Holiday Home

Not strictly Guiding at all so feel free to ignore, but if you want to see our Christmas decorations, here you go!

From one to nine:

1. Christmas glass bells, bought in Austria in 1994
2. Our infamous Christmas barbed wire, bought in 1995. It was simply decorative wired tinsel stuff but has become mangier and mangier as the years go on and has resembled barbed wire for some time. It is hung up anyway.
3. Christmas wreath made by daughter's hands many years ago
4. The Christmas Minas Tirith from Lord of the Rings. Given to Mr Guider years ago as part of a DVD box set of Lord of the Rings and immediately became the table centrepiece at Christmas
5. The mantelpiece decorated
6. The alarm box decorated
7. The hall mirror decorated
8. The Habitat Christmas tree, the wooden nativity, the Early Learning Centre santa set, the left overs from last year's Playmobil Advent Calendar, a Lego snowglobe and a wooden German decoration
9. The tree. This picture does not adequately show how it completely fills the window and lets in no light, we have to have the lights on all day! Everyone who has visited the house since we put it up has commented on how big it is, pressing against the window! You know when you buy a tree, bring it home, put it up and it doesn't look as big as it did? This one got bigger on the drive home.

That's my Christmas decor, barring a few strands of tinsel elsewhere.

Not Guiding, but thought-provoking

This article will make me think about how I approach our community service projects with other charities.

I know sometimes I have teenagers marking off their time for Duke of Edinburgh Award with our unit and they disappear as soon as they have hit their minimum time allocation. I understand that at that age you have so much to balance with schoolwork that anything that can be ticked off, is. But I also know I feel sad that those kids only think the Brownies are worth working with for x number of hours.

So, when we do our community service, I want to be sure that what the Brownies do is helpful and not insulting so I'm going to keep this article in mind.

Broadcasting Brownies

Yesterday we went to our local radio station - the DJ that does the Saturday 10-2 show invited us in to see how things worked.

We split into 2 groups of 2 adults, 2 children-of-Guiders (that was a YL and a Guide in one group, a Guide and a Rainbow in the other) and 7 Brownies in each group - we arranged it fairly short notice so that was all the ones that could come.

We had an amazing time. And anyone who says men cannot multi-task has never met a DJ. Although his set list was all programmed in, he also chatted away to us in between being on air, took phone calls, edited them down, checked texts, checked the weather, checked the traffic cameras...and pressed all the buttons and slid all the levers.

The Brownies got to applaud, chatter, set the quiz question, have their voices turned into giggling chipmunks, pass opinion on the music played, talk about what they do at Brownies, about Christmas...all on air.

It counts as 20 points for Adventure 100, but more importantly, it counts as one of those experiences the girls just wouldn't have had without being Brownies.

What a high to end the year on!

What have the Romans ever done for us?

Went to the school Christmas play tonight.

Son was a Roman soldier.

Hey, at least it was vaguely relevant, not like he was a lobster or anything.

And he and the rest of the centurions did look cute.

As often as I want?

"So I can come back and get another one?"

Yes

"Wow!"

Who'd have thought laying out every spare craft we've accumulated over the last three years (you know, when you buy for 24 but only 22 turn up) in a row and letting the Brownies choose what they want to make would go down so well!

They think we rock because we gave them free rein to make what they like (some girls even spent the night making santa beards using cotton wool, straws and sticky tape left over from the asthma night!) and to keep coming back for more.

We think they rock because we now have lots more space in the Brownie boxes!

Tonight, and in a couple of weeks

Tonight - we've rescheduled and we're doing the Blue Peter Send a Smile Appeal. We've had 50 t-shirts donated, so we'll be creating the gowns and decorating them with fabric pens.

Sending 50 gowns, saving the £150 it would have cost the charity to buy them, means a cleft palate operation can be funded instead!

And in a couple of weeks, we're going to visit the local radio station...and 4 Brownies will get to go on the air!

Quite excited, can you tell?

*Update - a pic from tonight!*

I won a prize!

Check me out, I was randomly generated by Metropolitan Mum to win a digital camera!