Be Prepared Avon

A month ago, on March 22nd, a group of BUGS (Bath University Guides and Scouts), ex-BUGS, and local Scout Leaders gathered at Cleeve Hill campsite in Bath for a weekend of survival skills in the form of Be Prepared Avon. Important things first, we got a campfire going and some food in the oven! We had a nice relaxing evening sat around catching up with friends and drinking a bit before heading to our tents for the night.

We were woken bright and early by a call for breakfast (bacon rolls!) and a staff briefing. We then grabbed radios and split off into various tasks - several people donned high vis and headed out to the road to direct parents and leaders, some people went off to build fires and set up various bases, and I ended up at the bag drop tent. At 9:00 the Scouts (and a few Guides!) started arriving in dribs and drabs. They were walked up from the nearby school by volunteers and brought up to my tent where they could put all their bags for the day. I then sent them back down to the large tent we had set up in the car park with benches and a projector in. Once all the kids had arrived (close to 100!) they were briefed on the situation for the day - there has been an earthquake and you need to survive in your family (all the kids were muddled up into groups of about 8). There were points on offer for completing the task successfully and also for teamwork and leadership, as well as the potential for volunteers to deduct points for bad bahaviour. All the leaders were taken into the hut and also briefed on their role for the day - they were assigned a base for 3 sessions at a time to assist the volunteer who was running it.

Once everyone had been briefed, the kids all headed out into one of the fields to meet their new family. They also did the 'suitcase activity' - they had a large bag of various items and a smaller bag which they could take with them. They had to decide, as a family, which items were important enough to take with them and then make them fit in the bag. They would get points at each base for having the correct item in their bag. They were also told that they needed to look after the bag very well - if it was found unattended, it would be taken and they would lose points for that, along with not being able to gain the points at each base.

Having selected their items, the kids were released into their first base. On the Saturday I was running the water base. They had to make a pipeline for some rice, retrieve a ping pong ball from the bottom of a pipe with holes in, and throw a rope to someone on a boat. It was quite an entertaining base, resulting in a few kids getting soaked when they dropped the pipe with holes in it! I did end up deducting a few points for kids who thought it would be funny to throw a bottle of rice at me, throw rice at the other team, or splash leader helpers with water..! I also confiscated 2 bags that were left on my base - one of which was at one of the breaks when the whole group ran off manically towards the biscuits and never even returned for their bag!

Each base had a radio, along with the control who were doing scores and there were some entertaining conversations taking place, including a bout of karaoke at one point, and lots of brie puns as we had a large one in the kitchen for us to eat later. We also had a megaphone with a siren feature which we used to simulate an aftershock - when it went off the kids had to crouch and cover their heads and points were deducted for not doing it well enough which meant that there were lots of deductions flying around on the radio. At one point the guy who was doing the scores wasn't near his laptop so he was stood in the middle of the field with his phone trying to write them all down as they came flying in!

When the kids were in their final base, we had to hand out a Golden Ticket to the quietest person in each family. I won't spoil the reason for the Golden Ticket but there is an activity to end the day which involves them. Once this activity had been completed, it was time for scores and a debrief. We announced the overall winner, and the winners in the 3 categories, leadership, teamwork, and strategy. Then it was time to get the kids back to their parents or into the minibusses. Several volunteers escourted the kids back to the school, once they had picked up their bags, and waiting for the parents there while we loaded up the minibusses in the car park. By 4pm, all of the kids had left site and the volunteers had free reign! We reset all the bases ready for the next morning and moved things into tents for the night. We then headed down to the campfire and set up the BBQ! Dinner was burgers, sausages, and halloumi skewers. We then spent the rest of the night sat round the campfire, chatting and drinking. Lots of stories were shared about resedentials that had gone wrong and trips that had gone well with each of our units, as well as the obligatory campfire songs. I taught everyone "There's a Hole in the Bottom of the Sea". When it started getting late, we all retired to our tents again, ready to do it all again tomorrow!

