I’ve been meaning to blog
about this stuff for awhile, but I wanted to get the pictures from one of the
events from Kirsty, one of the Guide leaders, before posting it. Anyway, I
finally have the pictures, so here it goes!
Back in April the Girl Guides
had their annual Promise Ceremony, during which the new girls recited the
Promise and became official members of the organization. We now have 28 girls
in the unit, ages 6 to 14. Quite a spread! As I am a new member, I was also
included in the ceremony. Unfortunately I hadn’t known before going to the
meeting that night that I was going to be included, so I didn’t know to invite
Chris. I wish he could have shared that with me, as Scouting has always meant a
lot to me. It was a fun night and I got to show that I had memorized the
Australian Girl Guide Promise, which is very similar to the United States Girl
Scout Promise. The Australian Promise is:
I promise that I will do my
best:
to do my duty to God, to serve the Queen and my country;
to help other people; and
to keep the Guide Law.
The US Promise is:
On my honor, I will try:
To serve God and my country,
To help people at all times,
And to live by the Girl Scout Law.
The Australian Promise is
about to undergo a change to make it more relevant to today’s girls. Our girls
participated in the national survey asking girls what aspects of the Promise
are most important to them and the kind of wording they’d like to see. It’s
great that the national organization is seeking input from its girl members.
During the survey, the girls read the Promises from several other countries,
including the US
one. Of course they wanted me to recite it, so I did. It made me feel proud to
be a Girl Scout and to be able to share my experience with girls from another
country.
Taking the Promise.
With the new members after the ceremony.
A few weeks later we had an
exciting meeting: we had a PJ party! We all wore our PJs to the meeting and had
an evening full of fun and games. The highlight of the eating was the donut
eating contest. We put donuts on strings and hung them from sticks, and then
the girls (four at a time) had to eat their donut the fastest without using
their hands. Then of course at the end was the leaders’ turn. Andrea, one of
the leaders, had made the hilarious mistake of buying the donuts that were on
special: jam donuts. This meant that we had red sugary goodness oozing down our
faces the whole time. It sure made for some fun pictures! (For the record, I
came in second, behind Kirsty.)
Andrea and me chomping away at our donuts.
The resulting messiness.
The next Girl Guide adventure
was the State Girl Guide Leader Conference in Adelaide during the last weekend in May. This
was an exciting time as Chris’ sister, Claire, and her boyfriend, Steve, came
out to tow my car to Adelaide
to get fixed. Getting to that point was quite a challenge (with several delays
due to weather, cars not working, etc.) but they finally got here on the
Thursday night and we towed the car to the city, with Chris and me leading the
way in his car. We had a bit of a mishap along the way when Steve’s car ran out
of oil about 50 kilometers outside the city (he had borrowed it from his
cousin, who had said it was ready to go). We had to stop at a petrol station
for oil, but once that was done we completed our journey. Phew! It was funny
because the same guy who had been staying at the bunkhouse the night Chris hit
the kangaroo and who chatted with us that night was there again on Thursday
when we towed it to Adelaide. Weird. I’m just glad it got there safely! (As of
this past weekend I have my car back (Chris’ family drove it out here and visited)
although of course it couldn’t be that easy. More on that later.)
The next evening I headed off
to the southern outskirts of the city from Chris’ mom’s place in the northern
suburbs. The Girl Guide conference was held at the Douglas Scrub Camp, owned by
the Guides. Kirsty, Andrea, Zoe, and I stayed at Kirsty’s parents’ place, which
was about five minutes from the camp. Her parents’ place was AMAZING! The
original part of the house was built in the 1840s (I think) and they’ve added
onto it. The walls were white stone and the ceiling had wooden rafters. It was
a cute, cozy place full of beautiful artwork, pottery, and trinkets from their
travels. It had great character. I hope someday I’ll have a house like that
full of artwork and trinkets from my travels.
We arrived at the camp early
the next morning for the beginning of the sessions. We had some educational
workshops about the Centenary Challenge, a badge the girls (and adults) can
earn as celebration of 100 years of Girl Guiding in South Australia, and updates from the State
Managers and international programs. Then we did several activities that are great
ideas for the girls, including making wax sculptures around a candle stick (see
pictures below), learning how to wrap and wear a traditional Indian sari, and writing
out our family tree of Guiding/Scouting. That last exercise made me very proud
to be continuing the tradition of Scouting in my family, and I hope if I
(someday) have kids they will be involved too. We also saw the results of a
survey done by the national organization to assess how effective training and
volunteer support is. It was quite interesting since the most represented
group/area was the eastern states (New South Wales,
Victoria, Queensland).
In Australia, most of the
Girl Guides are located in these states, so the results of the survey reflected
their grievances much more than ours in South
Australia. Many of the comments by leaders who took
the survey reflected how much different the eastern states are from us. As I
learned throughout the weekend, we are a much tighter-knit group of leaders in South Australia.
