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.

Evening in the Dark!

13/03/14

This week we did more towards the Big Brownie Birthday badge. We had a small glitch in that Brown Owl's car broke down so we had to walk to Brownies with all our stuff but it's not too far and we took as little as we could so it was quite pleasant!

Once we got there, we shut all the curtains and blacked out the windows in the doors with black paper. We turned off all the lights and the girls used their torches to see. We did our Brownie circle in the dark and then the girls near Brown Owl shone their torches on her folder so she could do the register (usually we do this by sight as the girls come in and then just ask where missing girls are in the circle but that was too complicated today).

The first thing we did was a nice quiet game while their eyes adjusted to the dusk (and the Sun went down properly). The girls all stood in a circle and Brown Owl went round the circle giving random girls pieces of fruit or vegetable. There were 10 pieces in total so not everyone started with one. They had to hold it behind their back and try and guess what it was and, when Brown Owl said 'change', they had to pass it to their right. We carried on with this until all the girls had had each item. They then went into the six corners and tried to write down as many of the 10 as possible as a six. Brown Owl had chosen some obvious ones and some less obvious ones - we had potato, carrot, parsnip, lemon, lime, onion, apple, pear, garlic, and root ginger. One six managed to guess all of them except the root ginger. One word of advice is that carrots get rather disgusting after being passed round a few girls!

We then went on to play a game our Guide had played at her dark evening at Guides, which she ran with our Young Leader. It was called lighthouses (instructions here) and the girls seemed to enjoy it, although they got a bit bored when most of them had crossed the room and there were a few still coming, and going slowly but quietly. We played several variations on the basic game including in sixes (only one girl could come at once), in pairs (had to remain holding hands and both go back when caught) and freezing whenever the torch was on. There were a few girls who found it unfair because they kept getting caught but the majority seemed to really enjoy it.

We then did some Morse code, as suggested by one of the girls last week. Each six split into two and sat on opposite side of the hall. Both halves were given a sheet telling them the alphabet and were tasked with sending a message to the rest of their six, using their torches. It seemed to go OK, although it took far longer than it should have done for the girls to split their sixes in half and sit opposite each other - possibly not aided by the fact no one could see who was who and sixers kept getting lost! Once they were ready though, they seemed to get quite into sending messages.

We finished up the meeting by singing 'This Little Guiding Light', 'Alice the Camel' and 'Alive, Alert, Awake' (lyrics here) as we haven't really had a singing session with our girls for quite a while, unless you count Cookie Jar. It took us a while to remember the actions to 'Alive, Alert, Awake' but the girls kept asking us if we could do another verse so I think it paid off.

This was an interesting experience for us as leaders as well as for the girls. The girls seemed to enjoy the fact we were in the dark and they got to each have a torch (although we did have to make sure they knew not to point them at faces) but it created a few issues we hadn't foreseen as leaders. The most notable was that we couldn't tell the girls apart so yelling across the hall wasn't an option, you had to go over and figure out who you were talking to first. It is also harder to keep track of where everyone is when you can't see them - we have a few girls who sometimes need a bit of encouragement to join in if they don't like the game and, if they go and sit in a corner, it can be hard to spot them. I would also encourage leaders to make sure you have a decent torch (you don't need to be using it throughout the meeting but it would come in handy in an emergency).

You may have noticed that I have created a games page and a songs page and am no longer putting lyrics and instructions at the bottom of the post. I thought it was getting quite complicated to locate anything we had done so I decided to put it all in one easy to find place, so if you're looking for a specific game that's the place to start!