Ontario Girl Guides of Canada

Girl Guides of Canada is committed to ensuring that Guiding is 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 or local units may be full or unavailable in their area. The Lones program is available to meet the needs of these girls by allowing them to maintain their membership. 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 as closely as possible duplicate an in person meeting.

Lone girls are registered members of Girl Guides 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 branch. They are also welcome to take part in local camps, trips, selling cookies and special events with a local, age-appropriate unit.

In the upper branches of Guiding, Pathfinders and Rangers (12 to 17-year-olds), girls interests can shift from focusing on program work to gaining 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-aged girls are can volunteer with Spark, Ember and Guide units (five to 11-year-olds), while Pathfinders can volunteer with Spark and Ember 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.

Parents are able to register their daughters online using the online portal. It is recommended that they contact Ontario Council for steps about how to proceed.