Update on the Pathfinders & Rangers

Although they haven't featured much this year, we do have an active Pathfinder/Ranger Unit of 7 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 Ranger makes sure things go smoothly and takes on a key leadership role. Although this arrangement was born of necessity due to a lack of Guiders, turning things over to the girls has been mostly successful!

September

Friday, September 8th - Welcome Back BBQ
To celebrate the start of a new Guiding year, we had a BBQ (unfortunately it rained, so we were indoors!) and started doing a bit of planning.


Tuesday, September 12th - Welcome Back Meeting
For our first meeting of the year, everyone took part in a scavenger hunt where girls had to get others to sign their cards if they could say 'yes' to a question on it and the goal was to fill your entire card (i.e. someone who likes pizza, someone who has a brother). The Pathfinders then led a game of Everybody's It Tag for the whole group. Afterwards, the Pathfinders and Rangers worked on planning and identifying activities that they would like to do this year.

Tuesday, September 19th - Mini Messy Night and SWAP Making 
The Pathfinders & Rangers joined the Guides for an evening of messy fun and swap-making for the upcoming Campfire at Hamilton City Hall. Read about the meeting here - Mini Messy Night & SWAP Making

Tuesday, September 26th - Scavenger Hunt
This year's annual scavenger hunt was "The Selfie/Photo Team 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!

Downloads:

• The Selfie/Photo Team Scavenger Hunt
  

 

Thursday, September 28th - WE Day Toronto 2017
WE Day was AWESOME! This was the first time we attended, and though we were small in numbers we had a great time. Read all about the event here - WE Day Toronto 2017

October

Tuesday, October 3rd - Campfire Sing-Along at Hamilton City Hall
Unfortunately, none of the Pathfinders or Rangers could join us for this event, but the Guides had a great time!


Saturday, October 7th - Cookie Selling at Zehrs
The Guides, Pathfinders and Rangers all sold Cookies at our local Zehrs store.

Tuesday, October 10th - International Day of the Girl
For the International Day of the Girl we worked on the WAGGGS #TeamGirl 2017 Challenge. We learned about rights vs needs, barriers girls face in accessing education, and explored human rights and the rights of the child. The girls talked about issues they care about and did some brainstorming around possible service projects for this year.
Read all about our meeting here - International Day of the Girl 2017

Friday, October 13th to Sunday October 15th - Nighthawk Goes to Platform 9 3/4 
The latest Nighthawk Camp was all about Harry Potter! At this camp, the activities take place through Friday night until 6am Saturday morning, and start again Saturday afternoon. Despite the rain and mud, we had a great time.
Read all about the camp here - Nighthawk Goes to Platform 9 3/4

Tuesday, October 17th - Leadership Skills
Our Ranger, a graduate of the LDP 4 program at Camp Woolsey, shared some of the skills she has learned by leading the Pathfinders through different activities to complete the Find Your Inner Leader Module. Lynsey planned an led activities about leadership styles, teamwork, problem solving and planning, which included role play, skits, and challenges.


Tuesday, October 24th - Pumpkins Galore
As Halloween fell on a Tuesday this year, the Pathfinders had a pumpkin-themed meeting the week before. They planned the activities and our Ranger did the shopping. They baked pumpkin muffins, spray painted pumpkins, snacked on muffins and chocolate, and played a huge game of hide-and-seek around our meeting space.

November

Tuesday, November 7th - Enrolment
Although it wasn't planned, our new Pathfinders were enrolled with the Guides. We also took part in our first Girls First! activity about badges shapes and designs and the importance of interest badges in the program.
Read about our ceremony here - Enrolment 2017

Saturday, November 11th - Remembrance Day
Unfortunately I have no photos, but as Remembrance Day fell on a weekend this year, 1 Ranger, 3 Pathfinders and 2 Guides were able to be at our local Cenotaph to lay a wreath on behalf of Guiding.


Tuesday, November 14th - Initiation With Lynsey
The girls earned the We're A Team Module while taking part in a series of silly and teambuilding activities with Lynsey, our Ranger, to welcome our new Pathfinders into the Unit.
 
Tuesday, November 21st - Introducing the Canada Cord
Tonight the girls were joined by a Guider for the first half of their meeting to talk about the Canada Cord. We did an overview of what is involved in earning the Canada Cord, the different modules and projects that need to be undertaken, and determined that the girls are interested in working towards this award! We reviewed what Modules they have already completed (Choosing Your Own Direction, Find Your Inner Leader, and We're A Team!), looked at what we need to cover for our 3rd Year Pathfinder (Cookies Rising, First Aid, Outdoor Bridging Activities, 4 hours of Service and her leadership camp or event) and a few modules that interest the group as a whole (Survivor Girl; Knots, Knives and Outdoor Lore; and Now You're Cooking). The second part of the meeting was spent taking part in a series of challenges - Role Play Activities on problem solving and behaviours; Game Inventors to create new games; and Energizers - 60-second active living activities.

