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 AUGUST TO DECEMER 2010 BLOG ENTRIES:
Thursday 22 December
I did promise to tell you about the Secret Sleep Over and haven’t yet got around to it so in case you are interested this is roughly how it went: meet at hall and receive secret instructions in sealed envelopes. First instruction takes girls via metro to Gateshead where they had to photograph themselves with the next instruction still sealed. Part 2 is then opened and says get a bus to Chester Le Street and part 3 is a map of the route to the Guide Hall we are sleeping in. Two other groups from Wallsend and Washington followed a similar procedure and also completed challenges along the way. Once there we had a series of other activities to complete the most impressive part of which was the three girls who, in the Bushtucker Trial, actually did eat some tripe which I just think is totally disgusting! There were other things but I’m not telling you them because the next victims of my team building challenges may well be the County Commissioners!
Anyway – good fun all round or proof, perhaps, of a mad sadistic streak in me.
It was perhaps not such a good plan to go straight from the sleep over with its somewhat limited sleep to Sheffield for their show, “Olivia” but what a fantastic show and wonderful to see a county putting on such a professional event. I can only applaud the dedication and team work which get such great results.
So now a time for a bit of a wind down from Guiding – or that is the theory. I have a couple of events to plan for January and a bit of catching up but also plenty time to head for the hills which is where I was yesterday. Not stunning weather and very wet; I never tire of the remoter bits of Northumberland and it is always good to introduce friends who don’t know the area to the thought that we can wander in and out of Scotland when you are up on the Border Ridge.
What ever you enjoy I hope you get plenty time to indulge your self.
Thank you for all you have done in 2011.
Happy Christmas and All the Best For 2012.
Hilary
Sunday 4 December
Thank you all who came to The Minster yesterday. I was especially pleased to see groups of Senior Section in greater numbers than before. I do love that service and I am sure there were many who had the odd “moment” What does it for you? Your County Standard perhaps, the Choir singing that lovely stable song, the simplicity of the Brownies or Jane Wood’s excellent address. Whatever it is this is one tradition we are not about to ditch so be ready for another service in 2013. As many of my friends and colleagues know and are frequently irritated by I’m sure, I am not one really for doing things over and over again until everything is in a rut; there are so many new things to try, old things to rework and sometimes out of date things to lose but to have this one core event doesn’t seem to compromise my wish to move us all on. Huge thanks to Helen Clarke and Bronia Trynka Watson the two main organisers for this event.
Talking of moving on this is Jan’s last week in the office and our new girl Maia was in the Minster yesterday quietly watching us all at work and soaking up the atmosphere. Whilst wishing Jan a long and Happy Retirement I must also wish Maia "Good Luck" in her new role which begins straight after Christmas.
And here is a funny thing – a real Guiding small world story. Ann, who was North Tyneside County Commissioner until 2009 left to live in Northern Territories, Australia, with her husband. She was going to have a little break from Guiding but well as you can guess she has got sucked in. I think the minutes weren’t being well written or the agenda out on time so Ann volunteered to do some admin in the Northern Territory office – incidentally a region of 400 members (no I haven’t missed a zero) in an area so large you cannot even conceive of it. Well anyway the archivist had come across a series of photo albums in a jumble sale and couldn’t let them go but they were of no use to her as they referred to Guiding in the UK between 1930 and 1956. So Ann nobly carried them all home and summoned me for a coffee to have a look at them. Well they were fascinating but we decided linked to the Midlands and not of value to us. I said I would see if my counterpart in Midlands, Sally Illsley, would be interested. Sally rang me before the Minster service about some details and I said, quite tentatively did she like archive things, knowing you either love them or hate them. Well fortunately she does like them so I said the name of the units in the photo and you would never expect it but it was the very place Sally was a guide – so there you go Darwin back to point of origin in two steps. Fantastic!
Enjoy what is left of the term, no doubt you will have many plans left. My next event is a “Secret Sleepover” with the Rangers but I can’t tell you about that yet or it wouldn’t be a secret!
Hilary
Sunday 20 November
I’ve had a really busy month but what a lovely one – one celebration after another to be honest.
The first celebration I’ve already told you about was at Westminster Abbey so to continue…….
My second celebration was to give a young lady in Durham North, Merry by name and merry by nature, a chief commissioner Award. Merry is a delightful Brownie and nearly a Guide who struggles against a very rare condition which keeps her in a wheelchair and makes her very tired but she has a terrific attitude and can’t wait to be a Guide. Happily her Mum, who went along to Brownies to support her, has now been hooked by Guiding and is now going to leave Brownies for Guides.
