Five years ago, I was doing a sleepover activity for a group of 30 Girl Guides and 5 leaders at the Canada Aviation and Space Museum. The group arrived at 6 pm and, since it was still daytime, I decided to start their activities close to the windows. 30 minutes into the programming, the fire alarm rang. Guided by my training and instincts, I quickly rounded up the group and left with them via the main doors and brought them to the collection hangar that was next to the museum.
Once we entered the collection hangar, the girls started to ask me questions about why their programming was stopped and what were we doing in another building. After leading them to the far wall of the hangar, I sat them down and quietly explained to the group that what we had just experience was the safe way to respond to a fire alarm inside a building. I went through the different steps of exiting a building during a fire alarm with them and answered all of their questions. Afterwards, I gave them a small tour of the collection hangar during which time they learned a lot about some of our hidden gems.
After 40 minutes inside the hangar, I checked to see if the fire fighters had come to take care of the situation. As it turns out, it was a false alarm. Without missing a bit, I continued the rest of the programming with the girls by offering them a condensed version to make sure that they would get to do all of the activities (It is very important for Girl Guides and Scouts to cover all of the activities of the programs that we cover to obtain their badges).
A month after, I received a letter of thank you from the whole group that had attended my sleepover program that day. The leaders gave me high praises and the girls learned a valuable lesson in what to do whenever there is a fire alarm.
Algonquin College Social Media Certificate Program 