2011 Stories

These stories appear by month in which they were put onto the website, starting at the most recent month at the top of the page.

October 2011

World Cup of Guiding - Waikato's Regional Brownie Camp

On Friday 9 September, Brownies from all over the Waikato came to meet at Finlay Park, Maungatautari.

Once everyone had arrived, we all ate our dinner, found a cabin then did some awesome activities like dipping marshmallows into a chocolate fountain. After that we all went to bed.

The next day was a big one. Once everyone had finished a mouth watering breakfast, it was time for Top Town. Top Town is a game with five activities, some to do with water and others to do with blocks. After everyone had done all five activities, we had to do the hardest activity of all. Someone had to be in the pool area and fill an ice cream container with water. Then with the ice cream container filled with water, we had to survive through many different obstacles and then pour the water into a bucket. After that it was time to be a cheerleader which meant everyone had to do a cheer for their team.
The teams included “Sangum”, “Pacs”, “Wags” and a few others.

Not long after it was dinner time. Tonight was hamburgers. Dessert was even nicer. It was meringue with fruit salad. Sadly after that it
was bedtime.

The next day was nowhere near as fun as the day before. Today was pancakes for breakfast. We did a few activities including flax weaving. Then we packed our bags and when our parents came, went home.

That was one awesome camp because it was a new experience.

Jordan Rogers
Budding Publisher Clause for Challenge 9.
126th Waikato Brownies, Papawai District

Joti 2011

The Kaihere group consists of the Kaihere Guides and the Kaihere Brownies. This is the 2nd year I have organised the Joti overnighter. It went from 4pm Saturday night till 10am Sunday morning. We were lucky to have the use of the Kaihere School computer room so with lots of computers available it made it easy to chat with everyone. We chatted for about 5 - 7 hours and when they got tired, they slept in the Kaihere Hall. We had a big map of the world and atlases to work out where everyone was from. The time differences were quite amazing when we worked out what the day and time was in the other countries. This is who we chatted to:

Stormy Camp Camelot at Te Aroha

Three adults, seven Guides and six Brownies put tents up late on Friday afternoon for our Camp Camelot camp. The weather was beautiful - sun, summer temperatures, light breeze, weather forecast reasonable. Dinner was cooked, albeit a little late, beds made up - we were off to a good start. Bliss is ignorance - little did we know what was in store for us. The wind was rising during campfire but we felt in control, storm lashing was in place on vulnerable tents and an easterly/north easterly wasn't forecast (the worst kind in Te Aroha). So off to bed we all went and eventually the girls settled down after many visits from Christine and I.

By 2am, with both of us not sleeping, listening to the wind rising and gusting, the tent sides billowing etc, screams and yells were heard. The three adults charged out of bed to find that one tent had come off its centre pole, and braillers were loose on all the tents and poles were doing a tango.

Christine storm lashed two tents just in case, put the centre pole back into place on the other tent and secured the rest of the tents. She did most of this by herself as I didn't know enough about tents to be much help and our parent help had no experience of camping at all. Girls were reassured, laced into their tents and sort of settled, so we trudged back to bed.

Thank goodness, it wasn't raining and it wasn't at all cold. The wind started to calm so we tried to go to sleep. This didn't happen. The girls didn't go to sleep either - too much excitement, frightened that the tents were still moving and that they may fly away, torches shining, girls off to the toilets etc. We gave up trying to quieten them - we decided they could suffer from lack of sleep on Saturday... partly self inflicted. Then the gusts rose and it was all on again - ripping could be heard. Once again the girls were in trouble. So out we got again.

Tent pegs were put back in, poles straightened, flaps tied shut, etc. In one tent, the girls had tried to be helpful and put the centre pole back in and had gone through the roof instead of the hole provided (tent now needs repairing). Tents were flapping, pegs out, side poles pretending to be in an earthquake. Girls were scared, not knowing what to do. Christine's personal double tent was torn seriously in two places, and the lats were also torn top to bottom, so we collapsed them and left them until daylight. Dawn was starting to creep in. So back to bed once again after admiring the beautiful starry night and watching the ominously building clouds. We were thankful no-one was hurt. Christine, you are our "super woman".

Those girls that did manage to get to sleep were woken at 5am by the resident rooster. Oh well, we laid in bed listening to the girls playing up until 6.30 when we dragged ourselves out to survey the damage. The lats and Christine's tent were damaged beyond repair, one tent needing repairs, everyone exhausted.

During breakfast, the decision was made to get the tents down before it rained and to relocate to the Guide hall for the rest of the camp. It was too risky to stay. As it turned out this was the right move. It continued to be gusty the whole weekend and Saturday night was unpleasant too. It took all morning to get the tents down, sort out the girls and their belongings and install ourselves in the hall. By doing this at this stage, there was no mixed up or lost property at the end of camp which was great!

A lot of the programme had to be abandoned - no cooking dinner over the fire, trenching etc - the wind came up just as we were getting the outside fire at the hall ready to go so that was abandoned too.

All the girls were really tired after dinner on Saturday night, so no night games and they went to bed by 8pm (as did the adults). One Guide asked how many warnings they were going to get tonight before they had to go to sleep... my answer - an emphatic NONE! Not a peep was heard from them and we had to drag most of them out 7.30 Sunday morning. Bliss. We all enjoyed a stable roof over our heads and the warmth of huddling together inside.

Other than these trials we had a great time. The girls will never forget the torn tents or getting up at dawn to find the lats gone and the two long drops sitting alone in the paddock with the seats still on them. Their faces were comical when we said they had to use the toilets like that and that the cows wouldn't look at them sitting in the middle of the paddock with their pants down! After a few minutes of them contemplating this scenario, we then relented and let them use the adult's one by the barn.

