This post is about our pack holiday and the activities we did surrounding our theme: detectives.
During the weekend, the girls were working in their sixes to solve a mystery - which leader had stolen the cookies from the cookie jar on the Friday night. There were six activities for them to do over the weekend which would eventually lead to them being able to deduce which leader it was. The activities were cookie testing, fingerprint analysis, footprint analysis, map reading, chromatography on inks, and pets. Below are full descriptions of what they had to do for each one. The girls all had a table in their booklet with all the leaders names down the side and the 6 activities across the top so they could mark in their predictions after each activity.
Cookie Testing
Each six was given a bag containing some cookie chunks which supposedly were found at the scene of the crime and 3 different types of cookie - white choc chip, milk choc chip, and Rolo. They could look at and taste all 3 options and the evidence to decide which flavour it was. They also had a sheet which told them what cookies each Leader preferred so they could put crosses in the relevant box.
Fingerprint Analysis
All the leaders had provided fingerprints for the girls to look at. Brown Owl then gave them 5 which had been found at the scene of the crime for them to match up. Some of them were quite obvious as they were noticeably larger or smaller than the rest but some of them were quite hard for the girls to match up, although they all had fun trying.We then gave them the fingerprint paint so they could look at their own fingerprints and try and work out of they had arches, whorls, loops or a combination or all three. They all enjoyed that too, although a few of them did get a bit carried away and started doing whole hand prints and making pictures from their fingerprints so we had to put a stop to it.
Footprint Analysis
One of the YLs had gone round school and taken rubbings of some of her friend's shoes. The girls were then given a few that had been found 'around the house' and they had to compare them to all the leaders ones to decide who had been in the area. They managed this quite quickly - it was far easier than the fingerprints.
Map Reading
The girls were given a map of the area surrounding the house which had a few points marked on it. Each point had the name of a person and the time they were seen there. The girls had been told that the cookies had been stolen between 5 and 6pm and they could then deduce from the times on the map who was around when the cookies had been stolen.
Chromatography with Ink
The girls were told that some ink had been found at the scene of the crime. They were given some pieces of paper with spots of each leaders favourite ink on them. They then held the bottom of the strip in some water. The water was soaked up through the paper and carries the ink with it, separating it out into its separate colours. Brown Owl had chosen a pen which separated nicely into pink, yellow and blue (technically magenta, yellow and cyan) as the evidence pen and then a couple of the leaders had the same pen, some had a permanent pen (which doesn't separate at all) and some had other pens that only split into two colours. Some of the girls were really good at getting it to work but some others held it too deep in the water and got the whole thing wet, ruining the effect. One six had ruined one of theirs but had somehow done two of another one with the same pen so Brown Owl slyly changed the name on the paper before calling them over and saying she thought they'd missed one! They didn't seem to realise what she'd done and dutifully put a cross in the corresponding box.
Pets
The final activity involved pets. The girls were given a sheet which had 5 different 'animals' on (they were really weird alien creatures) and another one with an identification key on. They could then follow the key to find out the name of the animal that had been seen in the woods around the time of the theft, and thus which leader had been around (as all the Leaders had a different named pet). They found this very easy too.
At the end of the weekend, each six announced who they thought had stolen the cookies. It had been planned that, during the weekend there could be a few possibilities but at the end there would only be one person who had ticks (or crosses) across the board. That person was Cruella de Vil - one of the YLs who had come up with the idea in the first place - which we thought was fitting. All the sixes had got the correct answer.
I thought it was a good idea to do a theme like this where we could have something ongoing during the weekend, as it made the girls feel more engaged and made them feel special as they were investigating the leaders.
Showing posts with label eastleach. Show all posts
Showing posts with label eastleach. Show all posts
Wednesday, 29 October 2014
Monday, 27 October 2014
Pack Holiday 2014 - Sunday
12/10/14
The girls woke up at about 7 this morning. I was first up, once again, and went in to see them as I did yesterday. It was one of the girls' birthdays today and a group of them were having a mini party for her in one of the bottom bunks with some jammy dodgers! I went down to the kitchen to get a drink and then one of the YLs woke up too and came into the girls room with me to help entertain them. The cooks surfaced pretty quickly this morning and made breakfast. It was the same as yesterday, although we ran out of cereals and some girls had to share a small box between them but no one seemed to mind.
Once we'd eaten, we did some more activities, in three groups once again. One six was was making paper aeroplanes, one six was writing invisible messages with lemon juice and the third group were doing more detective work.
The aeroplanes were from Baker Ross. The planes themselves were made from polystyrene and covered in paper so the girls could colour them in with felt tips or pencils. A couple of them were peeling a little bit but that was easily fixed with a little bit of prit-stick. The girls all seemed to enjoy colouring them in and then throwing them around the living room and down the corridor (with permission because it was raining outside). They actually flew much better than I thought they would; some of them were getting some distance on them and they were testing the different shaped one to find which went the furthest!
The second group were in the craft room with the YLs, writing messages on paper with lemon juice. We then had loads of pieces of paper lying around the house as they had to be dry so they looked blank before you heated them to reveal the message. Unfortunately, I don't believe they worked terribly well as I never saw one after heating.
The final group were working on more of the detective activities. Again, a full post is coming shortly (it should be the one after this one) but the girls were doing footprints and maps in this session.
We then had some cakes that one of the YLs had brought with her (they were amazing!) and then the girls went back and carried on with anything they hadn't finished (mostly owls and paper aeroplanes) as well as the last two parts to the detective work; chromatography and pets. While the girls were doing this, the YLs all did the scrapbook for this year. Each year someone fills in a double page spread in the scrapbook for the house and the girls really enjoy looking through the old books and finding all the times we've been here (every year since 2002 now!).
Several of the girls then asked if they could make bead geckos; a staple craft for our unit since an ex-YL introduced them way back when I was a Brownie! Brown Owl got out the beads and most of the girls sat on the floor in the lounge, making them. Most of the older girls know how to make them and they were teaching the younger ones so we didn't actually need to do anything!
Three girls also asked if they could go outside and so I went and sat on the bench by the door and watched them run around for 5 minutes until they decided that actually, it was a bit cold and they were going to go inside again.
We had to do a speedy tidy because lunch was suddenly ready and the girls were so engrossed in gecko making that no-one had set the table. Lunch was roast chicken, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, stuffing (for those who wanted), carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn, and gravy. Hardly any of the girls had stuffing but that was fine with the Leaders! We encouraged the girls to eat at least one of their vegetables - we knew that it would be too complicated to try and send out plates specific to each girl (I know I hate broccoli but I was sat next to a YL who does so I swapped it for some of her sweetcorn) so everyone got everything on their plate. They then had jelly and ice cream for pudding. The girls got really excited because the jelly was 3 layers: red, orange and green all in one bowl! They could choose if they wanted one, the other or both. When everyone was done eating, the cooks announced that they'd made far too much jelly and that anyone who wanted could have some more. They bought out another giant bowl that hadn't even been started and several girls (including two YLs) got out spoons and started eating it from the bowl!
After lunch, the girls all went to their rooms to pack their bags ready to go home while a couple of the YLs set up the tuck shop again. I left the girl to it for a bit and then went in to make sure things were neat. One of the girls was in tears because another Leader had told her that she had to put her sleeping bag in a bag but it didn't have one and her Dad was just going to carry it. I reassured her that it was fine; I think it was just tiredness that caused her to get upset about it. Another girl then came up to me and told me she couldn't find her purse and she wanted to buy something from the tuck shop when it was her sixes turn. I helped her look in her bag and around her bed but we couldn't find it anywhere. I could see she was getting close to tears so I went had had a quiet word with Brown Owl who said that she could buy something and we would write it down as a IOU for her to pay next week at Brownies if she couldn't find her purse by the end of the day. She cheered up immediately and forgot all about it.
