Guides dart around the world on ‘Thinking Day’

Thinking Day: Rainbows.Thinking Day: Brownies.Thinking Day: Guides.

World Thinking Day is celebrated by Girl Guides around the world, and has taken place annually since 1926. It’s a day when everyone in Guiding across the world explores and celebrates how we’re all part of a bigger movement, the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

This year, it was suggested  that the Girl Guiding units in Bradley Stoke and Winterbourne should get together to celebrate.

There were seven units participating in the event, which included Rainbows, Brownies and Guides, and all their leaders, totalling over 150 people celebrating together at Meadowbrook Primary School.

Each Guiding unit was allocated a region of the world and had to include a number of activities, relating to their region, to entertain all the girls, aged from 5-15! Regions represented were the Arab region, Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas. Other tasks included Thinking Day activities and Girl Guiding Promise activities.

The activities definitely kept the girls occupied and were nicely varied. Africa included colouring in tribal masks and basket weaving, Asia had origami butterflies and creating Chinese fans. The Arab regions included henna designing and star weaving, the Americas had traditional American Camp songs and creating maracas. At the Europe stop you’d create Norwegian heart baskets and windmills. And much more!

As leaders, we manned our stations and tried to keep up with the endless supply of girls who wanted to take part in each and every activity. Some units had created passports to be taken to each stand to be stamped, others created small bags for the girls to keep their creations in.

At the end of the event, all girls were given time to reflect on the impact they have by being a Girl Guide and think of Guides and Girl Scouts worldwide. Trying to get some opinions of the night at this time proved valuable:

“I liked hanging out with others; I have friends in other Guide units and it was nice to do things together.” (Guide, 1st Bradley Stoke Guides).

“I liked seeing old friends and seeing Rainbows who’ve now moved to Brownies, and helping everyone.” (Young Leader, 1st Bradley Stoke Rainbows)

“Lovely evening, lots of busy, happy young ladies.” (Leader, 1st Winterbourne Guides)

“I liked doing new things and seeing lots of people.” (Brownie, 2nd Stoke Lodge Brownies)

When the whole group was asked if they’d had fun, the chorus of “YES” which followed was deafening.

As leaders, we have already decided this should become an annual Bradley Stoke event and hope to grow the size of the event year on year. Watch this space!

This article originally appeared in the April 2018 issue of the Bradley Stoke Journal news magazine (on page 27). The magazine is delivered FREE, EVERY MONTH, to 9,200 homes in Bradley Stoke and Little Stoke. Phone 01454 300 400 to enquire about advertising or leaflet insertion.

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