Tag Archives: Girl Guides of Canada

Brownie day trip to Galiano Island

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One recent Saturday, despite the foreboding skies and strong winds, the 24th and 47th Brownies ventured to a Southern Gulf Island for a field trip with the Galiano Conservancy Association.
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With the Edible Forest program, they went on a hike, matching paint chips to things in nature. The sun smiled on them, and they stopped for a snack before being taught how to harvest nettle and two species of fir needles along the way to the Forest Garden.
When the girls had gathered enough foliage, they played some games under the tarp while their tea steeped. They participated in a teaching train activity, teaching each other things they learned about some of the plants in the garden.
Lastly, they planted peas, and one of the Guiders heard that in only a week and a half, they had already sprouted (that’s the photo below, sent from one of our contacts there).
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The interpreters were really great. They were super friendly and patient, full of stories and songs, and an obvious love of nature!
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It was a 10-hour day for the group, and it was a big day of outdoor fun. Way to go, Brownies!

Spring Cookie Season

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Girl Guide Cookies are on sale now in the lower mainland. Burnaby Mountain girls are busy selling them to family and friends, going door-to-door, and out in public at skytrain stations and other blitz locations.

Recently, the girls in the 24th Burnaby Mountain Brownies got geared up for Girl Guide Cookie season by baking their own using the recipe that was used for the very first Girl Guide cookies back in 1927. Each circle had a recipe card. Written into the instructions were important steps like,”wash your hands,” and “put all ingredients away,” so that from start to finish, they were independently working together and cleaning as they went. The leaders were there only for assistance when needed.

The cookies have come a long way since they started. The 1927 cookies were mildly spiced sugar cookies. Most girls seem to like the current chocolate and vanilla (or in the fall, Chocolatey Mint) version a little better. Still, it was a lot of fun to make the originals! In the end, each girl brought home a container of cookies, and even left some behind for the school staff.

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Want to try it yourself? Here is the recipe:

Christina Riespman’s 1927 Girl Guide Cookie Recipe

Ingredients:

1 cup butter
1 cup sugar
3 Eggs
2 tablespoons cream
Pinch of salt
1 teaspoon baking soda
2 tablespoons baking powder
½ teaspoon ground cardamom
3 or more cups flour to make soft dough

Directions:

  • Cream butter and sugar, Beat in eggs and cream
  • Combine salt, baking soda, baking powder, cardamom and flour
  • Sift dry into wet ingredients and mix into dough.
  • Roll and cut, using a small floured glass or cookie cutter
  • Sprinkle with sugar, then bake at moderate heat, until done.
  • Enjoy!

Look for the much more modern Chocolate and Vanilla sandwich cookies out in the community now!

Survival Snowshoeing Brownies

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Earlier this month, Burnaby Mountain’s 24th Brownies and 27th Brownies went to Mount Seymour for a day of snowshoeing fun!
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They did a Junior Survivor snowshoe tour with park staff on the mountain. It was hard to believe they were tromping on over 2m of snow in such beautiful weather with the most incredible views.
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Getting there wasn’t too bad, even in the wintery weather. They simply took the shuttle up there from Rupert station.
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The girls didn’t trek terribly far, but they enjoyed a little scavenger hunt and the discussion of which items would be helpful for survival. It was impressive to see how well the girls could run in snowshoes while playing “Hypothermia Tag”.
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Although for the most part it wasn’t overly cold up there, the wind was pretty vicious when the girls were shelter-building. They were all glad to be served hot chocolate when they got back to the starting point.
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The girls all seemed to have a great time, except for one Brownie who thought it was too cold — gee, I wonder why with all that beautiful snow!

Thinking Day 2018

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Burnaby Mountain Girl Guides hopes all of our sisters around the globe had a wonderful World Thinking Day.

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Last night, our 56th Guides were lucky enough to have their regular unit meeting fall on Thinking Day. How did the girls choose to celebrate the joint birthdays of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell? With a fabulous Dairy Queen ice cream cake, of course! Happy birthday!

For some of our units, the party continues as they will be joining the provincial celebrations at BC Guide House this weekend. We hope they have a wonderful time.