Celebration number three was a little gathering of the current exec and advisers to say thank you and happy retirement to Jan who is leaving the York office on 9 December after 17 years. As Jan’s husband told me some months ago don’t think of surprising Jan and she is a terrible woman to buy a present for – not encouraging but I think we did achieve a balance and Jan will hopefully spend next summer lazing on some new patio furniture.
The final celebration also required a trip to York – this time highly secretive to present a Chief Commissioner Award to Joyce Green. This was a very well kept secret and did indeed cause a great look of amazement on her usually unflappable face. There are many times when my job is just delightful!
And has there been time for anything else? Well yes actually. I have just had a most enjoyable week-end in the Lakes in one of my other roles as association Level 2 walking and training assessor. I don’t want this to lapse while I am doing the commissioning stuff so I needed to go on this course and practice finding obscure places on a map. I love maps and read them like other people read books so I was more than happy to discuss which contour I was standing on – OK sad but true!
Back to best bib and tucker in a fortnight for the York Minster Carol Service – hope to see you there.
Hilary
Sunday 6 November
There have been some very enjoyable things in my world recently. I went to Dalmeny House near Edinburgh last week for the latest in a series of Queens Guide presentations. It is always impressive to chat to the young women getting their Queens Guide Award as they have so much enthusiasm which we need to bottle and use every time the rest of us get jaded! It was also an amazing afternoon as Lady Roseberry (who happens to own the house and is very pro Guiding) threw open the doors of her rather impressive home, over looking the Firth of Forth, and let everyone have a look at the marvellous collection of art and furniture. If I tell you they are related to the Rothchild family you will appreciate how valuable this was and what a privilege it felt to be treated like a house guest.
Saturday 5 November was the first of the new Thanks and Recognition services we intend to hold in Westminster Abbey as a joint event with Scouting. Again it feels special to be able to use the Abbey and imagine how it must feel for those big state occasions. Feels pretty good actually with us in it as the singing just rolls around – much like our own Minster service which I am looking forward to and I hope to see many of you there.
Today has been just a sparklingly lovely day so it was just the day to start talking about a camp in 2013 and to do a site visit. Being November this could have been a very dreary event but the site we have in mind in a particularly lovely bit of the Dales and was looking quite enchanting. The drive down and back was just gorgeous – I could have just enjoyed being out for a more extended walk than covering 34 acres of camp site!
So much good weather around lulls me into a false sense of time but rehearsals are just starting for Cinderella at school and I am just hoping the pantomime Dames do really like being laughed at. The last time we did a panto the Dame had to be persuaded on stage when he was in costume because he didn’t realise what we were going to do to his image. Due to a shortage of boys the Dames are girls this time and are already being briefed at regular intervals that I am going to make them look truly horrible!
Hilary
Sunday 16 October
The nice thing about organising guide events is that often you make new friends as a result. Some of my best friends started off as people I worked with in teams for camps and holidays and then you find you have so much in common you just have to keep meeting up. I know Rocket camp, which was 13 years ago, had that affect on quite a few people and I regularly hear of the members of the good ship Enterprise gathering in all sorts of places. Similarly October brings the Rocket Rendezvous for the organising team and next week we go for our regular break to eat, drink and generally have fun.
On the same theme; last weekend was the first gathering of the Directors of “that” camp from last year and how lovely it was to see everyone. Of course as we have to travel from all parts of the UK it is really special to get together and find out yet more things that happened at Harewood that I didn’t know about! We went to Hautbois near Norwich for this gathering – what a fantastic place, such a shame it isn’t closer to me or I would use it much more.
And talking about Guide centres I was also hearing from Dinah, my Scottish Chief Commissioner friend that she has noticed that our region is supporting Netherurd very well. I had noticed that too, not least because some of my newest Rangers were extolling the virtues of the place as they had been to camp there this summer. Maybe both of these venues are worth thinking about for a summer adventure.
Now I have a new group of girls in Rangers, we are trying to make things interesting to keep them enthusiastic. I decided we must be winning when as part of the Region 40 year challenge they opted for semaphore on our 70’s programme night and chose to spell out “Rangers are cool” as the message the rest of the group had to read. Not quite 70’s, more second class I also slipped in the “light a fire with two matches test” and even let them have extra long matches and very dry wood but one group still took six matches and the helping hand of a leader to get it going!