Throughout the weekend I also got a glimpse of the vast number of forms that
leaders must fill out for every conceivable activity. If you want to take your
unit to do a water activity, even if it’s just going to the local pool, you
have to fill out a special “Water Activity” form. There are different
categories of activities, such as the “Not So Adventurous Adventure
Activities”. What on Earth?! It made me
realize just how intense a leader’s job can be when she has to manage forms for
each event and paperwork for 30 girls. Hats off to them!
The Naracoorte Guide Leaders in
traditional Indian saris.
Making a wax candle sculpture. You pour
the colored hot wax into the saucer and then dip the whole thing quickly into
the swirling water while the hot wax cools into a neat shape.
The end result of the candle sculpture.
Later in the morning we
learned about WAGGGS, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. I
learned that 1/3 (or about 3.5 million out of about 8.5-10 million) of WAGGGS
members are Girl Scouts from the United States. When we heard this
figure, there were some comments from other leaders about how the US dominates everything and I’m pretty sure I
heard someone say that “the US
sticks its nose into everything”. It was nothing malicious or mean-spirited,
but I have heard that comment before and I do find it interesting to hear what
people from other countries think of the US (and other countries). Overall
the reactions I’ve encountered have been positive, although Australians LOVE to
poke fun at others, as well as themselves, so I often hear some pretty funny
comments and stereotypes which usually do have a ring of truth to them (like
Americans are gun-toting rednecks and religious fanatics, which compared to
Australians we are). Another thing we learned about US Girl Scouts is that Girl
Scout cookies make up 3% of all US
cookie sales annually. Wow! The other leaders were quite impressed with that,
because while they do sell biscuits (the Australian term for cookies) every
year, it is nowhere near as lucrative as that. The presenters commented that
the US Girl Scouts run their cookie sales like a small business and by doing so
teach their girls how to be saleswomen and businesswomen, and that Australian
Girl Guides should strive to do the same. One of the leaders said she had heard
that in the US
the Girl Scouts sell cookies all year. They turned to me to answer that
question (no). It’s quite interesting to hear what the Australian leaders think
and feel about US Girl Scouts. It made me realize that I knew next to nothing
about Australian Girl Guides before I came here, even though we’re all part of
the same overarching organization.
In the afternoon we had some
fun outdoor workshops. I did the birdwatching one, and despite the intermittent
heavy rain we saw and heard some neat birds. For the second workshop session I
did the “Enviro Action” workshop, during which we took a walk through the scrub
and learned about the flora and fauna of the area and how we could take the
girls on a nature walk.
The gorgeous fall colors of the neighboring vineyard.
It rained a lot that day, but it sure made the scenery that much more gorgeous.
In the evening we had the
Centenary Dinner, during which we listened to several girl members speak about
their international travels. One of the girls spoke about her volunteer stay at
Our Chalet, the WAGGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) world
center in Switzerland.
Her experience sounded so incredible and it made me really want to visit the
center to volunteer. Maybe someday...Throughout the evening we also had the
chance to browse through the t-shirts and clothing articles from past Guiding
events that we had all brought to show. They were hanging on display throughout
the room, and my Junior Girl Scout sash and Cadette/Senior vest from the US got a lot of
attention. Again, it made me proud to be a Girl Scout from the US!
The following day, Sunday, we
wrapped everything up and headed home. I’m really glad I went to the
conference, because even though I am only going to be here and serving as a
Naracoorte leader for another half year or so, it was great to meet other
leaders and to learn more about what goes into being a leader (including TONS
of paperwork!). I know wherever I end up I’ll be able to take what I learned at
the conference to help in my Guiding/Scouting leadership.
My most recent Guiding
adventure was the South East Regional camp at Camp Fellwood,
about an hour drive from Naracoorte, this past weekend. It was the June long
weekend (with Monday off to celebrate the Queen’s birthday) so we stayed Friday
evening to Monday afternoon. There were about 60 girls there, from little ones
(6 years old) to older ones (up to 18), and about 10 leaders. The camp was
really neat because there was a basic shelter with a canteen area to store food
and there were “long drop” toilets (latrines or outhouses as I call them) but
that was all that was provided. We had to haul in everything else, including
tents, portable showers, barbeques, pots and pans, water buckets, sinks to wash
dishes in, a big “tent” to serve as the main meeting area, etc. That was a lot
of stuff! Because all the units that attended (there were about five) were from
the country, there was no short supply of trailers and utes (aka trucks) in
which to haul everything. It was pretty amazing to me that the units had to
supply and set up pretty much everything for the weekend. I took Chris’ swag
with me to sleep in instead of a tent, as I had never used a swag before and I
wanted to give it a go. It was quite chilly at night (the last night we got a
frost) but I was comfy and cozy in the swag, which has a quite comfortable
mattress included. I packed a bunch of blankets to keep me warm, and warm I
was! I think swags are awesome, despite there being little to no room to move
inside. The whole idea of having a mattress instead of just a thin foam pad is
great!
