Thinking Day | A Scene in the Life of the Hedgehog Hollow Crew

Hi everyone! Today is a very special day for Guides and Scouts all around the world. (I’ll let Nicole explain more about that later.)  So, in honour of that, here’s what I am calling a “photo scene”. It’s like a photo story, but there’s not really a plotline, ’cause I suck at those. And it’s sort of like a photo shoot, but the photos follow a logical order and it’s not just a whole bunch of pretty pictures. So yeah, photo scene.

It’s a pretty usual day, and Victoria’s reading Fairy Tales Gone Wonky on the bed while Sophie is perusing a Playmobil magazine (from 2012, but that’s not the point. She’s also looking at the farm page, because the dolls seem mostly convinced they are farm dolls, even though they live in the city, but that is also not at all the point.)

“Guys, guys!” Nicole comes running in with a white trefoil pinned to her shirt and two more in her hand, causing Sophie and Victoria to stare. “C’mon, it’s Thinking Day! Just because we don’t have Girl Guide uniforms doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate!”

“Cool,” Victoria says, then looks down at her dress. “Well, I’m wearing purple, so it looks like I’m part of the Trefoil Guild today!”

“Yup, I guess you are over 30 today!” Sophie agrees, laughing.

(The Trefoil Guild is the branch (level) of Guiding in Canada for those over 30, but generally the members are older than that.)

Nicole hands them each a trefoil. “Here, pin this to your shirts.”

(A trefoil is the Guiding symbol, the cloverleaf. And, I love this picture.)

Victoria and Sophie pin on their trefoils (well, actually, Victoria does all of the pinning, because Sophie can’t see just below her chin very well.) and follow Nicole into the main room.

“Alright, now you two sit over there, and I’ll be with my black board over here,” Nicole says.

Once seated, Nicole starts her sort of lesson.

“Okay, so-” Nicole starts writing.

“Cole, that’s a green board, not a white board,” Sophie points out.

“No, it IS a black board – the old fashioned green kind! See? Now, we all know what Thinking Day is, right?”

(I do have black paper, but Nicole asked me for green earlier this morning, so I went with it.)

“Yes, ma’am!” Toria exclaims. “It’s Lord and Lady Baden-Powell’s birthdays!”

(Lord Baden-Powell is the founder of Boy Scouts and Girl Guides, and Lady Baden-Powell is his wife. They were born on the same day – but 32 years apart.)

“Yeah, we all know that, but why ‘Thinking Day’? It sounds like the name for some STEM-day that a teacher would use.” Sophie asks.

“It’s because we’re supposed to think about our Guiding sisters around the world.” Victoria says.

“Thank you, that brings us exactly to my next point! WAGGGS! Which means the World Acronym for Great Girl GuideS. The S of Guides is the last S in the thing, in case you didn’t hear that.”

“Um, sorry, what, Nicole? It’s the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts!” Victoria says.

“Ooo, sorry. I couldn’t remember what it meant so I made something up! It would have worked! If you hadn’t known what it really is.”

“There’re 150 countries in it, right? Cause WAGGGS is 1+5+0 countries long in letters?”

“Oh, that’s a good way of thinking about it.” Victoria agrees.

“Okay, so now for some VIDs.” Nicole continues, writing some years on her black board.

“Very Important Dinosaurs?” Sophie askes.

“Uh, no. Very Important Dates. 1909, 1910 and 2021. Anyone know what happened these years? Starting with 1909?”

“Well, I wasn’t born, but it was cold?” Toria guesses.

“They started building the Titanic! Les Canadiens de Montréal were founded!” Sophie shouts.

“Uh, no . . . ” Nicole says, scratching her nose.

“Queen Juliana of the Netherlands was born!” Sophie tries.

(Sophie is right, all of these things happened in 1909.)

“Probably, yes, but not what I’m looking for. Lord Baden-Powell held the Crystal Palace Rally!”

Collective gasp: “Ohhhhhh.”

(The Crystal Palace Rally was held in England because Lord B-P wanted to know how many boys had be doing the activities in his book, Scouting for Boys. A group of girls came too, so he told his sister Agnes to take charge of them and he called them Girl Guides. That was our beginning.)

“Oh, and Nicole, you have a LOT of chalk on your nose.” Toria tells her.

“Yes, I know. And what happened in 1910?”

(I don’t think I am supposed to like the way the sun is in the picture, but I do, so.)

“Girl Guides began in Canada!” Victoria says. “Does anyone know where?”

“Um, I’m pretty sure it was in St. Catharine’s, here in Ontario.” Sophie says.

“Soph, how is it that you know that and a whole bunch of random things that happened in 1909, but you didn’t know when the Crystal Palace Rally was?” Nicole asks.

Sophie shrugs.

“Okay, and now for 2021! Any ideas? Sophie?” Nicole looks expectantly at her sister.

“I don’t know. Why’d you even add it?!”

“Um, because we needed another date and I couldn’t think of any others?” Nicole smiles awkwardly.

“Oooh, I’ve got one!” Victoria pipes up. “It’s the 111th year of Guiding in Canada!”

“That works!” Nicole adds it in.

They add a few more important bits of information . . .

(Such as who our founder is (Lord Baden-Powell), what the branches/levels of Guiding are in Canada (Sparks, Brownies, Guides, Pathfinders, Rangers, for girl members, plus Lones and Trefoil Guild for adult members which they didn’t write down) and what the WAGGGS colours are (yellow and blue).)

. . . and then go off to eat Sophie. Er, well, to eat brownies, which is what Sophie is.

“Happy World Thinking Day!”

“Happy Birthday Lady Baden-Powell!”

“Happy Birthday Lord Baden-Powell!”

And then, I, the human, haul them off for some nice pictures with their trefoils (which, btw, were drawn freehand by me, then cut out all together.)

Victoria’s first family portrait!

See? Super cute! Sisters forever!

Happy Thinking Day to all Girl Guides and Girl Scouts!

-ForestPoodle88, Nicole, Victoria and Sophie