It seems such a long time since Christmas as we finished Guides with a visit to see Cinderella at the panto. It was enjoyed by all and a great end to the term. At the beginning of the year, we decided to complete the Disability Awareness badge to allow the girls to learn more about different disabilities. We have been very fortunate to have guest speakers come to the unit to help with the badge, which the girls love! Firstly, the girls had a go at wheelchair basketball with Andy. They all seemed to master the chair quickly with only a few problems with steering and breaking! He was an inspiration to us all as his disability did not stop him from doing anything.

A lady from the Guide Dog Association brought in Millie to tell us about training dogs for the blind and how they are allocated to people. Millie’s owner had died and she was now in semi-retirement, by helping with fundraising and education.

Our last visitor, Clare, is a peer educator and Guide leader who has completed a course to help Guides understand about mental health. Both the girls and the leaders took part in fun activities and games that made us think and talk about how we feel, obstacles we might find and how we can use coping strategies to help us in difficult situations. Our last session for the badge will be looking at unseen disabilities like epilepsy and diabetes.

For the first time we celebrated Burns Night, deciding the safest option was to try vegetarian haggis which was very tasty and enjoyed by most of the Guides. Making the oat cakes was easy but the taste testing not as successful. Let’s just say we won’t be making them again!

Girl Guiding celebrates World Thinking Day every year on 22nd February, when we celebrate the birthdays of our founder Robert Baden Powell and his wife Olave Baden Powell, Chief Guide. We usually celebrate the day with an international theme as Guiding is celebrated throughout the world. This year we decided to do the Sangham Challenge badge. Sangham is one of the Guiding world centres in India. We had a taste of Indian fruits, made garlands and peace lilies and learnt about the Indian elephant god.

As Guides is held on a Tuesday we made our traditional pancakes on Shrove Tuesday. Chocolate sauce was the most popular choice of topping of course. As we look forward to Easter we like to finish the term with some Easter activities, chick fishing, making crème egg pigs, and I’m sure there will be some chocolate.

If you are interested in joining Guides and aged 10 to 14 years old, please ring Jackie:

Jackie Nithsdale