to all parents
Girl Guides of Canada wants Guiding to be flexible and accessible to everyone who is interested in joining. Sometimes girls have individual circumstances that prevent them from participating in traditional weekly meetings in their communities. Some reasons may include:
- health challenges
- distance
- scheduling conflicts
- temporarily residing outside of Canada
- wanting to assist with younger branches
- local units may be full or unavailable in their area
The Lones program is available to meet the needs of these girls.
Lones is designed to be adaptable to each individual Lone girl with units for every branch from Sparks to Rangers.
A Lone girl will receive communication from her Guider by mail, email, telephone, Skype or any other method that works for the Guider and the girls in the unit. She will receive packages with ideas, activities, games, crafts and resources to duplicate and, as much as possible, an in-person meeting.
Lone girls are registered members of Guiding and are therefore eligible for all the same benefits of membership such as camperships, independent international trips, nationally sponsored trips, scholarships and membership rates for summer camps. Lone girls are entitled to earn and receive all badges and awards related to their respective program branches in recognition of all of her hard work during the Guiding year. They are also welcome to take part in local camps, trips, selling cookies and special events with a local age-appropriate unit where available.
In the upper branches of Guiding, Pathfinders and Rangers (12 to 17-year-olds), girls interests can shift from focusing on program work to wanting to gain leadership experience by volunteering with a younger branch as a Girl Assistant. In order to accommodate their differing interests, the Lones program offers two types of Lone units for them to register in. The 1st Ontario Lone unit is specifically for girls who are looking to work on leadership skills by volunteering as Girl Assistants with younger branches. Ranger-age girls are able to volunteer with Spark, Brownie and Guide units (five to 11-year-olds) while Pathfinders are able to volunteer with Spark and Brownie units (five to eight-year-olds). The 2nd Ontario Lone unit is for girls interested in completing programming. They can volunteer as Girl Assistants with younger branches as well, if desired.
If you would you like to register your daughter to Lones, first you will need to create a family account for online registration using our online registration portal. An email will be sent to you to confirm your account after which you can proceed to “Start: Register a Girl.” When selecting a group using the unit finder, you will find Lones using postal code:
P0M 1K0.
If you have any questions or require assistance, please feel free to contact our Lones administrator at info@guidesontario.org.