The marquee that we set up (background) and one of two wash stations that we assembled (foreground).
My swag all set up.
Inside the swag. You can see how little room there is!
It was my first time
attending a big camp with girls at which I was a leader instead of a girl
member. Boy how that changed things! We (the leaders) were in charge of cooking
all the meals, for which we used several barbeques brought by the units for the
weekend. And boy let me tell you, I have never seen girls eat so much food in
my life! They devoured nearly all the food we made, and there was LOTS of it.
As I’ve mentioned in previous posts, Australians love their tea, and hence have
multiple tea breaks every day. Of course we were on camp, so it’s typical to
have many meals every day to keep your energy up. Because of this, we had six
“meals” every day: breakfast, morning tea, lunch, afternoon tea, dinner, and
supper. Phew!
One of the barbeques we brought in. Here we're cooking "toads in the hole" (or "bunnies in a basket" as I know it).
Because I was a leader, I
could hang out with the other leaders during meal prep and tea times and I had
access to yummy treats, like banana bread, mint slice, and of course chocolate,
that the girls didn’t know about. And of course we didn’t have a bed time, so
we usually stayed up chatting after the girls had settled in for the night. It
was just a neat experience to be on the other side of things for the first
time. Also, instead of DOING the activities throughout the weekend, I helped
set them up and supervised the girls while they did them. Sometimes I felt a
bit in limbo since I was the youngest leader there and wasn’t much older than
some of the oldest girls in attendance. At times I wish I could have actually
participated in the activities, but overall I LOVED serving as a leader and a
mentor for the girls. I’m really starting to get to know the girls in our unit
and am really beginning to get a hang of being a leader and interacting with
girls of different ages. I think the bat presentations I’ve been giving at the
local schools have also helped me learn what kids of different ages are like
and what kinds of activities are appropriate for them. I also loved interacting
with the other leaders, who I learn from and look up to as role models. There
will always be things to learn and improve upon, but the camp boosted my
confidence in my leadership skills and my love of working with the girls.
Throughout the camp the girls
participated in many activities, which I think were quite amazing. The first
activity was learning how to use a compass. I was especially excited about this
as I love orienteering and was eager to help the girls learn the basics. Each
patrol had to follow the angles given to them, which eventually led to a
station at which they had to search through goo (cornstarch and water, with
additional items like fake spiders and other creepy crawlies) to get a key that
unlocked the instructions to their next activity. The next activity was quite
fun. We had all been told weeks before the camp that all the girls had to learn
four knots: the reef knot, clove hitch, round turn and two half hitches, and
square lashing. The girls definitely needed them (and I had to brush up on them
to help the girls!) as most of the activities required using these knots. Each
patrol had to build their own wash station (stand with a sink), spinning
clothesline, and ladder clothesline, all from only bamboo sticks and string. They
did pretty darn well!
An almost-complete washstand.
A spinning clothesline.
A ladder clothesline.
The second day was spent
doing fire activities. First, each patrol had to dig their own fire pit, find
wood for their fire, build it, and light it. Then they did several really cool
activities, including cooking an egg on a safety pin and boiling water in a
paper bag. The egg activity worked pretty well, although the instructions didn’t
say to rotate the egg halfway through, so all the eggs were only half-cooked.
The boiling water activity didn’t work so well, as the paper bags were a bit
too thin, so the water leaked out before it could boil. The girls still had fun
though!
A fire pit in the making.
Cooking eggs on safety pins.
Later that afternoon the
leaders and older girls set up an obstacle course, since the theme of the camp
was “Bootcamp”. We lifted some (connected) tires up between two trees so the
girls could climb through and over them, we dug a pit (and filled it with
water) over which the girls had to swing on a rope, we created a rope walk
between two trees, and we created an army crawl under ropes near the ground.
The girls absolutely loved the challenges, and they especially loved watching
their friends get wet in the water pit.
The tire wall.
The water pit and rope swing.
We finished up on Monday,
which of course meant packing up everything we had brought. The girls left
around 2:00pm, but most of the leaders didn’t leave until 5:00pm or so. Despite
the extra responsibility of having to stay late to finish packing up, I
thoroughly enjoyed being a leader at camp. I loved hearing the girls call out,
“Cricket!” as I walked by (my Girl Scout camp name has been Cricket since I was
a young girl member. I chose that name because crickets used to creep me out
but eventually I grew to like them.). I loved collaborating with the leaders to
set up and run the activities for the girls. I loved being able to share my
knowledge with the girls and help them do something or think of something on
their own instead of telling them how to do it or doing it for them. Now I
can’t wait for the next big camp!
Our cake to celebrate 100 years of Girl Guiding in South Australia
