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).