some of the girls picked up on the skills, figuring out how to assemble their pieces and how to screw and nail them together almost before they even told how! It is great to see them all so proudly showing off their creations.

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The leaders were very impressed with the program offered to them by the staff at Home Depot. One leader said “Mark, Gary, and Penny at Home Depot on Henning Drive were fantastic! They were so helpful, went out of their way to accommodate us (Especially Gary who precut all the pieces at home on his day off!)” Wow! A huge thank you to Home Depot and its staff for supporting Girl Greatness in our community!

Units Visit Local Seniors

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Our district is pretty excited this year to be continuing to make connections in this community. This fall and winter, units from our district have been building a relationship with LJ Christmas Manor, a local senior citizens highrise complex under the sponsorship of the Lions Club. This vibrant community of seniors have been happy to receive our units, and our girls have been so welcomed that we hope to make return visits.

22 Guides Seniors 2In November the 22nd Guides did a Remembrance Day visit. They sang some of Guiding’s more traditional and sombre songs in honour of the occasion and shared a snack with residents afterwards.

54 Brownies Seniors 9In December the 54th Brownies visited and sang a campfire that mixed traditional campfire songs (including some silly ones!) with Christmas carols. The girls then gave out Christmas themed gift bags with handmade ornaments and cards.

54 Brownies Seniors 4As an added bonus, the Brownies ended up invited to watch a shuffleboard tournament happening down the hall and were given a lesson! For many, this was the first time they had encountered the game.

Thanks for having us, Christmas Manor! Hopefully some of our units will be able to make it out to visit you this Spring.