Happy Lunar New Year 2017!

Tonight we had a Chinese New Year Party hosted by our Pathfinder and 4 3rd-Year Guides to earn the Chinese New Year Challenge created by the 12th Swindon Guides in the UK - Download the Challenge Pack. The girls did a great job and completed their Event Planning badge and part of the Learn How to Plan section of the program.
We started out with our usual opening ceremony and then moved right into the program for the evening with an active game - "Dragons, Roosters and Dumplings" (similar to 'Wizards, Giants and Elves') - explained and led by one of the 3rd Year Guides. While the group was playing, we finished setting up for the first craft, painting Chinese symbols on stones. Our Pathfinder explained this activity, and showed examples of stones she had painted at home.

As the girls finished their craft, they were directed to signs at the back of the room that identified the different animals in the Chinese Zodiac. They had to find the animal for the year they were born, taking into account the different New Year dates. We had found some information about common traits for each animal, lucky numbers, famous people, and things people should focus on this year. We have Tigers, Goats, Snakes, Roosters, Dogs, Monkeys, and Pigs in our group! (Guides, Pathfinders, Rangers, Guiders) Download our Chinese Zodiac Posters (pdf file) - information derived from ChinaHighlights.com

We then played two more games, each led by a different 3rd Year Guide, Rooster Tag (when you are tagged, you have to make wings with your arms until someone frees you) and Hawk Chases Roosters (where one player is the Hawk who tries to catch the Rosters, when a Rooster is caught, they become a Hawk).

The Guides were then given the choice of two different dragon crafts, each led by a 3rd Year Guide - they could either make a dragon puppet or a dragon mask.

The Dragon Puppet Template can be downloaded from Kids Activities and the Dragon Mask Template is part of the Challenge Pack.

Our final activity was food sampling! We served dumplings, spring rolls, breaded chicken, and breaded pork with plum sauce, oranges, and fortune cookies. We used a red table cloth, red plates and red napkins to make our feast as lucky as possible!

We closed with Taps and each girl received a Red Packet with chocolate coins as she left.

The activities we chose to completed this challenge were:

• Discovery - Year of the...; Red Envelopes
• Decoration - Dragon Mask or Dragon Puppet
• Entertainment - Our Own Games (Dragons, Roosters and Dumplings; Rooster Tag; Hawk Chases Roosters)
• Cuisine - Dumplings, Spring Rolls, Breaded Chicken, Breaded Pork, Plum Sauce, Oranges, Fortune Cookies
• Celebration - Our Party!

Happy 50th Birthday Sangam!

Sangam, the Guiding World Centre in India, will be celebrating its 50th birthday beginning in October 2016, so we decided to have our own celebration a little earlier! A big thank you to Sophie from Girlguiding Midlands who created the Sangam 2016 Challenge that we enjoyed taking part in!

At the beginning of our meeting, one of the Patrols presented their Irish Legend skit from last week to finish of our work on the Irish Legends badge. This was followed by our usual opening ceremony and an active game (Everybody's It Tag).

Our program started off with a Powerpoint presentation and discussion about Sangam and India. We learned about the World Centre, demographics and cultural information. From one Guider's collection, we were able to pass around a copy of the Indian Guide Handbook, a National Scarf, Bulbul/Guide/Ranger Enrolment Badges, and a Rashtrapati Guide Award Pin. The Guiders demonstrated wrapping and wearing a sari and a dupatta. Thanks to our Ranger Helper, the Guides were also able to watch a Bollywood dance video!

Over the course of the meeting, all of the Guides got to try wearing a sari (ours is simply a long strip of lightweight blue fabric and was quite large on most of the girls) - as we ran out of time, the Pathfinders and Rangers will get to try putting on a sari at next week's meeting.

The first activity was for the girls to make up their own Bollywood-inspired dance routines. A number of the girls had learned about Bollywood dance at school and we talked about how dance is used to tell a story and the importance of arm movements, emotions and facial expressions in Indian dances.

We paused mid-evening to play a game from India, "Cheetah, Cheetal". The cheetal is a spotted deer and the cheetah is a large cat. In this game players are divided into two teams - cheetals and cheetahs. The teams line up in the centre of the playing area with their backs to each other, facing their home bases (opposite ends of the playing area). The game leader calls out CHEEEEEE and suddenly ends with TAL or TAH. The team that has been called must race for their home while the other team tries to catch them. Anyone caught joins the other team.

The craft activity was the evening was creating Rangoli Art on square of cardstock. The Guides were shown coloured images of Rangoli designs from India and asked to create their own design. The squares will be used on a welcome sign for Advancement. As the girls finished their designs, they played another game from India called "Marigolds". Marigolds is very similar to hacky sack, except that it is played by young girls using a marigold blossom. Players start by standing on foot with the flower on the inside of raised food. They use their foot to toss the flower into the air and catch it with the same foot. The goal is to see how many times in a row you can catch the flower.

We ended the evening with food and entertainment in the form of the girl's dance routines. We had naan bread, with home-made samosas, Raita dip and almond burfi. 

Our meeting closed with reminders for cookie selling and Taps.

Activities We Chose (6)

Activity #2 Sampling Indian Dips and Poppadoms (modified to be Samosas, Naan Bread, Raita)

Activity #3 Bollywood Dance

Activity #6 Design a tile for Sangam's Pool (modified to be Rangoli Design squares)

Activity #10 Indian Sweets (Almond Burfi)

Activity #11 Traditional Indian Games ("Cheetal, Cheetah" and "Marigolds")

Activity #12 Sangam at a Glance