From June 12th to 14th, 12 Guides, 1 Ranger and 1 Guider, joined by 2 Guides from the 2nd Ontario Lone Guide Unit, attended Tekarama 8 at Camp Teka in Paris, Ontario. The camp was for Guides, and had 110 enthusiastic participants. All Guides attending earned the Naturalist badge.
On Friday night, we all arrived and set up the tents for the weekend. The girls then spent some time setting up their sleeping areas and chatting. Our first activity was hat crafts - the girls were able to make a number of different crafts including a sleeping camper, make new friends, Teka tree, and a pie iron. We then had a campfire, played a Night Eyes game to help the girls get to know the others who would be in their patrol for the weekend (the girls were all split up and each Guider accompanied a group of 7-8 girls, none from her own unit) and had a snack of spider dogs and hot chocolate before heading to bed. One tent decided to have an argument at 1.30am (I was NOT amused), but everyone still managed to be up bright and early - about 6am!Saturday started with Colours and breakfast. After eating, each Patrol had a duty to perform
(i.e. cleaning the lats, planning Guides Own/Campfire/Sunday Colours, emptying dish basins, picking up trash). Activities for the day were planned in a round-robin fashion, with two stations in the morning and two in the afternoon. One station was to build a terrarium in a jar, using large empty jars, soil, plants and natural materials. A second was playing Kim's games - smell, sight, and touch, The third was learning about camouflage, cover and wind direction, then playing Predator-Prey, an Animal Sounds game, and Clothespin Tag. The final station was Pond Study with Sarah from the GRCA.After we had finished our sessions, everyone had some free time where they could rest, play games, swap, work on puzzle booklets, or just socialize. After dinner, we played wide games, including Deer (an ecology/ecosystem game), followed by a Campfire and a snack before bed.
Unfortunately, Sunday morning started with rain, so we were unable to get the tents down dry, but it did let up enough for us to enjoy Colours, followed by Breakfast and Duties, then Guides Own. The rain returned in full force as we were striking camp, so, sadly, we went home rather wet, but having enjoyed the weekend.
