Girls First in Action

Posted on April 23, 2019 by Carissa

Girl Guides of Canada launched its newly updated program, Girls First, this past fall. Over the course of the Guiding year, our members have been getting trained in and familiar with our new program. Built on a girl-driven approach designed to give our girls choice, voice, and action, Girls First helps the Guiding experience meet the needs of each individual girl in a way that is relevant, meaningful, and fun.

Part of making Girls First work is making sure that girls have an active voice in making unit plans. How they approach their badge work, what kinds of outings they go on, and the goals they have for camps or community service projects depends on the girls in that unit and what they are interested in. Our 49th Guides recently shared some photos of a Girls First planning day with their unit. Girls loved getting involved in making plans!

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Part of their exercise was thinking of all the things they had already done that year to figure out how it maps into the Girls First program (so they know what badges they’ve earned!) and to give them some guidance for what they should try next.

From group brainstorming to exploring the various Program Areas and Themes within Girls First, there is a lot that girls can do to shape their Guiding journeys. Based on their collective efforts, the 49th Guides were able to identify topics that their girls have liked or still want to explore like Guiding traditions, active living, wellness, STEM, and leadership.

Girls First is a bit of a learning curve (did you know the program is now entirely online rather than in traditional book format??) but we’re super excited about how it puts girls in the driver’s seat. It’s a program that really does allows each girl to be everything they want to be.

Art Walk and Hike

Posted on June 29, 2018 by Carissa

Last night some Brownies keen to finish their Key to the Community and Happy Hiking badges went on an adventure at local university, SFU.

First the girls walked around campus checking out the awesome public art around campus. It was fun to see the large installments, some of which lend themselves to interactive enjoyment.

Did you know there’s a website where you can find a map of public art in the city of Burnaby? What a cool way to interact with our community! Check it out here: https://gis.burnaby.ca/storymaps/publicart/index.html

After the art walk, the group did a short hike along the Trans-Canada Trail, accessed from pretty much across the road from the SFU bus loop.

The girls really enjoyed the hike, enjoying salmonberries and huckleberries all along the way.

Enjoy your fancy new badges, girls!

Brownies get Guides Greatest Hits

Posted on June 4, 2018 by Carissa

With registration for next Guiding year already open for returning members, this is a great time of year for girls to get a taste of what Guiding in the next branch has in store. Recently, girls from the 54th Burnaby Mountain Brownies visited our 22nd Guides to see what a Guide meeting is really like.

The Guides, feeling inspired by our upcoming new Girls First programming, got their creative thinking caps on to plan an evening of fun inspired by some of their favourite activities that they had done earlier this year.

One of their favourite meetings was a spa day when they made all kinds of natural products and learned about how to feel good with activities like yoga and mindfulness. The girls borrowed their favourite activity from that meeting — chocolate face masks! — to share with their Brownie friends. Entirely eatable, these face masks apparently make your skin feel soft and smooth. But as we can all tell, really the fun comes from getting to wear your chocolate!

Another favourite activity which had come from a series of meetings on STEM related topics was slime making. The Guides helped the Brownies make slime in a variety of colours. Science is cool. The meeting was definitely a bit more messy than your average Guide meeting, but the girls were all great about helping to clean up too.

They also got to share some of their Girl Guide traditions like their regular opening routine and some favourite songs. What a great way for the girls who are moving up to Guides next year to know what kind of fun things to expect. Thank you, Guides, for planning such an awesome meeting!

Gold Camp at Manning Park

Posted on July 20, 2017 by Carissa

Last week Burnaby Mountain’s 14th Pathfinders had their year end camp at Manning Park. Gold Camp is the grand finale of Pathfinder program and allows third year girls to take on tremendous leadership in planning their own camping adventure.

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It’s great to see the Pathfinders continuing their programming even into July, after many groups have stopped for the year. Guider Marie is never one to let good camping opportunities slip away and nothing is better on a beautiful summer weekend than camping with your Guiding friends in a great BC park.

This Gold Camp was planned by three third year girls who each was responsible for her own site of two or three younger girls (Guides and Pathfinders) and got to host leaders at mealtimes.

