Tag Archives: Girl Guides

Iron Chef!

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Happy Fall and welcome back to another year of Guiding!

To kick off the Guiding year, the 14th Burnaby Mountain Pathfinders were excited to participate in this year’s annual West Coast Area Iron Chef event! The theme of this year’s event was Fall Fest. The Pathfinders competed against 14 other teams from West Coast Area, and together they were tasked with creating an appetizer, main course, and dessert using fall-themed ingredients.

The Pathfinders did an amazing job, and took home two awards for their creations! They were awarded both the “Best Main Course” and the “Best Presentation.”

It was a great afternoon, and congratulations again to the Pathfinders!

Camp Olave Adventures!

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It is hard to believe that it is already the end of another Guiding year! To celebrate, the 1st Sparks recently went to one of our favourite camps, Camp Olave!

The group stayed at the waterfront cabin, Brock. It was the first camp for every single Spark who attended, and they all did great! The camp was an “Under the Sea” theme. The Sparks mentioned that their highlights included the beach time and low ropes. There was a campfire ban so they couldn’t have a campfire, but they did make oven s’mores. They also travelled with fellow Burnaby Mountain group, the 47th Sparks/Embers and spent some time with them on Saturday night. 

They also did crafts, including making a wind chime. They got to take advantage of all of the fun attractions that Camp Olave has to offer, including the blind trail, the fitness circuit, and the enchanted forest. They enjoyed exploring the nature house. 

The Sparks got really lucky with the weather since the forecast had a high chance of rain. It was dry all weekend, if mostly overcast, but magically the couple of hours of nice sunshine happened while they were at the beach! 

We are so glad that we are able to go to Camp Olave again! Have a wonderful summer, everyone!

Introducing our new District Commissioner!

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Burnaby Mountain Girl Guides is very excited to announce that we have a new District Commissioner! Bethany Suvak has recently taken on the role of leading our District. We are very excited to have her leading our District for the next 3 years!

The role of being the District Commissioner is not new to Bethany, as she previously held the role from 2015-2018. Bethany has been in Guiding for 30 years and started as a Brownie. She had the chance to travel to Europe with Girl Guides in 2001, and can be seen in the photo above touching the Atlantic Ocean. She is currently a Spark Guider with our 1st Sparks Unit, where the Sparks call her Sparkles. Most of Bethany’s Guiding experience has been as a Spark Guider, but she has also worked with Embers and Rangers.

Bethany has been a trainer since 2013, and is passionate about supporting Guiders through training and mentorship. In 2018, she was a “Girls First Champion” and helped implement our new program.

Outside of Guiding, Bethany is a Mom to a three year old “future Spark” and teaches English at a local college.

We are very excited to have Bethany’s experience, passion, and knowledge in the District Commissioner role! This is a very important role in our District, as the Commissioner leads the District team, supports our Guiders, ensures Guiding is visible in our community, and does so much more! Bethany’s priority for this position is to strengthen bonds in Burnaby Mountain District. She wants to see more collaboration between members both at the unit and district level. She also wants to support our Guiders as much as possible, and part of this is an emphasis on recruiting more adult volunteers. She looks forward to welcoming more members onto our team very soon and can’t wait to start planning some of the events and activities that she has in mind!

We also wanted to thank Sandra Berry, who is our outgoing District Commissioner. Sandra took on the role during the COVID-19 pandemic and helped keep Guiding strong in our District throughout. Thank you so much, Sandra, for all of your service to Guiding and Burnaby Mountain District over the last 3 years!

Congratulations, Bethany, and thank you, Sandra!

Bridging Activities!

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Recently, Burnaby Mountain’s 1st Sparks Unit connected with our 14th Pathfinders to do a fun Unit building activity together, and to earn their “How To” badges! The Sparks each received their own building kits and made their own penguin goalie game, where you flick a ball and a little Foosball style penguin tries to kick it.

The Pathfinders were a huge help with the big project! They helped the Sparks put together their games, and the Sparks were so proud of the finished projects. The Sparks couldn’t have done it without the help from the Pathfinders, so the Sparks and Spark leaders were very grateful that they came!

Bridging is a fun opportunity for Girl Guides of different age groups to come together and work on fun activities. It allows our older members to take on a leadership role, and the younger members to see what Girl Guides is like when they get older!

Everyone was so excited about the finished project!!

Guides Go Skating!

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Winter is the perfect time to try some new and fun activities! In December, the 56th Burnaby Mountain Guides decided to get active and go ice skating for one of their Unit meetings!

