Trefoil Guild: Keeping the Spirit Alive!
A new year signals new beginnings and a promise of new adventures and new challenges. 2023 will be an exciting year for Trefoil Guilds as we continue our journey of recovery from the pandemic, our journey of reengagement in safe locations that promote recovery from isolation, and our journey of new adventures within our Guiding and Trefoils Guild communities.
We welcome the renaming of our branch for girls ages 7 and 8. Embers is such a powerful name as it signals the energy and incredible potential these girls have that will guide them through their youth and adult years. Making this change is Girl Guides living our promise to ‘take action for a better world’ and showing girls that what they say matters.
I want to welcome you to the Trefoil Guilds page in Guidepost and offer everyone best wishes for a successful and engaging year in Guiding, no matter what roles you have. In our next edition, we’ll show you how Trefoil Guilds provide support to girl programming and Guiders through the skills and experience sharing , and service.
For more information on Trefoil Guilds, visit the Trefoil Guild page on Member Zone or connect with your Provincial Liaison, who can answer your questions or connect you with a Trefoil Guild.
Until next time, see below for a snapshot of what is happening with Trefoil Guilds in each province.
~ Sharron Callahan, National Trefoil Guild Liaison
ANY Council
Beverly Simpson Headon/Glenda Metro, ANY Council Co-Trefoil Guild Liaison
Below is a photo of members of the Wild Tumbleweeds in Edmonton Area. The mascot's name is Gofer - as in Go fer Guiding. This guild attended the Oil Kings hockey game along with many youth and adult members. The Wild Tumleweeds are very active in the area. They will be part of the support team at the area Dog Days event, the Music is Fun camp and the Arts Revel.
ANY Council members have been actively gearing up for the celebration of Thinking Day 2023. Trefoil Guilds are encouraged to participate in the activities by visiting units and sharing memories of past Thinking Days. Youth members will be able to see how far Guiding has come through the years while the Trefoil Guild members get the opportunity to celebrate with the units.
Planning is underway for our Trefoil Guild Gathering in the spring. Link members are being invited to attend so they can build connections with the Trefoil Guilds.
Finally, as our email is ANY Trefoil Guild, we are still getting many requests from potential members from various provinces and countries. It is quite interesting to see where requests are coming from. If anyone is wondering, ANY stands for Alberta, Northwest Territories and Yukon. Happy new year from ANY Trefoil Guild Liaisons!
British Columbia
Darlene Kent, BC Trefoil Guild Liaison
Happy new year to everyone. A few guilds have begun new activities in the new year; both for themselves and to assist units.
Tillicum Trefoil Guild began the year by going through their various photo albums. They identified members in the photos and started to digitize them for future storage. This activity was posted on our Facebook page, with the hope that others will do the same with their history.
Lake Country Trefoil Guild recently had a couple of meetings with units. We put together a meeting for members of all branches about the Canadian and World flags. Some of us visited Guide units to teach them how to do horseshoe.
We are excited for a new Guiding year.
Manitoba
Sharon Romanow, MB Trefoil Guild Liaison
In Manitoba, winter has arrived. Our Trefoil Guilds continue to be active, weather dependent, and are continuing with all their community service work and support to girl programming.
Stay tuned for more details about the 2024 National Gathering in the next edition of Guidepost.
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New Brunswick and PEI
Heather LeBlanc, NB/PEI Trefoil Guild Liaison
Six members of the Westmorland Trefoil Guild went to the Wild Lights at Magnetic Hill Zoo. Good weather allowed us to enjoy the many lights and see some animals. We ended our night at St Hubert's for our supper.
On December 22, Guiding lost another beloved member. Carol Duchemin from the 1st Victoria Carleton Trefoil Guild has gone home. She loved Guiding and attended many events from Trefoil Guild Gatherings to area and provincial events. She will be missed.
Newfoundland and Labrador
Pat Burton, Newfoundland and Labrador Trefoil Guild Liaison
Our Provincial Gathering is being held May 26-28 at Max Simms camp. Registration opens soon. Shout out to Crossroads Trefoil Guild for offering to help with the weekend, thank you! Any other Trefoil Guilds that would like to take on a section of the gathering are welcome. Killick will complete the registration.
Killick had a quilting gathering January 25-27 at ConBaSu camp. The goal was to make two quilts for the women’s shelter.