It gives the girls a great chance to experience the work that goes into planning the meals, activities, and safety considerations involved in executing an awesome camp in Girl Guides. It’s a lot of responsibility to be in charge of what’s happening, especially when you have younger and less experienced campers in your care.

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The site was Coldspring Campground at EC Manning Provincial Park. It is a beautiful spot with lots of great nature and wildlife to enjoy. It was fun seeing the many marmots popping up to say hello!

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A particular highlight of the trip was spending a couple of hours canoeing and kayaking on Lightning Lake. It was a beautiful day to be out on the water.

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Other activities included field games like capture the flag, and a “campfire” that was hardly hampered by the campfire ban — the girls still sang their favourite songs and even roasted s’mores using their propane camp stoves.

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For the Guides who were invited as guests to this camp, it was a great chance to see what kinds of fun await in Pathfinders. Guiding is all about celebrating both old and new friendships.

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Well done, third years, for hosting such an awesome Gold Camp! Completing the Pathfinder program is a lot of work, but in the meantime you’ve all gained excellent skills, not to mention the fun, friendship, and memories!

Sparks Celebrate Canada 150

Posted on May 2, 2017 by Carissa

Last night the girls in the 1st Burnaby Mountain Sparks had a great time celebrating Canada in honour of our country’s 150th birthday this year.

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The meeting started with a great discussion about the flag and the singing of the national anthem. Then the group discussed different things they knew about Canada and asked some interesting questions.

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Everyone’s favourite part of the meeting was playing a fun game of “pin the tail on the beaver” — it was so fun they wanted to play again and again! One interesting thing about this meeting was that it was entirely planned by the unit’s Junior Leader, a Ranger who has been working with the unit for the past three years. The Guiders were happy to see how much she has learned about running a unit meeting and working with the girls. It was a great way for this Ranger to work on her leadership skills in a safe, supportive environment.

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The meeting ended with a couple more activities including a flag craft and some goal setting for the future. They sang a traditional Canadian song together before saying goodbye for the night. As an added bonus, this meeting allowed the girls to complete the Canada 150 Challenge, which meant everyone went home with a cool crest. Yay Canada!

Program fun

Posted on January 16, 2017 by Carissa

All units in Burnaby Mountain are back and meeting after the holiday break. Units are busy planning great adventures for the rest of the year including camps, sleepovers, trips, outings, community service, and more. Many units are taking advantage of the cold, wet, weather to focus on the exciting and enriching Girl Guides of Canada program materials designed for our girls.

At this week’s meeting the 47th Brownies tackled the Famous Five challenge, in which the girls learned about the five women who took part in the “Persons Case.” In this famous legal battle, five women successfully convinced the British Empire’s highest court that several Canadian governments were wrong when they interpreted the British North America Act to mean that women were not “persons.” This is a great way to introduce Brownies to the important topics of politics, activism, and women’s rights.

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As a part of the challenge the Brownies invited a local female politician to talk to the girls about our right (and duty!) to vote and to be involved in change. The girls also decorated stylish 1920’s style hats, such as may have been worn by Nellie McClung and the other pioneers of women’s rights in Canada. The above photo shows the girls posing in their hats with the special guest.

On the very same day, the girls in the 2nd Sparks learned about life in another country important to the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts — Switzerland! The girls had a blast playing a game where they pretended to ski around the hall and watched the Lonely Goatherd puppet show scene from The Sound of Music. Pictured below are the girls performing a concert with their homemade alpen horns. Switzerland is awesome! Maybe some of these girls will one day visit the WAGGGS World Centre in Switzerland, which is called Our Chalet.

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These are just some of the amazing activities being led by our creative and enthusiastic volunteers here in Burnaby Mountain. Every week our girls are engaging in creativity, self-discovery, and hands on learning about the world around them… and all in a safe, empowering environment!

Brownie Flag Meeting

Posted on April 20, 2016 by Carissa

Sometimes it is fun to catch up with one of our units during a “normal” meeting — that is, something that isn’t a special event like an outing, sleepover, or camp. At our regular weekly meetings, girls participate in all kinds of fun, hands-on programming. Recently, the 54th Burnaby Mountain Brownies had a meeting about flags and heritage. Jenn, one of the group’s leaders, describes the meeting below.