After the tuck shop, we gathered all the girls in the lounge for the final part of the weekend - souvenirs! Each girl gets a resin bear from the Girlguiding shop and a badge to say they've stayed at Campwood House. Some years we;ve given out stickers for completing various crafts and helping out around the house but this year we didn't so we pulled names out of a hat to see who got to choose their bear first (instead of it being the girl with the most stickers). The Leaders all got a present too, as a thank you. We sang Brownie Bells and then I went out to let the parents know they could come in and collect their girls. We ask them to wait in their cars until we are completely done because it would get too chaotic with girls wanting to hug their parents while we finish off and parents milling around in the house. Once we open the door, all hell breaks loose for a while as parents carry bags around and try and fit them out the door while other girls and their parents are trying to get in to pick up stuff! Eventually, all the girls had gone and it was left to us to clean up and pack away our stuff.
We have a check list which means we don't have to think too hard about it, we can just follow the list so I got the hoover out and started on the girls' bedroom which always takes the longest. I had to lie down by each bed and make sure there were no sweets or wrappers under there as the hoover can't reach all the way under. I found quite a few, including a sweet I thought was an M&M but it turned out to be wet and sticky - not very pleasant... We found quite a few clothes left on radiators and drying racks as we were tidying but luckily all of them were named so they can be handed back at next weeks meeting. Finally, we locked up and left for this year.
It was a really enjoyable pack holiday, if a little tiring as per usual! The girls all seemed to enjoy themselves and we didn't have any massive falling outs (always a worry with 15 tired girls in one house for a weekend). It was also really nice to see how much the girls had missed me and I'd only been away for 3 weeks - I dread to think what the reception will be when I go back for Christmas and have been gone for 9 more weeks! Once again, it brought back good memories of people I haven't seen in years and people I will sadly never see again but they are all happy ones and I hope I have created some lasting memories for this group of girls - after all, that is why I do this. Bring on next year!
The girls woke up at about 7 this morning. I was first up, once again, and went in to see them as I did yesterday. It was one of the girls' birthdays today and a group of them were having a mini party for her in one of the bottom bunks with some jammy dodgers! I went down to the kitchen to get a drink and then one of the YLs woke up too and came into the girls room with me to help entertain them. The cooks surfaced pretty quickly this morning and made breakfast. It was the same as yesterday, although we ran out of cereals and some girls had to share a small box between them but no one seemed to mind.
Once we'd eaten, we did some more activities, in three groups once again. One six was was making paper aeroplanes, one six was writing invisible messages with lemon juice and the third group were doing more detective work.
The aeroplanes were from Baker Ross. The planes themselves were made from polystyrene and covered in paper so the girls could colour them in with felt tips or pencils. A couple of them were peeling a little bit but that was easily fixed with a little bit of prit-stick. The girls all seemed to enjoy colouring them in and then throwing them around the living room and down the corridor (with permission because it was raining outside). They actually flew much better than I thought they would; some of them were getting some distance on them and they were testing the different shaped one to find which went the furthest!
The second group were in the craft room with the YLs, writing messages on paper with lemon juice. We then had loads of pieces of paper lying around the house as they had to be dry so they looked blank before you heated them to reveal the message. Unfortunately, I don't believe they worked terribly well as I never saw one after heating.
The final group were working on more of the detective activities. Again, a full post is coming shortly (it should be the one after this one) but the girls were doing footprints and maps in this session.
We then had some cakes that one of the YLs had brought with her (they were amazing!) and then the girls went back and carried on with anything they hadn't finished (mostly owls and paper aeroplanes) as well as the last two parts to the detective work; chromatography and pets. While the girls were doing this, the YLs all did the scrapbook for this year. Each year someone fills in a double page spread in the scrapbook for the house and the girls really enjoy looking through the old books and finding all the times we've been here (every year since 2002 now!).
Several of the girls then asked if they could make bead geckos; a staple craft for our unit since an ex-YL introduced them way back when I was a Brownie! Brown Owl got out the beads and most of the girls sat on the floor in the lounge, making them. Most of the older girls know how to make them and they were teaching the younger ones so we didn't actually need to do anything!
Three girls also asked if they could go outside and so I went and sat on the bench by the door and watched them run around for 5 minutes until they decided that actually, it was a bit cold and they were going to go inside again.
We had to do a speedy tidy because lunch was suddenly ready and the girls were so engrossed in gecko making that no-one had set the table. Lunch was roast chicken, potatoes, Yorkshire puddings, stuffing (for those who wanted), carrots, broccoli, sweetcorn, and gravy. Hardly any of the girls had stuffing but that was fine with the Leaders! We encouraged the girls to eat at least one of their vegetables - we knew that it would be too complicated to try and send out plates specific to each girl (I know I hate broccoli but I was sat next to a YL who does so I swapped it for some of her sweetcorn) so everyone got everything on their plate. They then had jelly and ice cream for pudding. The girls got really excited because the jelly was 3 layers: red, orange and green all in one bowl! They could choose if they wanted one, the other or both. When everyone was done eating, the cooks announced that they'd made far too much jelly and that anyone who wanted could have some more. They bought out another giant bowl that hadn't even been started and several girls (including two YLs) got out spoons and started eating it from the bowl!
After lunch, the girls all went to their rooms to pack their bags ready to go home while a couple of the YLs set up the tuck shop again. I left the girl to it for a bit and then went in to make sure things were neat. One of the girls was in tears because another Leader had told her that she had to put her sleeping bag in a bag but it didn't have one and her Dad was just going to carry it. I reassured her that it was fine; I think it was just tiredness that caused her to get upset about it. Another girl then came up to me and told me she couldn't find her purse and she wanted to buy something from the tuck shop when it was her sixes turn. I helped her look in her bag and around her bed but we couldn't find it anywhere. I could see she was getting close to tears so I went had had a quiet word with Brown Owl who said that she could buy something and we would write it down as a IOU for her to pay next week at Brownies if she couldn't find her purse by the end of the day. She cheered up immediately and forgot all about it.
After the tuck shop, we gathered all the girls in the lounge for the final part of the weekend - souvenirs! Each girl gets a resin bear from the Girlguiding shop and a badge to say they've stayed at Campwood House. Some years we;ve given out stickers for completing various crafts and helping out around the house but this year we didn't so we pulled names out of a hat to see who got to choose their bear first (instead of it being the girl with the most stickers). The Leaders all got a present too, as a thank you. We sang Brownie Bells and then I went out to let the parents know they could come in and collect their girls. We ask them to wait in their cars until we are completely done because it would get too chaotic with girls wanting to hug their parents while we finish off and parents milling around in the house. Once we open the door, all hell breaks loose for a while as parents carry bags around and try and fit them out the door while other girls and their parents are trying to get in to pick up stuff! Eventually, all the girls had gone and it was left to us to clean up and pack away our stuff.
We have a check list which means we don't have to think too hard about it, we can just follow the list so I got the hoover out and started on the girls' bedroom which always takes the longest. I had to lie down by each bed and make sure there were no sweets or wrappers under there as the hoover can't reach all the way under. I found quite a few, including a sweet I thought was an M&M but it turned out to be wet and sticky - not very pleasant... We found quite a few clothes left on radiators and drying racks as we were tidying but luckily all of them were named so they can be handed back at next weeks meeting. Finally, we locked up and left for this year.
It was a really enjoyable pack holiday, if a little tiring as per usual! The girls all seemed to enjoy themselves and we didn't have any massive falling outs (always a worry with 15 tired girls in one house for a weekend). It was also really nice to see how much the girls had missed me and I'd only been away for 3 weeks - I dread to think what the reception will be when I go back for Christmas and have been gone for 9 more weeks! Once again, it brought back good memories of people I haven't seen in years and people I will sadly never see again but they are all happy ones and I hope I have created some lasting memories for this group of girls - after all, that is why I do this. Bring on next year!
Wednesday, 22 October 2014
Pack Holiday 2014 - Saturday
This morning I woke up at 7:30 to the sounds of the girls next door moving around. I wrapped myself in my blanket and went to keep them quiet as none of the other Leaders were awake! They were all quite excitable and hungry but I had to tell them they had to stay in their room until some of the other adults woke up. I had quite an amusing conversation with one of the older girls about going in the river:
Girl: Will we be able to go in the river today?
