And the countdown to the sleepover begins

I was so relieved when more Rainbows paid deposits for the sleepover. We now have 9 possibly 10 Rainbows going so it will definitely go ahead in the New Year. After deciding to do a sleepover, I would have been disheartened if I had to postpone it due to low numbers.


Even more important, it will be the last part of my Voyage award -  Skills. If I couldn't do the sleepover I wouldn't be able to get the Girlguiding qualification that is needed to fulfil the criteria. 

Rainbows 4 - 0 Teddies

On Monday I went to the North Tyneside Trefoil Guild County Executive Meeting which is a very grand title for an enjoyable morning with the Chairman, Secretary and Treasurers from the other Guilds in North Tyneside. It gives me another perspective on Guiding especially as I'm the youngest one there by quite a bit.

When we go round the members asking for news from the Guilds.... this lady is poorly, that one is housebound, another is very ill and me "We've had a baby" Of course this is the collective Trefoil Guild we and the actual mother is Lynsey with her beautiful baby Ilana.

We were told that there are 10 people in the County doing the Voyage Award (5 of which are from Forest Hall) and 725 nationally. I also saw a Bronze Voyage Award Brooch for the first time as the County Chairman had two to present to  Ann Elliot and Ella Baxter from our County. Well done to them both.

I came away with some tasks:

• Find a non-denominational, inspirational reading for the North East England AGM which is being held in Newcastle and find someone to read it. 
• Find two willing volunteers to be Stewards at the event which will involve directing traffic and taking care of any problems inside the venue. 
• Rally the Guild to actual go to the AGM at a cost of £5 (but free if you agree to be a steward).
• Organise the North Tyneside AGM in March and find a speaker.
• Sell some Trefoil Guild pens to raise some funds and promote the Guild

I can tick off selling the pens, getting someone to do the reading (when we find it), finding a speaker and getting support of our Guild with the organising of the AGM. 

Monday night was our regular Trefoil Guild meeting and we celebrated our first birthday with a visit to our local Pizzeria Amici's.

Tuesday was my Rainbow night and the night I would find out if the sleepover was a hit with the Rainbows. Three returned the form and the deposit and another after a talk with me said they would bring the money next week. Hope this week brings a few more, would hate to cancel it now.

And finally the answers to the 5T questions

1. great, fantastic OUTSTANDING
2. move SHIFT
3. use to record weight or height CHART
4. pay for things at a COUNTER
4. not a full amount FRACTION
6. prime number THIRTEEN OR NINETEEN
7. not savoury SWEET
8. 1st 2nd or 3rd POSITION
9. wait/pause HESITATE
10. from the Wizard of Oz DOROTHY

Two teddies or one that is the most important question

So far I haven't done anything for the skills category of the Voyage Award but that is about to change.  My Rainbow units have never done a sleepover so I've taken the big step of deciding to work towards an Overnight Licence. This is part of the Girlguiding Camp and Holiday Scheme and lets me run overnight events for my Rainbow unit.

I've already helped on a couple of sleepovers with other Rainbows units so have an idea of what is expected but its still a big leap to have the responsibility of it all. But the time is right, I have a fantastic team in the unit who will all help me and plenty of people who I can call on for advice when I panic (and I will).

I've picked a date in January, I've booked a venue and decided on the theme now all I need is the Rainbows to say yes.

This week I talked to the Rainbows about it and they were, shall I say, slightly excited. Amongst all the chatter were questions:

Can I bring 2 teddies?
What are we going to sleep on?
Are we sleeping here in our hall?
Do I get a badge?

As this is my first sleepover and I wanted to have the girls really excited about it that they would persuade their parents to say yes you can go I picked the theme of "Frozen". For those (and there must be some out there) who don't know this is the most popular Disney film of this year.  But I still wanted the girls to be part of the planning of the sleepover so  I asked them what they wanted to do on the sleepover.....funny no-one said sleep but they did say games, make something and eat. Think we'll be able to do all that.

I'm now waiting to find out if any Rainbows are going to come. Now that I've built myself up to do it I don't want to have to put it off, fingers crossed.

The Golden Girls of Forest Hall

I've been browsing through the note books and photos that were given to me when I became the Chairperson of our Guild. There is a photo album which states that our Guild was formed in 1964 so it has reached the grand old age of 50. Throughout all the photos, whether black and white or colour just like the current members it is women getting together and enjoying themselves whether it was having tea and biscuits, a trip to the garden centre, weekends away to Whittonstall (which I can remember going to as a Guide) or taking part in a barn dance. The common thread between then and now is food and drink.

We went through plenty of suggestions for how to celebrate this birthday: 50 lengths of the pool, 50 exercise classes, 50 photos of the Chairperson (me) in different locations in the North East, a 50's style afternoon tea, read 50 books.

In the end we did a night of challenges none of which involved food but did use a 50p. Although in the planning  I thought we could split into 2 teams for the challenges and the winning team would win a bar of chocolate each. Unfortunately we only had 6 people at that meeting so not enough to split into teams but just enough for us all to "win" a bar chocolate".

The challenges we did were

• flip a 50p off the side of the table and catch it
• carry a 50p between your knees and drop it in a cup
• how many items can you place on a 50p
• how many pictures can you draw using the 50p as the template
• who can balance a 50p on their nose for the longest
• who can get their 50p nearest the bottle
• balance a 50p on your finger and walk to the end of the room and back
• build a structure out of a sheet of paper to support the 50p
• and finally, a quiz by Joanne about the 5th T.

The 5th T I can hear you ask, well so did we so here is the quiz.

The fifth letter is a T

1. great, fantastic _ _ _ _ t _ _ _ _ _ _
2. move _ _ _ _ t
3. use to record weight or height _ _ _ _ t
4. pay for things at a _ _ _ _ t _ _
4. not a full amount _ _ _ _ t _ _ _
6. prime number _ _ _ _ t _ _ _
7. not savoury _ _ _ _ t
8. 1st 2nd or 3rd _ _ _ _t_ _ _
9. wait/pause _ _ _ _ t_ _ _
10. from the Wizard of Oz _ _ _ _  t _  _

For some this will probably be easy for others it may take a bit longer - just like the teams on the night. I was going to put the answers upside down at the bottom of this post but I cannot work out how so I will put them in the next post. They might be upside down they might not, you'll just have to wait and see.