Games Galore

There are some great resources on the GirlGuiding UK website, including some amusing games.  (I know they are designed for Guides, and as a Leader, I'm rather older than the target audience, but it doesn't stop me having fun!)

My favourite one at the moment is "I'm a Camp Leader, Get Me Out Of Here", which allows you to run a virtual Camp! There's a whole page of games here and also some of the same, and some different ones on the Senior Section site. 

As we're coming up to that time of year that's full of revision and exams, it's always nice to have a little distraction for 5 minutes to give our minds a break.

Enjoy, and let me know your favourites.

Happy Thinking Day

Today, February 22nd, in World Thinking Day.  Thinking Day, the birthday of Lorda Baden Powell and Lady Olave Baden-Powell, his wife, is a day for us to think about Guiding accross the world, and all our sisters in Guiding in the UK and everywhere else. 

WAAGGS, the World Association Of Girls Guides and Girl Scouts, chose a theme every year. The theme for 2012 is "Girls Save Our Planet" and is about supporting environmental causes and all being able to make small steps to help our environment.  We've not planned any meetings around this theme yet, but maybe it's something that we will look into at a future meeting?  

So Happy World Thinking Day to everyone out there, and remember, Girls Can Save Our Planet.

A Little Hiatus

We had a hiatus for a couple of months over Christmas due to increased work commitments for the Guiders, but we're back now with even more plans.

We all met up for a meal at Wagamama's last night, which was really nice, though some of us (guilty leader here) maybe need to work on our chopstick skills to become less messy eaters!

Plans for the next few weeks including helping "Pick and Pack" at the One Can Trust food bank, going bowling, going to see the High Wycombe Gang Show, and having a photography evening once the weather improves. With all this, plus Competition Hikes, DofE Expeditions and exam season coming up, we're all going to be busy!

Service Project - One Can Trust

For this term, we've decided to help out a new initiative in the South Bucks area.  The One Can Trust Food Bank has been set up by a church in High Wycombe to help some of the 12,000 children and their families in Buckinghamshire who live in poverty, by providing emergency food parcels.

12,000 children in Buckinghamshire alone... makes you think, doesn't it?  This rather blows away the image of Buckinghamshire as a leafy and rich haven. As a group, we've recognised that we are really lucky, and we want to help some of the people round here who aren't so lucky.  So we've decided to help One Can Trust.  

Firstly we had an evening where we all brought donations ourselves and from our families, and then we decided that we could do more, and have challenged our whole district to donate cans during the weeks of October 6th - 20th!  With all the units we have in our district, hopefully we'll get a fantastic amount of donations in.  We've asked the girls themselves to donate, rather than asking their parents.  Given that a chocolate bar nowadays costs about 50p, and a magazine at least £1, we're hoping that they'll be willing to give up a treat for a week, and use that money to buy something for the food bank.

If you're reading this, and would like to help change a life with a donation of food, contact One Can Trust, details are on their website:  http://www.sac-hw.org.uk/one-can-trust-foodbank, or drop us an email at prrangerguides@gmail.com 

Spy Ahoy!

On a lovely evening in July we did a "surprise" activity at our meeting:   a spy trail round Princes Risborough.  

This was one that I'd found on line at www.treasuretrails.co.uk.  I'd never used the site before, but the quiz only cost £5 and was quick to download.  It was a walking trail through the town, with clues to answer and directions for what to do.  I was worried at first that it might be a bit easy for us, but there were one or two that were *really* hard, including one where the answer was hidden in the plaque on a flowerpot, and one, which we didn't actually get in the end, which was on a manhole cover which we had walked over several times. 

It was a great way to spend an evening, and we all learnt some stuff we didn't know about the town, and entered the competition to win the prize.  Don't fancy our chances on that one though! 

Maybe we should do one a bigger scale?  A day trip to London maybe?

Princes Risborough Rangers Win "Ready Steady Cook" Competition

Congratulations to Princes Risborough Rangers (and our extra team mates!) who won the Ranger section of the annual Lynn's Challenge Ready Steady Cook Competition.  This competition is held in honour of Lynn Wilson, a popular Guider in Buckinghamshire for many years, who sadly lost her battle to cancer in 2003.  We have "form" in the this competition, having won it before, but this year we had a team that only had one girl who'd competed in the competition before. 

Despite this, the girls managed to rustle up a tasty two course meal to win the competition.

Great work, girls!

What We've Been Doing This Year

We've done a variety of things so far in 2011:

Had our belated Christmas meal - we couldn't go before Christmas because of the snow!
Had our own Thinking Day event, themed around Mexico (including some great Mexican food)
Went to the District Thinking Day event
Decorated Easter Eggs:  the girls eggs turned out better than the leaders!
Had a Royal Wedding Pamper party
Made bead jewellery
Went bowling

Coming up during the rest of the term, we're going to be:
Going for a picnic and walk in some of the beautiful local countryside round here
Having an outdoor cooking evening to practice for the Division outdoor cooking competition
Having an end of term party and BBQ

Rangers decide as a group what activities they want to do, so if you're female, aged between 14 and 25 and fancy getting involved, contact us on prrangerguides@gmail.com!