Me: I don't know, it depends if it is too deep because of the rain this week.
Girl: Oh... If it's too deep, will you drink the water until it's not too deep?
Me: No! That's way too much for me to drink!
Girl: *short pause* Well, buy an elephant and it can drink it all!
I then poked my head into the Leaders' room to find that one of the cooks was awake. She said she would get up and make a cup of tea and see if that would wake the others up. I went back to our room and some of the Young Leaders were up too so we let the girls into the lounge, provided they weren't too loud. I then sat in the Leaders' room and drank my cup of tea while chatting to them.
Breakfast was finally served at about 8:30. We sat all the girls down and then those who wanted could have cereals. I spent most of the time they were eating, serving drinks! Once they were done, the waitresses cleared the tables and then brought out eggy bread, toast and sausages. The cooks had taken orders from the girls earlier so the kitchen was a bit chaotic with the waitresses being told exactly who each meal was for so that everyone got something. I'd finally sat down to enjoy my own breakfast when the doorbell went. Our Young Leader and I both ran towards the door because we knew it would be our Guide, much to the amusement of the girls! We let her in and she was attacked by a few girls before Brown Owl told them to sit down and eat. She made herself some eggy bread so the cooks could stay sat down and then joined us for breakfast.
When we were done eating, we made sure all the girls had brushed their teeth and then sat them down in the lounge to explain the plan for the morning. We had 3 activities planned and they would rotate around them in their sixes. One six would paint owl tealight holders, one six would go outside and make rafts and the third six would start on their detective work.
The owls were bought from Baker Ross. The girls painted them with acrylic paints and the could add details with pens once they were dry. Brown Owl discovered that it was quite hard to get a neat join between colours so a line in a contrasting colour helped disguise that. I didn't use the pens though and I think mine came out OK. We sent them home with an electric tealight in (also from Baker Ross) as we thought it was safer and we were told that the paint could peel off if you used a real candle. Here is mine, with and without the candle on:
The girls outside were collecting sticks for their raft. We didn't know if the river was going to be too deep for them to get in when we got there so we thought we should take a back up plan. The plan was that each six would have a raft to race down the river. We made them from sticks and string so, if we couldn't catch them after the race, they wouldn't cause too much damage to the environment as they would decompose pretty easily and quickly. The girls all struggled to actually make their rafts though so they collected lots of sticks and our Guide made them for them while they helped the Young Leaders to collect larger sticks for the camp fire tonight. As it had rained overnight, all the sticks were damp so we had all the radiators on in our room to try and dry them out enough that they could be lit!
The final group of girls were starting on the detective work covering the whole weekend. A full post on this is coming soon but these girls were working on the first two activities; biscuits and fingerprints.
We had a break for elevenses and then the girls rotated so, by lunch time, they had completed all three activities. Lunch was a quick meal of sandwiches, crisps and fruit. The food was put on the table and the girls could help themselves. We encouraged, but didn't force, each girl to have some fruit and I was surprised by the number of girls who did take some, even if I did end up eating most of the bowl of apple slices from my end of the table!
After lunch, we did my wide game. I coloured in the clothes, cut them out and laminated them. I stapled some string to each one so it could easily be hung on trees and bushes, Each set had a coloured dot on the back that corresponded to the colour surrounding one of the people outlines so the girls had to find a specific colour. I took one of the YLs and we tied the clothes to trees and bushes along a path that goes round the house. We then got the girls in their sixes and gave them the outline of a person before sending them off with 2 Leaders. We told them that, if they saw something that didn't have their colour on the back that they were to leave it where they found it and they were all really good at doing so. Two groups found all their items by the end of the trail but my group were still missing one thing (I made a point of not helping them except for telling them which way to go and the junctions) so the whole unit walked back along the route looking for it. As I knew where things had been put, I knew where to look for it and I found it pretty quickly. We put the stuff back in the house and set off on our walk to the river.
Shortly after we had left, it started spitting with rain but, as we had made sure that every girl had a rain coat, we carried on. A couple of the girls complained when we came out of the woods into the open but the vast majority seemed to be enjoying themselves in the rain! I ended up at the back, as per usual, with 4 girls and 2 YLs. We were doing quite a good job of keeping up with the rest of the unit for a while but then the girls started slowing down. We tried quite a few tactics to speed them up, some of which worked briefly, but we were slowly being left behind. It didn't really matter as I know the way well but it was quite tiring for us to be continually encouraging the girls. Eventually 3 of them ran to catch up with a friend in the main group and we were left with one girl who, when told to speed up, would do so for a dozen steps or so and then slow down again! We did eventually make it to the river and most of the girls were already in as Brown Owl had decided it was safe for them to do so. They paddled around for a bit and then we got out the rafts and had a few races. We had one girls from each six stood on the bridge and then two YLs stood downstream. On the count of three, the girls all dropped their rafts into the river and the YLs caught them when they reached them so we could reuse them. We had a couple of issues with rafts getting caught under the bridge but, after quite a few races, we crowned the winner. We then got the girls out the river and walked back to the house again.
When we got back, we had the usual fight with a few girls and their wellies as water creates quite a lot of suction. This year, however, we had a girl who wearing some wellies that were a little bit too small for her and it took 3 leaders and a lot of giggling to get them off her feet! We then had a lot of the girls wearing their pyjamas for the rest of the day because they had got soaked, including me as I'd just taken one pair of jeans because I knew I wouldn't go in the river forgetting that it could rain and soak them through... We put all the wet things over drying racks and radiators but we had to tell the girls to take their clothes off the radiators in their room because the dust on them set off the fire alarm briefly.
The girls then had rest hour. I spent the time sat in my room, attempting one of the worksheets I was set this week and the girls were in their room, being quiet. Two of the YLs set up and ran the tuck shop during that time. We sell a variety of small things the girls can take home with them to remember pack holiday, as well as (a limited number of) chocolates and sweets to supplement their midnight feasts (that, theoretically, we don't know about!).
Once we were done, the girls then did some more of the detective work in their sixes and worked on their owls if they had more to do on them until dinner. Dinner was fish finger or chicken nuggets with chips and peas.
After dinner, the YLs went outside and lit the camp fire. We decided though that, because most of the girls were in their pyjamas because their clothes were wet and the grass was also wet, that we would sit inside and sing songs while watching the fire outside. We sang, Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar?, Cecil Is My Caterpillar, Wishy Washy, Hole at the Bottom of the Sea, Have You Ever Seen a Penguin Come to Tea?, and My Ship Sailed From China (lyrics to follow in another post but I think most of them are here anyway!). We had to do Cookie Jar because of our theme and, ironically, the last person in the song was Snowy Owl; one of the suspects in the detective work the girls have been doing. When we got to the end, one of the girls yelled "so it was you Snowy!" to which she replied "ssshh, it's a secret!", which made a lot of them laugh.
We then started getting the girls ready for bed. We had tears from a couple of them because they were missing their parents; in particular we had a few who's parents are split up and they would normally see their Dad over the weekend but they couldn't this weekend. We normally have some girls who get a little homesick when they get really tired but they all settle down when we tell them that they'll see their parents the next day anyway.
Eventually, they all got into bed and were relatively quiet. The Leaders all sat in the living room for a while, chatting before we all went to bed too, at about 11.
Monday, 20 October 2014
Pack Holiday 2014 - Friday
10/10/14
It's pack holiday time again! This year was a little more logistically challenging since I'm at university but we still managed it. Dad picked me up after my last lecture and we drove up to the pack holiday house (same place as last year). We arrived at 6:30, just as the last few parents were leaving. I managed to get out of the car unnoticed but was promptly attacked as I walked into the house, laden with my stuff, as the girls realised I was there! I finally extracted myself from them to go and say hi to Brown Owl and the other leaders.