We were once again woken up by a call for breakfast, although this time it came with a personalised talking clock who told us what time it was every 30 seconds, and added observations about the weather and temperature (including the phrase "it is 47 degrees Farenheit for those of you who measure temperature wrong"!)! We all grabbed breakfast and our radios again before heading out to manage traffic. Today, I decided to go up to the road and do something different. I stood in the entrance to the campsite, pointing parents in the right direction to park at the school. One woman claimed she couldn't see the people by the school (who were all wearing high vis jackets!) so I asked over the radio if they could make themselves any more visible and they all started dancing and sent someone to collect the big campsite sign to wave around! This morning a large number of the Guides were coming on a coach so my other task was to coordinate that. Our plan was the same as last years - have the coach stop directly outside the campsite and direct traffic around it while unloading the kids. This worked perfectly this year too - it stopped on the other side of the road and I waved cars past in each direction while they all got off onto the pavement and then several of us stood in the road to stop the traffic while everyone crossed over and walked down onto the campsite. The road isn't too busy but there is enough traffic to need a few people to manage the cars, especially as the campsite entrance is just round a bend. It went very smoothly this year, as it did last year.

On the Sunday, I was on the first aid base. We keep a volunteer on a base for the whole day so that scoring is consistent across all the groups but we all swap around for the second day as you start going a bit crazy doing the same activity over and pver again! On this base, I had set up 5 hazards for them to spot before they came into the tent, and then one of my extra leaders lay down in the middle of the tent to be a casualty. Once the kids had spotted all the hazards, we talked about how to check if a person is responsive and breathing. I then demonstrated the recovery position and let the girls have a go in pairs while we all walked around making sure they all had the right technique. Once they had all had a go, we discussed what you should do if the person was unresponsive and not breathing. I then demonstrated CPR - chest compressions and rescue breaths before letting the girls have a go at that too. I was very surprised at the number who didn't want to give the rescue breaths a go - I stressed that in a real situation, you don't have to do them if you don't feel comfortable and that the chest compressions are more important but that this was a good opportunity to practice the technique in case they did need it at some point. A lot of the girls did eventually have a go once they realised there were points up for grabs too (points on my base were awarded for willingness to get stuck in as much as they were given for actual ability to do the tasks) but they weren't all that happy about it. A lot of the points that I deducted from this base were for abusing the Annie's, including peeling their faces off and bending them backwards in half! I was very surprised though that one of the girls in the last group had actually used her CPR knowledge before and had saved a persons life after they collapsed at a train station. Her parents were paramedics so they had taught her how to do it from a young age but it was still an impressive feat for a teenager. I did have to giggle slightly though whenI was explaining that if you do CPR correctly then you will probably break a few ribs and this girls pipes up from next to me "yeah, I broke 3 when I did it"!

The departure went much the same as Saturday, except we made sure that the coach group came out first and loaded up before we let anyone else walk past it to the school. Other than that, 15 minutes after finishing, all the girls were with parents and no longer our responsibility. All that remained was for us to pack down all the tents and equipment we had used and return it to the various Scout huts and houses that it lives in year round. It only took us just over an hour to pack down several large tents and then we were on the way home.

This was a very enjoyable weekend, as it was last year too, although I wasn't aware it was possible to ache so much the morning after! Even the heel of my right hand was sore from the amount of CPR I was demonstrating! I was utterly exhausted for the week afterwards, but it was absolutely worth it to run an activity for Guides and Scouts which they wouldn't necessarily get to do at any other time. Even though I am moving further away soon, I have pencilled in the provisional date in my calendar and will be returning once more. It is a great place to catch up with friends from university as well as meet new leaders from the area and learn new things. Also, next year is the 10th anniversary of the event so it should be a big one.

(Note: all young people in photos have social media permissions, all photos available on the Be Prepared Facebook page)

Planning Thinking Day | Queen's Guide Update #3

This blog is going to detail the planning process of District Thinking Day 2019, which I planned as part of my Queen's Guide.

It had been suggested to me by my mentor that I could volunteer to assist with the planning as my Service In Guiding Element 3. I brought it up at a District meeting and somehow ended up being asked if I would plan the whole thing..! At this meeting, we also gathered a few ideas from other leaders which I went to investigate. I pulled up a shortlist and found out the various prices. I also contacted a few local coach companies to get quotes for travelling to each of the chosen venues. From this information, I created a Google Form questionnaire, asking leaders which of the options they wanted to do, and what dates they were available. I also asked them whether they wanted to have 3 separate coach meeting points, as we usually do, or whether they wanted a single central meeting point. It had been suggested by a fellow leader that a single central point would make much more sense as it would mean that parents with girls in different sections would only have to drop off at one place, rather than 2 as has happened in the past (and parents have previously not registered this and dropped both girls off at one stop, incorrectly).

