Andrea’s Blog

We’ve just come back from camp - just a weekend, at our local scount and guide campsite. Mixed weather! Pitched and struck in steady rain, but Saturday was lovely and made up for it. We decided to call it an EcoCamp and do as much back-to-nature stuff as possible, which was fantastic for the kids. Although they would normally spend Saturdays swanking around town in full make-up, they had a fantastic time jumping in puddles, damming streams and dragging dead trees around! It proved to us (once again) how important it is to give girls the opportunity just to be girls, with no outside pressures. So what did we do? Organised activity sessions included ‘natural art’ - Andy Goldsworthy-esque sculptures etc around the campsite; making pizzas and cooking cakes in orange skins on the wood fire; pioneering which included a rope laddder (a highlight of the weekend) and making a bridge to cross the river (hmm), making shelters; a carrier bag fashion show; orienteering and elder jewellery. If you cut some of the newish growth from an elder tree (about 5mm in diameter), you can push the middle out and they make excellent beads. We collected stuff to make dreamcatchers too, but ran out of time. Of course, a lot of the unscheduled stuff was far more fun for the girls - the times they could just play in the mud or go off exploring under the pretext of collecting wood! It was also good to just have the time to sit around and chat, say over hot chocolate and a lot of squirty cream(!). We don’t get much of a chance in a 2-hour guide meeting.
We came away determined to use the campsite more and to keep up the camping. All we have to do now is dry the 8 tons of wet canvas currently hanging up in the scout hut….

Found these ideas which might come in handy when we are outside - in camp or on a hike. He promises to do more - so watch this space…

I’ve been feeling, for a while, the need to make Guides more ‘guidey’ - its a constant worry for us in. So I need somewhere that I can muse on what we’re doing - what we’re doing right or wrong, what made Guides good for me and where we can go in the future. As a result, I’m going to abuse my ethink blog. Anyone here to find out about ICT stuff needs to hurtle off to educationblog, where all that stuff’ll be….