Northland
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Rubbish clean-up story in Saturday's Northern Advocate
Cooking night fun at Papawai
Sunnynook Guides, Brownies and Pippins had a fantastic camp in August at Otimai.
The Guides and Brownies stayed two nights (three Guides stayed in a tent) and the Pippins came out and spent Saturday with us. The thunder and lightning did not put us off on Friday night and the rest of the weekend was great weather.
We did the themes, Sparkle and Space. We made our own lemonade - some loved it but some thought it was disgusting! We also make moon rocks with chocolate, more chocolate and marshmallows, this was a favourite.
We made robots - the Pippins were decorated by the girls with all recycled bits and pieces. They also had to come up with a name and what the robot did to help us out.
We had an awesome camp and all the girls left with positive experiences and really enjoyed the combined camp. Our age range was 4 ¾ to 14 ¼.
Katherine Griffith
Puutahi
Guide Leader
Sunnynook/Northlake District
Northland Lones participate in Action Month
Kayla Woodcock organised a donation of food to go to Wellsford Food Bank.
Ariana Hutchins gave the manager of Paws and Claws the new animal shelter in Dargaville 3 tins of cat food, rubbish bags and some old linen and gloves.
Dargaville Guides create longest bra chain
It was an amazing spectacle from the air with rows of bras spread for what seemed like miles across Dargaville’s Memorial Park.
After two long years of collecting bras from around the country and overseas a tired but victorious team of Dargaville Guides achieved the world record with a chain of 169,234 bras at 9.40pm on Sunday February 19 2012.
The campaign for the longest bra chain initially began on Mother’s Day 2010 as part of GirlGuiding NZ’s Pink Star Challenge to raise awareness about the detection and prevention of breast cancer.
With the help and massive support from everyone involved – including girls, leaders and alumnae from throughout New Zealand whose friends and families donated thousands of bras, Robyn Martinovich, Dargaville Guide Leader achieved her dream of breaking the Australian record of 166,625 bras all linked together in a chain.
Memorial Park, in Dargaville was where all the bras were strung together. The plan was to have the chain completed by 3pm on the Saturday (18 February) but instead it was 9.30pm the following night when it was all done and dusted.
“Linking the bras together was a far bigger task than I had originally anticipated and took a lot longer than we had planned,” said Robyn.
Northland MP Mike Sabin and Dargaville Mayor Neil Tiller were on-hand as official “persons of note” to legitimise the world record attempt.
With only a dozen pippin, brownie and guide members based in Dargaville, breaking a world record was very much a huge community effort, Robyn said.
Stores like Postie and Bendon Outlet stores also came on-board and bras were sent to Robyn from as far away as the United States, England and Australia.
As originally planned, the good quality bras from the collection will be sent to Africa and the Pacific.
Tongariro Tramp
On February 4, Carla Hamilton and I (Liz Garner), two Rangers from Whangarei, went to Tongariro National Park on a tramp (the "Expedition"option of the Practical Outdoor Leadership certificate. This tramp was one of the last things we both had to do to get closer to achieving our Queen’s Guide, and we planned the 3 day trip weeks before in preparation.
Carla and I took two parents, two other ranger aged girls, and an alpine qualified GirlGuiding Leader, Margaret Horne (our assessor), up the mountain. We stayed two nights in the Ketetahi hut on the side of Mt Tongariro, above the bush line, looking out across mountainside, lakes and bush far below us. On day two our group of seven tramped further up the mountain to Red Crater, but didn’t do the summit because of the bad weather.
This tramp gave us so much more knowledge of an alpine environment, something you never see in ‘the winterless far North’. Despite the seven hour car trip and white-out conditions, we had an amazing time taking in all the new scenery and gaining practical outdoor skills, and testing our leadership. It was a step-up from the tramping we’d done in Northland, and were so proud to have pulled off such a massive event, far away from home.
I would advise any girls planning a tramp or event like this to think outside the box, if you’ve never seen anything other than your usual local bush, try road-tripping across your gorgeous country to some completely different, diverse location, because it’s definitely worth it!
It can be difficult finding a suitably qualified assessor - so particular thanks are due to Margaret Horne from Palmerston North for coming with us.
Elizabeth Garner,
Whangarei Rangers,
Parihaka District
What has Northland been up to in 2012?
Why not tell us what you have been doing in your unit so far this year?
I know you have been out camping, doing Community Service and generally having a lot of GirlGuiding Adventures - lets show everyone what we have been doing!
Forward any stories or photos on to your Leader, District Co-ordinator, Regional Co-ordinator or the Upper North Zone Office so they can be published here.
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