Guiding is thriving in these villages
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| Useful life skills - can you stand up in a kayak? (Guide Camp 2006) |
People often seem surprised when they see Brownies out with their leaders around the area. “I didn’t think they still did that,” they say, or “Gosh, there’s rather a lot of them!”. Well we do, and there are. Across this area we have one Ranger unit, 2 Guide units, 3 Brownie units and a unit of Rainbows.
Rangers are our 14-18 year olds, and they meet in the Thames Ditton Guide hut on a Tuesday night. They appear to spend all their time cooking, eating and talking. Oh, and going on international trips. You would hardly notice the Guides. If they wear uniform at all, it’s a very discreet blue top, probably with jeans or combats on the bottom half. However, if you pass by their meetings (Wednesday at All Saints’ Church Hall for Weston Green, the Guide hut in Church Walk on a Friday for Thames Ditton) you’ll certainly hear them! They have a very varied programme covering lots of eating and outdoor activities, developing friendships and teamwork, thinking about the lives of people outside the UK, contributing to their local and national communities, and having adventures. In fact, not so different from what they’ve done for almost 100 years now. Brownies are very easily identifiable, with their bright yellow uniforms. Everything about Brownies is designed to appeal to the fashion-conscious 7-10 year-old, from their glittery new handbooks to the bang-up-to-minute badges they can work for.
However, alongside the Computer and Science Investigator badges there are lots of basic, traditional ones like First Aid, Finding Your Way, and Home Skills. Brownies love to work for badges, especially if they involve food, animals or getting outside, so we plan our meetings to allow them lots of opportunities to do what appeals to them. You will see them on a Tuesday and Wednesday at Weston Green and a Friday in Thames Ditton. They can get a bit excitable, but they do try to behave!
Rainbows are our littlest Guides, from 5 to 7 years old. Unfortunately, we only have the one unit at the moment, in Weston Green. We would love to resurrect the Thames Ditton unit which ran successfully for 9 years – it’s just a matter of finding one person who would be prepared to take the lead, as we have lots of offers of supportive help. The Weston Green unit started up 3 years ago and is incredibly popular. The girls wear a smart red uniform these days, and enjoy a whole range of fun activities including arts and crafts, singing and games.
Each unit operates fairly independently, although we come together for events. This summer, the Guides from this area camped for 5 days in East Sussex. We took 53 Guides and 9 leaders and had a fantastic time climbing, abseiling, kayaking, flying down a zip wire, grass sledging and swimming. We also had a day out and went to the seaside at Brighton, where Harry Ramsden’s was rather disconcerted when we placed an order for fish and chips for 62! The highlight of the camp was the final evening when we enrolled 15 girls around the campfire, having eaten a barbeque and sung songs. The lowlight was probably cooking bacon in the rain, but it was definitely character-building.
Residential events are a wonderful bonding opportunity for Brownies, Guides and Rangers. They get to take part in activities that they have chosen, push themselves a bit to try new things, and learn to look after themselves and other people. We have a number of girls with special needs in our units who are given the chance to join in all the activities: our teenage helpers are amazingly patient and inventive in coming up with ways to ensure that no-one gets left out.
So what does this all amount to? Some 21 leaders and a succession of parent helpers supporting 15 Rainbows, 80 Brownies, 60 Guides and 10 Rangers. How you could miss them, I’ll never know!
Bronach Hughes, Thames Ditton Brownies and Guides
To learn more, contact the Dittons District Commissioner, Kathy Williams, on 020 8398 1300. All our units are thriving and we would love to be able to take more girls in if we only had more leaders to open another Rainbow or Brownie unit. Training and support will be given and we guarantee you a warm welcome.