Penny Hike

11/10/18

We had read about penny hikes on various Guiding facebook pages and wanted to give it a try so we thought the autumn term would be perfect - light enough to see as we left the hall but dark enough for them to find it exciting as we finished. We picked this week as the Scouts that meet in the small hall at our church have their annual AGM and so we offer up our significantly larger hall and do something either out of the hall or in the smaller one.

When we arrived at the meeting, one of the girls who had come on pack holiday came up to us and handed each of us a chocolate with a thank you note stuck on the back! She even gave me one to give to my other half. It was entirely unexpected and made the whole weekend (and the following week after little sleep) worth it.

We then got out the hi-vis that Specsavers gave us a few years back (Brownie sized!) and got all the girls to put one on, as well as their coat. We then split the unit into 2 and set off, one group followed by the other. Our group decided that TaiLs would be Left and therefore Heads was Right. At each junction, we picked a different girl to toss the coin and decide which way we would be going. There was a lot of throwing the coin into the air and letting it land on the ground! We also added coin tosses for crossing at the pedestrian crossing and going into the park for 5 minutes. Surprisingly enough, the coin landed Tails, meaning we went into the park! The girl then 'confided' in Brown Owl that she had done it deliberately! We knew she had but we didn't really mind spending a few minutes in the park if it meant the girls had a good time. We then continued on our penny hike until 6:50 when we turned and headed back to the hall so we were there for about 7.

We then sat the girls down in a circle and handed out all the pack holiday crafts and posters which we had forgotten to do on the Sunday as they all went home. As we got to the end, a cry suddenly went up "there's a bear in the foyer!" and all the girls immediately got up and ran to the door to see. We calmed them down and got them out of the way of the door so the bear could actually get in. The bear was Winston Bear from Winston's Wish - the girls had raised money for them in the summer term (when I wasn't there) and he had come to collect his cheque. We had got hold of one of the giant cheques and had Winston and the Brownies pose for a photo. One of the girls announced proudly to the Mum from Winston's Wish that we had raised £14,637 so we had a good laugh and then corrected her - we had actually raised £146.37! We took a second photo with just me and the daughters of the Mum who works for Winston's Wish (who was there) and one of the other leaders, as we knew we had photo permissions for all of them to go on the Winston's Wish website if needed.

Winston Bear then left and we finished off the meeting quickly and then let all the girls go. We then had girls coming back in dribs and drabs because they had forgotten their coats! By the time they had all gone, we only had one left, and a Brownie hoodie. I think the girls enjoyed this meeting - they loved the fact that the penny was choosing where they went and that they had a really lucky penny because it took them to the park! We did however realise on the way home that we hadn't actually given Winston Bear the cheque that can be put into the bank (as opposed to the giant one!) so we'll have to slip it to the Mum next week...