GGEW Winter 2012 | Page 3

PAGE 6 GGEW NEWS WINTER 2012 GGEW NEWS WINTER 2012 Thinking Day – past and present PAGE 3 f you are thinking of throwing away the “Merlin Group” leaflets you receive in guiding publications, don’t! I responded to their advert to win a free group day out and got 10 free tickets to Chessington and then booked the rest of the group with Leaders and parent helpers for a great reduced price of £12.50 per ticket, just for quoting Girlguiding, they also gave one free leader place for every five children. 7th Brentwood rainbows had a great day out, most of them had never been before nor would have got the opportunity to go. To see their faces on Bubbleworks was such a treat. I s a young Guider I remember feeling very privileged to spend thinking Day at Our Chalet never expecting to travel anywhere outside Europe. Many years later I was able to celebrate the day at Our Cabana and closer to home at Pax Lodge. While travelling in Australia a few years ago I met up with some Guide Leaders in Hobart and was invited to an amazing thinking day breakfast so it seemed only right and proper to complete the set and be at Sangam on 22nd February. As you can see from the photographs, 2012 was the year I completed my own personal challenge. I should perhaps explain that one photo is of Jane Rogers and I at the opening ceremony of the World Thinking Day 2012 session whilst the other is celebrating WAGGGS centenary- so good it took 3 years! Rosemary Jeffery A Lorraine Cowley he 4th Upminster Guides were expecting to spend their summer camp in the normal way - under canvas and on a campsite but the weather put paid to that idea so the girls went to Went House, Bulphan instead! undeterred, they even managed to hold a campfire - just shows how adaptable Guides are! T Leader makes her promise at Went House hadwell and Tilbury Leader Claire Hollington’s family have a long history at Went House, the Upminster Division pack holiday house in Bulphan. C unmow District Rainbows and Brownies meet Chloe Rogers, Olympic bronze medalist hockey player at the Dunmow Carnival. The District also won 1st place for best walking group for dressing up as sheep for the nursery rhyme Little Bo Peep. D “I wanted to get enrolled at Went House because I have a lot of history there to do with my family. My mum used to go to Went House for pack holidays when she was a Brownie in the 60s also my nan used to do lots of pack holidays there with her other Brownie packs. My nan was also District Commissioner of South Hornchurch after working her way through the Brownies (as Tawny then Brown owl) Also as a Rainbow, Brownie and a Guide myself, I stayed there a lot.” Claire Hollington ABOVE:- Claire shows her family photo albumn to other Guides who came to see her make her promise. RIGHT:- Claire with some of her historic badges Help save Lady Baden Powell’s Badges uring the summer the Romford Trefoil Guild held a fundraising lunch for the project to ‘save’ the badges of Lady BP. We had all read about it in ‘The Trefoil’ (March 2012) but it was Olive Buckley’s inspiration to invite us to her house and provide us with lunch. It was well attended and Stella Horton ,County Chairman, and some Hornchurch members joined us. We paid for our lunch and after cakes were sold too, a sum of £200 was donated to the fund. D Natalie Webber, who is organising the campaign was interested in Olive’s idea for fundraising and travelled up from Eastbourne to join us and bring the actual set of badges for us all to see and admire. It was a lovely occasion, impromptu and spontaneous and proved to be a very happy day and a great success. While we were having lunch we discussed how we could help the campaign in Essex West as it seems that the Guides of today appear to have very little awareness of the importance of Lady BP to the Movement. So we set about getting our story in the Romford Recorder, and they used a nice story and picture The Trefoil Guild would like to issue a challenge to the Guides of today - to ask them to try to match or beat the amount raised for this cause? A full story can be found in the March 2012 issue of THE TREFOIL, Page 34, and it tells the story and why the money was to be raised for the badges - it’s all part of a sum of £10m. fundraising effort for WAGGGS called the ‘Global Girls Fund’. Deirdre Marculescu Website: www.girlguidingessexwest.org.uk