Theme Thursday - World of Friends Africa - Amazing Race

Girls Brigade Africa Amazing Race

Week 1:

• Line up oldest to youngest and number off to form teams of 4/5 girls.
• 5 minutes to choose team name and write it down.
• Explain rules of the game / get girls to suggest rules

1. No running
2. Work as a team
3. No put down comments
4. Detour – choose between 2 activities (do only 1)
5. Roadblock – only one person from team does activity, different person from the team each week.
6. Idea of the game is to make it to the end, not about winning prizes.

Africa

• Animal Alphabet game
• Give each team plenty of letters of the alphabet.
• Leader calls out the name of an animal and each team must spell the animals name and put their hands up when completed.
• Soccer relay – with balloons
• Team with most points gets their KENYA – DETOUR clue.

Kenya

• All members in team to crawl to Kenya
• Detour – choose between words or wisdom
• Words – find all animals in word search (must work as a team)
• Wisdom – work out the animals in the crossword (must work as a team)
• Put team name on sheets when finished, give SOUTH AFRICA – ROAD BLOCK clue

South Africa

• Travel blind holding hands, one person in team leading the way to the kitchen.
• Team to make maize meal and a cup of tea.
• One person to eat maize meal and drink tea.
• Once finished, give BOTSWANA clue

Botswana

• Hope holding hands to Botswana
• Using 1 sheet of sand paper each and crayons, each team member to make a rock cave painting, stick on the walls.
• Give CREATION DEVOTION clue

Creation

• Find the cross
• Look up and read together as a team Genesis chapter 1:1 – chapter 2:3
• Use template to create origami

PIT STOP!

Toolbox Tuesday - GB Level Badges

So what does your group do for the girls to earn their level badges? We find its not many girls cup of tea to learn this sort of stuff. I've heard many ideas for learning this information from doing a little bit each night, to doing a couple of full nights on this. From doing activities like word puzzles, to jigsaw puzzles and all sorts of memory techniques.

We do level badges every two years, typically, and just for a couple of nights. I have some worksheets I have created with different sorts of puzzles. They complete these over 1 and a half nights; then for approx. an hour on the second night we play ZONK! This is a game where small coloured squares of card are stuck to the wall; on the backs of which are points (1,2,3,4,5,10,20,50 etc). The girls are in teams of mixed levels, I ask them a question, the first team with their hand up get to answer the question. If they get it right someone comes up and starts to remove the cards from the wall and adds up the points on the back, the twist is that some of the cards say ZONK, if they get this they lose all the points the hold for that round. They can say stop at any point and any points they have can be kept. It can get quite frantic and the girls can get quite competitive and loud but heaps of fun - and we find the girls really learn a lot.

This year we have had girls doing levels 1-3. Click on the links below to download PDF's of the level badge worksheets I have created for this years use, feel free to use them if you wish.  Level 2 & 3 will just need the info for West Akld cut out and your own info applied.  If you would like the publisher files from me, just email.

Level 1

Level 2

Level 3

Youth Olympics

With summer starting late this year we are blessed with beautiful nights for Girls' Brigade. Lets get out there and make the most of it. Being the year of Olympics, this has inspired us to hold our own.

Girls could name their teams and make banners/flags for their countries.  Idea is to have some combined events (all girls together in their teams) and separate events (teams separate rotating around activities) each night.

Ideas so far:

• Discus - with a paper plate or frisbee
• Shotput - with a peanut or cotton wool or rolled up toilet paper
• Javelin - with a plastic straw
• Long jump - standing jump i.e. no run up
• Running - 3 legged race
• Volleyball -  Blind!  Set up the net and put the sheet over it so each team cannot see the other team and tell the kids to play volley ball. Pretty funny to see the reactions as the ball comes over the net. Also, you can have the kids stay on their knees or make them sit down to play. if inside you can use different types of balls like nerf stuff but I would not recomend balloons it does not move fast enough.
• Ideas are endless for any type of Relay's - since its summer a water transfer relay would go down well
• Frisbee golf
• Archery -  Tie up the toilet seat on a beam or a tree so that it will move if it is hit with something. Have the "athletes" stand pretty far away and try and make as many "bulls eyes", which would be throwing the toilet paper through the hole of the toilet seat as many times as they can during a certain time slot.

Traditional games that you can play without getting silly:

• Petanque / bowls
• Hockey
• Soccer
• All swimming events (try your local schools pools)
• Cycling / BMX
• Tennis

Some foodie categories that would be fun that could be run at any event:

• Blender of Doom - a bunch of gross food pureed together and each team have to eat it - play that one outside! 
• Grapes and Onions - make a large tray of jello and drop in peeled grapes and baby onions before it sets. Kids run across the yard, stick their face into the tray, grab one of the balls of food with their mouth then come back to the team and spit it into the appropriate bucket labeled onion or grape. Hilarious to see the reactions.

Devotions - discuss the values held by the Olympics
The Olympic motto is "Citius, Altius, Fortius." These Latin words mean "Swifter, Higher, Stronger." Again these can be admirable goals. A similar motto of the Christian faith would be "Faith, Hope, Love".

“Run the race with your eyes fixed on Jesus.” (Hebrews 12:1-2)

Should it rain:

Bible trivia quiz

Name that song - with Christian songs

+ some of the above activities can be done inside if need be

First Night @ GB Pt. Chev 2012

First night of Girls' Brigade @ Pt. Chev for 2012

Beautiful pink and white marshmellows arrived for an evening of relays, games, and roasting.

Officially 29 on the roll the first night - only 6 spaces left!

We completed the activities as in previous post, with some minor adjustments.  Megan and Sue did well to rustle up a tree to burn - a perfect end to the night eating roasted marshmellows as the sun set.

Youth Alpha

THIS IS A FANTASTIC RESOURCE!

Ever struggle with great spiritual badge subject ideas for your pioneers and older seniors?
We ran this course for the first time with girls 12+ last year - it took 2 terms.  The girls had a great time and those that weren't Christian learnt a lot and everyone opened up.  Plus teenagers love to talk and eat and watch videos - couldn't be more perfect.

The book is only $50 - it is huge!  Has all the instructions you could need, you download all the videos etc from youtube, and the youth alpha website, it also has lots of fantastic games to use - which you could also run any GB night!

http://www.alpha.org.nz/youth

http://youthalpha.org/

Thinking about running Youth Alpha in 2012? Want to see your young people go deeper in the Christian faith? Want to see lives changed?
Well then come along to the Training Day!

Wellington: Salvation Army Johnsonville - 2nd March
Auckland: Greenlane Presbyterian Church - 9th March
Tauranga: St Peter's Presbyterian Church - 16th March
Dunedin: East Tairei Presbyterian Church - 30th March

Bring your laptops and hopefully we will have all our techy stuff work and have a wireless network so you can work on the resource yourself!
Vital to come and be trained before running the course, if you cannot make it but would like to sit, chat, have a coffee and be trained on a one on one basis let us know and we will see what we can arrange!

Cost: $20. Morning tea included.
Register by emailing your details to: office@alpha.org.nz