Downloads:

• Canada Cord Overview
• Challenge Activities  

Tuesday, November 28th - Girls Count!
Financial Literacy is an important skill to learn, so since November is Financial Literacy Month, we all took on the Girls Count Challenge. To earn this challenge, girls take part in activities about Currency Awareness, Purchasing Power and Money Management. As an added bonus, the Pathfinders also earned their Moneywise Module!
Read all about our meeting here - Girls Count!

December

Tuesday, December 5th - By Girls, For Girls
This week each girl was asked to bring a 10-15 minute activity to lead for the rest of the group. Some girls worked together and led more than one activity, while others worked on their own.


Friday, December 8th to Saturday, December 9th - Sleepover
For our annual December sleepover, we had crafts, a service project, games and baking on the agenda. For our main craft, we glued yarn onto canvases in different patterns the covered everything with tinfoil. The tinfoil was pressed firmly over the yarn so that it made raised lines. The areas between the yarn lines were then coloured with Sharpies. The effect is like stained glass! We then moved onto our service project - making hygiene kits. We made 20 packages that consisted of a toothbrush, toothpaste, soap, kleenex and moist wipes wrapped in washcloth and secured with hair elastics. After that, it was time for some baking, we made chocolate chip cookies and chocolate chip oatmeal muffins (breakfast!). We ordered pizza and continued crafting for awhile. The girls played games and stayed up into the early hours of the morning, long after their tired Guider had fallen asleep!

Useful Links:

•  Tin Foil Line Relief Art by Becker Middle School

Tuesday, December 12th - Elftastic Challenge
The Elftastic Challenge makes a perfect theme for a combined Guide/Pathfinder/Ranger holiday party. The girls made crafts, decorated (and ate) cookies, and played games. 
Read about the Elftastic Challenge here - Holiday Party


Tuesday, December 19th - Holiday Party
Tonight was our final activity of 2017. We ate pizza and veggies, baked cookies, had a gift stealing exchange and played Twister. The cookies are our favourite Chocolatey-Mint Chip Cookies, made by breaking up a row of mint Girl Guide cookies to use instead of regular chocolate chips. The gift exchange spending limit was $5 (but regifting and handmade were encouraged!) and we had a good time rolling a large die and passing or 'stealing' gifts around the circle. It has been a busy four months and it will be nice to have a bit of a break and come back refreshed and ready for more fun in January!.

Amazing Photo Scavenger Hunt

On Sunday, May 28th, 1 Guide, 1 Pathfinder, 1 Ranger and 2 Guiders set out for an adventure in Toronto!

We met at the GO Station in Hamilton and took the express bus to Union Station in Toronto where we started the scavenger hunt.  Our first stop was the corner of Lower Simcoe Street and Bremner Blvd, where we took photos of the CN Tower and a long line of taxi cabs!

Continuing on down to Queens Quay, we explored the trembling aspen trees in Ontario Square and showed our Canadian pride in Canada Square. As we walked along the waterfront trail, we listened to performers doing a sound check for the Barbados on the Water Festival and watched the ducks in the Natrel pond.


Next up was a visit to the Purina Animal Hall of Fame - and to find out that in our group we have 4 dog lovers to 1 cat lover! It was also Doors Open Toronto this weekend, so we visited the Police Marine Unit and found out about what they do to keep the waterways safe.


We decided to stop for lunch in the HTO Park overlooking the somewhat flooded beach area.


Before going on any further, we visited the Marine Fire Station, where we took lots of pictures - and took a group picture with the 'Caledonia'!

Heading west, we found the Spadina Quay Wetlands - who would have thought you could find a wetland environment in the heart of Toronto! We spent some time wandering through the different plants and two girls waited patiently to get a picture of the fish in the pond.


Further along the waterfront, we explored the Toronto Music Garden, which is designed to reflect Bach's Suite No. 1 in G Major for the 'cello. We performed air concerts and danced through the gardens!


Next it was time to head inland and start our journey back east towards Union Station. In Canoe Landing Park we visited the red canoe, "hugged our polar bear", walked through the giant fishing bobbers and the Terry Fox Miracle Mile (but didn't do any running).

On our walk east, we passed Approaching Red (a piece of art by Maha Mustafa), the Puente de Luz (a 100m long pedestrian bridge over the train tracks), an orange sculpture and the Chinese Railroad Worker Memorial.


At this point, we ended our hunt and walked along Front Street back to Union Station - with a stop at Starbucks along the way! We had dinner at the Old Spaghetti Factory (yum!), and coming home we were lucky and were first onto a double-decker GO bus, so we were able to sit right at the front!

