Meeting #1 2011-2012

We had our first meeting last night! I love a new year. We have about 15 girls (still waiting for the dust to settle on some of them) and only 3 returning from last year. Ten first years, two second years, three third years. Three are totally new to Guiding.

We started with introductions, going around the room so everyone could say their names and how long they'd been in Guiding. (5 min)

Then we played icebreaker games. The first one we tried seemed like a good idea, but fell dead to the ground! They were supposed to make up a sentence about themselves and then the Guiders would have to rhyme it, but they weren't feeling creative and no one could come up with a sentence! So we scrapped this one and moved on to another one.

We did a toe-basher game. Everyone stood in a circle and there was one girl in the middle. A Guider (or the last girl in the middle) would start off by calling a name. The person whose name was called had to crouch down and shout out another name before the girl in the middle could "bash" her toes with a soft object (we used an oven mitt--we meet in the Family Studies room of a school!). This was a fun game and the girls enjoyed it and had fun with it. The biggest danger with this game is that it's hard to get every girl's name called, because it's easier to do names that have been used already than to remember other names. I might modify the rules if we do this again some time that once you crouch, you stay down and no one can say that name again until all the names are called. (15 min)

Then we sat down and discussed the Guide Program and how it's different from the Brownie Program, i.e. we do a lot of program work but don't get badges as often to show for our work as they did in Brownies. We talked about challenges and how we can use those to earn crests and have them count for Program work too. We also talked about being Patrol Leaders and the upcoming elections and told them to think about if they wanted to run and to let us know next week. We also handed out crests from last year: Cookie All-Star crests and the NS PR crest. It's nice to start the year with some girls earning things right away! We took that opportunity to talk about cookie selling and Cookie All-Stars in preparation of our cookie selling on Saturday. (10 min)

We wanted to explain the different aspects of Guides, so we played hangman to figure out what Guides is about. We used CAMPING AND OUTDOORS, ENVIRONMENTAL AWARENESS, and COMMUNITY SERVICE. We talked about camping opportunites (tent camping in the spring, residential in the winter) and the new Girl Guide Hiking Challenge we're going to try to complete; we talked about how Guides try to "take action for a better world" and then we discussed community services opportunities. (15 min)

We had the returning girls think about what service projects they had done in Brownies and Guides and categorize them into Community, Environmental, and International. Then I handed out the Girl Guide page of service ideas from the BC Girl Guides. Some were very intrigued by them and wanted to do everything! We narrowed it down to things we know can do and can plan right away (Feed NS, senior center visitations, school clean-up in the spring, CWFF) and things they wanted to do but we have to figure out if they're possible (boo-boo bunnies for hospitals, school supplies for Afghanistan). (10 min)

Finally, we gave them a choice of science badges offered by Supernova at Dalhousie University. We had done the Chemistry badge last year, so that was off the table. By a vote, the Science Badge one, so we're booking that for November. (5 min)

We played a few games, did some planning of fun things we'd be doing through the year. Helping to plan our service project ideas and our STEM badge, I count this towards Discovering You: Understand How to Be Responsible: Setting Patrol goals. The first few meetings are a lot of planning and not a lot of doing. Next week should have a bit more action!