We like to have a sleepover in the fall, to help get the girls ready for camp in the spring. Many girls have never slept away overnight and the low-key environment of the sleepover (help at your meeting place or some other local spot) is a great first step. The girls arrive after dinner (around 7:30 or so), and you play a few games, do a craft, have mug-up, and maybe watch a movie. In the morning, you get up, have breakfast, play another game or two, and then the girls get picked up around 9:00am.

A theme is fun, but not required for a sleepover. It doesn’t need to be anything fancy—just something to tie together your activities. This year, we did an "Tropical/Under the Sea" theme. We made leis (with paper flowers, straws, and beads--see crafts) and grass skirts (from green garbage bags), learned to hula, played ‘Lifeboats’, and watched "The Little Mermaid."
Another year, we had a "Wilderness" theme, where everyone brought wild animal stuffies and we made animal crafts, watched "A Bug's Life" and slept in tents (we set the tents up inside our meeting hall, and the girls LOVED it!)

We first came up with this idea three years ago to fulfill various parts of program and give us a chance to know the girls better. Basically, ‘Dinner at the Owls’ involves taking the girls, in small groups, to our houses after our Brownie meeting, where we all cook dinner together. We also have a meeting to introduce the topic and prepare for the dinners.

At a meeting, discuss the four food groups and the importance of healthy eating. Some foods are tasty but not healthy, and even healthy foods must be eaten along with other foods (ie. carrots are good for you, but would it be good to eat nothing but carrots?). Have each circle group make a collage of a day’s menu (each meal should include all four food groups, etc), and then present their menu to the group. Next, explain to the girls about the dinners, and then brainstorm for possible menu items, reminding them that they are going to be doing the cooking, and that the meal must include the four food groups.

We found that burritos worked best, with ice cream sundaes for dessert. The burritos provided lots of different activities—grating cheese, washing lettuce, slicing tomatoes, cooking meat, heating up refried beans, warming tortilla shells—and also allowed for picky eaters. We also tried pasta with meat sauce, salad and chocolate pudding one year, and it worked, just not quite as well as burritos.

You only want 5 or 6 girls per dinner, so the number of dinners you have depends on how many girls there are in your unit. We choose the dates (consecutive, if possible) and then let the girls/parents sign up for whichever night suits them best. Make sure you draw up permission slips that state that the girls will be driven by an Owl, and will be cooking.

On dinner night, all the Owls and the 6 girls drive over to one Owl’s house, where they cook dinner, set the table, and eat. This is a great way to get to know the girls a little better. When you’ve got 24 girls running around at meetings, you just don’t get the chance to actually talk to most of them, so it’s really nice to be able to sit down to dinner with just a few of them, and actually hear the quiet ones talk.

This whole process covers several pieces of program: Opening on Today&Tomorrow #5 (know how to use simple appliances safely), Widening on T&T #3 (learn about and practice safety in the home—you can cover part of this) and #5 (make a simple meal), and the entire Food Fun outlook badge.

This activity is much enjoyed by everyone in our unit, and covers the Cyclist outlook badge (plus other possible program, depending on what else you do). As preparation, invite a police officer to talk about bike safety, and someone from a bike shop to talk about bike care.

We usually hold our bike hike in the spring, when the weather is somewhat more dependable, and schedule it for a Saturday morning. We meet in the parking lot of the Six Mile Pub, where we practice stopping, starting and turning, and then head off on our several kilometer ride along the Galloping Goose trail (in Victoria). We stop for lunch along the way, and then end up at Swan Lake Christmas Hill Nature Sanctuary, where we do a program that covers the Preservation outlook badge.

As a final wrap-up to the year, we hold a banquet for the girls and one of their parents (the hall cannot hold enough bodies for each girl to bring more than one). The meal is a semi-potluck (we assign people either salad/appetizer, main course, or dessert), and the girls provide the entertainment. A few weeks before the banquet, we tell the girls what’s going to happen and ask them to think about what (if anything) they’d like to present/perform. They can play an instrument, sing, read a story or poem, do a skit, dance, etc, as long as they practice it before hand. We confirm their ‘routines’ the week before and type up a little program for the evening’s entertainment. After the girls are done, we give out all the final ‘stuff’—service stars, final badges—and present the girls with ‘certificates of appreciation’, personalized to each girl (with things like "for her kindness and great leadership" and "for her never-ending enthusiasm in trying new things"), and a copy of a group photo. We also get the chance to thank all our parent helpers, and present each mother with a flower. This provides nice closure to the year and a chance to say proper thank you’s and goodbyes.