When asked what was the highlight of the camp, it was the excitement of Friday night (such an adventure despite their fright) and the wide game that we had on Sunday. Isn't it great that we are taught to be flexible and paddle furiously underwater like a duck so that the girls remain oblivious to the problems that we leaders can face when camping?

Carol Barker
84th Guide Co
Papawai

August 2011

Waipa Waitomo and Toys for Ulysses Club

Earlier this year Waipa Waitomo was involved in supporting our community with the toys for the Ulysses Motorcycle Clubs’ annual collection for the hospital and kids’ cancer collection. When we had unit registration at the beginning of the year we asked the girls to bring old soft toys and, with help from friends with op shop contacts, we ended up with about six rubbish bags full of toys.

It was a really interesting promotional hour as the public stopped and talked to us as we walked down the main street to the motorcycle collection point.

Karen Howard

Handy Guides!

In Term Two this year, the 59th Waikato Guides completed the Hands On unit patch. This badge involves doing a number of different community action activities.

Within our unit, we had some patrol challenges; each patrol was assigned something different to collect which would be donated to charity (old clothing, tinned food, pet food, old toys etc.) The aim was to use our networks of family, friends and neighbours to collect as much as we could for these different causes. Also, all of our patrols, collected loose change for our coin trail. The money from this went to buy phone cards for the Women’s Refuge in Christchurch. These challenges both had an amazing response and created some friendly competition throughout the unit.

Also, over the term, we worked towards making a peggy square blanket. This was the first time many of us had ever done knitting which led to a lot of frustration but we persevered and have created a beautiful blanket which will be sent down to a Special Needs School in Christchurch.

The yummiest part of this badge was the baking we did but we didn’t do any of the eating! Instead, we made cookies for some of the heroes within our community. Our baking was delivered by a group of guides to the police and fire stations the next day. We also made cards for these amazing people to say thank you for all the work they do in our communities to keep us safe.

In doing this badge, we all learnt about how a little effort from us can help others and we all felt the satisfaction of helping and thanking others in our community.

June 2011

Royal Wedding Brownie Camp

Our Pack Holiday this year was very special. We did the ‘Royal Wedding Challenge’. This is a badge created by the 1st Ness Guide Company in England and came to us via our Link with All Hallows Brownies (10th Twickenham) in England. The entire Challenge was based around the wedding of Prince William and Catherine, with clauses on wedding dresses, royal family and ‘Englishness’.

This overnighter was all the more special as it was the last Pack Holiday that Raewyn Trotter helped to plan before she passed away.

Now we are eagerly awaiting the arrival of the badges from England!

Gina Steel
Leader - 126 Waikato Brownies

By Casey Bonnar

On the weekend of the 28 and 29 of May the Thursday Brownie unit from Morrinsville went to Hardy Lodge for their Royal Wedding camp experience. We did all sorts of arts and crafts based on the Royal Wedding of Kate and Prince William. The favourite activity was decorating wedding dresses and veils to go on Barbie dolls.

One of our special Guiding helpers came for dinner dressed up as the Queen. We had to treat her just like the Queen because we couldn’t sit down at the table until she had sat down and we had sung her God Save the Queen.

We got sent a lot of awesome gifts like British hats, bookmarks, pads, pencils, tattoos and a cup with a photo of Kate and William on it. The gifts came from All Hallow Brownies in England.

Some of the arts and crafts were making British flags out of paper, some brownies tried to do the royal family tree but they had to look on the answer sheet. At mid-day we all walked to the Hamilton gardens. We went and saw some of the gardens but not all of them. One of the Brownies bought some English snacks for us to try at afternoon tea time. We all got to ice one vanilla cupcake and put it on a cupcake stand to have for our supper.

This year’s camp was really, really fun and I can’t wait for next year’s.

Written By Casey as part of the Challenge 9 badge.

By Kristie Chong

Yeah, we were going to camp at Hardy’s Training centre, happy as can be, then… HOORAY we arrived.

We were getting our beds ready when we were called to take our dolls to put them in wedding dresses. We had six groups at camp. My group was called Westminster Abbey. Each six group got to ice a cupcake. I did a rainbow cupcake. Next, we practiced royalty because the Queen was coming for dinner.

When the Queen came we did a curtsy and said “Your Majesty.” Yeah, dinner is ready, we were hungry. We had mashed potato and a sausage with the Queen! That was exciting. Bed time, why is everyone so noisy at bed time? Finally everyone calmed down and went to sleep.

Good morning everyone as the sun rises. Yeah says everyone as Brown Owl told us we were going to the Hamilton gardens. Wahooooooooooooooa we say as we run down the big hill trying to be first. The gardens were so pretty, my favourite one was the American garden.

Awwwwwwwwwwwe time to go already, oh well it was fun anyway.

Written By Kristie as part of the Challenge 9 badge.

Making Your Promise with a Splash!

Cambridge Girl Guides took a trip to the Te Awamutu Swimming and Events Centre for a night of water fun. New leader-in-training Claire thought the girls could participate in the Term 1 challenge “Swim for Life” and registered the unit accordingly. Lucky for us our new leader, Leonie from Christchurch has her life saver certificate so the girls were in very good hands.

The girls completed as much as they could in the one night of the challenge - then all our new girls who had been busy working towards their enrolment, were at last invited to be enrolled. In two lines the older girls lay on their backs in the water, with their feet up
in the air touching the opposite girl’s feet to form an arch. Then the girls
to be enrolled had to swim through the arches to their leader and make their promise.

Certainly one ceremony they won’t forget in a hurry.

Jeanette Hobern
Te Tapui District Co-ordinator