That night I slept on a warship
Now that it's spring, we're heading into one of the busiest times for Guiding - in my calendar, anyway! I've been on quite a few events recently, some of which have taken a lot of planning. As always, I can't share photos of the girls, so these are just a snapshot of what we were doing!
Last May, a plea went out for a leader to step in to help with a Brownie holiday and first aid, as their usual first aider was no longer able to go. I stepped in, and got on so well with the leaders and girls that they invited me back this year! Our theme was camping (although we were sleeping in tents indoors, which did seem a bit unnatural to me - still, the girls loved it though!) and we crammed a lot into the weekend.
First things first, one Brownie had her birthday on the Friday and so we all shared her cake and I had yet another cup of tea.
One Brownie had brought along some bunting to decorate the tent she was in, which I thought was a lovely touch.
We made camp cutlery. On camp, everyone brings their own cutlery and crockery, and whilst crockery can often be distinctive, most knives and forks look pretty similar - this is why you need camp cutlery! It's a basic set of cutlery, with the handles decorated using Fimo, and then baked and varnished. As you can see, the end product is pretty distinctive! I'm not entirely sure how durable some of them would be for long-term use, but for some of the older Brownies who are heading up to Guides soon, I guess it won't be long before they find out!
No camp would be complete without a campfire, so on Saturday evening we headed outside to the (glamorous) car park and lit a disposable barbecue. Yes, it's not the same as collecting your own firewood and building a fire, but given the limited resources we had available, we gave the girls a taste of what they can expect at Guides and I think this is a good thing. We sang some songs and toasted marshmallows.
I think it's important to teach girls how to behave around fire - yes, it is scary and hot, and can be dangerous, but it doesn't have to be: if we behave sensibly, follow precautions, then we can have a good and safe time. Marshmallows aren't going to cook if you're holding your stick 2m away from the embers! Our plan for the evening was to get girls to become more confident around fire, to learn how to use it and most importantly, how to respect it.
On Sunday morning we got the girls cooking breakfast outside using gas camping stoves - something most of them had never seen before. We went over the importance of fire safety (always have a bucket of water on standby just in case, never leave a flame unattended, tie hair back etc) and then the girls did an excellent job of cooking nearly 50 sausages for us all. They were delicious, and several Brownies commented on how much better they tasted than sausages cooked indoors.
One thing the leaders seemed to repeat on loop throughout the weekend was reminding the girls to hang up their coats properly and put their shoes away neatly - with only one main door into the building, the girls' tendency to just chuck their shoes and coats anywhere meant that it soon became a giant trip hazard and of course took thrice as long to get outside as it took aaaaaaaaaaages to find the second shoe. I was therefore delighted when at one point the hallway looked like this - hurrah!
No Guiding event is complete without a badge or two - I was given the eggy bread badge as a thank you present, and we all got the Hampshire West Brownies badge. A fab weekend and I hope they invite me again next year.
From Brownies to older Guides and Rangers - I'm part of a team of leaders taking a massive Girlguiding group to Paris this August, and so a few of us met up for a sleepover to get to know each other a bit better before the trip. We stayed at a campsite near Bristol, amazing scenery considering how close it is to the motorway.
One thing I absolutely did not like was the incredibly steep road up to the campsite from the farm at the bottom - oh my goodness is it steep! You can't really tell from the photo below (when I was the passenger in another leader's 4x4 and we were heading back down) but trust me, it was steep! First gear all the way and my Fiat 500 wasn't a big fan of it! I tweeted about this and one person replied, correctly identifying where we were - the track appears to have a bit of a reputation!
The steep track is (just about) worth it though - the venue is lovely and the views are stunning.
The girls all had a great time, what I love about this age group (I think the youngest we had with us was 14) is that they are so much better at occupying their time than Brownies, and need less adult input. I got over twenty badges sewn on my camp blanket, as I was able to sit back and do some sewing whilst the girls got on with their activities and also just chatting and having fun - Guiding events are sometimes 'go go go' which is great, and there's definitely a place for those sorts of events, but there's also definitely a place, and I'd argue a need, to have spaces where the girls can just run around, then lounge in the sun, and just chat and be.
About a decade ago I heard that it was possible for Guiding groups to have a sleepover on HMS Belfast (the event is called Kip In a Ship) and this soon became a Guiding ambition of mine. At the time, the minimum age was 8, and as Brownies starts at 7, I wasn't keen on organising a trip that not all my Brownies could attend - also, it's incredibly expensive when you add in the cost of staying overnight, train travel to London, food etc. It also gets booked up incredibly quickly.
Fast forward a few years, and our unit has recently received quite a bit of money in Gift Aid, which we need to spend on something to benefit our Brownies - Kip In a Ship came back to me and I had a look - I was delighted to see the minimum age had dropped to 7! As a leadership team we did a lot of maths, and decided we could subsidise the cost of the trip using Gift Aid. We got a selection of dates all the leaders could do and then it was a waiting game until the 2019 dates became available. I was checking regularly as when I emailed, staff said they couldn't confirm precisely when they would be released. One day I did my usual checking, expecting as always to see 2019 as unavailable, but this time the dates were live! I booked a weekend immediately (it being the only weekend still available out of the ones the leaders could do), paid the deposit, then emailed everyone to say I'd finally managed to book it!
We had dinner at Pizza Express (I cannot praise the staff highly enough for how well they dealt with all our Brownies, the various dietary requirements and our tight schedule) before heading back to the ship. By this time it is closed to the public, so it was all ours! We had a couple of educational sessions with the fab crew on board, and had a tour, learning about its history and hoisting flags.
As Guiding sleepovers go, the view wasn't too bad:
We then slept in the actual rooms used by the crew when the ship was in use - although in modern bunk beds rather than hammocks (which I think a few of the girls were disappointed about!). We all slept quite well, and had breakfast in the morning before getting the train home. It was one of the best Brownie trips I've done - all the staff we encountered were excellent, Kip In a Ship itself was well organised and everything worked out, even when we had to quickly get the Brownies to pick up their bags and run when there was a platform change at very short notice! An expensive trip, yes, but well worth the money, and it was great to be able to share the experience with another unit and show the girls the friendships that Girlguiding allows you to make. Brilliant!
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