Once all the parents had left, we sat the girls down and ran through the rough plan for the weekend and the rules (don't run down the corridor, don't go in certain rooms and don't go outside without a Guider, pretty much) before having a small dinner of pizza. There were vegetarian, ham and pineapple, and pepperoni pizzas which were left on the table for the girls to help themselves to. They should have eaten something before they came so this was just a quick snack to keep them going until bedtime. None of the girls seemed to like the vegetarian one (which was OK with us leaders who were treating this as our dinner because we hadn't had time to eat) and lots of them picked the pineapple off the ham and pineapple one but they all ate some and no one complained massively.
When they were done, we went outside to do some Morse Code in the dark as our theme for this pack holiday is detectives and, when we did this in the meeting place, it was quite hard to tell if the torch was flashing or not. We split the girls into their sixes and then split the sixes in half. Each half had a Leader and a copy of the Morse code alphabet. The groups then took it in turns to send messages to each other. The idea was that they would send the whole message and then the other group would say what they had seen but it turned into the groups sending each letter until the other group had yelled back the correct letter. They also ended up yelling 'space' at each other because they couldn't figure out how to send it! There was a wide variety of random words sent by other groups but the one I was with actually had a mini conversation:
Group 1 - How are you?
Group 2 - Good thanks, you?
Group 1 - Great, thank you
Group 2 - That's amazing!
We then came back inside and the girls had hot chocolate while they made their name cards for the table. Every meal we have, we muddle the names up so the girls aren't sitting by the same people each meal. They then went and got ready for bed. Once they were all changed, we left the light on for 15 minutes as some of them wanted to read. We had a bit of a fight over that as, when we had left the room, some of the girls turned off the lights because they wanted to read with their torches and other girls got upset because they didn't have a torch so couldn't read. We compromised by turning the light back on and telling the girls who wanted to use their torches that they could just put a blanket or sleeping bag over their head. They then all got really excited about doing that and everything calmed down again!
All us Young Leaders chilled out in the lounge with an iPod and played 'Who Am I?' (using the app where you hold the iPod up to your head). It got quite rowdy at one point and we had to shut the door so we wouldn't wake the girls but most of them were still up anyway! We finally went to bed about midnight and the girls were all still up. When we got up the next morning, we found that they'd been so loud that Brown Owl had to get out of bed and had confiscated their torches! She always says that she doesn't mind them talking a little after lights out (they're excited to be away after all) but if she has to get up once she's gone to bed then there'll be trouble. It looks like this is set to be a chaotic weekend!
It's pack holiday time again! This year was a little more logistically challenging since I'm at university but we still managed it. Dad picked me up after my last lecture and we drove up to the pack holiday house (same place as last year). We arrived at 6:30, just as the last few parents were leaving. I managed to get out of the car unnoticed but was promptly attacked as I walked into the house, laden with my stuff, as the girls realised I was there! I finally extracted myself from them to go and say hi to Brown Owl and the other leaders.
Once all the parents had left, we sat the girls down and ran through the rough plan for the weekend and the rules (don't run down the corridor, don't go in certain rooms and don't go outside without a Guider, pretty much) before having a small dinner of pizza. There were vegetarian, ham and pineapple, and pepperoni pizzas which were left on the table for the girls to help themselves to. They should have eaten something before they came so this was just a quick snack to keep them going until bedtime. None of the girls seemed to like the vegetarian one (which was OK with us leaders who were treating this as our dinner because we hadn't had time to eat) and lots of them picked the pineapple off the ham and pineapple one but they all ate some and no one complained massively.
When they were done, we went outside to do some Morse Code in the dark as our theme for this pack holiday is detectives and, when we did this in the meeting place, it was quite hard to tell if the torch was flashing or not. We split the girls into their sixes and then split the sixes in half. Each half had a Leader and a copy of the Morse code alphabet. The groups then took it in turns to send messages to each other. The idea was that they would send the whole message and then the other group would say what they had seen but it turned into the groups sending each letter until the other group had yelled back the correct letter. They also ended up yelling 'space' at each other because they couldn't figure out how to send it! There was a wide variety of random words sent by other groups but the one I was with actually had a mini conversation:
Group 1 - How are you?
Group 2 - Good thanks, you?
Group 1 - Great, thank you
Group 2 - That's amazing!
We then came back inside and the girls had hot chocolate while they made their name cards for the table. Every meal we have, we muddle the names up so the girls aren't sitting by the same people each meal. They then went and got ready for bed. Once they were all changed, we left the light on for 15 minutes as some of them wanted to read. We had a bit of a fight over that as, when we had left the room, some of the girls turned off the lights because they wanted to read with their torches and other girls got upset because they didn't have a torch so couldn't read. We compromised by turning the light back on and telling the girls who wanted to use their torches that they could just put a blanket or sleeping bag over their head. They then all got really excited about doing that and everything calmed down again!
All us Young Leaders chilled out in the lounge with an iPod and played 'Who Am I?' (using the app where you hold the iPod up to your head). It got quite rowdy at one point and we had to shut the door so we wouldn't wake the girls but most of them were still up anyway! We finally went to bed about midnight and the girls were all still up. When we got up the next morning, we found that they'd been so loud that Brown Owl had to get out of bed and had confiscated their torches! She always says that she doesn't mind them talking a little after lights out (they're excited to be away after all) but if she has to get up once she's gone to bed then there'll be trouble. It looks like this is set to be a chaotic weekend!
Sunday, 6 October 2013
Pack Holiday 2013 - Sunday
29/9/13
We were woken at 7:30 this morning by the girls so I got out of bed and went into their room to try and keep them quiet for a little longer so that the adults could wake up. Most of them were fine until one girl went into the toilet and came running back out shouting about a daddy long legs which was in there! I ended up having to go and get a glass and a piece of paper to get it out because they were refusing to go near the bathroom with it in there... After a while Snowy came up and said that all the adults were awake, they just hadn't left their room so we let the girls go down to the living room as long as they were quiet. All the ones who went down there ended up reading some of the really old Brownie Annuals which are on a bookcase in there which was a bit unexpected as none of them had brought a book with them (as far as I'm aware) and I've heard quite a few of them say how much they dislike reading in the past... I'm not complaining though, it was nice to see loads of them sat quietly reading; it reminded me of my pack holidays when I was a Brownie.
Eventually the adults got up and started to make breakfast, which was the same as yesterday. I ended up helping in the kitchen for most of the time which meant that, by the time I sat down to eat, there was only the one sausage for me not the two I'd been promised. I didn't really mind because I quite enjoy helping out the cooks by co-ordinating the girls who come to take the food through to the table (it gets too complicated for the cooks to try and do it while they're serving the food and they are always grateful for the extra pair of hands) and I know there will be more food during the day.
The craft for this morning was owl 'cushions' which were more like mini stuffed toys because they were quite small... They were pre-cut out and had holes punched in them to make it easier for the girls to sew them. They worked quite well as they were fairly easy although Snowy hadn't trialled it beforehand (second nature to Mum and I) so she didn't know that you also needed glue (for the feet) or that starting below the ear wasn't a good idea because it made it quite hard to sew it up once you had stuffed it... I know that I have to let her make these mistakes and learn from them but I find it quite hard to comprehend not trying out a craft before giving it to the girls because it's pretty much been drummed into me from the beginning. Some of the girls were getting quite frustrated with theirs which I think was a combination of them being very tired and them finding it quite complicated, especially after they had stuffed it. Snowy ended up having the leave the room at one point because one girl was continually crying because it wasn't going how she wanted it to! Eventually all the girls finished though and they all thought that the owls were cute.
We then had elevenses, basically a drink and cake/biscuit/fruit to keep them going. I was surprised at the number of girls who chose to have fruit as well as their cake; when I was their age, my parents struggled to get me to eat fruit and veg (I'm much better now, although there are still a fair few things I can't stand)...
Once they had finished one of the sixes was tasked with finding a couple of hymns that the other girls would know and a prayer for our mini church service which we have every Sunday morning. I don't really know why or when it started but we've always done it since before I was a Brownie! Most of the girls go to the same school and therefore know the same songs for the most part. I went to the same school as them and the songs they learn haven't changed much so I know most of them too. The prayer they chose was a prayer we used to say before lunch when I was in the infants (age 5-7) and I was surprised (and pleased) that I could still remember the words! After the brief service, we sang Happy Birthday to one of the girls because she turned 9 today. All the girls had signed a card for her last night too which Snowy gave to her as well. She seemed happy that we hadn't forgotten, particularly as she had been crying earlier because she couldn't see her Dad for her whole birthday.
