What Have the Pathfinders & Rangers Been Up To?

Although they haven't featured much this year, we do have an active Pathfinder/Ranger Unit of 4 girls! Our Unit is unique in that their meetings are held without a Guider in constant attendance. The girls head off to a separate room from the Guides and run their own meetings with a Guider popping in occasionally to see that there are no problems. Meetings are planned by Guiders and girls, but are run by the girls themselves. Our Rangers make sure things go smoothly and takes on key leadership roles, while helping the Pathfinders to develop their own leadership skills. Although this arrangement was born of necessity due to a lack of Guiders, turning things over to the girls has been mostly successful!

September

Tuesday, September 11th - Welcome to Girls First!
For our first meeting of the year, everyone took part in sample activities for the new Girls First program. Afterwards, the Pathfinders and Rangers worked on planning and identifying activities that they would like to do this year. Read all about our meeting here - Welcome to Girls First!

Tuesday, September 18th - Program Planning
The Pathfinders and Rangers headed off armed with the Unit's Program Area Cards, the Idea Cards from last week and lots of planning materials to work on coming up with a plan for what they would like to do this year.

Thursday, September 20th - WE Day Toronto 2018
WE Day was AWESOME! This was the second time we attended, and though we were small in numbers we had a great time. Read all about the event here - WE Day Toronto 2018

Tuesday, September 25th - Program Planning
Program planning continued and a plan for October to December arranged.  

October

Tuesday, October 2nd - Community Scavenger Hunt
This year's annual scavenger hunt was "The Community Scavenger Hunt". The girls are sent out around town to find - and photograph - as many of the items on the list as they can, including their team members!

Tuesday, October 9th - Hamilton City Hall Campfire 2018
One Pathfinder joined the Guides for a Campfire and completed the Sing Ontario Sing 2018 Challenge! Read about the event here - Hamilton City Hall Campfire 2018

Tuesday, October 16th - International Day of the Girl
For the International Day of the Girl we worked on the WAGGGS #TeamGirl 2018 Challenge. This year, we learned about diversity, gender equality, gender power and being our own superheroes! Read all about our meeting here - International Day of the Girl 2018

Tuesday, October 23rd - Promise, Law & Planning
The Pathfinders joined the Guides for some Promise and Law activities, voting on options for the new uniform, finalizing the details of their Hallowe'en party and discussing The Shoebox Project for Shelters as a possible project for this fall. Read about this meeting here - Promise, Law & Planning.

Tuesday, October 30th - Hallowe'en Party
Hallowe'en was celebrated by dressing up in costumes, eating candy and watching a movie. 

November

Tuesday, November 6th - Social Time
This week we took a break and had a social session and clarified the details of some up-coming meetings as the Pathfinders and Rangers will be leading outdoor games for the Guides and having an arts meeting this month. 

Tuesday, November 13th - Leading Outdoor Games with Guides
Tonight we didn't have access to our regular meeting space, so we all headed off to the park and the Pathfinders and Rangers led a series of outdoor games and activities for the Guides. Read about our meeting here - Outdoor Games Night
 
Tuesday, November 21st - Art-Tastic
Tonight was all about creativity. The planned project was to melt crayons onto canvases, but instead the girls raided the cupboard and used up some of our excess craft supplies. They made floral headbands, decorative items, and some Christmas ornaments instead.

Tuesday, November 27th - Baking Brownies
We tried our first Build Skills activity tonight by baking brownies. We have done quite a bit of baking in the past, but this particular group of girls hasn't done as much and has run into problems following recipes in the past. They were also responsible for cleaning up the kitchen - something that is sometimes neglected, but was very well done this time. Tonight's recipe was a great success and the brownies were delicious!

December

Tuesday, December 4th - Food Bank Visit
As part of the Take Action program area, we visited the local Food Bank and learned about the services they offer and how they operated. We also assisted with two jobs - packing toiletry bags for the Christmas hampers and repackaging dry pet food into smaller bags. Read about our meeting here - Food Bank Visit.



Tuesday, December 11th - Chocolatiers
We all ended the hear with the Chocolatiers Instant Meeting from the Girls First Platform. Creating, designing, envisioning and tasting of chocolate were all involved. Read about our meeting here - Chocolatiers!
Tuesday, December 18th - Holiday Party
Tonight was our final activity of 2018. We ate enjoyed appetizers and desert, along with a gift game. Appetizers included pineapple-chicken-bacon skewers, garlic Parmesan rolls, spring rolls and plum sauce, honey garlic sausage bites, and mini mozzarella pizzas. Desert was personal apple pieces (apple, brown sugar and cinnamon in crescent rolls) with vanilla ice cream. Instead of a gift exchange, we played the 'parcel game'. Small treats and gifts are wrapped in many layers and newspaper liberally held in place with packing tape. Girls take turns rolling large dice and when they rolled a 7, they got to work on unpackaging as much as they could until someone else rolled a 7 and then the package was passed to the new person. Everyone received chocolate, crests, pins and pencils. It was quite a challenge to get into the parcel and it was funny to watch each other working on it!