Tag Archives: Friendship

Burnaby Mountain District Needs Volunteers!

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Burnaby Mountain District is so lucky to have many incredible volunteers in our District that make all of our Guiding activities possible. Volunteers run our Units, plan activities and camps, come up with fun event ideas, and so much more!

Burnaby Mountain Guiders and former girl members Katrina Berry, Andrea Berry, Carissa Konesky, and Eliesse Harpaz at the West Coast Area Guider Appreciation event.

Right now, our District needs volunteers more than ever! Now is the perfect time to consider joining Girl Guides as a volunteer and becoming part of our amazing team!

Four of our volunteer leaders – Katrina, Andrea, Carissa, and Eliesse, have been involved with Burnaby Mountain District since they were girls themselves! They went through Guiding together and had the chance to attend camps, sleepovers, and events. Even after they became adults they stayed with the District to become leaders and give girls the chance to have similar opportunities that they had.

Girl Guide leaders have a lot of fun and learn many new skills that look great on a resume! All volunteers with Girl Guides have access to trainings, support, and mentorship. Girl Guide volunteers also have access to scholarships to support with education, travel opportunities, and the chance to meet so many amazing fellow Girl Guides from across the country! There are also opportunities for recognition! Recently, many Guiders in our District attended a special event at Van Dusen Gardens.

Doesn’t this sound awesome? We’d love to have you join our team and make Girl Guides possible for even more girls. Apply now to volunteer here: https://www.girlguides.ca/WEB/AdultReg

Happy Halloween!

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Happy Halloween from Burnaby Mountain District! Lots of units are getting up to festive fun this week, but perhaps none quite so earnestly as the 14th Pathfinders who spread Halloween into a multi-part event!

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The group decided to check out the local Burnaby Village Museum, which puts on a great haunted attraction for Halloween.

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There can be lots of spookiness in history. Highlights included a spontaneous conga line street party!

But that’s not all. The group also recognized Halloween at regular meetings where they first spent a day making great Halloween decorations for the next week when they had a fun spooky party with snacks and games.

You’ve got to admire this group’s dedication to the season! Looks like a great time was had by all.

Sparks Fairy Camp

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Last month the 1st and 2nd Sparks in Burnaby Mountain District went to camp together at beautiful Camp Olave on the sunshine coast. Their two-night camp used the theme “Fairies and Friends” and the girls had a magical, friendly time!

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Some of the best parts of camp were taking advantage of the wonderful camp facilities at Olave. The girls loved the teamwork exercises at the low ropes course. They challenged themselves to swing, balance, and more with the support of their friends. There was much laughter and fun.

The blind trail is also a favourite for the Sparks. They take turns guiding a partner through the tail. The partner can choose to close their eyes or find another creative way to become blind — some girls even put on their jackets backwards and hid their faces behind their hoods!

Fairy activities included some awesome crafts. These girls love to make things! The Sparks made little fairy houses to put into the enchanted forest. They also made fairy lamps. They all looked great.

They really lucked out with decent weather on a weekend that was not forecast in their favour. Even though it was too early in the season to swim in the ocean, it was still great to take a walk on the beach. It was a very fun weekend.

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The girls are really excited to come back to camp next year.

Recognizing Our Awesome Volunteers

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Recently, West Coast Area Girl Guides hosted its annual awards dinner, which is wonderful night for Guiders from across the area to get together to celebrate everything that we do to support girls in our various roles. Several of our adult members came out to celebrate together.

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At this year’s event we saw awards granted to Guiders Helen, Sandra, and Gerry — thank you ladies, for all that you do! From helping with camping equipment, to coordinating our cookie deliveries, to managing our volunteer human resources, these ladies are all fundamental parts of our district’s success.

Did you know that we are now planning for next Guiding year (2019-2020), and we have many vacant positions in our rosters? If you are interested in volunteering to join this amazing team, please reach out and let us know. Guiding is all about running great programs for girls, but it is also a way for like-minded adults to find new friends, have lots of fun, and make a difference in the community.

Spark-Pathfinder Buddy Sleepover

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Burnaby Mountain District’s two smallest units, the 2nd Sparks and 10th Pathfinders, recently teamed up for a fun Guiding sleepover at Richmond Guide House. The Pathfinders got to work on their event planning and leadership skills by doing all the preparations and leading the event for the younger girls.