The Guides had a great time skating around, laughing, and trying some tricks. The skating rink even had nets to play hockey with and chairs to slide around on. For some of our Guides, it was especially exciting as it was their first-ever time ice skating.

There’s still time to participate in Girl Guides for the rest of the Guiding year and join our fun adventures! Did you know that from now until the summer, the registration fee to join Guiding is 50% off? A lot of our Units in Burnaby Mountain still have space, so join now by visiting register.girlguides.ca

Meet the Guiders of our District!

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Each month, we will be featuring one of the amazing Guiders who make Guiding in Burnaby Mountain District possible.

To start off, meet our amazing District Commissioner, Sandra! Sandra leads our District. The District Commissioner acts at the main support for Guiders in the District, and provides mentorship and feedback. She also has a large administrative role, making sure that records are kept and contracts are signed. Not to mention, she chairs the District Council and sits as a member of Area Council.

Not only is Sandra a District Commissioner, but she is also a Guide leader!

Sandra started Guiding in Brownies as a girl. She had some fantastic leaders and great memories of being a girl member, so she decided to stay in Guiding as an adult. Her favourite part about Guiding is that everybody is accepted, and it is a different experience for each member. She has met many fantastic people through Guiding. She also loves taking girls camping at Camp Olave, which is our Girl Guide camp on the Sunshine Coast.

Sandra’s favourite part about Guiding in Burnaby Mountain District is the wonderful, supportive Guiders in the District. They are all fantastic and have done wonders ensuring that the girls in the District have a memorable Guiding experience, as well as feeling supported as they grow.

Thank you for everything that you do for Guiding and Burnaby Mountain District, Sandra! We are lucky to have you!

STEM Fun!

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In Girl Guides, one of the badges that all branches can work on is the “Science Lab” badge. There are so many fun things that girls can do to learn about STEM!

Recently, SFU Outreach visited the 56th Burnaby Mountain Guide Unit to talk all about engineering and to make bath bombs! The Guides first learned about all of the different types of engineers that there are – including chemical engineers, mechanical engineers, and civil engineers. It was then time for the group to become engineers themselves, but first, they did an activity to learn all about the scientific process.

Once they had learned about the scientific process, it was time to make bath bombs! Each Guide got to choose the colour and scent of their bath bomb, and each one turned out very unique.

Thank you very much to SFU Outreach for taking the time to visit the Guides and put together such a fun activity! We loved learning about STEM.

Tea-rrific Tea Party

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One of the most exciting things about this Guiding year is that we’re allowed to have sleepovers again! Sparks and Brownies in Burnaby Mountain District recently held a Tea-rrific Tea Party sleepover at Richmond Guide House. For all of the girls, it was their first-ever Girl Guide sleepover, and it was a huge success!

It was a full-house, with Sparks and Brownies from the 1st Sparks, 27th Guiding, and 47th Guiding Units coming together for the tea party. The group cooked strawberry jam on a camp stove, made fascinators (headbands) to wear to the tea party, and made tea sandwiches. Of course, dinner was a high-tea with the sandwiches and other treats!

The group also played a rousing game of pass the parcel and ended the evening with a movie night, watching Disney’s Alice in Wonderland.

Thank you to all of the Guiders who worked hard to make this sleepover happen, and to all of the Sparks and Brownies for attending. It was such a fun evening!

Sleepover at the Aquarium

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Burnaby Mountain recently organized a district-level event for all girls in Guides, Pathfinders, and Rangers to spend the night at the Vancouver Aquarium. The sleepover was full of fun and hands-on learning about nature, the environment, and important lessons about conservation.

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The overnight event packed in 12 hours of interesting educational programming with a little bit of sleep mixed in. It sure was a unique experience to get the place to themselves, to get to explore scientific labs behind the scenes, and sleep with aquatic friends.

The program included a hands-on Invertebrae Lab, 3 Eco-System guided tours (Northwest Pacific, Arctic, and Tropical), and some free time after breakfast to explore the Marine Mammal Deck And the Amazon Free Flight Gallery.

It was a very late night, so girls were exhausted when they finally laid down their heads for some sleep. Earlier in the year, Sparks and Brownies had the aquarium come to them at an event better suited to younger girls’ bedtimes.

The Aquarium sleepover was an amazing night full of amazing wildlife. Girls will hang on to these memories for a lifetime. We’d like the thank the amazing staff at the Vancouver Aquarium plus the planning committee of Guiders who worked hard to make this happen.

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!