Tweenies and a Promise ceremony

We had a busy meeting this week with two new girls joining the unit (one a younger sister of another Brownie and the other through a membership enquiry), another girl making her first visit and also a Promise ceremony for a girl that joined last term!

Credit: Girl Guides QLD

I have to admit, that I am terrible at holding Promise ceremonies in a timely manner. Our term program is always jam-packed with activities and while new girls joining the unit fit in fairly seamlessly, holding a Promise ceremony tends to fall wayside. 

The Brownie Guides love the tradition of setting up the mirror, grass, fake flowers and the parliament of owls that we have acquired over the years for the traditional Brownie Story ceremony (they still refuse to accept a girl has truly made her Promise unless she gets the "twist me and turn me" version!). The rigmarole of the whole occasion always takes up at least half our meeting time and I knew that this would be the case once again, so we added a little fire safety into the mix and had the girls discuss fire safety and practice lighting matches and then tea lights. 

The tea lights then lined the pathway to the toadstool and owls for our new Brownie and her Patrol Leader to walk. I was a little weary of the whole idea of candles (even tiny ones) on the floor so we drew chalk outlines on the floor so that the girls knew their boundaries. It worked perfectly and the girls behaved wonderfully! 

It was a lovely ceremony and now that we have already had a run-through this term, hopefully our Promise ceremony later in the term for the new Guides will run like a well oiled machine!

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Do you do anything special for Promise ceremonies?