I gave the leaders 2 weeks to reply to my questionnaire and the results were clear cut - and almost unanimous vote to visit Techniquest in Cardiff and there were 2 dates which had equal votes so I chose one of them, Saturday March 9th. The coach situation was more puzzling, almost all the leaders had voted to continue as we had been doing, with 3 separate coach pickups, even though to me this was more work for the parents. I put this on the back burner for now, and emailed out the date, location and price for the trip. I asked for a £10 deposit for each girl, to secure their place, and then the final balance closer to the time, of £5 per girl and £9 per adult.

I collected the deposits and kept track of the numbers over the course of the month we allowed for deposits to be paid. At the end of this time, we had 116 girls and 28 adults booked on the trip across 9 units! I also made a decision on the coach company and confirmed our booking with them. I then returned to thinking about the coach pickup location. I still thought it would be a good idea for all the girls to be picked up from the same place so I consulted another leader and she also agreed. I decided that we would give it a go, even though a large proportion of leaders didn't think it was a good idea. My logic was that we could trial it this year and, if they didn't think it went well then they could go back to their original method next year, when I will have moved out of the district! I also asked my Queen's Guide mentor if she would be able to be our home contact for the day as she doesn't run any units. She said she was more than happy so I got some contact details for her to send to all the leaders.

As it got closer to the trip date, I sent out more final details, relating to where we would be stopping for dinner, how much spending money girls should bring, and exact pick up and drop off times. I then visited Techniquest with my fiancé so that we could gather information for my risk assessment. He writes lots of risk assessments at work so I thought he would be best placed to help me with that as I have never written one for a large scale event before. Techniquest were very nice and allowed us to visit free of charge. We were there for about 2 hours, although part of that was us having a go at some of the activities! We made lots of notes about areas which would need to be covered on the risk assessment, such as a dark area with flashing lights and the coach drop off area.We also stopped on our way home at the services where we will be having dinner, to assess what options were available, their prices, and what was available for gluten free girls, which was a concern raised by several other leaders.

Once we had completed our visit, I wrote up a detailed risk assessment which was emailed out to all the leaders. I also spent some time creating details sheets for all the leaders to carry on the day. I made an A5 sheet, one for each unit, giving details of the number of girls expected to be on their coach, a timetable of the day (including lunch slot and times of the free show that they could book onto on arrival), and the phone numbers of me, the District Commissioner, and the Home Contact. Finally, I created myself some sheets with important information on, including phone numbers for all the units, which unit was on which coach, a detailed timetable with additional notes where needed, and a signup sheet for visiting the shop (it is a small shop so we spread the units out throughout the day).

The full blog on the details of the trip is here. The trip went incredibly smoothly, several leaders came up to me to tell me I had done a great job of organising it. The single coach pickup point worked perfectly, hopefully they will continue to do it that way as I think it was a great idea, and made life so much easier for the parents. Organising a large scale trip was more stressful than I had anticipated, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.

Decorating Easter Eggs

04/04/19

This was our last meeting before Easter so we decided to do one of the girls favourite Easter activities - decorating Easter eggs. We had been out and bought a Cadbury's Buttons egg for each girl and then provided them with various sprinkles and writing icing with which to decorate their egg. They always have great fun doing this (although we do say that they cannot eat anything until they have got home and their parents say they can!). It is always interesting to see how the girls choose to decorate their egg - the leaders circulate to make sure no one is just putting as much as they possibly can on to their egg but usually they come up with some really interesting designs. The eggs usually have a pattern on them so some girls choose to go over the various patterns and pictures with the icing pens and other girls design their own scene using the sprinkles and mini buttons.

This year we stopped them after about 50 minutes as a few girls had got bored and started squirting writing icing over the top of everything. We had them put all their eggs safely on the window sills and tidied up a bit before playing 2 games, chosen by the girls (we pull lolly sticks with names on out of a pot and that girl can choose what we play). We started with a game of Pirates and then played the Iranian Smiling Game (Alternative version).

The girls were all slightly hyper tonight as they break up for the holidays tomorrow so we spent a lot of the evening asking them to stand still and listen, but that is understandable at their age! It did make me smile though that one girl was upset she couldn't come to our sponsored swim because she was going to be on holiday...in Malta!

As it is now the Easter holidays, we have 2 weeks break from our regular meetings. I have 2 blogs lined up for you over the holidays though, one on the process of organising our Thinking Day trip last month and the other on a Scout and Guide survival weekend that I volunteered at recently.

