It was one of my favourite nights of the week. I dressed in my long navy-blue wrap skirt pinned the small green sash to my skirt that had the emblems on it. My Alphred Sung white and navy striped short sleeve blouse had been washed. Carefully I re-pinned on all the pins to my blouse.
There was the white and blue world friendship peace pen, the world Association blue and gold pin, my Saint John ambulance standard first aid pin, the little star pan with the number 9 in it all these were pinned above the left pocket of my blouse. I pinned to my caller was a little trefoil gold with the word pathfinder on it. On my right shoulder was looped a blue and white cord. I was ready. I looked one more time in the mirror at what I was wearing. Smiling back, I saw a girl who had been transforming into a brave young woman. Elementary school was behind her. Her confidence has slowly been coming back.
“Hey Aime! How was your week?” Marcy smiled at me. She was getting things organised in the room. This is where Pathfinder meeting with on Wednesday in the evening that happened to be back at my elementary school classroom. We were in my old grade 7 and 8 classroom. Brown desks and blue chairs. We moved the desks into a big square and put the chairs around the desks. This room for me though was hard to be in I did anyways. Yet I never let on that bothered me. So many negative memories from this room.
“My week was good. The swim team is going to Hamilton for a meet. It’s going to be fun. swimming against high school teams from all over!”
“Oh, that sounds great!” Marcy smile back.
Some of the girls were coming in. smiling and waving at each other it was always great to be with my fellow Pathfinders. No teasing, bullying, or being left out here. If anything, we laughed at jokes and movies we watched. Marcy created a safe space for all of us to be seen, heard and respected.
“Okay girls last week we talked about making a video. What if we do something bigger?” Marcy smiled at all of us.
“Like what?” Amy L asked. She raised her eyebrow at Marcy and giggled.
“Well, since we already have a connection to Shaw Cable for a tour, what if we do a game show about Pathfinders?”
“How?” Amy L looked wide eyed at Marcy.
Marcy gave us her grin and said, “With a lot of work!”
A favourite TV show game we all liked was Jeopardy. First step was to choose our theme titles or categories.
“Well, history of Guiding would be one.” Emma said.
“And Emblems could be another.” Sunni chimed in.
“I think we should have each emblem be a different category.” Marcy said. “We need 10 categories in total for jeopardy, and double jeopardy.” Karen was counting the categories.
“And Aime, you want to do your Gold Camp, and go for your Canada Cord? Yes?” Marcy looked over at me.
“Yes, Marcy I do for sure!” I said with a smile.
This was going to be a big year!
So much to plan!
We broke into pairs and scoured through our program books that had all the answers already in them. Using multi coloured paper we wrote out questions and answers for each of the theme topics. I was working with Jayda. We were coming up with questions for the Home and World emblems.
“Some need to be easier than others. Like an easier one could be Pax Lodge, Our Cabana, Sangam, Our Chalet as the answer, and the question is what are the four world centres? For the World Category.” Jayda said.
I nodded in reply. “Yes, that’s good one. And for Home we could do an easier answer like an open window with a plant on the ledge for the answer, and the question is what the Community Emblem looks like?”
After about an hour we came back to the table with everyone. Everyone was buzzing with excitement.
“What’s next Marcy?” Amy L wanted to know. She had been working with her sister Emma on Home and Camping emblems.
Marcy smiled and cleared her throat. “Well we have to make commercials next! And then figure out a date/time to go to the Shaw building to do the filming. As well as assign roles of who does what on that day.”
“I want to do the filming!” Karen waved her hand in the air.
“Next week weather dependent, we’ll meet to film commercials that Amy L and Emma’s house, they have the property to do it. Great work tonight everyone!”