Fall Fun With the Rangers

Our Ranger Unit has an irregular schedule and makes full use of Facebook to plan meetings and events. We may not meet often, but when we do, we always have fun!

We started the year off in September by ordering Chinese food and watching the movie "Brave". After the movie was over, we started making plans for our weekend in Toronto in November.

In October, we had a baking night to make shortbread and complete the requirements for the
"Ready, Steady, Glasgow!" Challenge. Baking is always fun - especially when there are such tasty results!


Recipe for Brown Sugar Shortbread (Scottish)
1 cup (250 mL) Butter (no substitutions)
1/2 cup (125 mL) Light Brown Sugar, packed
2 cups (500 mL) All-Purpose Flour
1/4 tsp (1 mL) Salt
1/4 tsp (1 mL) Baking Powder

Cream the butter thoroughly. While beating, gradually add the sugar.
Set aside 1/4 cup (60 mL) flour for rolling the dough. Sift the rest of the flour with the salt and baking powder. Add the butter mixture, mixing well. The dough should feel like putty.
Flour the rolling out surface lightly. Roll the dough out to an even 1/2 inch (1.3 cm) thickness. Cut into fingers, squares, or rounds. Prick each with a fork several times.
Place on an ungreased baking sheet and bake in a 350 F (180 C) oven until lightly browned, about 20-25 minutes (thinner pieces may take as little as 15 minutes). Remove to a wire rack to cool.
Store in a tightly covered tin. Makes approximately 24 pieces.
(Source: This recipe was published in the Hamilton Spectator a few years ago, unfortunately the date and any author information has been cut off the copy I have.)

The remainder of this meeting and our other meeting in October were spent planning our weekend in Toronto. We also spent time talking about College/University preparations and choosing a career. This was a spontaneous conversation as 3 out of 4 Rangers are in Grade 12 and will be heading onto their next adventure come September.

November saw us traveling to Toronto for 3 packed days - see post here.

December was a short month with the holidays. We spent our meeting time brainstorming and making plans for the Ranger Service Project - the last piece needed to complete the Chief Commissioner's Gold Award, and also to earn the Commonwealth Award. The service project list has been narrowed down and a final project will be chosen in the new year. For the Commonwealth Award we will be learning more about Fiji, and are looking forward to finding recipes and enjoying a Fijian meal.

Holiday Craft Night

Our final meeting before the holidays was our annual Holiday Craft Night. This year we made painted wooden gingerbread ornaments, holiday cards and sock. snowmen. Each girl made at least one holiday card to be given to a service project. The highlight for most of the girls was definitely the sock snowmen - they were none other than Olaf, from Frozen!

The instructions and template for Olaf's features came from http://onecreativemommy.com/olaf-sock-snowman-tutorial/

Say No to Violence Challenge

Our first meeting of December was spent working on the Say No to Violence Challenge as part of Girl Guides of Canada's 16 Days of Action Against Gender-Based Violence Campaign. As the girls arrived, they were asked to draw and cut out their handprint on white paper for an activity later in the evening.

We held our usual opening, followed by an active game. The girls had been asked to bring items to donate to a women's shelter, including brushes and combs, shampoo, soap, toothbrushes and toothpaste. Before moving into the evening's activities, we had a discussion about "What is violence against women?", "What is a Women's Shelter?" and "What is conflict?" to familiarize the girls with the terms and topics we would be addressing.

Our first activity was from the Instant Meeting - Defining Conflict. We had a poster of a girl and asked the Guides to share examples of violence, conflict and bullying and added them to the poster, showing their impact on a person. This led into a brief discussion about experiences the girls have had or observed.

The second activity we did was adapted from the Girl EmPower Challenge - Taking the Temperature. We had a series of slips of paper with examples of actions that could indicate a relationship is healthy or unhealthy. The girls split up into their Patrols and we had a relay race to place the slips onto a thermometer (red or hot for unhealthy statements and blue or cold for healthy statements). Once the statements were in place, we reviewed them and discussed what made each statement healthy or unhealthy.

We then moved on to Conflict Resolution Skits (based on the Conflict Resolution activity in the Instant Meeting pack). Before beginning, we reviewed assertive communication and asked the girls to use the tips in their skits. The girls divided up into 5 groups and made skits on the following:

• A friend calls you a mean name.
• Your cousin plays a game and doesn't let you join in.
• A classmate makes fun of you because you didn't do the craft properly.
• Your sister or brother breaks something and then blames you.
• A teammate doesn't want you on their team because she says you aren't good at that sport.

Our final activity was also from the Instant Meeting pack -  Dove Handprints. The girls glued their white handprints onto coloured paper, added features to make a dove and then underneath, wrote ways they could stop violence or promote peace at home, at school, or in the community.

 Here are some of the ideas the girls came up with:

• Stop animal abuse.
• You can stand up for your friends.
• Don't exclude others because they aren't good at a sport or you don't like them.
• Don't tell rumors about people.
• Stand up for women having trouble.
• Stop bullying before it happens.
• Stick up for people that are bullied. Include people. Don't call people names. Help hurt people. Don't hurt each other. If someone's calling people names, tell them to stop.
• Be truthful.
• Don't call people names.
• Be a lover, not a fighter.
• Don't Lie.
• Always tell the truth.
• Treat people the way you want to be treated.
• Peace. Be nice.
• Don't pollute the water.
• Peace on earth. Help out by caring for others.