Mother's Day

28/03/19

This evening we did some Mother's Day activities. All the girls were making cards which they could give to their Mum or someone else if they had already made a card at school. We provided 4 colours of card (left over from when I made my wedding invites!) along with some patterned and plain paper. For our example, we stuck a sheet of the patterned paper to the front and then cut out hearts in plain paper to stick on top. We gave the girls free reign to do whatever they wanted.

We also took a group at a time into the kitchen to make some coconut ice. We have made this lots of times before and it is nice and easy to do without having access to much equipment. We used to make is with sweetened condensed milk but then we had a girl who was dairy free and couldn't have it. We bought her some coconut milk to mkae hers with and all the girls said it tasted better so this time we just used coconut milk. We used the following proportions which made about 30 balls:

• 1/4 cup coconut milk
• 1 cup desicated coconut
• 2 cups (approx) icing sugar

Once all the girls had washed their hands, I got 2 girls to help with the pouring out of the milk and coconut and then we passed the bowl round for the girls to add in a spoonful of icing sugar and give it a mix. When it was nearly done, I also added a splash of pink food colouring. It got quite hard to mix towards the end so the leaders had to step in and help. Once they had finished mixing, they were given some mini paper cases and shown how to take a small amount of mix and roll it gently to make a ball. The church we meet in had been giving away some old plates which Brown Owl had picked up so each girl was given a plate with her name on to put their paper cases on. Once they were done, we covered the plate in clingfilm to keep all the paper cases on the plate! Most girls ended up with 6 paper cases each. It was quite hard work being in the kitchen and having to get through 4 groups of girls in just under an hour! If we did it again, we wold have 2 bowls on the go - one with girls mixing the icing sugar in and the other with the girls making the balls and putting them on the plates. We very nearly ended up overrunning and one of the leaders was cleaning up while we did the Brownie circle at the end..! Once we had dismissed the girls, they went to pick up all their belongings and then came to collect their plate, having been warned that if they dropped them, they would almost certainly break. Luckily we didn't have any accidents in the hall!

This was a chaotic evening, but I do enjoy letting the girls do something that some of them don't get a chance to do at home.

Final Skills Builder Evening

21/03/19

This evening we did the fifth and final part of the two Skills Builders we have been working on, Innovate and Lead Stage 2. The girls who were doing Lead did "Design Time" and the girls doing Innovate did "Made to Measure". I was with the Lead group. Our task was to create a zoo. The girls first had to think of 5 animals that they would like to put in their zoo, on their own. We provided lots of books on animals to give them some ideas and they could be as rare and unique as they wanted (we even had a few dragons!). I then paired the girls up by pulling names out of a hat. In their pairs they had to create their zoo but there was only space for 5 animals. They had to discuss which animals they would like and why. Finally, the pairs had to join up into 4s and do the same thing again so they were left wth 5 animals from the 20 each 4 would have started with. I had an odd number of pairs so I had one group with 3 pairs in who were allowed 7 animals in their zoo instead. Once they had narrowed down their choice, they could draw a picture of their zoo and give it a name. I was quite impressed with most of the girls - when narrowing down their animals, lots of them said they could each choose 2 and then the 5th one would be a joint decision, and the same happened when they got into bigger groups - they all chose 1 and the last one was a group decision. That was a suggestions written on the card but we stopped giving the girls the card as it just caused confusion so I was quite proud that they came up with that idea all by themselves!

The group doing Innovate were making sponge boats. We had bought lots of the scourer sponges (the yellow ones with a rough green side) and the girls could make a sail for their boat which was stuck on a cocktail stick in the sponge. They then had a straw and they blew their boat in a tub of water. We measured the distance that it travelled 3 times and they worked out the average (we provided calculators!). They could then look at the boats that went the furthest and redesign their sail based on the best ones.

Once we had finished the activities, we all sat in a Brownie circle and the Lead girls showed the pictures of their zoo and explained what animals they had in them. The girls who had been doing Innovate then voted on what they thought was the best zoo. We then handed out the badges to those girls who had been at all 5 meetings. We had 17 of our 26 girls get a badge. Of those who didn't get a badge, 5 were new starters who joined after we started and the other 4 have only missed 1 meeting each. We have told those girls that we are going to do a catch up session soon and that we haven't forgotten about them! This was quite a good evening, and I was very surprised that my group got along without arguments this week! Perhaps it's something to do with the fact that we muddled them up and they weren't working with their friends for once.

Easter Bookmarks and Promises

14/03/19

One of our older Brownies has been asking for a while if she can run an activity so she can tick off the last part of her More Adventures badge before she turns 11 in May. This week we finally had time to slot that in and she chose to make Easter Chicken Bookmarks.

