Meeting #15: WAGGGS Square and World Guiding Badge Part 2

World Guiding badge (WG)

You in Guiding: Learn About Guiding (YiG2)
You in Guiding: Learn About WAGGGS (YiG3)

You and Others: Learn About Leadership in a Group (YaO1)

Patrol Time (30 min): We gave the girls a Connect the Dots Guide History activity sheet to work on that I found on this page: 1st Castlegar Girl Guides (PDF printout) Almost all of the answers are in their program books, so I thought they'd be able to do it, but they really struggled with it. We left it with them to take home and finish if they wanted, but now I'm thinking we should have had them hand them in and give them back to them again until they figured it out!

Horseshoe (20 min): At Horseshoe, the girls presented the facts that they researched about their WAGGGS country that we had given them at the previous WAGGGS meeting. Most girls came with a fact, which was nice to see! (WG5)

Story of Guiding (10 min): We have one third-year Guide who is working on her Lady Baden Powell Award. We assigned her to lead the participation story about Guiding, from Becky's Guiding Resource. (YiG2#1, WG1)

World Centers Fact Game (20 min): This is a combination of an activity from the World Guiding Goes Tartan challenge and a co-operative game we learned at NS Guide Conference. We posted signs in four corners of our meeting space, one for each of the World Centers (Our Chalet, PAX Lodge, Sangam, and Our Cabana). We read off a fact about one of the Centers, and the girls would have to choose which Center they thought it belonged to and go to that corner and hop up and down. The trick was that they all had to agree on the answer as a group before we would tell them they were right and could stop hopping.

This was a fascinating game to watch, to see the dynamics of the girls. We didn't quite get through half of the facts, because it took the girls so long to agree on each one. I've said that we don't really have any leaders in the group, but it's also that there's no one that everyone will follow and listen to. There's no one voice that will direct the group, so they all have their own opinions. Some of the girls were contrary just for the sake of contrariness. We nudged them along in learning to compromise ("If you come to this corner and it's wrong, we'll go to your choice next"). There was also a sense of not wanting to be wrong, even if it would help the group. (World Center Fact Sheet, taken from the World Guiding Goes Tartan challenge). ( YiG3#2, WG6, YaO1#2)

Snacks (20 min): Finally, we got the what the girls had been waiting for all night! Each girl was assigned to bring food from a World Center country to feed her patrol. We said to bring enough food for 6-7 people, but most brought enough to feed the whole unit! It was an international feast! So they each ate from their patrol, and then shared with everyone else. I wish I had remembered to take a picture of the food, because it was fabulous. (WG4)
Britain: packaged imported British cookies, scones, chocolate tarts
India: butter chicken, rice, and naan bread; pita bread and hummus
Mexico: homemade sopapillas, nachos, cheese/chicken tortilla roll-up
Switzerland: homemade Swiss chocolate cake, Swiss chocolate, homemade spitzbuben cookies (jam sandwich cookies), homemade basler leckerli cookies

Each girl who was at both of the WAGGGS meetings and remembered to bring her fact and food, earned the WAGGGS square and the World Guiding badge. Girls who missed the first meeting were told which countries they were to bring food and the fact from. We also gave them handouts (WAGGGS uniform word search (YiG3#5, WG2) and World Flag coloring sheet (YiG3#4)) to complete and bring back.

We had one more activity (CWFF) that we didn't get to but will hopefully do at our meeting before Thinking Day. If they bring back the completed handouts, this will complete the WAGGGS square for these girls. I have to figure out one more activity for them to do for the World Guiding badge yet.