Volunteer Screening - again

More about new volunteer screening requirements in Scotland

"...concerns are growing that an imminent further tightening up of the security system could seriously affect some of Scotland’s most traditional youth organisations including the Scouts, Guides, Boys’ and Girls’ Brigades."

(saved article)

A flexible approach to Scouting

This article from an American newspaper details the ways in which GSUSA is reaching out to all girls. (no longer available by July 2005)

A similar article from 2003 from CBS.com mentions the development of the Studio 2B program for older girls.

(saved article)

Thunder Bay Guider Receives Governor-General's Award

This article mentions this 40-year volunteer with GGC receiving a "Caring Canadian Award".

"A local woman has been named the recipient of a prestigious Governor General's award. Susan Little will receive one of twenty three 'Caring Canadian Awards' for her many years of volunteer service. The mother of eight has worked with the Girl Guides of Canada for over forty years, along with the local Navy League Cadets and the Thunder Bay Naval Association. Little found out she had been nominated by her son, when she received a letter in the mail this past June. But she found out she was a winner just two days ago. Little will receive a framed certificate and a lapel pin during a luncheon in Toronto next month."

Websites to Empower Girls

From a recent sympatico/MSN article, here are links to some websites directed at girls:
Girls@Play: getting more girls in the game,
About Face (non-profit group combatting negative/distorted images of women in the media),
GirlSite ,
A Girl's World ,
Canadian Association for Girls in Science,
Exploring Career Pathways from the Society for Canadian Women in Science and Technology,
Computer Girl,
Imaginary Lines - from Sally Ride, the first female American astronaut,
Empowering Girl Websites - a list compiled by a professor at Rutgers University,
Websites for Girls - from the Centre for Women and Information Technology, University of Maryland-Baltimore County

Issues of Volunteer Screening in Scotland

Apparently in Scotland , new legislation requires that volunteers working with children be screened for prior criminal offences - something that Girl Guides of Canada already does.

(saved article)

Girl Guide cookie drive in Brampton ON

This article not only mentions cookies, but is a good PR article about Guiding in Canada.

"These programs and activities give young girls and women an opportunity to develop teamwork skills, leadership, independence, strength, confidence and a desire to help others and the environment. This then allows them to lead empowering and responsible lives as inspirational citizens and role-models for younger generations to come."

(saved article)

Girl guiding keeping up with the times - in Malaysia

This article from Malaysia demonstrates that other countries face many of the same issues as does Girl Guides of Canada - being perceived as "too traditional", girls having other options for activities, and declining membership as a result.

This article is about uniform in Malaysia, and this one provides more information about Guiding in general.

(no longer available by July 2005)

Link Member from Kingston in Macleans' magazine "Best and Brightest"

From May 2004, Julielynn Wong was named one of Macleans' magazine's "Best and Brightest", a listing of 25 future stars, for her medical research endeavours.

Mint Cookie Sales in Oak Bay BC

Here's a photo and caption from the Oak Bay News about an optical shop owner challenging other Oak Bay businesses to buy Girl Guide Cookies.

(no longer available by July 2005)

Engineering organization brings Girl Guides to Queen's University campus

This article describes an "Engineering Explorers Girl Guide Day" held in Kingston, and sponsored by the Women in Science and Engineering (WISE) organization. (Ideally, Link members on university campuses would be able to partner with such groups to promote such events for girls in Guiding).

"The unfamiliar chatter of young girls echoed through the halls of Beamish-Munro Hall on Saturday. About 100 girls, aged 9 to 11, participated in the first ever Engineering Explorers Girl Guide Day, organized by Women in Science and Engineering (WISE).
The girls took part in a myriad of activities related to science and engineering.
“We’re hoping to introduce science and engineering in a way that’s fun for the girls,” said Marnie Ham, Ph.D ’06, who organized the event."

(saved article)

Move over pyjamas, here come Brownie bikes

And this article details how Girlguiding UK has branched out into bikes with their branded products.

"Girlguiding UK has launched a Brownie branded bike for sale online via the association's website. The 20-in bike - 'a must for any adventurous Brownie' - is produced by Raleigh and retails for 114.99. There's also a 16-in bike for Rainbow girl guides."

(saved article)

American Girl Scout's report on Discovery 2004 (Saskatchewan)

This article, from a newspaper in Connecticut, details an American Girl Scout's trip to Saskatchewan in summer 2004 to attend the Discovery 2004 International/Interprovincial Camp.

"Jennifer Soltis experienced her family's Canadian culture this summer when she joined 300 Girl Scouts and leaders from around the globe in Saskatchewan for three weeks."