Happy Lunar New Year

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Last week, Burnaby Mountain’s 24th Brownies did some work on the program area Key to My Community (with a bit of Arts thrown in). Given the trio of holidays the calendar presented them with, they had a Valentine’s-Flag Day-Chinese New Year mashup!
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For Flag Day activities, the girls took turns reading out “fun facts” about the flag, and quizzed themselves (multiple choice) about the national anthem (and, of course, learned the lyrical change that was recently made). They then learned the Michael Mitchell song, “Canada In My Pocket” (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VnZlAOSEmYQ).
So that there would be some time for the glue to dry, they next decorated the dragon mask that one of the leaders had made at home.  They were really into it! They decided that it had to be a girl, to be in Girl Guides.
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When that was done, another leader shared some traditional Chinese foods with them: longevity peach buns, and nian gao, a sticky sweet rice cake, which she had made. They weren’t a big hit, but the leaders were proud of the girls for trying new foods.
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They then split the girls into their circles and rotated them through the Chinese calligraphy station (where a leader showed them how to use the brushes and ink or special watercolour paint to write “dog” and other words), and the “lucky money” Valentine’s station. There they each wrote a compliment on a bit of paper for another Brownie, and put them in a red envelope so that each girl left with a pocket of nice things about themselves.
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The girls enjoyed finishing the meeting with at least a few minutes to do the dragon dance in the gym. They used 4m of this really lovely flowy fabric and the freshly decorated mask. After a few minutes, it dissolved into a game of body chasing the head (and plenty of giggles!).
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Anyway, for a Key that can tend towards the cerebral rather than the experiential, it was a really fun meeting!
Happy New 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!

Nutcracker Ballet Outing

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This weekend the 22nd Guides went to see the Nutcracker performed by the Goh Ballet company at The Centre in Vancouver. Below are the girls posed with some of the very talented dancers!

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This was an event that the girls were really looking forward to. They had been working up to it with other unit activities including their Nutcracker themed puppet show at enrollment and a visit from a community theatre actor to talk about drama and stage make up.

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The unit was able to heavily subsidize the cost of this outing with money earned through the unit’s Girl Guide Cookie sales. Way to go, girls!

It was a great way to celebrate the holiday season with friends.

Brownies on Ice

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The 24th Brownies recently went ice skating, fulfilling the girls’ most-voted activity request. Coincidentally, their meeting time falls into a Loonie Skate period at Moody Park Arena in New Westminster, which runs from 7-8:30pm on Thursdays, so that by the time the girls got all laced up, they only had to wait a few minutes before they were allowed onto the ice.
One of the unit’s Guiders is a skating instructor, so it didn’t take long before girls who had started out pushing the skating support frame were tootling around on their own, and even attempting to jump while skating.
It was great to see so many girls having their skills and confidence increasing so quickly. And this is also a great example of unit programming being chosen by the girls — great idea, Brownies!

Bowling Fundraiser 2017

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For several years in a row, Burnaby Mountain District has been hosting a family bowling day as a fundraiser towards district events. This year’s event was to raise funds for the district camp coming in June of this Guiding year. We even had an ideas board posted for girls to suggest themes for the camp. It’s going to come down to a vote in the new year.

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The district rented out the entire Old Orchard Bowling alley and had girls and their families sign up for time slots to play a game of bowling. We also had Dominos pizza and a light concession available, which also contributed to the funds. The party lights and music played, making the event even more fun.

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Over all the event made us a couple hundred dollars, plus one Pathfinder! One girl brought a friend who had such a good time she registered for our Pathfinder unit just a couple of days later. This year was also special because the event fell on the birthday of one of our Brownie leaders — we had the whole bowling alley sing her happy birthday while she blew the candles out on a slice of cake.

The event is a favorite for the district because while it is, technically, a fundraiser it is more importantly a whole lot of fun!!

Enrollment Season

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Late fall is always a busy time for enrollments as Girl Guides around the country learn to tie their ties, make friends with their new groups, and make their Guiding promise. Enrollments take many themes, often cooked up by our very creative girls. In this post we feature two groups who had fun making enrollment their own.

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Firstly, the 2nd Burnaby Mountain Sparks had a lovely rainbow themed enrollment where girls crossed through a rainbow arch before making their promise.

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The leaders got an awesome butterfly cupcake-cake to celebrate the occasion as well! They finished the event with a family sing-a-long, practicing the tunes that the girls would be singing for local seniors in a couple of weeks.

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They made the puppets themselves and enjoyed studying the story as it is preparing them for an outing to see the Nutcracker performed by the Goh Ballet coming up in December.

Welcome to all of the new girls who joined Guiding in Burnaby Mountain this year! It’s still not too late if your daughter is interested in joining the fun. We accept new members all year round. More girls are still joining every week and there is still room in most of our units.