I promise that I will do my best To be true to myself and to develop my beliefs To serve my community and Australia And live by the Guide Law.

Size: px

Start display at page:

Download "I promise that I will do my best To be true to myself and to develop my beliefs To serve my community and Australia And live by the Guide Law."

Ashlee Bennett
5 years ago
Views:

1 Name Unit

2 Congratulations on deciding to become a Girl Guide!! By the end of this book you will have an understanding of the Promise and Law and be prepared to make your Promise in front of your family and friends. The Promise: I promise that I will do my best To be true to myself and to develop my beliefs To serve my community and Australia And live by the Guide Law. By the time you come to make your Promise you will need to have memorized these words. Don t worry, they are quite easy to remember...there are only four lines!! The idea of setting and fulfilling personal challenges is important in Guides. Why don t you set your first one now: In weeks time I am going to have memorised lines of the Promise. I am going to achieve this by and I am going to ask to help me.

Promise Badge World Badge Patrol Badge What is a Promise? We have all promised things but what exactly does this mean?

3 Badges: With the help of your leader draw a line to match these badges with their name. You will receive all of them when you make your promise and it s important that you know what they look like. Promise Badge World Badge Patrol Badge What is a Promise? We have all promised things but what exactly does this mean? Explain in your own words what you think a promise is and who you normally make it to. The Girl Guide Promise is no different: When you make your Promise you are promising to yourself and to everyone who is at the ceremony that you are going to do what is said in the words of the Promise and Law.

4 This is the first line of the Girl Guide Promise and once you have said these words at the ceremony it means that you are ALWAYS going to do your best. We do not always succeed at things that we do, as long as you always try to do your best, you will still be keeping your Promise. Is your best the same as your friend s best?? No, each of us have talents in different areas and can only ever achieve our personal best. Three things that I am good at: Three things that I can improve on: This week, make it a challenge for yourself to try your best at one of the things that you have said you can improve on. Let your leader and unit know how you went. Remember: Promising that you will do your best applies to all situations, not just things that you like doing. It is often harder to try your best if you are bored or if things seem too difficult but a Girl Guide will always try to succeed.

5 What does it mean to be true to yourself? Well, when we tell the truth, we say what really happened, what we know to be right. We all know what we think is right in a certain situation and being true to yourself means doing things in the way we, personally, know they should be done following our own beliefs and living as we want to. For example, many people are influenced by their friends into liking certain things that really don t suit their personality. Your friends may like dancing and want you to go to lots of discos with them when really, you would prefer to go and see a movie. Being true to yourself would mean that you would explain to your friend that you actually don t want to go to the disco and come to a compromise about something that you d both like to do instead. In doing this, you have been true to your own feelings and have not allowed your thoughts and beliefs to be changed in any way. Think of another example of when you may be true to yourself and illustrate it in the box above.

6 A belief is an idea or thought that individual people have. A person s beliefs can influence the way they think, speak and act. Common beliefs are: Freedom for all people Equality between males and females Disabled people should be treated fairly People should aim to help each other People should treat people like they would like to be treated. What are some of your beliefs? For each of your beliefs, think of how you could work on developing them. It is good to think of our beliefs as a work in progress something that we can practice and change over time

7 Your community involves people that you live close to and who you are with on a regular basis. It could be your school community, family community, Girl Guide community or community of neighbours. As Girl Guides, we try to serve these people and the country that we live in by helping them in whatever way we can. In the following boxes draw or write ways in which you can help the community you live in, and your country, Australia. Community Australia

8 Living by the Guide Law, simply means doing your best to always do what you have said in the Promise, and what is written in the Guide Law. The Guide Law is included on the next page for you. For now, have a go at guessing what some of the parts of the Law might be. If you are unsure, think about how your parents, teachers and Guide Leader expect you to behave and act.

Remember to use your right hand, let your thumb hold your little finger down and to keep the three fingers in the middle straight and close together!

9 The Sign or Salute: You make the sign or salute when you say the Promise. This is also used in other instances such as when a flag is raised or lowered and when someone is presented with a badge or an award. Practice making the sign or salute as often as you can. Remember to use your right hand, let your thumb hold your little finger down and to keep the three fingers in the middle straight and close together! The Guide Law: The following is the Girl Guide Law. When you make your Promise you agree to always follow all of the Law. It is an important part of Girl Guides and your Leaders and family will expect to see you following it at all times. As a Guide I will strive to: Respect myself and others Be considerate, honest and trustworthy Be friendly to others Make choices for a better world Use my time and abilities wisely Be thoughtful and optimistic Live with courage and strength The following pages will help you to understand how you can keep each part of the Guide Law.