(saved article)

Declining membership in Saskatchewan

Here's an article about how declining Guiding membership in Saskatchewan is attributed to the poor farm economy.

(saved article)

SOAR camp in BC

Here's an article from the Kamloops newspaper about the SOAR (Spirit of Adventure Rendezvous) camp in Merritt BC. (no longer available July 2005)

-and another one from a Burnaby community newspaper.

Hopefully some progress against rising membership fees

An Toronto Star article about Ontario schools getting $20M to help eliminate user fees for school facilities - the cause of great increases in membership fees for Guiding over the last few years.
(no longer available July 2005)

A Nation Of Bystanders

This article talks about the decline in participation in organizations that promote civic duty and citizenship, including Girl Scouts (and Boy Scouts) plus organizations like the Lions Club. Perhaps the membership concern within Guiding is something that will be difficult to overcome unless there are changes in society ...

"Twenty-first century America is not the nation of joiners that amazed Alexis de Tocqueville in the 1830s; it is not a place where citizens engage constantly to assemble democracy's quilt. The very groups that once promoted citizenship have seen their membership rates dwindle, groups like the Grange, Masons, American Legion, Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts."

(saved article)

Scout and Guide info in BC Archives

Here's some interesting info from the BC Archives online (government archives, not Guiding archives).

New process for boating activities in Girl Guides

This was sent out this afternoon from National
(edited June 7 to link to GGC website rather than reprinting all the information here).

Report from City Chase event

My husband and I participated in an event called the City Chase yesterday (then as a team in the Coronation Triathlon today, which was somewhat tiring and painful after yesterday's activities, but we finished!). Seeing as discussion that Guiding participation in such events (adventure-type races) would be excellent PR has occurred on several lists I'm on (or at least, I tried to suggest that it would be good PR - there was more of a response on the National Link list and that's actually where I heard about the City Chase event), I thought I'd post a report about it here. (that's my justification, that it is in fact Guiding-related).

Unlike in the Vancouver event a few weeks ago where over 80% of teams completed the event (by reaching 10 of 15 Chase Points and completing the activity there within the allotted overall time), in Edmonton only 35 of 114 teams finished. Ed and I managed to finish 7 Chase Points, and had a lot of fun in doing so. Even if it was rainy, windy, and only about 10 deg. C all day... (probably part of the reason more teams didn't finish - also we think they probably overestimated the abilities of Edmonton's transit system). Participants had to walk/run or use public transit to get from place to place.

To start, after completing a brief scavenger hunt, we were given a cluesheet with clues to the 15 Chase Points. We spent a few minutes to read through the clues and figure out where we thought they were (some were really obvious, others less so), then headed for the express bus to West Edmonton Mall. There, we got to busk in the food court to raise money for Junior Achievement (the designated charity), and do this new "helmet-dive" thing they have near where the dolphins used to be (almost like scuba but not quite - and your hair stays dry). When they mention in the last participant e-mail prior to the event that perhaps you should consider bringing a swimsuit, it means it's a good idea to do so ... although there were some suits available for men (really skimpy Speedo bikini types) they ran out of women's suits so there were participants in their bra and panties doing the "dive" in front of all sorts of gawking tourists at the mall.

We went back to the Provincial Museum grounds by bus where we had to solve a puzzle (and we were glad we weren't at the end of the table where the tarp decided to dump its load of rain and soak the participants underneath), then to a school for a trivia test (where it was encouraged to use your cell phone, particularly if it was a Bell Mobility phone, to call friends for answers). We then went by bus to the U of A, where we got in our longest walk/run stretch: from the U to the 109 St Running Room store (another sponsor - if it had been nicer weather there might have actually been spectators on the street to watch us sing "I Will Survive"!), down the hill to the Kinsmen Field House to do gruelling physical activity (my arms still hurt from the 50 3-legged pushups in sync with my husband), across the LRT bridge (nasty in the driving wind and rain) to the Royal Glenora club (nice heated outdoor pool to dive into to retrieve marbles, not so nice to come out of and have to dive in again when Ed missed the hula hoop with the soccer ball), then up one of the infamous River Valley staircases to the LRT station where we realized we were out of time to get to any other stations before 5 pm.

Strategy-wise: once we realized there were 2 Chase points at WEM, we probably should have left immediately to get there and figured out other things while on the bus, that way we would have avoided the 30 min wait to do the dive station. I heard some people who avoided WEM altogether because they thought it was too far out - my husband suggested to the organizers that they spread out the points a bit more so that everyone would have to get on the bus at least once. We thought the dive was really neat, so we're glad we went to the mall even though it was time-consuming. And if it had been nicer weather, we would have been wearing lighter shoes (runners not waterproof hiking boots) and carrying less stuff so we would have been able to get around a lot more quickly and do more running. We did get a number of comments about how dry we looked compared to some other participants (the joys of Gortex rain jackets and nylon quick-dry pants), and my husband now believes in the merits of technical fabrics rather than thinking it's just a sales pitch from Running Room and MEC.