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The Pathfinders decided on an “Under the Sea” theme which involved eating seashell pasta with blue Hawaiian punch for supper, making a cool underwater craft, and watching a Little Mermaid movie together.

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The Sparks loved having the older girls around and doing activities with them. The craft was a really big hit — an under the sea tambourine that looks like a ship’s porthole!

All the Guiders were impressed by the Pathfinder’s dedication and helpfulness. When the leaders tried to jump in and help, the Pathfinders assured them that they were happy to take care of it. It left the Guiders lots of time to relax, hang out with the girls, and take advantage of the cozy comforts of the Richmond Guide House property. Guiders spent some downtime doing this cool retro GGC puzzle that they found on one of the shelves — it had all its pieces!

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The buddy sleepover worked really well. It was a great way for Pathfinders to take the lead and a wonderful way for Sparks to be with some dedicated role models. It was a great sleepover — THANK YOU, PATHFINDERS!

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!

Relaxing Rangers

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A couple of weeks ago girls from our 12th Rangers unit went for a relaxing weekend at beautiful Camp Olave. The main goals were to relax and to get to know each other better, and these goals were met with great success!

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The Rangers stayed in the Ranger cottage, which was a beautiful site right by the water. They were very lucky, as they ended up having beautiful weather the entire weekend.
They spent the weekend hiking the various trails that Camp Olave has, cooking, and spending a lot of time on the beach! Since it was the weekend before Halloween, the girls also carved pumpkins!
They also spent the evening playing a game of Monopoly that ended up lasting 5 hours. The girls got so serious about the game that they ate dinner around the coffee table, so that they wouldn’t have to move the game board! Afterwards, they made S’mores in the oven for mug up.
These girls work hard in Guiding, at school, and with their other commitments including family, jobs, and sports. It was so nice to relax together and have fun.

Pirate Camp

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When three different Brownie units came together to do their year-end camp this June, the leaders knew they wanted a fun and dynamic theme to help all the girls get excited and engaged in the camp. With girls from the 24th, 47th, and Highlands Brownie groups all participating, lots of girls didn’t know each other or all of the leaders so a fun theme was a great way to get everyone on the same page.

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The leaders did a great job decorating the site, Kwi Kwa at Camp Olave on the sunshine coast, with pirate flags, ships, and other related items. They played pirate themed games and even learned a fun new pirate themed campfire song. Food had a fun pirate element too — at dinner, for example, girls created their own flatbread pizza to look like a treasure map.

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They also made cool pirate crafts like their skull and cross bone hats and fun spy glasses. The hats especially made them recognizable as pirates as they roamed camp and tried out one of the hiking trails.

Camp Olave is a great place to spend time outside enjoying nature. These Brownies challenged themselves with hiking the nature trail, trusting each other in the blind trail, and working together on the low ropes course.

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Aside from the forest, Camp Olave also has a wonderful waterfront. A pirate theme works especially well at a campsite on the water and these girls also very much enjoyed their time swimming in the ocean on a beautiful sunny day.

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Over all the camp was a huge success. The girls all had a wonderful time. It was so great to see many of them making new friends. These Brownies, even if they belong to different units, all share in the sisterhood of Guiding. One of the great things about this organization is knowing you’re one of the 10 million Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in the world — that’s a lot of friends to make!

Sparks Winter Themed Sleepover

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The girls and leaders from the 1st and 2nd Sparks joined forces last weekend for a Winter Wonderland themed sleepover at a local community hall.

For many of the Sparks this was their very first sleepover ever. The leaders were impressed with how well everybody did. The Sparks really took to the spirit of sharing and being a friend, and there were no major problems at all. Even girls who were a little nervous about missing their families and being away from home were so busy having fun and being with their friends that there wasn’t a single melt down, even at bedtime.

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The winter-themed activities included making their own “toss the snowball through the snowman” games to take home, making snowflake headbands, and watching everyone’s favourite movie (Frozen, of course) on a big screen almost like being at the movie theatre. It was quite spectacular to see 22 Sparks singing along to Let it Go with perfect diction and clarity!

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Girls also got to eat yummy pizza, sing their favourite campfire songs, and spend time dancing with a disco light.

They even went to bed at a reasonable hour, without very much fuss at all.

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It was a wonderful night of fun and friendship.

This was a very successful first sleepover for these units this year. Both groups look forward to taking their Sparks on more exciting outings, sleepovers, and camps throughout the year.