The second meeting in February was spent learning about Guide History and Guiding in Canada.As the girls arrived, each Patrol was asked to make up a short skit on a theme - Guide Meeting, Cookie Selling, Guide Camp, and Helping Others. As were were missing quite a few girls this week, we combined the girls and eliminated the Helping Others Skit.
We started the meeting with our usual opening followed by an active game, and then had the girls finish presenting their creative creations from last week.
This week's program was started off with a short discussion about people in Guiding. We went through the 5 youth branches and also talked about Lones and Adult roles (Link, Trefoil Guild, Unit Guiders, Trainers, Administrative Community Leaders).
Next we played two games. The first was a relay game found in an issue of The Guide magazine from 1921. The girls lined up in patrols and the player at the front of the line was given a ball. The ball is passed along the line on alternating sides (first player passes to the right, second to the left, and so on). We added a second ball to each team and also had the last player in line come to the front once she had both balls. The second game was found in an issue of The Guide magazine from the 1930s. The girls sit in two straight lines with their legs stretched out towards the other line. The first player in each line is given a ball. She has to bounce the ball on the outside with one hand, pass it to her other hand and bounce it on her other side before passing it to the next player who repeats the actions until the ball reaches the end of the line. We added a second ball starting at the opposite end and also had the balls go along the line one way and then back the opposite direction.
After our games we moved on to a badge quiz using old Guide badges. Badges were passed around one at a time and the patrols asked what they thought the badge might be called or what it might be for. As the girls guessed at each badge, we told them what the image on the badge was, what the badge was called, and a couple of things that a Guide would have needed to do in order to earn it.
As time was running out, we then moved on to our skits and facts about Guiding History.
First Fact - Guiding began in Canada in 1910, with groups forming in Toronto, St Catharines, Moose Jaw, Sardis (BC), Vancouver, Winnipeg and Dawson City. Girls were excited to try new activities and learn about first aid, tracking, nature lore, and outdoor cooking and camping.
Skit #1 - Guide Meeting (the girls were very quick to tell us that this did not represent our meetings!)
Second Fact - The first Guides choose a uniform of a loose white blouse and navy blue skirt. This changed to a blue dress in the 1920s, and with slight changes in shade and style, this would remain the uniform for nearly 80 years. (At this point I passed around two Guide dolls - one in a 1970s uniform and the other in the 2000s uniform.)
Did you know that Girl Guides have been selling cookies since 1927? That's nearly 90 years! The first cookies were baked by Christine Riepsame of Regina and sold by the 4th Regina Guides.
Skit #2 - Cookie Selling
Third Fact - We have been selling chocolate and vanilla cookies for over 60 years and the chocolatey mint cookies for over 20 years. One of the things cookies help to pay for is camping. Guides have been camping since 1911 - over 100 years!
Skit #3 - Guide Camp
Fourth Fact - Every few years a National camp is held with girls from across Canada and around the world. The next National camp is Guiding Mosaic in 2016, which is being held at Sandy Lake, Alberta. These large camps always involve a service project of some sort. service and helping others has been a part of Guiding since the beginning. During the First World War, only 4 years after Guiding began, Canadian Guides gave service by working in factories and government offices, volunteering in hospitals, knitting socks, making dressings and bandages, and collecting supplies and donations for the war effort.
(We would have had Skit #4 - Helping Others here)
Fifth Fact - Today, Guides take part in service projects around the themes of Community, Environment, and International. This year, we have collected items for the Food Bank and a Women's Shelter (Community), will be making bookmarks to support educational projects in Africa, South America and Asia (International), and will be working on an environmental project as well.
With that, it was time to say goodnight and good bye until next week.