Then we had a cooked lunch. We had roast chicken with potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, veg and gravy which went down really well with the girls, who almost all finished every mouthful! We had a small glitch at the beginning though because the two plates with no gravy on had gone missing... The cooks said that they had definitely sent those two out first but no one knows what happened to them because not only did they never made it to their intended recipients, they never made it to the table! They decided that they must have come back to the kitchen but I don't remember any plate coming back and I was in there the whole time... I suppose we'll never know what happened to them but the two girls who didn't want gravy were given food from other plates which hadn't touched any gravy and everyone tucked in happily. Once they had finished, I went back to the kitchen to help serve pudding, jelly and ice cream. We had a small mishap when one of the girls was sick (she thinks it was because she ate too quickly because she didn't want to be last to finish again) but we managed to get all the food out without losing any this time!
After lunch, the girls had rest hour again where they were supposed to be packing all their stuff away, ready to go home. This went well, for the most part, although several girls complained that they had lost things. Most of them showed up while other girls were packing but a couple of things had to be located under beds and other people's stuff. Mum suspects malicious intent but we can't be sure and no harm was done so we just left it be. We then had our tuck shop and then it was time to go home. We had a quick circle where all the leaders were given thank you presents and the girls got a badge to say they had been to Macaroni Woods, their toymaker badge (everything we did this weekend counted towards it) and a Brownie bear ornament as a memento.
Finally, at 4pm, we let the parents in to take the girls home. All the girls were very pleased to see their parents again but also sad to leave, as they are every year. After everyone had gone, us leaders were left to tidy up and pick up any lost property (surprisingly we only had an odd sock which was claimed by one of the cooks as being her daughter's). We finally left around 5:30 and went home ourselves. I was absolutely shattered and pretty much had some food, a bath and went to bed!
This year's pack holiday, while being slightly different because Snowy was running it, was still thoroughly enjoyable, as usual! As much as we complain about it, I think all the leaders actually really enjoy it because it lets us get closer to some of the girls as they always seem to open up a bit and talk about more during a meal or walk than they can during an hour and half's meeting. It also brings back really good memories for me from the many other pack holidays I have been on over the years from basic ones of the building to more specific ones about old friends I haven't seen in years... All in all, a very good weekend!
We were woken at 7:30 this morning by the girls so I got out of bed and went into their room to try and keep them quiet for a little longer so that the adults could wake up. Most of them were fine until one girl went into the toilet and came running back out shouting about a daddy long legs which was in there! I ended up having to go and get a glass and a piece of paper to get it out because they were refusing to go near the bathroom with it in there... After a while Snowy came up and said that all the adults were awake, they just hadn't left their room so we let the girls go down to the living room as long as they were quiet. All the ones who went down there ended up reading some of the really old Brownie Annuals which are on a bookcase in there which was a bit unexpected as none of them had brought a book with them (as far as I'm aware) and I've heard quite a few of them say how much they dislike reading in the past... I'm not complaining though, it was nice to see loads of them sat quietly reading; it reminded me of my pack holidays when I was a Brownie.
Eventually the adults got up and started to make breakfast, which was the same as yesterday. I ended up helping in the kitchen for most of the time which meant that, by the time I sat down to eat, there was only the one sausage for me not the two I'd been promised. I didn't really mind because I quite enjoy helping out the cooks by co-ordinating the girls who come to take the food through to the table (it gets too complicated for the cooks to try and do it while they're serving the food and they are always grateful for the extra pair of hands) and I know there will be more food during the day.
The craft for this morning was owl 'cushions' which were more like mini stuffed toys because they were quite small... They were pre-cut out and had holes punched in them to make it easier for the girls to sew them. They worked quite well as they were fairly easy although Snowy hadn't trialled it beforehand (second nature to Mum and I) so she didn't know that you also needed glue (for the feet) or that starting below the ear wasn't a good idea because it made it quite hard to sew it up once you had stuffed it... I know that I have to let her make these mistakes and learn from them but I find it quite hard to comprehend not trying out a craft before giving it to the girls because it's pretty much been drummed into me from the beginning. Some of the girls were getting quite frustrated with theirs which I think was a combination of them being very tired and them finding it quite complicated, especially after they had stuffed it. Snowy ended up having the leave the room at one point because one girl was continually crying because it wasn't going how she wanted it to! Eventually all the girls finished though and they all thought that the owls were cute.
We then had elevenses, basically a drink and cake/biscuit/fruit to keep them going. I was surprised at the number of girls who chose to have fruit as well as their cake; when I was their age, my parents struggled to get me to eat fruit and veg (I'm much better now, although there are still a fair few things I can't stand)...
Once they had finished one of the sixes was tasked with finding a couple of hymns that the other girls would know and a prayer for our mini church service which we have every Sunday morning. I don't really know why or when it started but we've always done it since before I was a Brownie! Most of the girls go to the same school and therefore know the same songs for the most part. I went to the same school as them and the songs they learn haven't changed much so I know most of them too. The prayer they chose was a prayer we used to say before lunch when I was in the infants (age 5-7) and I was surprised (and pleased) that I could still remember the words! After the brief service, we sang Happy Birthday to one of the girls because she turned 9 today. All the girls had signed a card for her last night too which Snowy gave to her as well. She seemed happy that we hadn't forgotten, particularly as she had been crying earlier because she couldn't see her Dad for her whole birthday.
Then we had a cooked lunch. We had roast chicken with potatoes, Yorkshire pudding, veg and gravy which went down really well with the girls, who almost all finished every mouthful! We had a small glitch at the beginning though because the two plates with no gravy on had gone missing... The cooks said that they had definitely sent those two out first but no one knows what happened to them because not only did they never made it to their intended recipients, they never made it to the table! They decided that they must have come back to the kitchen but I don't remember any plate coming back and I was in there the whole time... I suppose we'll never know what happened to them but the two girls who didn't want gravy were given food from other plates which hadn't touched any gravy and everyone tucked in happily. Once they had finished, I went back to the kitchen to help serve pudding, jelly and ice cream. We had a small mishap when one of the girls was sick (she thinks it was because she ate too quickly because she didn't want to be last to finish again) but we managed to get all the food out without losing any this time!
After lunch, the girls had rest hour again where they were supposed to be packing all their stuff away, ready to go home. This went well, for the most part, although several girls complained that they had lost things. Most of them showed up while other girls were packing but a couple of things had to be located under beds and other people's stuff. Mum suspects malicious intent but we can't be sure and no harm was done so we just left it be. We then had our tuck shop and then it was time to go home. We had a quick circle where all the leaders were given thank you presents and the girls got a badge to say they had been to Macaroni Woods, their toymaker badge (everything we did this weekend counted towards it) and a Brownie bear ornament as a memento.
Finally, at 4pm, we let the parents in to take the girls home. All the girls were very pleased to see their parents again but also sad to leave, as they are every year. After everyone had gone, us leaders were left to tidy up and pick up any lost property (surprisingly we only had an odd sock which was claimed by one of the cooks as being her daughter's). We finally left around 5:30 and went home ourselves. I was absolutely shattered and pretty much had some food, a bath and went to bed!
This year's pack holiday, while being slightly different because Snowy was running it, was still thoroughly enjoyable, as usual! As much as we complain about it, I think all the leaders actually really enjoy it because it lets us get closer to some of the girls as they always seem to open up a bit and talk about more during a meal or walk than they can during an hour and half's meeting. It also brings back really good memories for me from the many other pack holidays I have been on over the years from basic ones of the building to more specific ones about old friends I haven't seen in years... All in all, a very good weekend!