With the Rangers in Toronto

The weekend of November 14th to 16th saw 3 Rangers and 1 Guider setting off for three packed days in Toronto. We met at the Hamilton GO Station and were on the 9am bus headed to Union Station.

Friday
We arrived in Toronto about 10am and set out by subway and bus to check into our hotel. We stayed at the Super 8 Downtown on Spadina Avenue, so had easy access to everything we wanted to do. After checking in, we planned our day and headed out along Spadina to Queen Street in search of Graffiti Alley. What we saw was amazing - truly works of art.

Our next task was to find somewhere to eat lunch. There were a few different places, but we eventually decided to be adventurous and went to Nora's Shawarma. None of the Rangers had tried shawarma before, but everyone loved it! The eatery is nothing to look at from the outside and was very cramped and noisy inside - it is definitely where the locals eat and was excellent (as evidenced by the line up that was to the door the entire time we were there).

We spent the afternoon searching for Geocaches - with mixed success. Our searching took us to the Toronto Chinese Baptist Church ("Escape from Chinatown") and Butterfield Park, part of the Ontario School of Art and Design ("Coloured Pencils"). After this we explored Chinatown and visited the Ugly Christmas Sweater Store on Queen Street. We then took the streetcar along Queen's Quay to Union Station where we spent a little time people watching before heading to the CN Tower.

Our goal was to be able to look out over Toronto from the CN Tower in both daylight and at night. Luckily, the sun came out briefly after we got up to the observation level, so we were able to get our daylight photos. As the light faded, we went down to the glass floor (which we all stood, sat and/or lay on) and went out on the outside terrace - which was very windy. We then went up to the Skypod at the top and looked out on the whole city in the dark - which we repeated when we got back down to the observation level.

 

We had a dinner reservation at The Old Spaghetti Factory, so that was our next stop. For those who haven't been there, the eclectic decor starts in the lobby with stained glass, comfy chairs, and a chandelier. The food was amazing - the Rangers all had chicken parmagiana and I (their Guider) had fettuccine alfredo with chicken. All entrees come with soup or salad, fresh bread with garlic butter, ice cream and tea or coffee. This restaurant is definitely on our list to visit again.

Saturday
Our morning started out with an alarm of some sort that made sure we were all up and ready to make an early start. After breakfast, we decided to go geocaching. We visited Osgoode Hall ("Osgood as it gets"), the Canadian Opera Company ("OS 6 Seen from the Shangri La") and the Hospital for Sick Children ("A Place to feel better"), all with no success. Then our luck changed and we found two caches at the University of Toronto, one at the Leslie Dan Faculty of Pharmacy building ("The Pill Box") and one on College Street ("Zen on College").


Our next stop was Tim Hortons for a hot drink and a snack, then we headed for BMV Books on Bloor Street. This is an amazing store with three floors of books and a lower level with records, DVDs and magazines. It is a mixture of new and used material and everything is 50% of more off the cover/sticker price. This was a hugely successful stop and everyone came away with more than one book.

After a brief stop at the hotel to drop off our books, we headed down to the Distillery District to make sure we knew where we would be going at night. The area is lovely with the original signage and cobbled streets.


We then headed for Dundas Square where we had an early dinner at the Hard Rock Cafe. Staying in Dundas Square, we attended Illuminite, the amazing tree-lighting celebration put on by the Downtown Young Business Improvement Area. The celebration included performances by musicians, dancers, and even vertical dance - dancers dancing on the walls of a building using harnesses.

Our final stop of the night was a Haunted Walk in the Distillery District. The walk we went on wound throughout the Distillery District and was called "Ghosts and Spirits of Old Town". We all enjoyed the walk and the tales of the various buildings. As a history lover, I really enjoyed the historical information and context that was provided, bringing each tale from its origins to the present day.

 

Sunday
After breakfast we finished packing and took all of our cases downstairs, where one of the girls' families had generously offered to pick up everything so we didn't have to find a place to store things for the day.

We spent the morning working on the Photo Scavenger Hunt and geocaching. Our stops included the Metro Toronto Convention Centre (stone snowmen?), Roundhouse Park (a train accident?), CN Tower, Rogers Centre (stopped to find a geocache - "Let's Go, Blue Jays"), CBC Building, John Street, Metro Hall, PATH System, Canada's Walk of Fame, Roy Thompson Hall (stopped to find a geocache - "Car On A Hill"), British Phone Booth on Simcoe Street,

Next up was the highlight of the weekend - attending the Toronto Santa Clause Parade! we were able to a spot on University Avenue, sitting on the road so had a front-row view of everything. There were some really neat floats

We also the Parade as an opportunity to present Chief Commissioner's Silver Awards to all 3 Rangers.

We ended our day with lunch at Union Station and completing the remainder of the Photo Scavenger Hunt in the Path System. We returned to Hamilton on Sunday evening very tired, but happy at an excellent weekend.