Grass Sledging and Archery

19/07/18

This evening we finally managed to get back up to our local campsite and went grass sledging and did archery. We had a 2 hour meeting instead of our usual 90 minutes and split the girls into two groups as there could only be 12 doing archery at one time. I took the first group through to get the grass sledges and our first challenge was pulling them up to the top of the hill! They are stored in a shed at the bottom of the slope and are quite heavy! We took 6 sledges and eventually made it to the top. We did a quick safety brief on how to slow down, turn, stop, and where to walk to pull them back up to the top and then we set the first girls off. The rule is that no more than 2 people can be on the slope at a time which is pretty good because it spaces out the girls eventually as it takes them a while to pull it back up again. We only had one major crash where one girl couldn't work out how to steer and crashed into the strip of long grass that runs up each side of the run and flipped out of her sledge. She claimed her wrist was hurting but she could move all her fingers and then part way up the hill swapped hands so she was pulling the sledge with that hand so I was happy that nothing major was wrong with it! I spent most of my time at the top giving girls push starts, chatting to the ones who were waiting at the top, and ensuring everyone had an even number of turns. We then swapped groups and I stayed at the grass sledging area. We got the first group to leave the sledges at the bottom at the end of their last turn and the second group pulled them up to the top (we thought it was only fair as the first group had to pull them up before their first turn too!). I gave another safety brief to the second group and then set them off as with the first group. The second group was a slightly older group (we had let them decide what group to be in) and so they needed less help to organise themselves and so I chatted to the other leaders about some plans for next term and pack holiday.

As we neared the end of the secod hour, we got the girls to wait at the bottom with their sledge after their last turn. It worked out quite nicely that everyone had had 6 turns and we had one sledge left at the top so we loaded it up with all the water bottles that had been left at the top and got one of the girls to pull it down for us! We then watched the last few girls have their turn at archery and then we did the Brownie circle and gave presents to a Brownie, a Young Leader, and an Adult Leader who are all leaving us before sending all the girls home.

This was a nice relaxed evening and didn't require much work from a leaders perspective, except turning up and using the equipment! And the girls thoroughly enjoyed being outside and having fun. If you have a campsite or activity centre nearby that you can use, definitely look into it for an evening in September when it is still warm and dry enough to make use of it!

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This is our last meeting until September, regular posts will resume on September 10th, although look out for an exciting announcement coming in the next few weeks!

Tunnelling

07/06/18

This week we went to the local Guiding headquarters to go grass sledging and tunneling. Unfortunately, it started raining as we left to go up there so we couldn't grass sledge as the brakes would not work on wet grass. Instead, we just did the tunnels with all the girls at once, instead of half and half.

We met the girls in the car park and then walked up the hill to the tunnels, which luckily are under a giant tree so the leaders don't get soaked while the girls are in them! We made a pile of water bottles and some leaders went round removing the plastic stoppers from the ends of all the tunnels which keep animals out. We then did a quick safety brief for the girls: essentially, which holes were the entrances to each tunnel system, and that we had head torches and knee pads if they needed them. There are three tunnel systems here, one is a simple straight line where you can see the other end which most of the girls go through first, to get a feel for what the tunnels are like inside. There is then one which is like a lowercase letter 'h' with a bit of a bend in the left hand leg so you can't see any exits when you go in. The final one has about 6 exits and part of it goes round in a circle so the girls can really explore.

Small tunnel system

Loop of large tunnel system

We then started handing out head torches. There are not enough for all the girls to have one, so we said they should line up at the entrance to the tunnel they wanted to go in and anyone who had just come out of a tunnel had to go and give their torch to someone at the front of a line. Some of the girls decided that they didn't want to wait for torches and they would go in without one.

I spent most of my time stood near the entrances, making sure there were no arguments about the torches, and that girls weren't left waiting for too long. We then had the problem that the torches were running out of batteries so Brown Owl went to find the organiser to get some more. She came back with a box of 48 so we were set then!

One of the girls came over to me part way through and said that people kept getting stuck in a dead end and were scared so I asked her to take me to the dead end because we were pretty sure there weren't any. We climbed over the tunnels to a point where a tunnel seemed to disappear into the nettles at the endge of the field. I was explaining to the girl that even if there was supposed to be a way out, they wouldn't want come out of it or they would get stung when I realised that it actually did a 90 degree left turn so we followed it a bit more and lo and behold, there was still a stopper on the end! I took it off and let the girls know that there was no longer a dead end!

A bit later, I caught site of some girls playing next to an exit, and then a small flash of something black rolling. I headed over there quickly, confusing Brown Owl as I thrust spare batteries back in her hand and disappeared at speed! As I came out from under the trees, I realised that some of the older girls were attempting to roll one of the stoppers down the hill. I shouted at them to stop and then made them roll it back up the bit of the hill it had gone down, while explaining to them that that was quite dangerous, especially as there is a tented village at the bottom of the hill!

We eventually had to tell the girls to get out of the tunnels - they didn't want to leave! The leaders quickly went round putting the stoppers back on and then we headed back down to meet the parents.

This meeting, although not quite as planned, still went very well. If we do it again though, we will suggest to the girls to bring their own torch as that then stops them spending time waiting around for a head torch. We have also asked if there any other dates than we could reattempt the grass sledging as the girls were annoyed that we couldn't do it.

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I am now going on holiday and graduating so there will be no new posts until July 23rd 2018.

Look Wider - Out of Doors

I completed the Out of Doors Octant of the Look Wider in September 2017. Below are the activities I completed to gain this badge:

Phase 1

• Try a new wide game
• I organised the wide game on pack holiday in 2014
• Full details are here
• Punting
• As part of the SSAGO Summer Camp at university, we went punting down a river in Oxford
• Gorge Walking
• I have visited and walked through the Liechstensteinklamm Gorge in Austria on two occasions with my family

Phase 2

• Take part in a SSAGO Rally
• I was really struggling with ideas for this one until I spotted this suggestion somewhere, having just got back from my first SSAGO Rally
• I went to Feb-u-rally in Bristol in February 2016. It was absolutely freezing but thoroughly enjoyable - I highly recommend looking into SSAGO if you are heading to a UK university, even if you have never done Guiding or Scouting before

Phase 3

• Going Away With License
• I did my Going Away With License in September 2016 but it took me almost a full year to get all the evidence together and signed off!
• One step closer to starting the Queen's Guide though...