10 Respect is a very important word because it can be related to all of our thoughts, words and actions. Respect for ourselves is about treating yourself properly eating the right foods, exercising, making good friends, making good decisions and being satisfied with our beliefs and actions. When we show respect for other people we accept their ideas and opinions, and value their possessions and effort. Respecting people is not about agreeing with them all of the time but about realising that they are human beings, just like us, and that they deserve to feel good about themselves and their abilities. Create an acrostic poem using the word Respect and for each letter write a word or sentence about who/what we should respect or how we can show that we are respectful of ourselves or other people. R E S P E C T

11 There are three ideas in this part of the Guide Law. When we are considerate we think about how other people feel. Once we feel we know what people like and dislike, we can be considerate by doing things that we know will help them out or please them. Can you think of a moment when you have been considerate? Draw or write about it in the thought bubble below. To be honest means to tell people exactly what we mean. We shouldn t try to confuse people with our stories or add extra information that isn t true. Write a sentence in the thought bubble below about what could happen if we weren t honest. If we are considerate and honest, then we will be seen as trustworthy. People who are trustworthy can be left to do things by themselves without any worry of things going wrong or the job not being done. What could you do to make yourself more trustworthy?

12 There are many ways that we can be friendly to others and when we are, we make them feel welcome and part of the group. We can be friendly to people at school, at Guides, in our family and in our community. On the hand of friendship below, use the five fingers to write about five different things that you can do to be friendly to people that you meet. Choose one of your ideas and write it again in the middle of the hand and use it as a challenge for the week. Report back to your unit about whether or not your act of friendliness worked and how it made you feel.

13 We all know that there are many problems in the world and things that need to be changed for us to have a better future. Some examples are pollution, poverty, water shortages, and deadly diseases. Whilst we may not have the power to change these things over night, small actions that we take within our own community can help to reduce the seriousness of some of these issues. By choosing to recycle our rubbish, have shorter showers and give our spare change to charities we show that we are making choices for a better world. On the picture above, think of a world issue of your own and write it in the trunk of the tree. In the leaves, write some ideas of things that you can do to help make the problem smaller. Try to do one of these things within the next week, or choose one as a long term goal.

14 We all have abilities and talents that we can use to help other people. Have a think about what your talents/abilities are and choose three to write in the scrolls below. My top three talents/abilities: How these talents/abilities could help other people: This part of the Guide Law also talks about using our time wisely. This means not wasting our time and making sure that we are always doing something worthwhile. Think of a time when you may have been wasting time and write about it below: What could you have done to use this time more wisely?

Being thoughtful is similar to being considerate. When we are thoughtful we consider the impact of our actions. It is very much like the think before you act saying!

15 Being thoughtful is similar to being considerate. When we are thoughtful we consider the impact of our actions. It is very much like the think before you act saying! We can also be thoughtful when we do things to help other people without being asked to. Optimistic is a word that can be used to say whether we see things in a good or bad way. Look at the glass below...is it half full or is it half empty? There is no right or wrong answer because the level of the water is at the exact half way mark of the glass. A person thinking in an optimistic way however, sees things in a positive and upbeat light and would say that the glass is half full. The opposite of optimistic is pessimistic. Thinking from this position, a person would say that the glass is half empty. A good way of being optimistic is thinking about what you have, not what you don t have. This is why the optimistic person would say the glass is half full...thinking of the water that they have to drink, not the amount that they don t have. In the box below, write or draw about a situation when it might be difficult to think in an optimistic way. With the help of your leader and unit come up with an optimistic way of seeing the situation. Which makes you feel better?

16 Living with courage and strength is a very difficult thing to do. When we talk about strength, we don t mean physical strength and big muscles, but mental strength and the ability to do something about a situation that we know is wrong. Courage and strength can be shown when we stand up for somebody to something that we know is not right, such as a friend who is being bullied. Often it means putting ourselves into a position where don t have much support or where we have to make people realise that they have been doing the wrong thing. How do we know that there is something wrong with a situation? What kind of things can we do to help change a situation? Who can we ask to help us?

We hope that you now understand a little more about the Guide Promise and Law. Remember that your understanding of the Promise and Law will grow during your time in Guides.

17 We hope that you now understand a little more about the Guide Promise and Law. Remember that your understanding of the Promise and Law will grow during your time in Guides. Your Promise Ceremony You will make your Promise at a special ceremony. You can help plan your ceremony by choosing things like where you would like to have it, who you would like to invite, and other special parts of the ceremony. You can choose to renew your Promise at any time in your guiding journey; it is something that is now a special part of your life.

In this session, girls complete the first step toward earning their My Promise, My Faith pin.

In this session, girls complete the first step toward earning their My Promise, My Faith pin. Overview Meeting Overview and Goal Note to Volunteers: If you have a group of girls from different faith backgrounds, you can use this meeting to get them started on the award. The girls can then do the