66th Guides Start to the 2017/2018 Guiding Year
by Jenny H. of the 66th Calgary Guides
September is always a busy time of year for anyone connected to the Girl Guides of Canada organization. Not only is September the start of a new guiding year, it’s often the start of many new friendships, the time when plans begin to fall into place for the fun activities the guides will do during the year ahead and also the month when we try to have a tent camping trip before the snow flies!
Tent camping is one of the many great things Girl Guides get to experience and, although the leaders maybe involved in booking the dates and location of camps, the girls themselves are largely responsible for what happens when we get to camp. From planning what they eat, to choosing whether we have a theme for the camp (in the past we have had the Amazing Race Camp, Harry Potter Camp, Medieval Camp), the girls are encouraged to develop their planning skills and work together as a team.
This September the 66th Guides got the chance to head out to camp at the end of the month. The weeks beforehand were filled with the usual planning activities and, as we had just welcomed many new members to the Guiding Unit, the 2nd and 3rd year guides spent time teaching them how to put up tents and explaining what items they would need to bring with them to camp. A trip to Bass Pro was organised for all of the 1st year girls where they were shown examples of the essential tent camping items and this was followed by a scavenger hunt.
Our Fall Camp was a fun time for all. The weekend of camping featured whipping up the batter for cooking pancakes on the propane stoves for our Saturday breakfast (the homemade pancake mix quantities were worked out by the girls), setting up the tents on our sunny campsite, heading out of a nature walk (which included a quick snack break to eat the cookies that the girls had helped make), sitting around the campfire roasting wieners for lunch and of course helping to wash the dishes tent-camping style.