Total estimated distances: probably just over 10 km on foot (mostly walking, some running), plus 22+ km on the bus.

Overall a lot of fun, and we hope to sign up again next year. Maybe I'll convince some Guiding people to do this event wearing Guiding logos and colours ... it would be good PR I think, as I mentioned.

New Spark and Brownie program - transition guides

These transition guides were just posted to the national Girl Guide website, to help Spark and Brownie Guiders transition to the new programs coming out this fall.

Recommendations from an unfortunate incident

Here's an article (no longer available in July 2005) about recommendations from a coroner's inquest on an unfortunate incident that occurred last year in Ontario. And this link has the complete recommendations made to Girl Guides of Canada.

(saved recommendations)

Supporting Scouting in Iraq

Here's an article from FOX News about the efforts to support the redevelopment of Scouting (and Girl Guides) in Iraq.

"Often meeting furtively, with no communication with fellow councils throughout the country, Iraqi scouts remained active despite oppression under Saddam Hussein's regime and subsequent war with Iraq — a miracle say Arab scouting representatives."

(saved article)

Studio 2B - new GSUSA program for 11-17 year olds

On the GSUSA website, they have a volunteer profile of a 20 year old Studio 2B advisor . There is more information about Studio 2B on its specific website - girls work on the "four B's": become, belong, believe, and build. "Specifically, it's a place where girls become who they want to be, feel like they belong to a safe place, are comfortable expressing what they believe in, and build a better world." (from the GSUSA website).

Here is an article about Betty Clay, the youngest daughter of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, who recently passed away at age 87.

New Splash Page for GGC -
Girl Guides of Canada (National Office) has updated their front page/splash page. It now includes links to all the provincial council websites, as well as information about Guiding in Canada in different languages. The national website itself has information about the new Honduras Twinning Challenge, as well as information about applying for the top jobs for the National Camp in 2006 (deadline May 24).

A neat tool for self-evaluation of Guiding knowledge is the "Rubric for Guider Evaluation" at the BC Council website - I just mentioned it on the National Link list as well.

"A rubric is an assessment tool. Assessment involves finding out where people are at a given moment in time. Before being able to make suggestions about areas upon which one might increase their knowledge, it is imperative to consider the individual’s developmental stage. Analytical rubrics (such as the one provided) enable the assessor(s) to easily ascertain the performance level on many criteria.

A RUBRIC
o Defines what is important
o Establishes a threshold of acceptable performance
o Allows the assessor(s) to distinguish between levels."





I'm off to co-facilitate a Beyond Stage 3 training session this weekend (in Alberta we call it Great Horned Owl).

From Google news - Guiding Monopoly and more

An article about a Guiding monopoly event in the UK. (saved article)

And an article from the Toronto Star about White Oaks Area day in March (article now unavailable).

A UK Guider plans to run in the London Marathon on April 18 in full Guiding uniform, in part to raise money for WAGGGS. (saved article)

And a Whistler BC RCMP Constable plus Guider went to India and Sangam in February and March, there's an article about her trip in the local paper. (saved article)

The Girlguiding UK website has a series about leadership entitled Motivate, including the September 2003 issue that is specifically for Guiders with Young Leaders working in their unit (equivalent to a Senior Branches member working in a girls' unit in Canada)

Music and job-hunting ...

Music is certainly an important part of Guiding/Girl Scouting, especially at camp, and an article in the Spring 2004 Leader magazine of GSUSA traces the history of music in Girl Scouting. (saved article)

Job-hunting isn't something we may connect to Guiding/Girl Scouting, but there's an article in the same issue of Leader about how volunteering can help you find your "plum job". (saved article)

Just for my husband Ed, now you can add comments (but if he says anything he shouldn't, I'll delete it!)

I found an interesting article about a Muslim Girl Scout troop in Brooklyn. (saved article)
And the pdf for the April issue of Blue-Print, the Alberta Guiders' newsletter is now online.

Since I like to look around the web for new Guiding updates and resources, I thought it would be neat to share them with people here. So, for my first entry, check out the latest issue of the Link Connections national newsletter for Spring 2004 - and while you're at it, why not check out the newly released Link Adviser Training Module as well, at the Link Resources section of the national Girl Guides of Canada website.