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

Princesses in Northland

Rangers and Pippins gathered from around Northland for their Big Sista, Little Sista event. The girls were invited to come dressed as princesses and most of them did.

After the welcome, the girls all took off their shoes and had a look around the Wharenui, at the Bay of Islands College, which is where the day was run. Fun was had doing a range of activities, face painting, making special crowns, wands, playing games, and putting the crown on the frog to mention a few.

The girls iced themselves a cup cake and made fairy bread. After lots of glitter and hot glue ,they had their Princess tea party with real cups and saucers and they ate their cup cakes and fairy bread.

Barbara Woodcock

June 2011

Amy Taylor – Queens Guide Recipient

My name is Amy Taylor and I have recently been awarded the Queens Guide award for Rangers. I started Guiding as a Pippin, then moved to Brownies, Guides and Rangers. I have enjoyed being a part of all the stages in Guiding. It took me four years to achieve my latest goal and I believe that for me it has been a truly rewarding experience that I will remember for the rest of my life. I completed this award as a Northland Lone Ranger. I have learned so much and gained valuable skills from the Ranger program, and I hope now to go on to become a Lone Pippin Leader. My family has been very supportive and my leaders have been fantastic, arranging outings and camps where possible and are always available via the post or email supporting me the whole way.

I believe that if you want to achieve something all you have to do is put in some effort. I have proven that even with doing it mainly through correspondence it is possible to achieve both the Guides Aotearoa and the Ranger Queens Guide award. Lones is just as rewarding as doing Guides with a unit every week.

Personally I feel that I have really grown as a person and a young women, this program has given me the opportunity to do things outside my comfort zone, gain new skills, meet new people, gain new friends, given me life skills, a large knowledge base and most importantly it has given me more drive to succeed.

The Queens Guide award has always been my top goal for the Ranger program, it’s the highest award and I wanted to undertake the challenge of completing all the tasks necessary. I think part of the drive came from completing the Guides Aotearoa when I was a Guide, so completing the Queens Guide was the next goal and it has been a rewarding and challenging program to complete.

I have really enjoyed doing the various interest certificates; the wide range provides different options for different people. I love camping and the outdoors so I completed several certificates from the Action Outdoors section, it was helpful as I’m also doing the Duke of Edinburgh challenge I enjoyed re-learning first aid and I took a course with St Johns. Certificates about driving and vehicle maintenance, for me I found very helpful being a new driver on my restricted, learning how to take care of my vehicle and knowing some problems that may occur and how I can fix them like changing a tyre. They were very worth while choices that I really benefited from. I have volunteered with the Cancer Society for the last 3-4 years, and had so much fun helping in the community doing things like being an elf taking Santa photos at Christmas, helping out with Relay for Life and Daffodil day.

The leadership aspect was interesting, understanding all the components of the leader’s jobs when it comes to documentation, programme planning, fund-raising etc. Helping out with the local Guide unit gave me a taste of what it is like to be a leader and how to inspire the girls in the unit. It really gave me a new appreciation for what leaders do and how my leaders over the years have really helped me. As a Lone Guide and Ranger, I found that I needed to develop good organisation skills as with having to send my work away and keep track of what they were sending me to do. I also went to the Jamboree in Christchurch in 2008, which was definitely an experience to remember.

I have really gained so much from being involved with Guiding and would recommend it to any girl looking for a personal challenge, you will not regret it.

Kaitaia Hosting

Kaitaia Girl Guides and Brownies last term had a girl who had been in the Christchurch earthquake join them for the term. She shared her experience of what it had been like with our group. This gave them a better understanding of what it was actually was like and the effects that it had on the people there. The guides and brownies attended both the sunrise Anzac Service and the 11am service. A wreath was made and presented at each of these services. They had the pleasure of joining the R.S.A for their cooked breakfast and joined in discussion with the members of the Vietnam returned serviceman who were also in Kaitaia for a Reunion.

Dawn Pearce
Far North Area District

March 2011

Guiding Light

Guiding Light is the name of the Te Tai Tonga District raft which we raced in the second Kowhai Festival Raft Race on the Mahurangi River in Warkworth. Barfoot & Thompson (Warkworth Branch) were willing to sponsor the entry fee and materials for two rafts if we needed them. How fantastic!

We put our knotting and square lashing knowledge to use and built our prototype rafts one evening. During the holidays we built our raft out of bamboo and drums, including a flagpole to fly the Guiding flag. A test run on the pond proved that this raft floated and the girls could steer it.

On the day of the race we took Guiding Light into Warkworth with the flag flying (by then we were down to one raft). All the 9 rafts, in various styles and shapes, were all crewed by young people of similar ages to our Guides. Our girls raced really well – two of the rafts didn’t get past the start line! But the girls did so well to get up the river, through the local Fire Brigade’s dousing from spray with the hose, and then down river again. All the girls, and our mum on the raft, got a prize as well as a T Shirt which says they survived the 2010 Kowhai Festival Raft Race.

Our thanks to Barfoot & Thompson, Warkworth, for their sponsorship, and to the local businesses who donated prizes. Thanks also to the parents who all came along to support us making the raft and on race day. It was a lot of fun. The organisers want to make this an annual event, so I’m sure we’ll be back next year!!