Meet the Chief!

The Chief Commissioner was in town to instate the new provincial commissioner Beverly Simpson Headon (aka my Senior Branches leader!) and I got to do a few fun events to help out with the weekend events.

 

 

I went to the dinner on Saturday night to see Beverly officially become our next PC. I was really excited for her and I know she is going to do a great job! Mickey thinks so too. :)

 

 

The next morning I was up bright and early to help with a Meet the Chief Carnival open to all girls in the area to come and meet the Chief Commissioner. There was quite a large turn out and I think the girls had a lot of fun!

 

 

I was in charge of the mini golf station where girls tried to get a golf ball in a tin can for a prize. There was a line for most of the time so I think it was a great success!

 

 

The event closed with a campfire led by some Rangers. They did an awesome job and the balloon hats did nothing but add to the fun of the event! It was really cool to see so many girls singing the same songs with face paint and balloons on their heads.  

 

 

Sharon Callahan was very nice and even got her face painted! I am happy to say I have one of her crests and overall it was great fun had by all!

Where in the World is Gofer Guiding District Camp

The day has finally come where I tell you all about our district camp that happened a few weeks ago. It was a ton of work to plan and participate in and I am pleased that it seemed to go off pretty well with beautiful weather and lots of happy campers. I took a few photos (as always "a few" is an understatement) but I thought I would share them! 

The first Saturday of camp started off with a flag ceremony with over 200 people, it was a pretty great way to start the camp-plus all of the girls and leaders were in their official camp wear! 

The whole morning was spent in a round robin of activities where girls participated in activities like 3 legged races... 

Potato sack races...

Creating a district banner with their hand prints on them...

Trusty parachute games....

Games discussing melting polar ice and the effect on the animals in the north...

A globe craft with tissue paper and mod podge...

And my personal favourite, the commissioner's candy store where girls could try different candies from all around the world...

The double salted licorice from the Netherlands was, well, not exactly a hit. :) 

We couldn't have asked for better weather. It was not too hot or too cold and the sun was shining! 

In the afternoon I led the Sparks' session were we made Maasai necklaces out of paper plates and learned some songs and games from other parts of the world. 

I was really impressed by the variety of designs the girls came up with, and they still look like Maasai necklaces!

After supper we had a SWAP meet where it was basically a chaotic mess of girls switching crafts and laughing with each other. I think they had a lot of fun. 

Afterwords we gathered for the best part of any camp, campfire. Each unit was asked to contribute to the campfire program and lead a song so every unit from Sparks to Rangers got to lead a song. It was nice to see so many girls singing together and reminded how important it really is to have large events like this. 

If you haven't seen the post already, here is a link to the Advancement ceremony post I made based on the ceremony my sister and I planned together. It was probably my favourite part of the camp! 

Thanks for reading! 

Oh the Places You'll Go Advancement Ceremony!

A tradition in our district is to have a district wide advancement ceremony. Since we were all out at camp anyways we thought it would be best to have advancement there. Heather (my sister) and I took on the task of planning and running advancement for over 130 people. I love the book "Oh the Places You'll Go" by Dr. Seuss so we used this, and transportation as a theme for Where in the World is Gofer Guiding Camp. 

As a thank you, we made little hot air balloons filled with candies for the leaders at camp. I think they are super cute and they were inexpensive and easy to make. 

We decided that the best way to do advancement would be to have each branch of girls be a city that advancing girls would move to; so Sparks would move from Sparks City to Brownieville and Rangers would move from Ranger Park to Guideropolis. Heather put a lot of work into the signs so I wanted to show them off. :) 

All of the units sat in their respective city and had to move from city to city by a special kind of transportation... keep reading to see what those modes of transportation were! 

The Guides moved from Guidetopia to Pathfinderton by boat. This boat was actually a Halloween costume I had a few years ago. I was thrilled to use the S.S. Soggy again! 

The Sparks moved from Spark City to Brownieville by a steam train. This was made using cardboard, paint and paper plates for the wheels.Thank goodness we had a spare room to use in my parent's house to make all of these props!

There are a ton of Brownies in the district so we had a really fun idea. We thought it would be cool to show up in Brownieville with a little school bus. When we asked all the advancing girls to come on board to Guidetopia we realized that we would need a bigger bus. I was at the front of the bus and Heather was at the back- we worked our magic and expanded the bus to fit all of the girls on. We used cardboard, plastic tablecloths- for the folded part, and paint to make this awesome school bus! 

There was only one Ranger who was finishing her girl program and we wanted her to feel extra special. There was only one way to get from Ranger Park to Guideropolis- a rocket ship! This one has a cardboard base, a paper plate for a window, paint for colour, and an emergency blanket to be nice and shiny! 

The last mode of transportation from Pathfinderton to Ranger Park was a gondola (we were running out of ideas). There were only a few girls moving up so the gondola worked really well. 

Overall the advancement was a huge hit and a lot of girls said it was their favourite part of the whole camp. We read bits of "Oh the Place's You'll Go" in between each group of girls advancing and then gave leader gifts at the end of the ceremony. It was a lot of work to make all of the props, but it was so much fun! 

If you would like a "script" of the advancement ceremony you can get it here! 

Thanks for reading!

Make it Monday: Jello in a Tree!

Today is a really short Make it Monday but it is a lot of fun and easy to do! The Jello Tree is something that I have seen in Guiding since I was a Spark and it is a fun way to share a snack. All you do is make Jello according to the box directions and instead of keeping it in one container and putting it in the fridge, you pour it into sandwich size Ziploc bags and hang it in a tree! 

It takes a few hours to set, but while you are waiting to eat your snack it makes a pretty interesting sun catcher. If you are camping in the warmer months it is best to hang it in the tree overnight as the cooler air will help it set. 

Enjoy! 

April Camps bring... May Camps!

In April I went to camp with my Guide unit. There was a ton of snow and it was a lot of fun! This was the first camp I had done with this unit and we had a great weekend together. 

The weather was almost eerie- the clouds were heavy and there was a ton of snow, but it wasn't too cold. 

The snow was at this weird consistency where it was solid on the top, but if you stepped on it you went right through. It made for an interesting hike. :) 

No trip to our campsite is complete without a quick trip to the lake. It was so beautiful to see the ice starting to melt on the lake. 

We tried one of my favourite camp cooking techniques- meal in a milk jug. See the whole blog post about it here.  

We had a pretty good spread for dinner; including bacon and eggs for dessert. See how to make this easy, but delicious treat here!

The girls (and I) had fun outside with glowsticks at night. I just love how these photos turned out! 

Almost all of the crafts we did at camp were traders for our upcoming district camp. I found all of these ideas on Pinterest and they all turned out so great. My favourite was definitely the turtle... so cute!

Even though the ground was covered in snow there were little signs of spring everywhere including this moss surrounded by snow. 

After a few weeks I couldn't wait to get back to camp! I love camping, it is the best part of Girl Guides and I look forward to all of the camps I get to do every year. I really enjoyed this camp because my co-leaders were my mom, sisters, and friend. We work really well together and "get" each other and what we need to do. This was not my unit camp so I got to spend time doing what I love- photography. Here are some of my favourites that embody the vibe of the camp!