Saturday, 5 October 2013
Pack Holiday 2013 - Saturday
28/9/13
The girls woke up at around 7:30 this morning, already hungry! However, because they had kept the leaders up until nearly midnight last night, the adults were all still in bed! The 3 Young Leaders, me included, crawled out of bed at around 8 to try and entertain them quietly while the adults woke up! Finally the pleas of the girls became too great and they got up to make breakfast.
Breakfast was cereals for those who wanted it, followed by eggy bread or toast with a sausage. The waitresses laid the table and the girls had all sat down and were tucking into their cereals and I was in the kitchen, helping to make the eggy bread and toast, when the fire alarm went off. It always goes off when you make eggy bread because the pans are covered in old fat which smokes a lot. Usually, if we know that it was definitely the cooks, we ignore it (as much as you can ignore a high pitched, insistent beeping!) but, because Snowy Owl is doing her test we used it as an opportunity for a full fire drill. We got all the girls outside (amidst complaints that their slippers were getting wet from the grass) and assembled under the tree, as we had told them to do and then did a register. Once we had explained that a real fire wouldn't wait until they were wearing sensible shoes and that they should just leave and had also told them that, because we knew it was a false alarm, the cooks had stayed inside to make sure we didn't cause an actual fire by leaving the food in the cooker, we went back inside to enjoy our breakfast!
After breakfast, the girls were set the task of writing a short play with puppets that they would be making over the course of the day. The three plays were very different; one group did Despicable Me 3, another group did Minions Meet One Direction and the third group did their own version of Romeo and Juliet, involving two frogs who met in a toilet as the title characters..! There were a couple of arguments over who was going to play what character and what the script was going to be but then everything settled down and the scripts all came together. They had a short break and then set about making the backdrop for their play. The were given paper and pens and could create what ever they wanted to be held up during their play. It went OK but some of the girls were getting bored pretty quickly because you only needed a couple of people to do it, not the whole six. If we were running it as a normal pack holiday, we would have had some back up crafts to hand for these moments but Snowy Owl hadn't thought of that so they had nothing to do.
Lunch was sandwiches, crisps and fruit which the girls thoroughly enjoyed, with the majority of them eating their crusts too! After lunch we always have what we call 'rest hour'. All the girls have an hour where they must stay in their room and be fairly quiet. We don't force them to be silent, it's just a time for them to have a break from everyone else if they want and chill out for a bit, without us watching over them all the time! It also gives us leaders a bit of a break, which I used to do a bit more homework (as studious as I seem, this isn't a normal occurrence, it just happened that I quite liked the look of the sheet we had to do...). The other Young Leaders set up our tuck shop. We sell the girls little trinkets that they can keep as a memory of pack holiday. Usually we have some badges, pencils and notebooks as well as the ever popular handmade bead geckos and sweets! We always limit them to 3 sweets so they don't get too hyper although this year Snowy Owl had bought some melody pops which are basically lollies in the shape of whistles which make a rather horrible noise when blown incorrectly (and an irritating one when blown correctly, as proved by one of our Young Leaders..!)! We let in one six at a time so that we didn't get too crowded and we take the opportunity to improve their money skills by asking them to work out how much change they are owed.
After that came the highlight of camp for most girls - always the most talked about afterwards and the first thing new girls hear about camp before their first one anyway - the walk to Eastleach and the River Leach! It is around 1.5 miles from the house to the river and we always have complaints about how far it is, usually before we've even left the woods! This year was no different with a continuous stream of complaints and threats to not walk any further but we all made it to the river eventually. We were confronted by a swan and her young where we would normally have got in so we went a bit further upstream. The two Young Leaders went in first to establish where it was too deep for the girls and then we let them all in! They had all brought wellie boots and all of them got in. In previous years we've always had one or two who'll be apprehensive or won't want to go in (which is fine - we don't force them to and I was one of the ones who never went in) but this year all of them went in with no hesitation! They enjoyed around 20 minutes of walking up and down between the two marks the Young Leaders had decided on and us leaders stood along the bank laughing at them and talking to a few curious members of the public who were walked past. Finally we got them all out and went through several more minutes of wellie emptying and shoe changing (for those who'd thought ahead enough to bring dry shoes and socks) and started the walk back! We always have more complaints on the way back as the girls who didn't bring dry shoes start to regret not doing so when their wellies start to rub and a lot of the girls start to get tired too. I walked back with two girls, one holding each hand, and we had a nice conversation but, somehow, we ended up bringing up the rear. The girls at the back are always the ones who complain the most because they're the most tired and this year was no different... One of the girls swung between being really happy and informing us of all the antics her imaginary friend Mr Frank was getting up to and crying because she was "too tired to walk any further"..! At one point she sat down and started crying in the middle of the road (country lane which was very quiet) and refused to walk any further, although she got up and carried on when I told her that, if she didn't want to walk any more, we would pick her up next year on our walk! 2 minutes later she was in fits of giggles because Mr Frank had run into a field of sheep and was sat on top of one..! We made it back to the house in one piece and then we had the usual trouble of getting the wellies off the feet of some of the girls. When the wellies have a bit of water in them, they become really difficult to remove and sometimes require a leader holding the girl around the middle and another leader pulling the wellie off! The girls found this hilarious but we eventually got all th girls back inside for a quick change of clothes and a dry off before making their puppets for their plays.
Each girl was given a wooden spoon and loads of foam, wool and pipe cleaners as well as a tonne of glue and sticky tape! They could use whatever they wanted, however they wanted, to make their character. As usual, we had some tears as some girls took other girls' comments to heart (always happens when you have a group of tired, young girls all in one place for any length of time) but it was quickly resolved. Some of the puppets were a little dubious (as it always is with Brownies) but some of the others were actually quite imaginative! The testers showed up while the girls were in full swing and had a look round the house and asked a few questions. One of the testers was another Brownie guider from our district so we had a good old catch up too! The girls were quite excited about their visit and all wanted to run down and say hello as soon as the doorbell went but we managed to persuade them to stay in the craft room until they came down to see them.
Next came dinner, meatballs and pasta followed by choc ices for the girls and cheesecake for the leaders. The two testers joined us for the meal so we had to squeeze two extra chairs around our already cramped table! We split them up, as we do with all the leaders, so they could talk to the girls. The leader from our district ended up sat opposite me and near to Snowy so she had some civilised conversation as well as being able to talk to the girls but the other tester somehow ended up sat between two of the most vocal girls in our unit! The poor woman had non stop, totally irrelevant conversation for the whole meal but I think she dealt with it OK...
After dinner, the testers left and we had our campfire. The two Young Leaders took a few girls outside before it started getting dark to collect wood and then they went out after dinner to pile it all up ready to light. We then got all the girls outside and sat down before we explained about our jar of ashes (we always tip on some ashes from the previous years' campfire so that our new one has some of the memories of all the previous ones in it) and then lit the fire. We had a few problems getting it going but, once it had caught, it was quite impressive! The wind caught it a few times which scared the girls but we still managed to sing several of the girls favourite songs around it, including 3 Blind Jellyfish, Who Stole The Cookie?, Cecil is my Caterpillar, 3 Little Angels, Tra La La, and Campfire's Burning (lyrics to all follow in another post!). We finished off by making s'mores over the embers which always goes down well with the girls!
Finally they all went back inside and had hot chocolate. The 3 Young Leaders left the adults in charge and stayed outside. We wanted to test the theory that acorns and conkers explode when put in a fire but we didn't think it would be safe with the girls outside too! It turns out that acorns are a bit pathetic because they just make slight popping noises but conkers are quite spectacular as the other two found out when one of them exploded unexpectedly! I had moved away from the campfire a bit and was heading back inside when there was a loud pop from behind me and the two other Young Leaders came running back inside shouting that they had been hit by flying conker! When they got inside they found that it was only a little bit of soot and no harm had been done but most of the girls found it utterly hilarious (as did I, if I'm honest)!