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Tonight we worked on our Key to My Community which involved a flag ceremony and learning about Canada! Our circle leaders got to be in charge of the flags. We learned how to hold a flag, we learned they never touch the ground and we learned how to carefully roll our flags back up for storage. They loved seeing them (and do did I! We have a district flag? COOL) and learning about them all.

The last photo shows the girls together around their “where do we come from” map. The stones are decorated like a flag, some say “I love Canada”. They are all unique and each Brownie has marked where her family comes from to the best of her knowledge. (Note how many chose Canada)

We also played a little basketball free throw tonight and learned a bit about the Canadian guy who invented it! Before we played, we had a lacrosse stick and a hockey stick and asked which one is our national sport? They all chose Hockey! Which is actually just the sport we are the best at, not our national sport. It was a good meeting and I know we sent home some tired Brownies tonight!

Thank you, Jenn, for sharing about your Brownie meeting. It sounds like the girls were really engaged and had a great time doing this GGC programming.

Brownies tackle STEM

Posted on March 9, 2016 by Carissa

One of the most popular program areas with our girls is STEM — Science, Technology, Engineering, and Math. Getting the chance to explore these fascinating disciplines with hands-on activities in a really fun and girl-centred environment is a real a treat.

This year, the 54th Brownies have been going crazy with STEM. The girls just can’t get enough. Back in January, the unit had a blast at the West Coast Area Science World Sleepover.

They have also spent a bunch of time over a selection of meetings this winter and spring, exploring STEM topics to earn their Provincial STEM challenge crests. Check out these images from some of those meetings.

Some of the activities that they have tried include discovering ways to check whether an egg is raw or hard boiled, making music with water in stemware, studying fizzy water vs regular water under black light and then making their own Sparkling lemonade! Yum!! They have also learned about cyber safety, taken cellphones apart to get a look at the inside and made their own computers. And exploring engineering has given them the chance to build tall towers and to design shelters to keep their favourite stuffed critters safe from the elements.

Believe it or not, they’re not done yet! The 54th Brownies look forward to joining all the rest of the Burnaby Mountain girls at our next big district event: Science Day at SFU! At the end of April, girls of all branches will get a chance to explore science in real science labs with real science students. As you can imagine, these girls in particular are really excited about it!

Thinking Day 2015 – Healthy Living

Posted on March 14, 2015 by Carissa

In February, Girl Guides around the world celebrate the joint birthdays of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, the founders of our organization, in Thinking Day celebrations. This year, Burnaby Mountain District hosted its annual celebration on February 21 at Charles Rummel Hall.

Approximately 75 girls came out with their families to celebrate Guiding. The event was planned and delivered by the 12th Rangers with help from the 14th Pathfinders. The girls did a wonderful job hosting the event, showing exemplary leadership skills.

The theme of this year’s event was healthy living, and the Rangers planned stations for the girls to visit round-robin style that contributed towards the new provincial program Colour Me Healthy challenges. By the end of the day, all girls present were well on their way to earning the challenges which may be completed in their units.

Fun stations included fruit & veggie trivia, yoga, foot tag, and a fruit and veg tasting station. The afternoon was rounded out with a lively campfire.

In addition to the festivities, there was a bake sale that many families contributed to. So many tasty things! Proceeds from the bake sale are going towards the district’s year end event in June. Thanks for helping us raise the funds for that.

A huge thank you goes out to the Rangers and Pathfinders who worked so hard planning and leading this event. The girls all had a great time and hopefully learned a thing or two about healthy choices.

To our sisters around the world, Happy Thinking Day 2015!

Turtles Visit Brownies

Posted on April 7, 2014 by Carissa

A recent regular meeting of the 54th Brownies was made even more exciting than normal with a visit by a guest speaker from an organization called Species at Risk.

The speaker came in to discuss identification of local species and distinctions between native and invasive species, threats to survival, habitat needs and the actions being done to help. She also brought in “ambassador animals” — two juvenile painted tutles named Bert and Ernie that the girls got to handle.

This presenation worked towards the unit’s program activities about the living world, particularly their “Saving our Plants and Animals” badge. Thank you to Andrea (and Bert and Ernie!) for such an informative presentation. The girls learned a lot.

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