Thinking Day

I'm a little bit behind in my blogging, so I'm going to try my hardest to catch up again tonight. First things first - let's talk about last Friday, which, being February 22nd, was Thinking Day. For my non-Guiding friends who are reading this, Thinking Day celebrates the birthdays of the founder of Guiding and Scouting, Lord Baden-Powell, and his wife, Olave Baden-Powell. This year also marked the 100th anniversary of Scouting, so all around the world it was a pretty important day for the Scouting and Guiding communities.

I spent much of the day on Friday at the hospital with my housemate, and doing a bit of general running around as I get ready for my next big trip. (By the way, my housemate was discharged from the hospital late on Friday night, and we're all happy about that!) Jen, of course, was at school. Janet was on her own for the day, and she spent it in true Guiding fashion - at the local Guide Shop! Perfect timing, too - when she arrived there, she was dismayed to find that the shop was closed. Turns out this was because the Trefoil Guild was in the middle of having a lovely luncheon, and they invited her to join them! So she spent several happy hours chatting with the ladies from the Trefoil Guild, including Wendy Baden-Powell, the grand-daughter of Lord and Lady BP! How cool is that?

Janet did eventually meet me downtown at the end of the afternoon, and we set off together for the suburb of Vermont, where the three of us (Jen too) had been invited once again to come and play with Nina Cole's Vermont Guides. Turns out the whole District was joining us, so we had girls as young as six and as old as sixteen, and all their families, too! The evening started off with a "sausage sizzle", then everyone was broken into four groups and the oldest girls led their groups around a round-robin of activities. Jen, Janet and I were in charge of Yells. So we taught a yell from the 1900's that Lord BP would have learned in Africa, and then we taught a couple of modern summer camp style yells too. It was great fun! Afterwards, everyone gathered back inside the hall for a short skit, and a Promise Ceremony (enrolment) for one girl.

It was great. How wonderful to be able to spend Thinking Day with Guides from another country. That's really what this organization is all about - growing friendships and building communities. As a complete sidebar, it was also rather novel to be able to enjoy Thinking Day in sandals, even though it was a wee bit on the nippy side (summer is over here now and we're well on our way into autumn. I'm in denial.) Jen and I will be camping with Nina's Guides in April and we're looking forward to that too.