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

Mystery Bus Ride

Over the April holidays Katie MacDonnell treated some of the girls in her Guide Unit to a fun and exciting residential camp called Game On! I interviewed Katie to find out some of her thoughts about her camp.

“My favourite part was finally being at camp! Two of my favourite parts of my camp were teaching the girls to play my version of Monopoly and The Cube (based on the television show). Even though the paperwork was challenging, after all the work and effort you put into your camp, the fun and enjoyment of being at the camp makes it really worth it.”

Katie designed and made a huge Monopoly game board sized around 1.5m x 1.5m. She originally wanted it to be large enough to use life size pawn pieces! All the properties, cards and rules were based around working your way around the board from “Go” so that you earn all your Guide badges as you go. Even her District Co-ordinator was represented on the game board. It was a true work of art for her Tuesday guide unit to use after camp.

When asked how she decided on the theme for her camp, Katie responded: “I thought it would be really cool to have a giant Monopoly game and from there I just built ideas onto it. I also love smiley faces so I included them as well. I really liked planning all the cool things we were going to get to do at camp.

“I also really wanted the girls to come away with something while they were at camp. That’s when I incorporated the communication patrol patch. I then realised with the different activities and games the faith patrol patch could be earned as well. I would definitely encourage other girls to do their residential camp and pursue their Aotearoa Award.”

Natalie Packer
Endeavour Brownie Leader

August 2011

Katie's Camp: Game On

Over the April holidays Katie MacDonnell treated some of the girls in her Guide Unit to a fun and exciting residential camp called Game On! I interviewed Katie to find out some of her thoughts about her camp.

“My favourite part was finally being at camp! Two of my favourite parts of my camp were teaching the girls to play my version of Monopoly and The Cube (based on the television show). Even though the paperwork was challenging, after all the work and effort you put into your camp, the fun and enjoyment of being at the camp makes it really worth it.”

Katie designed and made a huge Monopoly game board sized around 1.5m x 1.5m. She originally wanted it to be large enough to use life size pawn pieces! All the properties, cards and rules were based around working your way around the board from “Go” so that you earn all your Guide badges as you go. Even her District Co-ordinator was represented on the game board. It was a true work of art for her Tuesday guide unit to use after camp.

When asked how she decided on the theme for her camp, Katie responded: “I thought it would be really cool to have a giant Monopoly game and from there I just built ideas onto it. I also love smiley faces so I included them as well. I really liked planning all the cool things we were going to get to do at camp.

“I also really wanted the girls to come away with something while they were at camp. That’s when I incorporated the communication patrol patch. I then realised with the different activities and games the faith patrol patch could be earned as well. I would definitely encourage other girls to do their residential camp and pursue their Aotearoa Award.”

Natalie Packer
Endeavour Brownie Leader

June 2011

Johnsonville District’s World Cup Camp

The end of May arrived and with it Johnsonville’s much anticipated
District Camp held at Brookfield Outdoor Education Centre in Wainuiomata. Our worries about the weather for a camp at this time of the year were unfounded as we were blessed with two days of blue skies and not a breath of wind. True, it was rather frosty when everyone awoke on Sunday morning, with one leader reporting little icicles on her tent!

With eighty girls attending, a mixture of Rangers, Guides, Brownies and Pippins, and with extra girls visiting for the day on Saturday, the massive organisation that had gone into the camp was so worthwhile as everyone enjoyed a wide variety of activities.

Named ‘The World Cup Camp’ the girls were divided into teams bearing the names of countries participating in the Rugby World Cup later this year. Saturday was devoted to a Wide Game with a good mixture of outdoor and indoor activities, linked to the theme. Working their way around the activities the teams ‘exercised’ with the earth ball, coloured the flag of their country and dressed a teaspoon doll in their countries football uniform. They fed their team by cooking on Hobo stoves, made rafts to float the World Cup flame across the stream, and used stilts to ‘see over the heads of the crowd’. The parachute provided ‘half-time entertainment’, as did the bird kites that the girls made.

By late afternoon some tired girls were happy to have a quiet time to plan their items for the camp fire that was to be held after dinner.

With the calm weather everyone was able to enjoy an outdoor campfire. It was rather chilly but the fire kept everyone warm and under the clear and starry sky, it was magical.

A Guides Own was held on Sunday morning and then the rest of the morning was devoted to outdoor activities - the confidence course, kayaking and the flying fox. Lunch over, the parents arrived to collect their daughters after a very busy weekend. And still the sun shone...

Elizabeth Harkness
Guides Johnsonville

Kapiti “Island Days” Regional Brownie Day

When Tui (my leader) Rhian and I get into the big hall it was full of people. It was bucketing down rain that day. The Hoola Hoola girls were my rotation group. It was Park Ave and Johnsonville (my group). First we went to go do Kkebabs, there was choc fish, marshmallows, mandarin, banana, apple and pineapple. I had 2 pineapples, 2 mandarins, 2 marshmallows and 1 choc fish, it was delicious! Next we went to do some art. We made paper aquariums and they were so cute.

Next we did a course called “Stranded Island”. We got in pairs and 1 person in each pair was blind folded and guided through a course of obstacles, then we swapped over. As soon as we finished, we started face painting. I got a bunch of orange flowers (which smudged) and a curly rainbow. Later we started Lolly Lei’s, which is basically a lolly necklace with 3 lei flowers. Next we made flax roses, it was fun using flax, I liked that the most. Then finally we did more craft. We made Jellyfish out of pieces of egg cartons. That day was really fun!!!
 
Alex Buchanan (Age 9)
Johnsonville Brownies.