Posted by Sydnee F

Program Host	Chapter
Host Region and Chapter	Lonestar William S. Malev BBG
Program Type	Community Service Havdalah Judaic Prayer/Services Shabbat Sisterhood Social Action Women's Issues
Time Required	Weekend
Target Population(s)	Members
Folds Targeted	Community Service Social Action Jewish Heritage Creativity Recreation Sisterhood
People Participating	10-30

Program Summary:

The main goal of this weekend was to strengthen sisterhood within the chapter. 15 girls attended and everybody said they had the time of their life! We had many different activities ranging throughout all the six folds!

Full Description:

The theme of our sisterhood retreat was Route 1866 because Malev's number is 1866.  Every activity we did was related to cars, roads, and sisterhood! We split everybody up into cars and headed out to Northwest Forest Conference Center, where our retreat was held. For each car, we made a "Road Games" packet to keep them busy and having a good time. Some games included Madlibs, license plate games, and an I Spy scavenger hunt. We also gave each girl a red and gold lanyard attached to a key chain for her to make. As soon as we arrived, we went to our main room for Friday Night Services. To make our services relating to the theme of Route 1866, we inserted fun facts, stories, and songs into the services. The songs included Life is a Highway, Route (18)66, and Bless the Broken Road. Our next activity was our Icebreaker. For this, we created game boards with red and yellow paw prints. If you landed on a red paw print, you chose from the "action" pile, where you would have to perform whatever action was on the card you chose. If you landed on a yellow paw print, you chose from the "question" pile, where you would have to answer the question on the card you picked.
Our next activity was the mirror activity, planned by Natalie Gizzy. This was a more serious activity that was focused on self-confidence. We turned the lights off and sit in a circle and told the girls that a box would be passed around and inside it you would see something strong and beautiful, but don’t tell your neighbors what you saw.  Inside of the box was a mirror.  We were all given paper and pens to write something special about every girl that would be put into their individual box, made by Natalie. When a girl finished, they went into the other room, where there were materials to make a papier-mâché candle. (We used red and yellow tissue paper, glitter, and glue to decorate the candles.) We then had our teambuilding activity. This was led by those from our chapter that attended RLTI.  The group was given challenges to complete. Succeeding in every challenge taught us many things about working in groups such as: listening and not just hearing our peers, not being afraid to make a mistake, and simply how to work better with others. After a long first day, everybody was exhausted and ready to hit the sack.
Saturday morning started with a bang. Immediately after breakfast, we had everyone play one of our “mini-games”. In preparing for the retreat, we created a few ten-minute mini-games having to do with cars that we played whenever we needed a transition into another activity. This particular mini-game was called car chase. It’s the car version of “duck, duck, goose” where you substitute “duck, duck, goose” for something having to do with cars. For example, my terms were “headlight, headlight, brake light”.  After waking everybody up with the mini-game, it was time to start the self-defense activity. We were so fortunate to have representatives from R.A.D. Texas come and teach us about how to avoid bad situations, and what to do if we find ourselves in a bad situation. They taught us that every girl has enough power in them to defend herself. For the first hour, they explained to us how to avoid bad situations, and we watched a brief movie on that very subject. For the next hour, they actually taught us self-defense moves that could be used on an attacker if we ever found ourselves in those circumstances. At the end, every girl was given a red whistle to put on her keychain to use in case of an emergency.
After lunch, it was time to start the spirit activity. Everybody knows that spirit is the key to having active members, and great turnouts at conventions and retreats, so we decided to have an activity dedicated to creating spirit items to be worn. There were four stations: creating friendship bracelet and spirit beads, decorating shorts with puffy paint, decorating red ribbons, and tie-dying socks. Before the retreat, we went out and bought 20 pairs of knee-high white socks to tie-dye. At the tie-dye station, each girl wrapped rubber-bands around their socks to create the pattern they wanted. The MIT moms then dyed one sock red and one sock yellow.  At the shorts station, the girls decorated the pair of shorts that they were asked to bring from home.  This activity took about an hour and half to complete, including clean up.
    Once the room was spotless again, we listened to another guest presentation.  Toby Myers, from Shalom Bayit, Houston Jewish Network Against Domestic Abuse: A Program of Jewish Family Service, came out to speak to us about healthy relationships.  This program was mainly a conversation to figure out how to create healthy relationships with friends, boyfriends/girlfriends, and anyone else you might meet.  This led to our community service project, which was making boxes full of toiletries to be donated to a women’s shelter in Houston.  Most of the women who live there were in abusive relationships.  As the girls finished the community service project, we had two hours of free time that ended with the girls going to dinner.  Afterwards, we had a Havdallah service.  Originally, this was going to be outside under the stars, but it had been raining all weekend, so we improvised.  All of the girls laid in a circle with the lights off, so it created a similar effect.  After this, we had a Route 1866 activity.  This was comprised of eight different stations around the room.  These eight stations were all creative and had to do with cars or Malev, such as Create-A-Car where they used their bodies to make a moving car.  We split the girls up into four teams and they visited each station, and they earned points based on their spirit and creativity.  At the end, the winning team received a prize.
    Next, we had a “scary story” time, where the girls who went to RLTI sat in a small circle in the center and everyone else filed in one at a time and formed a circle around them with the candle they made the previous night.  The room was silent and the lights were off.  The RLTI girls took turns saying a story of a made up BBYO chapter and went through a series of events with the chapter.  The girls said things like what would happen if nobody supported each other?  What would if nobody showed up?  What would happen if the MITS didn’t show up?  These stories were meant to show the girls that each person is key to the chapter’s success, and Malev can not survive if the girls in the chapter do not continue to love and support each other.
    This led to another sisterhood activity, called Sisterhood of the Traveling Pants, designed by our seniors.  We went around in a circle and said a BBG role model we have, and we wrote them on our very own pair of Traveling Pants!  After this, we each made a scrapbook page which a girl later on would put a picture in documenting her time with the pants.  This activity was so much fun and a great way to begin to wrap up the sisterhood weekend!  After this we had an activity called Spooeyneering, which was basically an activity where girls made their own dessert using spooey, chocolate chips, M & Ms, graham crackers, and other snack items.  We had a Good and Welfare after this, and then straight to the cabins!
    The MIT Moms woke everyone up with breakfast in bed the next morning(a baked good, banana, fruit cup, and orange juice)!  We then met in our room and had a meeting and then handed out everyone’s tie-dyed socks, ribbons, and shorts, and candles.  The girls went outside for pictures as the moms who were driving home arrived.  As always, we concluded with a Friendship Circle and then threw our bags into a car and went home.  Malev’s trip along Route 1866 was one filled with adventure, sisterly bonding, and a lot of amazing memories!

Speakers:

Sandra and Jim Baylor

Toby Myers

Submitter's Suggestions:

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