Tag Archives: Guiders

Guider Retreat

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The adult volunteers of Burnaby Mountain District recently gathered for a Guider Retreat at Camp Capilano in North Vancouver. 21 adults participated! The overnight event had three goals:

  1. Provide relevant training
  2. Team building
  3. FUN

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In regards to the first goal, our Guiders got training about the new Girls First program, camp equipment, effective communication strategies with girls, bullying prevention, and Guiding traditions.

Guiders also got to choose between two out trips — a tour of the new BC Guide House building and visit to Lonsdale Quay, or a geocaching hike in Capilano Park.

A highlight of the event was a team building visit from Dance Downtown, with a facilitator that took the group through a teamwork intro and a Bollywood dance lesson. It was so much fun!  There was a lot of laughter and bonding.

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All in all, the three goals were definitely met! Our Guiders now feel more prepared to engage with our new program and have lots of other skills they can work with. Perhaps even more importantly, we’re a better team than ever before.

Want to join the fun? Get in touch with us any time. We’re always looking for dedicated volunteers to join us.

Leaders Planning Fun Things

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At last week’s district meeting the adult members of Burnaby Mountain district discussed exciting upcoming events including the Great Salmon Send-Off (happening right now at Stoney Creek School!), district camp, and awesome things happening in the various units.

District camp quartermaster Jenn demonstrated how to make cinnamon sugar witches hats which are going to be a tasty treat at the Harry Potter themed district camp next month. They were delicious! These ladies are all very excited about the creations.

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This is a great team to join! Several of our units are looking for new Guiders to join in the fall. Guiders have lots of fun, give back to the community, make new friendships, and learn lots of great transferable skills.

Did you know Burnaby Mountain District is opening a new Guide unit and a new Pathfinder unit for next year? Phase 2 of registration which includes all current girls (including those changing units or branches) opens on Monday. Don’t delay — some of our units may fill during this phase!

Contact us for more information about how to sign up as a volunteer adult or about how to register your girl into our exciting programs.

 

District Planning and Cutthroat Kitchen

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With September, the start of the Guiding year, just around the corner, Guiders from Burnaby Mountain district gathered yesterday for their annual planning day. The morning featured training sessions to help new Guiders understand how to run the Guide program and to give tips and tricks for running a unit including planning, communication, and conflict management. In the afternoon there was a planning session where topics such as cookies, fundraising, and district events were discussed — there’s a lot of fun stuff in the works for this year!

Cutthroat_Kitchen_LogoOf course we wouldn’t really be Girl Guides if we didn’t incorporate an element of real FUN into the day. Our mid-day activity was a team-building exercise based on the Food Network TV show Cutthroat Kitchen. Guiders were put into teams to cook a main dish, side dish, and dessert in just 45 minutes, with crazy challenges thrown in for extra chaos.

SAM_2990Cooking started out with a frenzied collecting of ingredients from the pantry. Teams quickly put together their plans and got to work. Throughout the event, however, the host (District Commissioner Gerry) would announce challenges that teams would bid on to inflict on another team to try to sabotage them. Challenges including having to pause to sing campfire songs, having to use a teeny tiny frying pan to cook your food, having to wear one oven mitt for the duration of the game, and having to be handcuffed to another teammate. SAM_2994Above is one player cooking her meat in a tiny pan, and below are two players both handcuffed and oven mitted, attempting to plate their meal.SAM_2995The event was judged by District co-treasurers Nikki and Chris, along with Area Commissioner Donna. The meals, shown plated below, showed great creativity and were remarkably tasty given the limited amount of time, single shared kitchen, and the challenges inflicted.

SAM_3004 More than enough food was made for everyone to enjoy lunch out of their creations. Dishes included prawn stir fry, sloppy joes, chow mien noodles, spinach pasta salad, and peach tarts. Leaders had a great time being silly and competing against each other. In the end, leaders from three units split of the prize of $100 for their unit’s bank accounts.

First Aid Training

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This Thanksgiving weekend, six Guiders from our District spent time becoming certified in Red Cross Standard First Aid and CPR Level C.

Six brand new Red Cross certificates

This qualification actually exceeds the Girl Guides requirement for most kinds of activities — that so many of our leaders were interested in taking this course rather than the more common Emergency First Aid course shows how committed we are to girl safety and to being able to offer exciting programming. The Girl Guide motto, after all, is “Be Prepared!”

Leaders from both our Ranger units practicing a sling for a broken arm

The leaders learned about life-saving techniques such as CPR for adults, children, and infants, including use of automatic external defibrillators. They learned about how to deal with choking, head injuries, sprains, broken bones, allergic reactions (including anaphylaxis), heat exhaustion, heart attacks, and more.

Leaders from the 56th Guides doing a “tubular” sling for a dislocated shoulder

The trainer was an enthusiastic paramedic who kept the days fun. All six leaders had a great time learning about these important skills… although they sincerely hope they will never have to use any them!

SFU Volunteer and Community Engagement Fair

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This week has been all about membership in Burnaby Mountain District! There have been two membership information sessions at local elementary schools to reach out to the youth, and we also spent time at the local university campus to reach adults.

Did you know that membership in our district is up this year, and that most of our units have less than three spaces currently available?

The day at Simon Fraser University’s Volunteer and Community Engagement Fair was an especially exciting time. We worked with Guiders from a couple of other districts to represent West Coast Area (and beyond!) at this major event attended by more than 3000 students, faculty, and staff.

Did you know that there are a variety of ways for women to get involved in our organization, and that neither experience or daughters are required?

PR Advisor Bethany and District Commissioner Gerry at our booth

We talked to several women, most of whom were university students, about their fond memories of being involved in Guiding as a a child — and considering getting involved again. Others came by hardly knowing what Girl Guides was about, but expressing interest in working with kids. We gave out cookie samples and were eager to talk about all the exciting things going on in our district this year.

Check out the great presentation board we borrowed from Area. Wouldn’t it be great to make our own, filled with memories of our district?

By the end of the fair two leaders had actually filled out registration forms and been placed in units in our district, and four others had expressed interest and asked to be contacted by our commissioner. In addition, we collected contact information from women interested in getting involved in Vancouver, Surrey, North Vancouver, and other parts of Burnaby. They will be contacted by the appropriate districts shortly.

Did you know that Guiding offers amazing opportunities for its girls and women including scholarships, training, and international travel?

Over all the SFU fair was a big success. Our Guiders are happy to be gaining the support and fresh new ideas coming from these young, talented, motivated women.

Leaders Luau and Planning Meeting

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On Monday August 27th, several of the Guiders in our District got together to make some plans and set some goals for the upcoming Guiding year. Quite a lot got accomplished! Plans were made for District events such as Thinking Day and Year End Advancement, as well as Guider training, team-building, communication, and council administration. Lots of great ideas were brainstormed for fun unit activities and bridging opportunities as well. Some new Guiders got to meet more experienced ones, and everybody had a good time.

Because we don’t want to do anything as boring as a plain old meeting, this planning session was conducted as a Luau at one of the Guiders’ homes. There were snacks such as mini Hawaiian pizzas, macadamia nut crusted chicken wings, fruit kabobs, and coconut cake.

Guiders really got into the spirit of things by wearing flower leis, grass skirts, and even coconut bras! The highlight of the evening was following an online Hula dancing lesson, which involved lots of laughter.

Thank you to everyone who made it out to this event. It sounds like we’re all set to have a really exciting year!