We eventually got the girls to get ready for bed and then we had the same battle as last night where they wouldn't shut up and go to sleep! Us 3 Young Leaders ended up getting into bed around 11 and the girls were still making noise. We heard Brown Owl go into their room and tell them that she was going to bed and did not want to be disturbed until the morning and thought that we would finally be able to sleep but, no, 5 minutes later there was a frantic knocking on our door and 2 girls saying that a friend felt sick but they didn't want to wake up Brown Owl because they were scared to. She wasn't actually asleep at that point and heard too so she dealt with it (the girl was fine, just over tired) and we finally got to sleep after a very busy day!
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Making s'mores:
The girls woke up at around 7:30 this morning, already hungry! However, because they had kept the leaders up until nearly midnight last night, the adults were all still in bed! The 3 Young Leaders, me included, crawled out of bed at around 8 to try and entertain them quietly while the adults woke up! Finally the pleas of the girls became too great and they got up to make breakfast.
Breakfast was cereals for those who wanted it, followed by eggy bread or toast with a sausage. The waitresses laid the table and the girls had all sat down and were tucking into their cereals and I was in the kitchen, helping to make the eggy bread and toast, when the fire alarm went off. It always goes off when you make eggy bread because the pans are covered in old fat which smokes a lot. Usually, if we know that it was definitely the cooks, we ignore it (as much as you can ignore a high pitched, insistent beeping!) but, because Snowy Owl is doing her test we used it as an opportunity for a full fire drill. We got all the girls outside (amidst complaints that their slippers were getting wet from the grass) and assembled under the tree, as we had told them to do and then did a register. Once we had explained that a real fire wouldn't wait until they were wearing sensible shoes and that they should just leave and had also told them that, because we knew it was a false alarm, the cooks had stayed inside to make sure we didn't cause an actual fire by leaving the food in the cooker, we went back inside to enjoy our breakfast!
After breakfast, the girls were set the task of writing a short play with puppets that they would be making over the course of the day. The three plays were very different; one group did Despicable Me 3, another group did Minions Meet One Direction and the third group did their own version of Romeo and Juliet, involving two frogs who met in a toilet as the title characters..! There were a couple of arguments over who was going to play what character and what the script was going to be but then everything settled down and the scripts all came together. They had a short break and then set about making the backdrop for their play. The were given paper and pens and could create what ever they wanted to be held up during their play. It went OK but some of the girls were getting bored pretty quickly because you only needed a couple of people to do it, not the whole six. If we were running it as a normal pack holiday, we would have had some back up crafts to hand for these moments but Snowy Owl hadn't thought of that so they had nothing to do.
Lunch was sandwiches, crisps and fruit which the girls thoroughly enjoyed, with the majority of them eating their crusts too! After lunch we always have what we call 'rest hour'. All the girls have an hour where they must stay in their room and be fairly quiet. We don't force them to be silent, it's just a time for them to have a break from everyone else if they want and chill out for a bit, without us watching over them all the time! It also gives us leaders a bit of a break, which I used to do a bit more homework (as studious as I seem, this isn't a normal occurrence, it just happened that I quite liked the look of the sheet we had to do...). The other Young Leaders set up our tuck shop. We sell the girls little trinkets that they can keep as a memory of pack holiday. Usually we have some badges, pencils and notebooks as well as the ever popular handmade bead geckos and sweets! We always limit them to 3 sweets so they don't get too hyper although this year Snowy Owl had bought some melody pops which are basically lollies in the shape of whistles which make a rather horrible noise when blown incorrectly (and an irritating one when blown correctly, as proved by one of our Young Leaders..!)! We let in one six at a time so that we didn't get too crowded and we take the opportunity to improve their money skills by asking them to work out how much change they are owed.
After that came the highlight of camp for most girls - always the most talked about afterwards and the first thing new girls hear about camp before their first one anyway - the walk to Eastleach and the River Leach! It is around 1.5 miles from the house to the river and we always have complaints about how far it is, usually before we've even left the woods! This year was no different with a continuous stream of complaints and threats to not walk any further but we all made it to the river eventually. We were confronted by a swan and her young where we would normally have got in so we went a bit further upstream. The two Young Leaders went in first to establish where it was too deep for the girls and then we let them all in! They had all brought wellie boots and all of them got in. In previous years we've always had one or two who'll be apprehensive or won't want to go in (which is fine - we don't force them to and I was one of the ones who never went in) but this year all of them went in with no hesitation! They enjoyed around 20 minutes of walking up and down between the two marks the Young Leaders had decided on and us leaders stood along the bank laughing at them and talking to a few curious members of the public who were walked past. Finally we got them all out and went through several more minutes of wellie emptying and shoe changing (for those who'd thought ahead enough to bring dry shoes and socks) and started the walk back! We always have more complaints on the way back as the girls who didn't bring dry shoes start to regret not doing so when their wellies start to rub and a lot of the girls start to get tired too. I walked back with two girls, one holding each hand, and we had a nice conversation but, somehow, we ended up bringing up the rear. The girls at the back are always the ones who complain the most because they're the most tired and this year was no different... One of the girls swung between being really happy and informing us of all the antics her imaginary friend Mr Frank was getting up to and crying because she was "too tired to walk any further"..! At one point she sat down and started crying in the middle of the road (country lane which was very quiet) and refused to walk any further, although she got up and carried on when I told her that, if she didn't want to walk any more, we would pick her up next year on our walk! 2 minutes later she was in fits of giggles because Mr Frank had run into a field of sheep and was sat on top of one..! We made it back to the house in one piece and then we had the usual trouble of getting the wellies off the feet of some of the girls. When the wellies have a bit of water in them, they become really difficult to remove and sometimes require a leader holding the girl around the middle and another leader pulling the wellie off! The girls found this hilarious but we eventually got all th girls back inside for a quick change of clothes and a dry off before making their puppets for their plays.
Each girl was given a wooden spoon and loads of foam, wool and pipe cleaners as well as a tonne of glue and sticky tape! They could use whatever they wanted, however they wanted, to make their character. As usual, we had some tears as some girls took other girls' comments to heart (always happens when you have a group of tired, young girls all in one place for any length of time) but it was quickly resolved. Some of the puppets were a little dubious (as it always is with Brownies) but some of the others were actually quite imaginative! The testers showed up while the girls were in full swing and had a look round the house and asked a few questions. One of the testers was another Brownie guider from our district so we had a good old catch up too! The girls were quite excited about their visit and all wanted to run down and say hello as soon as the doorbell went but we managed to persuade them to stay in the craft room until they came down to see them.
Next came dinner, meatballs and pasta followed by choc ices for the girls and cheesecake for the leaders. The two testers joined us for the meal so we had to squeeze two extra chairs around our already cramped table! We split them up, as we do with all the leaders, so they could talk to the girls. The leader from our district ended up sat opposite me and near to Snowy so she had some civilised conversation as well as being able to talk to the girls but the other tester somehow ended up sat between two of the most vocal girls in our unit! The poor woman had non stop, totally irrelevant conversation for the whole meal but I think she dealt with it OK...
After dinner, the testers left and we had our campfire. The two Young Leaders took a few girls outside before it started getting dark to collect wood and then they went out after dinner to pile it all up ready to light. We then got all the girls outside and sat down before we explained about our jar of ashes (we always tip on some ashes from the previous years' campfire so that our new one has some of the memories of all the previous ones in it) and then lit the fire. We had a few problems getting it going but, once it had caught, it was quite impressive! The wind caught it a few times which scared the girls but we still managed to sing several of the girls favourite songs around it, including 3 Blind Jellyfish, Who Stole The Cookie?, Cecil is my Caterpillar, 3 Little Angels, Tra La La, and Campfire's Burning (lyrics to all follow in another post!). We finished off by making s'mores over the embers which always goes down well with the girls!
Finally they all went back inside and had hot chocolate. The 3 Young Leaders left the adults in charge and stayed outside. We wanted to test the theory that acorns and conkers explode when put in a fire but we didn't think it would be safe with the girls outside too! It turns out that acorns are a bit pathetic because they just make slight popping noises but conkers are quite spectacular as the other two found out when one of them exploded unexpectedly! I had moved away from the campfire a bit and was heading back inside when there was a loud pop from behind me and the two other Young Leaders came running back inside shouting that they had been hit by flying conker! When they got inside they found that it was only a little bit of soot and no harm had been done but most of the girls found it utterly hilarious (as did I, if I'm honest)!
