County Selection Weekend 2011 - pics will be added soon....!
On the 24th/25th September, 22 girls met at Stockton Brook Scout and Guide HQ for a selection weekend. There were two trips being selected for- The America Celebration camp in New Jersey and the Our Cabana World Guiding Centre in Mexico.
We arrived on the Saturday at 10am, and to start introduced ourselves by doing some ice breakers, which helped us to remember everyone's name. We were also given an international friend to look after (an egg) which was proved difficult to keep whole whist kayaking and air rifle shooting. If we left our egg or abandoned it, it would have been stolen and renamed. Everyone had to earn their eggs back by doing chores. Over the course of the weekend, we had interviews with Jo and Lisa, two of the leaders, and they asked us questions about the fundraising and the trip itself.
We were divided into groups, which were the ones we would be sleeping in and working together in for cooking some of our meals. Once we had put up the marquee and our own tents, we gathered together where Sandra had laid out some cooking ingredients for us. We prepared one of three mains and three deserts and cooked them in the hot embers of fires we had made. After lunch, we had a go at air rifle shooting, which was new to many of us. There was a target which we got to keep after and bottles hung up for us to shoot at. It was a great experience and I'm sure that everyone would recommend it!
We were all asked to bring a swap to the weekend to teach up to 6 girls. There were many different types, from friendship bracelets to cards to pin on sheep. We all got to learn something new which could help us if we get to go on one of the international trips.
For our tea, we were given a ready steady cook challenge, which was really fun. We were given the ingredients for two courses and the ingredients, which we took down and cooked in the marquee. All of the groups had a guide leader that they were to invite to dinner. Our group invited Lisa for tuna pasta and fruit fritters, which both turned out to be a great success, so thanks Sandra for those great recipes!
Liz lead a campfire, where we all brought a song to sing and teach to everyone, it was very fun and everyone learnt loads of new campfire songs!
We all were shattered after the busy day so went to bed at 10:30pm. But were woken up at 12 midnight... to do line dancing! Kerry-Anne taught us an American line dance which we all learnt - even though we were half asleep! Then we came up with our own dance and they turned out to be really good, as it was about 1am by this time!
In the morning we were up early and packed away the inners of our tents- it was raining in the night so we couldn't take down the actual tent. For breakfast we had American pancakes and bacon which everyone enjoyed.
Over the course of Sunday we participated in kayaking on a bit of canal and a wide game in a few fields. They were both great fun and we got to wear face paint for the wide game. In kayaking, Holly decided to walk along the back of the boats, which, undoubtedly ended up with one very soggy guide in a canal! For dinner we had an American themed Thanksgiving lunch, that was very tasty!
We all had a great weekend and will hopefully be finding out in the next week if we have been successful in the selection process.
A very big thank you to all the people that made this happen :-)
Lorna Tullis, 1st Alrewas Senior Section.
On the weekend of the 24th September 2011, twenty two Staffordshire guides embarked upon an action packed overnight stay at Stockton Brook Scout and Guide HQ.
Exciting Ellie
When we arrived, we all gathered in a circle and got to know each other for the first time with the aid of some ice-breakers. We all had to think of an adjective that best described ourselves that began with the same letter of our name. Here are some examples:
Charming Cara
Lovely Liz
Random Rach
Smiley Shannon
Va-Va Voom Vicky
After this, we were put into our groups for the weekend. All of the groups were named after American soccer teams which began our theme for the weekend. We had the …
As soon as our groups were sorted, we went shooting! This was great fun and everyone enjoyed this activity. We then made lunch and put up our tents for the evening. In the afternoon, we shared the International swap crafts we had brought for everyone to make. Everyone really enjoyed this activity as it was a time to sit together and get to know the other people on camp a little more and make each other’s crafts.
For our tea it was READY STEADY COOK on the menu! Each group was given a recipe which consisted of two courses, a main and desert. We were also given two guiders to cook for (added pressure). My group made a mushroom and pork stroganoff with tiramisu for desert. Both were successful and the guiders seemed to enjoy both courses phew!
Later that evening, we had our campfire which everyone had prepared a song for. Our campfire was run by Liz who seemed to enjoy herself almost as much as we did. We sung loads of songs until the campfire burned down. To finish our campfire, we had the American tradition of smores which consisted of toasted marshmallows, sandwiched between two chocolate biscuits. A combination made in heaven. YUM! J .
After our hot chocolate and smores, we went to bed ………..but not for long! At around 12.30am, camp was awoken to the sound of a guider “come quick, something’s happened in the hall!” So we emerged from our tents, yawning and made our way to the hall. As soon as we reached the hall, we could hear line dancing music and we knew immediately what we were doing as two of the guiders were already demonstrating some of their moves. We learned a line dancing routine and made up our own routine in groups. I thoroughly enjoyed this although it was quite a challenge not to get your feet tangled so early in the morning.
In the morning, we had to have all of our stuff out of our tents and in the hall (along with ourselves) by eight o’clock. We had a traditional American breakfast of pancakes and maple syrup accompanied by bacon, mushrooms and tomatoes. Our morning activities were a wide game and kayaking. For the wide game, we were split into two groups of seven and became Indian tribes for the next hour or so. The challenge was that each tribe had to retrieve the other tribe’s flag from their land and return it to their own land. The tribe to do this first wins the game. This was a huge amount of fun and we all got soaking wet from the ground. Shannon came flying down the hill with the other team’s flag and did a spectacular fall down the hill (unintentional) followed by a James bond style roll to reach our land (intentional), winning us the game!
Our group then went kayaking, first in double boats and then in single kayaks. On the double boats, I stood up on the sides and almost fell in. Cara, Ellie, Shannon, Liz and Charlotte ended up in a water fight with the fabulous instructors, getting wet through because it turns out the kayaking instructors were not only experts in kayaking but water fights too. This became apparent when they produced a large bucket from in their boat and threw water over all of us. All of us, at the end received our very own certificate for beginners kayaking!
Lunch was amazing! We had a thanks giving dinner followed by cheese cake and OREO TRUFFLES! Sending us all home suitably full. We then had our final meeting, sang taps and were collected. We all had an amazing weekend and made some wonderful friends :)
Many thanks to all the guiders for organising a fabulous and exciting weekend :)
By Victoria Jenkinson