Troy Birmingham Adventure Guides » General

YMCA Day Camp over Winter Break

BigDaddy — Sat, 10 Dec 2011 00:53:37 +0000

If your interested in dropping your kids off at the Birmingham YMCA during the Christmas Break (Mon – Fri, 12/19 – 12/30), they have all sorts of fun activities to keep them busy while you work.
Rates are $175 week/$40 day for YMCA members, or $205 week/$50 day for community participant (this would include us Adv. Guide members).

Call the YMCA at 248-644-9036 or see the attached forms:
Holiday_Break_Camp
Break_Camp_Reg_Form

The Robot Garage is open in Birmingham

Howling Chipmunk — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 21:14:11 +0000

I just spoke to Jonathan Jacobs, owner of the Robot Garage in Birmingham. It looks like a fantastic place to hold a circle meeting and build some Lego bots from their enormous pile of parts. Jonathan told me that, with some advance notice, they’d be happy to set up age-appropriate events for Guides circles.

Admission to open build is $12 to stay as long as you like. When you’re done you can buy your creation by the pound, or put it back on the pile for the next kids. If you decide to have a meeting there please let me know how it goes!

http://www.therobotgarage.com/

248-723-9100

Love Rockets?

Howling Chipmunk — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 11:06:36 +0000

I’m looking for someone to head up the Fall rocketry event. We need someone to coordinate buying bulk packages of snap-together rockets and rocket engines, splitting up the engines and accessories into sandwich bags and stapling them to the rockets, coordinating the distribution of the rockets at campout and working with Chris Seago to get the launch set up. I’ve got a lot of details and some left-over rockets from our past Rocket Master Joe to hand off to one lucky candidate.

Let me know if you have the Right Stuff.

Curriculum Nights

Howling Chipmunk — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:46:29 +0000

What night is the Curriculum Night for your elementary school? Can you volunteer to man an Adventure Guides display, collecting email addresses and handing out fliers?

New Facebook Page

Howling Chipmunk — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 00:40:41 +0000

We’ve had a Facebook “group” for some time, but due to some technical constraints on groups I’ve moved us to a “page” instead. Anything we add to the website will be cross-posted here. Stay tuned!

2010-2011 Yearbook

Howling Chipmunk — Wed, 04 May 2011 14:52:07 +0000

UPDATE – Here is a low-quality preview of the yearbook!
Yearbook 2010-2011 72dpi

It’s that time of year again – time to put together the Adventure Guides Yearbook. Every circle should prepare up to four full-color 8.5×11 pages (single sided) covered with pictures, art – whatever you decide.

Any circle that sponsored an event should feel free to create one or more event pages.

Also, we’re looking for your event and circle meeting snapshots to round out the yearbook. If you have any great group or event pictures that you’d like to share, please mail them to yearbook@advguides.org and we’ll try to find a spot for them.

Pages should be delivered to me (Howling Chipmunk) either scanned in 300DPI full color (TIFF or BMP is good), or as hardcopy pages, no later than May 21st. We’ll create a 300dpi color PDF as the document master, and have it printed into a saddle-stitched glossy color booklet. We’re planning to have the yearbooks available at the end-of-season event in mid June.

Last year’s yearbook can be viewed at:

http://advguides.org/2010/02/yearbook/

We’re going to be using Dazzle Printing in Madison Heights to print the yearbooks. As a local non-profit, Ann O’Brien offered us a super discount on top of their already competitive prices. If you find yourself in need of any printing, please give them a call and let them know you were referred by the Troy Birmingham Adventure Guides.

Guides Summer Campout Survey

Howling Chipmunk — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 11:38:18 +0000

Adventure Guides is considering an all-family Summer Campout this year, the weekend of August 6th at Camp Ohiyesa in Holly. Guides members would be invited to bring their entire families (spouses included).

Camp Ohiyesa has a 100′ water slide into the lake, and horseback riding would be available.

Create your free online surveys with SurveyMonkey, the world’s leading questionnaire tool.

(If the survey doesn’t appear above, it may already have been taken from this computer.)

2010 Adventure Guide Registration

BigDaddy — Tue, 28 Sep 2010 00:56:09 +0000

The YMCA is now taking registrations for the 2010-2011 year. The registration price is as follows:

Adventure Guide Program – $75
Program Membership – $75 (if you are already a YMCA member this fee is not required)

Please note that your circle navigator will also be collecting a $20 Activity Fee.