Hope you are all having a good term but I am sure I am not alone in looking forward to a half term break.
Hilary
Monday 26 September 2011
Back again with more to say because I have just had another busy weekend - but very enjoyable. I joined 55 Senior Section Guiders at Waddow for Friday and Saturday – until early Sunday actually, but as I left very early that doesn’t count.
It was fantastic to get so many Senior Section Leaders together in one place. We often feel we are the forgotten ones at training sessions and of course we just know we are special so putting so many of us together makes for a very lively, and loud, weekend. No matter how long you have been a unit guider there are new things to find out, old things to be reminded of and a new spin on something interesting to do with balloons!
I am, of course, well in my comfort zone in this sort of event especially when the evening entertainment doesn’t involve bollywood, samba or zumba so the Bolton Little Theatre Group’s Murder Mystery was a very welcome entertainment. They seemed to have taken one look at us and decided that the jokes could be rather more risqué than when I went with county but much merriment ensued. Apparently there are about 30 clues but I can only guess at the end “Who Dun it”
So after that I was off on Sunday to be a Dragon in the International Selection Dragon’s Den. I am distressed by the fact that not one person seems to find the concept of me and dragon alien! Anyway it was great to see the girls present their ideas to get some virtual money for a campaign for raising awareness of Millennium Development Goals. Personally I think these are so little known it will take more than money for a poster campaign to raise our awareness of them but at least one of my fellow dragons feels I am very pessimistic in that view.
Going to have a bit of a quieter 10 days now – well Guide wise anyway – work is quite manic so that will make up the gap.
Hilary
Sunday 18th September
I definitely feel that the summer holidays are fading into the memory as we move full on into the new year of Guiding.
I’ve been hearing tales from our Hadrian’s Wall walkers while I have been at the Region Walking Week-end. They seem to have had a fantastic time but were a bit surprised that it was quite demanding – I could have told them that the bit through Newcastle would hurt their feet and the bit beyond Housesteads would get the knees but it is a fantastic walk. I have really enjoyed being at the Walking Week-end in The Dales. These week-ends were my first introduction to region events years ago and I always looked forward to them. Yesterday, despite the rain, I found I still enjoy the challenge of looking for tiny features on a big hillside – a map reading equivalent of a needle in a haystack! The skill level in the group I was with was very high so I am confident that they will be great leaders. We did some night navigation too, never my favourite activity to be honest, probably because I am still a bit afraid of the dark if I am honest – OK ridiculous after all the camping I have done.
Anyway when the stars come out and the moon is bright enough for moon shadows it can be a magical experience.
Last week I was admiring the skill of our more thespian members who produced Oliver in the blink of an eye – well a week-end anyway. Curtain up is always impressive and proves what a reserve of talent we have. Nearer home I was very relieved to find that on the first night back I did actually find some new members for the Ranger Unit. I had done a bit of promotion work in the summer because there were quite a few girls due to go off to Uni but in the ranger world as one group leaves there is no certainty that you wlll get girls to transfer from Guides. If anyone can get the answer to the transfer conundrum then Growing Guiding should be a breeze!
Hilary
Tuesday 23 August
Summer is already nearly over and I know that lots of you have been out and about camping and holidaying and giving our girls so much opportunity. It has been a very mixed summer for weather and while those away in the first week seemed to avoid any rain, quite a few since then have been very wet indeed at times. No doubt a few tents have found themselves draped decoratively around halls and gardens.
Mixed weather certainly seemed to be the theme for our team on the Challenger 4 belonging to the Tall Ships Youth Trust. Certainly they had a very exciting time with some very speedy sailing on the way back across the English Channel following a rather bumpy, and therefore slightly sea sicky, outward journey. I had a great afternoon at the start of the trip as the girls were briefed for the trip and the confusion of ropes and winches seemed dizzying – but I am a bit of a land lubber! The trip ended with a visit from the Chief Guide, Gill Slocombe, who was also very taken with the whole event. I suspect she is considerably better versed in things nautical than me!
Perhaps due to an overdose of camping last year I have actually had a quiet summer in Guiding terms but I did find an opportunity to exercise by going up to the North West Highlands to walk and scramble up some very big hills. This will definitely improve my walking logbook which was looking a bit pathetic frankly.
The region group walking Hadrian’s Wall will be taking off at the weekend so let’s hope the traditional bank holiday weather is kind. I would love them to see Northumberland looking really beautiful.
I hope you enjoy the last days of the holiday season and any more camps and holidays still to take place.
Hilary
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