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.
June 2011
Hawke's Bay Brownie Day
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Brownies and Leaders from Napier, Taradale, Hastings, Havelock North,
Clive and Waipukurau spent the day completing various activities in and
around Napier including:-
- Challenge along Marine Parade Walkway
- Art Deco movie and walk through the city
- Swim at Ocean Spa
Our theme was Swing into Napier - the swing was:-
- Swing on the swings
- Wander along Marine Parade
- Imagine Napier Earthquake
- Now explore Art Deco
- Get wet and have fun
Right Place, Right Time!
We had invited our girls to contribute tinned goods or a gold coin, to help the Christchurch relief effort. Our goods were stacked into a laundry basket to go - some straight from our own survival kits, “with kind and caring thoughts from St Augustine’s Guides, Napier” - but exactly how?
I set sail with the basket, calling at the i-site. Red Cross depot, they recommended, as did the meter man. Possibly. Indeed there were Red Cross collectors out on the street that day - one even offered to take care of our basket and have it taken back to the depot if all else failed.
Instead, driving through town, I noticed people heading toward St Patrick’s church for a memorial service. Stopping the car, I approached two ladies who were walking in. One of the ladies was happy to have me leave the basket of goods from our group in her car - she was a Food Bank collector and would see that the basket got sent on to Christchurch.
And, lo and behold,
Norma had years ago been a St Augustine’s Guide, herself! During my journey I had needed to brake suddenly. Now repacking the tipped-up basket gave me time for a quick chat about our Guides group, our recent camp, and Omatua, as well as Red Cross, Food Bank and, of course, Christchurch.
Amid such a sombre time, what a lovely surprise!
Maree Stanton
St Augustine’s Guides
Tamatea District
Hawkes Bay
March 2011
Waiapu - Go Bush at the Library
Every summer holidays, public libraries down the East Coast from Gisborne to Wairarapa are funded to provide a Summer Reading Programme to encourage children to continue reading during the holidays.
This year’s theme was Go Bush and Gisborne Guides set up a camp outside the library with small tents and invited the children to help us pitch the tents. We put bedding rolls inside the tents and let the children try them out.
The library had a beautiful campfire made from newspaper sticks painted black with red and yellow coloured paper flames which we borrowed to set up a campfire outside the tents. Pippin Leader Stacey, read the story 'Grandma McGarvey Goes Camping’ by Jenny Hessell.
The younger children coloured in camping pictures while the older ones made a camp craft of a child looking out of a tent. The library provided magnets so they could use them as fridge magnets.
The final activity - the favourite - was toasting marshmallows over flowerpot burners.
We always take part in Children's Day and this year we are going to repeat the ideas from the Go Bush and let the children toast mini marshmallows over the flowerpot burners and make them into S'mores with Guide mini biscuits. Yum.
Fathers Night and Green Machine Badge Evening
Parkvale Brownies in Hastings held a Father’s Night and Green Machine Badge evening last term. On Father’s Night fathers and daughters were given a challenge to see who could build the highest free standing tower using newspaper and tape. It was lots of fun. Brownies made a posy of flowers for their green machine badge and they took them to give to someone who needed cheering up or had been sick. We also visited Planters Garden Centre and all the Brownies were given a pot and were able to plant a pansy plant.
District Break up was a water theme and we also had a linking up to Guides for twins Maddison and Hannah. We had a lovely springtime enrolment and had a lot of fun entertaining the Hastings Woman’s Community Club with some of their songs and then had afternoon tea.
Another activity was turning ourselves into Mummy’s. We also had a fantastic time making rope ladders at the park and dressing in pink for our Pink Star Badge and for Breast Cancer. It was fun night.
Parkvale Brownies
Heretaunga District
Hawke’s Bay