We eventually got the girls to get ready for bed and then we had the same battle as last night where they wouldn't shut up and go to sleep! Us 3 Young Leaders ended up getting into bed around 11 and the girls were still making noise. We heard Brown Owl go into their room and tell them that she was going to bed and did not want to be disturbed until the morning and thought that we would finally be able to sleep but, no, 5 minutes later there was a frantic knocking on our door and 2 girls saying that a friend felt sick but they didn't want to wake up Brown Owl because they were scared to. She wasn't actually asleep at that point and heard too so she dealt with it (the girl was fine, just over tired) and we finally got to sleep after a very busy day!
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Making s'mores:
- Put a marshmallow on a wooden skewer and heat it up in the embers of a campfire until it begins to melt (I personally like mine to have caught on fire so the outside it burnt to a crisp and the middle is warm and squidgy but this isn't a good idea with a lot of girls)
- Spread chocolate spread on 2 digestive biscuits (or alternatively use chocolate digestives)
- Squash your marshmallow between the two biscuits
- Eat and enjoy!
Friday, 4 October 2013
Pack Holiday 2013 - Friday
27/9/13
Dad picked me up from school and we drove across to pack holiday. We got there at around 4:30, a few minutes after Mum had got there. We unloaded all the stuff from both cars and then Snowy Owl and the two cooks (parents who help out regularly) arrived. We put up the posters and sorted out all of our things. We go to Campwood House in Macaroni Woods near Eastleach which is a converted WW2 house in the middle of some private woodland. It's owned by the Guide Association and has been refurbished a lot since we first went there in 2002! There is a fully functioning kitchen (complete with dishwasher which we don't use!), a living room/dining room with a long table in and a craft room for all the messy stuff! There is also a guider's room with 4 regular beds, a first aid room with another bed (and a really creepy looking knitted doll!), a small room with 3 bunk beds which we use as a Young Leader's room, two connected rooms containing 9 bunk beds where the girls 'sleep' and 3 bathrooms (with showers and a bath), It really is a very well equipped little building (hence why we've gone back for 12 consecutive years!).
I then sat on the sofa and did some of my homework before the girls started arriving at 6. It is always quite chaotic when the girls arrive and their parents settle them in because the rooms are quite small but, once they've all left, we can get started. Amazingly, no one got lost getting here for the first time in years! It's quite out of the way and, if you miss the turning, it can be quite hard to get back to it so usually we have at least one girl who is late arriving.
We started off with the house rules and gave out the badges and a little booklet including spaces for them to write a diary (if they want their Brownie Holiday badge) and some little puzzles for them to do in any spare time. Then we had some food! We always get the girls to do duties while they're on pack holiday which we've split up into cook (help prepare food), waitress (lay and clean the table) and health (dry up and clean toilets) and the sixes rotate through the different ones during the course of the weekend. The waitresses put out knives and forks and the place cards made yesterday and then we served pizza. We put it out on trays in the middle of the table for the girls to help themselves to as they should have eaten before they arrived anyway. It was rather entertaining as the cooks didn't realise how spicy the pepperoni pizza was so lots of the girls had a slice and then were complaining about how hot it was!
After the food we launched straight into the first activity. Each six was given a black bin bag, a white bin bag, a newspaper and some sticky tape and was tasked with making an outfit for one girl in their six. They were actually quite imaginative with their ideas - one six made a zebra print boob-tube and handbag from theirs! We then did a cat walk down the main corridor in the house. All the girls stood at one end except the model and one other girl who was describing what they were wearing to everyone. I was surprised at how much they seemed to know about how cat walks work and what is usually said on them! I didn't expect a group of primary school students to know that much about them - I certainly didn't when I was their age! Then there was an absolute mess to tidy up - there were bin bags everywhere! The girls did a really good job at cleaning up quickly though and the whole room was spotless again in 10 minutes!
After that, the girls were all allowed a hot chocolate before bed and then went to go and change into their pyjamas. In theory, then they would have all got into bed and fallen straight asleep but when do things ever go to plan! The girls were running around their bedrooms even after lights out, shouting, flashing torches around and planning their midnight feast! The leaders took it in turn to go in and tell them to go to sleep which, as usual, culminated in Mum sitting in the room until the majority of them had fallen asleep! I had a headache so I'd already gone to bed about half an hour after their lights were turned out (about 9:30) but I couldn't get to sleep until around 10:30...
I don't really mind though because I know that it will always happen (I was one of the 'culprits' when I was a Brownie!) and I know that this weekend I won't get much sleep but the enjoyment the girls get from it will make up for it!
Dad picked me up from school and we drove across to pack holiday. We got there at around 4:30, a few minutes after Mum had got there. We unloaded all the stuff from both cars and then Snowy Owl and the two cooks (parents who help out regularly) arrived. We put up the posters and sorted out all of our things. We go to Campwood House in Macaroni Woods near Eastleach which is a converted WW2 house in the middle of some private woodland. It's owned by the Guide Association and has been refurbished a lot since we first went there in 2002! There is a fully functioning kitchen (complete with dishwasher which we don't use!), a living room/dining room with a long table in and a craft room for all the messy stuff! There is also a guider's room with 4 regular beds, a first aid room with another bed (and a really creepy looking knitted doll!), a small room with 3 bunk beds which we use as a Young Leader's room, two connected rooms containing 9 bunk beds where the girls 'sleep' and 3 bathrooms (with showers and a bath), It really is a very well equipped little building (hence why we've gone back for 12 consecutive years!).
I then sat on the sofa and did some of my homework before the girls started arriving at 6. It is always quite chaotic when the girls arrive and their parents settle them in because the rooms are quite small but, once they've all left, we can get started. Amazingly, no one got lost getting here for the first time in years! It's quite out of the way and, if you miss the turning, it can be quite hard to get back to it so usually we have at least one girl who is late arriving.
We started off with the house rules and gave out the badges and a little booklet including spaces for them to write a diary (if they want their Brownie Holiday badge) and some little puzzles for them to do in any spare time. Then we had some food! We always get the girls to do duties while they're on pack holiday which we've split up into cook (help prepare food), waitress (lay and clean the table) and health (dry up and clean toilets) and the sixes rotate through the different ones during the course of the weekend. The waitresses put out knives and forks and the place cards made yesterday and then we served pizza. We put it out on trays in the middle of the table for the girls to help themselves to as they should have eaten before they arrived anyway. It was rather entertaining as the cooks didn't realise how spicy the pepperoni pizza was so lots of the girls had a slice and then were complaining about how hot it was!
After the food we launched straight into the first activity. Each six was given a black bin bag, a white bin bag, a newspaper and some sticky tape and was tasked with making an outfit for one girl in their six. They were actually quite imaginative with their ideas - one six made a zebra print boob-tube and handbag from theirs! We then did a cat walk down the main corridor in the house. All the girls stood at one end except the model and one other girl who was describing what they were wearing to everyone. I was surprised at how much they seemed to know about how cat walks work and what is usually said on them! I didn't expect a group of primary school students to know that much about them - I certainly didn't when I was their age! Then there was an absolute mess to tidy up - there were bin bags everywhere! The girls did a really good job at cleaning up quickly though and the whole room was spotless again in 10 minutes!
After that, the girls were all allowed a hot chocolate before bed and then went to go and change into their pyjamas. In theory, then they would have all got into bed and fallen straight asleep but when do things ever go to plan! The girls were running around their bedrooms even after lights out, shouting, flashing torches around and planning their midnight feast! The leaders took it in turn to go in and tell them to go to sleep which, as usual, culminated in Mum sitting in the room until the majority of them had fallen asleep! I had a headache so I'd already gone to bed about half an hour after their lights were turned out (about 9:30) but I couldn't get to sleep until around 10:30...
I don't really mind though because I know that it will always happen (I was one of the 'culprits' when I was a Brownie!) and I know that this weekend I won't get much sleep but the enjoyment the girls get from it will make up for it!
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