The Brownie showed everyone how to fold the main shape (you can also find the instructions online) and then the girls went and did that bit while the Brownie handed out all the extra bits that she had pre-cut for them to stick on. Once they had finished their chicken bookmark, she had also bought some patterned paper so they could make fortune tellers.

Tonight we also had 4 new girls making their promises, so about 30 minutes before the end, any members of their family who wanted to watch showed up - there were loads of them this time! Some girls just bring one parent, tonight we had grandparents, siblings, and lots of parents! We always ask the parents to come a bit earlier than they need to so they can watch us doing an activity - this time we chose to play 2 games of Pirates, at request of the girls. We did have to remove Starboard as that is where all the parents were sat, and we banned hiding under the tables with tea and coffee on too!

We then proceeded to enrol all 4 new girls and then sang two songs to finish (for once we finished early!) - we sang Hole at the Bottom of the Sea, and Cecil is My Caterpillar.

This was a great evening - the girl who ran it is very mature for her age and was very good at explaining the steps to the girls and going round helping them all.

Thinking Day Trip

09/03/19

Today was our annual District Thinking Day trip which I organised as part of my Queen's Guide (full post on the process of organising this trip will come soon!). We took 3 coaches of Rainbows, Brownies, and Guides to Techniquest in Cardiff. We all met in a car park and each unit met all their girls and waited for the coaches. The coaches turned up perfectly on time and we loaded everyone up quickly as it was raining pretty heavily. We only had one unit who were missing one girl by the time we were all on the coach but they managed to contact her and found out she had misread the drop off time but was only across the road so arrived very quickly.

We then set off, in convoy. The girls were remarkably well behaved on the coach, although we did have a near constant chorus of 'are we nearly there yet'..! The drive isn't too bad, about 90 minutes, so we were there pretty quickly. Once we arrived, we got all the girls off the coach and lined them up against the wall while we paid and figured out where they needed to go. Each coach had been assigned a different lunchslot and they put their lunchboxes in big bins so they didn't have to carry them around all day. We then went into the centre - all the leaders were responsible for their own girls during the day, some units just let their girls loose and wandered round keeping an eye on them (there are 2 floors and only one way out) and other units assigned girls to a leader and they had to stay together. Our unit took the latter approach, to a certain extent, in that each leader was responsible for 3/4 girls but we generally let them roam around as long as they were always within eyesight.

The girls had great fun there, with one girl even commenting that is 'wasn't very sciency' so it was great! Each coach was called over the tannoy to go and have their lunch - we had a half hour slot in a cabin round the back of the centre. I also had a list of 15 minute slots that the leaders could go to the gift shop in, as the shop was way too small for us all to descend on it at the end of the visit! Our unit opted to go to the shop just before lunch so the girls could then leave their purchases in their bags. When our lunch slot was called, we all headed across to the cabin and walked in just as a Guide opened her water bottle of lemonade and it squirted straight up, hit the ceiling, and sprayed down over several girls nearby! All the other leaders were staring, gobsmacked at the situation, and then the Guide was stood on the table, wiping it off the ceiling with a paper towel! We sat and ate with our girls and then headed back into the centre.

Each unit also had the option of booking onto the show for the day, Fire vs Ice. There were several showings through the day and we chose the last one. There were two presenters who did a 30 minute show about Fire and Ice through various science experiements, including dropping a bouncy ball in liquid nitrogen to turn it into a 'marble' (it lost all elasticity so just thunked into the ground, instead of bouncing!) and setting alight liquid oxygen. The girls all really enjoyed that part.

Once it was over, we headed to the cabin one last time so we could remake our promises. We got that over and done with very quickly and then dismissed the units one coach at a time to go to the toilet and get on the coaches. Once a coach was full, it headed off. All the coaches then stopped at a services on the way home and the girls bought dinner there (or a second packed lunch in the case of girls with allergies). This is something that all the girls love to do so, even though it is a bit chaotic for the leaders, we tend to do it anyway. It worked quite nicely that we had staggered the coach departures from Techniquest though as it meant we were a bit more spread out at the services as there are not actually enough tables at the one we stopped at for all the girls to be sat down at once. The coaches then headed home once they had finished eating and the leaders handed their girls back to their parents.

The trip went incredibly smoothly and lots of the girls and leaders came up to congratulate me and say it had gone great. Now I just need to write it up and get my District Commissioner to sign me off for that part of my Queen's Guide and I'm one step closer!