Ideas for Circle Meetings

Howling Chipmunk — Mon, 27 Sep 2010 17:59:04 +0000

Over the years, individual circles have come up with a variety of activities for their monthly meetings. Crafts, charity work, tours and games of all kinds have come and gone. This page is an attempt to list some of the more memorable ones.

Please send your favorites to admin@advguides.org and we’ll add it here.

Arts and Crafts:: Plate Decorating – http://makit.com/; Craft Kits like Paper Pinwheels – orientaltrading.com; Decorating / Planting Flower Pots; Pinecar Building; Pumpkin Carving / Decorating; Making Sling Shots; Pine Cone + Peanut Butter + Birdseed = Bird Feeder; Paper Airplane Making / Flight Contest; Decorate a Campout Pillowcase - Decorate a white pillow case with fabric markers / permanent markers. Make sure you put your Guides name on it! Put it in dryer or iron to “set” ink and bring it to the campouts!; Home-Made Ice Cream in a Baggie – then the kids pour the accessories on.; Weather Predictor – rock in a tripod hung by string. Instructions to observe weather are obvious. Easily accessible on line.; Make a Motor – battery, magnet, wire and conductors – popular science.; Prepare and present family genealogy and family roots to the circle. Research family name, (either side Mom or Dad) prepare report and props and present.; Prepare basic essential kits for disasters or the homeless through your church. Find the event in need and satisfy a small part of the requirement as a circle activity.; Origami

Games and Activities:: Board Games like Apples to Apples; Capture the Flag; Tag; Hot Tubbing; Snowball Fight (Dads vs Kids); Carnival - great for spring, set up multiple challenges like shoot a basket, score a goal in hockey, treasure hunt, pennies in a bottle, pop balloon with darts, etc. Keep score with a scorecard for each participant.; Knot tying – short piece of rope, and a multitude of knots and knot history.

Away From Home:: Lazer Tag; Corn Maze/Haunted Corn Maze; Huckleberry Railroad; Mini Golf (Indoor or Outdoor); River Rouge Truck Plant Tour; Archery (Great Outdoors / Great Lakes Crossing); Professional, Collegiate or Minor League Game; Freep Plant Tour; The Henry Ford Museum

Charity:: Gleaners Food Bank; Forgotten Harvest; Red Kettle/Salvation Army; Care Packages – Military or Disaster Relief

Attaching Patches to Your Vest

Howling Chipmunk — Tue, 09 Feb 2010 20:27:44 +0000

Iron-on patches don’t always adhere to leather vests very well. I’ve had good luck adding hot glue to the patch before adhering it as outlined below. This also works for non-iron-on patches, you just use a little additional hot glue. You’ll need an iron, ironing board, hot glue gun, a sheet of newspaper to work the hot glue gun on, and a rag or old dish cloth.

Plug in your iron on the hottest setting, and your glue gun. Be sure the steam is turned off on your iron.
Set your vest on the ironing board and decide where you want each patch placed.
Once the hot glue gun is ready, put a fine bead of hot glue all the way around the back of the patch near the edge. If the patch does not have an embroidered edge be careful to stay back a bit to prevent the glue from squirting out.
Cover the back of the patch with a zig-zag pattern of hot glue. If the patch is not an iron-on patch, don’t be afraid to use extra, it will soak into the patch and the vest (note we’re talking about our open-grain Guides vests, I don’t know if this would work the same on finished leather).
Set the patch aside on the newspaper to cool. Repeat with all of your patches.
Make sure there are no “strings” of hot glue hanging off of the patches, these will leave dark lines on your vest.
Use the iron to pre-heat the leather where you’re going to place your patches.
Place the patches on the vest and cover with the rag (this keeps the bottom of the iron clean).
Press down on each patch with the iron for a full minute and a half. Periodically move the iron slightly to avoid cooking an iron shape into your vest.
Remove the rag and let the vest sit without moving while the hot glue cools and sets.
Press on the patches with your fingers. If the patch got hot enough to melt the glue, you shouldn’t be able to feel any ridges from the hot glue zip-zags. If you do, bring back the iron and try again.
Once the patches cool several minutes, gently check the edges to make sure they are adhered. Particularly with irregular edged patches (like the campfire flames) the tips may need an additional dot of hot glue and a quick hit with the iron to adhere.
Set the vest flat until completely cooled so the edges don’t pop loose.

If you have any comments or suggestions please leave them below.