Year One Induction + CNY Celebrations, 9th February

Hi Guides!

Last Friday, we welcomed the Year 1s into our CCA with the Year 1 Induction :) This year, we have around 27 Year 1s joining us, and everyone was excited to welcome them into our Guides family. We prepared 4 station games, before ending off this 集合 with our Chinese New Year celebrations.

Overall Storyline:

There has been a potent disease spreading that is causing the death of many plant species, and the six strongest species are chosen by the almighty queen to search for an antidote that could save us all, and that is the six patrol flowers. Pit against each other are these resilient flower species that have to prove their grit in this journey to success. Will you be able to succeed and bring glory to kingdom, will you be able to come out as a stronger patrol, bonded and united as one? Here are the clues you have to follow according to the queen’s decree, good luck and have fun - we hope to see you at the end :-)

Station 1: Guess the Item

In the room, there would be 7 boxes with items, and different Year 1s from each patrol are to stick their hands into the box and try to describe the item they are touching to both patrols. But beware, these items are not friendly so brace yourself!

Box 1: 木麻黄

Box 2: Crepe bandage

Box 3: 麻绳

Box 4: Santa Hat

Box 5: Mess tin

Box 6: 配备

Box 7: 原子蜡

The Year 1s would be introduced to the items after they guess it.

Reflection from a Year 3:

I find the “Guess the Item” station a fun and creative way of teaching the Year 1s about the basic items we use in Guides while still engaging them, which made it less boring. Although the game is simple, straightforward and fast, it still managed to introduce the items and their uses to the Year 1s so that they can get a sense of what we do during CCA. The activity however, did not really bond the seniors and the Year 1s as much as other stations, as the Year 1s were in a way, ‘separated’ as they had to stand behind the boxes and even after describing the items, most of them stood together on one side to listen to the explanations given by the Year 4 seniors hence, interaction between the batches was rather limited, apart from the occasional description of the items the Year 1s gave and the guesses made by the rest of us.

Station 2: Outdoor Cooking

The Year 1s were given 5 minutes to roast marshmallows, and another 5 minutes to try to light a fire themselves. The rest of the patrol members introduced the different types of kindlings to the Year 1s, and told them more about Outdoor Cooking (OC). After which, the patrols were free to go around the OC area and try the food made, namely Maggi Mee and Mac & Cheese.

Reflection from a Year 3:
During the 集合 we had on Friday, we had Outdoor Cooking as one of the four stations to welcome the Year 1s into Guides. Everything went smoothly and we had our fire altar set up within a short period of  time. Although we only built 1 fire altar instead of the proposed 2, we managed to cook the food in time with just 1 fire altar. We started 2 fires, in which 1 was consistently sustained but the other was still rather unstable. Luckily, we managed to stabilise the second one by the time the patrols arrived at our station. One of the fires was used to cook Mac & Cheese and instant noodles and the other was for roasting marshmallows. I feel that our station was a success as the Year 1s seemed to enjoy the process of roasting marshmallows and we did not face any major difficulties while preparing the station.

Station 3: 团部 tour

Welcome to the home of our 团, what lies behind the closed doors is our 团’s legacy of 50 years and where you stand is a place filled with our memories, trials and tribulations. Fluff aside, it’s basically our CCA room!

The patrol members were given 5 minutes to go around 团部 and introduce:

- the different types of gadget poles

- the 小队箱 and the items inside it

- items outside of 小队箱 eg. arthurs, bricks, trophies, tents etc.

- Patrol name and flower

- Other points to note: Spars are kept at backstore, 团部 door should be closed at all times etc.

After which, the patrols were given 15 minutes to go on a scavenger hunt and find pieces of masking tape with riddles on it. If they get the riddle wrong, or cannot solve it by the time limit, everyone from the patrol will have to drink lemon tea infused with salt.

Riddle	Answer
Are you ______? Because I want to _____ you  mine. (Hint: Guides related)	Masking tape, Label
Lighter than what I am made of, More of me is hidden Than is seen.	Iceberg
What has 4 eyes but can’t see?	Mississippi
What two words can open doors for you for the rest of your life?	Push and Pull
How is half of nine four?	In Roman Numerals, nine is IX and four is IV. If you take IX and cut it in half horizontally, you will get IV.

Reflection from a Year 3:

We did the 团部 tour with another patrol and we had to introduce the logistics in our 小队箱, followed by the 团 logistics. I feel that the 团部 tour was helpful in letting the Year 1s understand which logistics were used when building structures and where they are kept, as well as their respective purposes. After that, we had to find riddles pasted around the 团部 and the last group would have to drink lemon tea with salt. The thought of drinking lemon tea with salt made us cringe so both of our patrols were trying to find and solve the riddles as quickly as possible. The Year 1s also participated actively and tried to solve the riddles. When nobody could solve the riddle and the answer was revealed, we all mouthed an ‘O’ as we realised the obviousness of the answer. In the end, my patrol lost so we had to drink the lemon tea with salt. It wasn't as bad as I thought it would be but I could still taste the salt in it. Overall, I think that this station helped the Year 1s in being more familiar with our logistics and helped the rest of us bond more with them.

Station 4: Tie the Knot

The patrols were given 5 minutes to draw their patrol flower on a blank piece of paper using only an end of one of the many 白绳s connected to a pen. After which, they were given 15 minutes to jump rope 10 consecutive times and they had to restart if they failed. The patrol members had to enter the rope one by one and only after everyone entered could they start to jump together 10 times.

Reflection from a Year 3:
At the MRL, we played a game called Tie the Knot. We were tasked to draw out our patrol’s flower; however, we could only hold the pen through multiple 白绳s that were tied onto the pen. This made drawing the patrol flower difficult as it was hard to control the pen with so many people holding on to it. We managed to draw out a rough sketch of our patrol flower, jasmine and I felt really accomplished because it really was not easy. My favourite part of the station was the next part, when we were supposed to jump rope together, with each person joining in one by one. It was difficult at first as we were all scared of the rope, and we failed multiple times as we were unable to match our jumping time with the swinging of the rope. However, after a while we got the hang of it and it was really fun to skip together. Overall, I found this station extremely enjoyable and I hope to have more 麻绳 skipping rope games in future 集合s! :)

Here is a reflection from a Year 3 on the whole 集合:

Friday’s 集合 felt quite different as we had new Year 1s joining us. To be honest, the Year 1s were quite shy so I felt rather disappointed that I did not get to converse much with them. Therefore, I felt that the activities planned by the seniors really helped us to know our juniors better and made things less awkward. At the same time, these activities allowed the Year 1s to learn more about Guides and I was also happy to see that these activities were able to engage some of the Year 1s. Although the other Year 1s may not have looked too excited, I was still glad to see them trying to involve themselves with the patrol. Overall, I think that Friday’s 集合 was pretty chill and I really hope that I would be able to bond more with the new batch of Year 1s. Although this may not be what we usually do in Guides, I hope their impression of Guides will still not change even after experiencing the more strenuous activities.

集合 was concluded by our CNY celebrations.

We hope that the Year 1s had fun on their first day of 集合! :)

Published By:

Arielle

49th Batch Secretary