Fireside Friends Trefoil Guild has been very active, enjoying outdoor activities and a card-making night. At the card-making night, each member painted two cards; one was a snowman and the other was a forest scene. At the Merry and Bright celebration, the weather was damp and foggy, but this only added to the magic of the evening as the Botanical Gardens were quite magical with the foggy cloud encircling the magnificent light display. We gathered at the Marine Institute for bus transport to the Gardens and then enjoyed a magical experience as we strolled the trails, through an enchanting winter season light display that enraptured us all. Light tunnels, a lighted dinosaur display, puffins, butterflies, a garden of lighted deer, Santa’s toybox, row housing, polar bears, mummers, memory bags at the greenhouse, a village display, and a dazzling display of peacocks and so much more. We heard echoes of “oohs” and “aahs” throughout the walk. What a wonderful experience for our members. We are happy 18 of our members were able to attend this event.
Nova Scotia
Kathy DeGrasse, NS Trefoil Guild Liaison
Happy new year to all members of the Guiding community! In 2022, we did our best to adapt to our own personal “new normal” and interact with other members of Guiding in our guilds during an unstable and unpredictable time. We took our personal “new normal”, the unstable and unpredictable conditions of each location and each day and attempted to interact with other members of Guiding in our guilds and units.
The Trefoil Guilds in Nova Scotia are registered and meeting but are having trouble working at the same pace or with the same dedication of our pre-COVID-19 world. The words of our promise remind us of the important values we share as we continue to move forward.
The Nova Scotia Trefoil Guild members are looking forward to our spring provincial meeting to be hosted by the Shoreside Trefoil Guild. Until then, we will be working in our guilds and with the girl members using resources we have built up over time both from Guiding and from outside Guiding. As adult members, we are proof that Guiding has roles for girls of all ages although our roles in the organization may change over the decades.
Ontario and Nunavut
Candace Gaudet, ON Trefoil Guild Liaison
Best wishes for a prosperous and safe new year. I always think of September as the beginning of a new year, when Guiding starts up again after summer break. My hope for 2023 is that Guiding continues to grow and remains the place for girls and young women to find their voice, celebrate their achievements and for sisterhood to thrive for all members of the Guiding movement.
January is when membership pins are sent directly to members to acknowledge their valuable contributions to Guiding. I will be sharing pin reports to all Trefoil Guild leads in the coming weeks. There are several Ontario Trefoil Guild members with 50, 60 and 70 years of membership in GGC. Special mention of Elsa Tafel with 78years of volunteering in Guiding! Well done, Elsa. We also celebrate Trefoil Guild members who joined in the last 5-10 years.
We learned the new branch name – Embers. This is an extraordinary move towards a more inclusive environment.
Please remember that Guiding is an inclusive community.
Québec
Ellen Gauthier, Québec Trefoil Guild Liaison
To welcome a new year, one of the Québec Trefoil Guilds decided to wake up their limbs and minds with a bowling outing. Yes, they went bowling and hope that their strikes and laughter will energize them to keep the Trefoil Guild spirit alive and last over their Guiding years.
Saskatchewan
Lorraine Thibeault, Saskatchewan Trefoil Guild Liaison
Trefoil Guilds in Saskatchewan are continuing with regular activities. Best wishes are extended to all members of the Saskatchewan and Canadian Guiding community for a successful 2023 Guiding year.
1st Canadian Internet Trefoil Guild
Dana Weatherell, 1st Canadian Internet Trefoil Guild Liaison
The 1CITG wishes you all a happy new year! We don’t usually meet in December, but we decided to have an online beach party to end 2022. Beach attire was worn including sun hats, sunglasses and a beach towel around the neck. We couldn't see the rest of everyone so who knows what else they were sporting. We played beach themed games such as charades, word scramble and Jeopardy. We made little umbrellas for our drinks and jars with coloured sand. Refreshment and snack recipes were provided to members ahead of time and we made cocktails/mocktails like mermaid lemonade and shark attack punch. We even decorated a cupcake with a beach theme. It was so much fun, thank you to Heather, Marg and Dana for hosting.
We continue to try and get our Elaine Hodgson Memorial Lones Campership in order. It hasn't been used in a couple years and we hope to have it up and running again soon. For information on this or our Trefoil Guild, you can contact us at 1stCdnInternetTrefoilGuild@gmail.com.