2 Weeks to Go And We’re All Ready For a Challenge

One week ago today our team were completing our 4^th briefing weekend, and two weeks on Tuesday we’ll be heading down to Heathrow ready to fly out to Aruba – it’s all come around so quickly! Read on to find out more about our final preparations.

On Sunday 30^th July, each member of the team logged onto their computer to finalise our session plans and materials for the training we’ll be delivering in Aruba. But unlike our previous briefings this one didn’t involve any train travel – our 4^th briefing was held remotely with us each working on activities from the comfort of our own homes (and in my case, my own bed). Having talked through our ‘To Do’ list in the morning, we took the rest of the day to each work individually to get things done and regrouped at 4pm to talk through our next steps (lots of printing for Rachel!).

Now we’re starting to gather up resources, stock up on bug spray, and pack our bags ahead of our departure. This year’s other GOLD projects have begun to set out for the Maldives, Mexico, Oman, Rwanda, Zambia and more and as we wish our fellow teams the best of luck for their projects, the anticipation and excitement is building for our own adventure.

Our three weeks in Aruba will give us the chance to deliver training and intercultural exchanges with the aim of supporting the development and growth of guiding on the island, but it will also be a chance for each member of the team to take on personal challenges and to grow and develop ourselves. With this in mind, each team member has identified one particular (very serious) challenge they want to accomplish during our project:

•          Helen (Team leader) will concentrate on perfecting her handstand (potentially using a swimming pool as a good location to practice).
•          Laura (Photo and Video Co-ordinator) on the back of her marathon challenge is going to tackle another similarly lengthy challenge of reading an entire book.
•         Rachel (Training and Resources Co-ordinator) has been researching the local flora and fauna and will be in pursuit of a selfie with a donkey.
•         Amy (Treasurer) is stocking up on the sun cream in preparation for her challenge of NOT getting sunburnt whilst we’re in the Caribbean.
•      Pippa (Social Media Co-ordinator) has been tasked, by a guide leader who supporter her fundraising, to find an Aruban leader who attended the World Scout Jamboree in 1995 in the Netherlands.
•      And Bridget (First Aider)…has been challenged to learn some beach yoga moves with photographic evidence!

If you want to see how we get on facing up to these challenges and more, check back here after the 22^nd August when we’ll be keeping you up to date with what we get up to in Aruba.

Pippa

Three Things You Need to Know About Our Third Briefing Weekend

From June 9^th – 11^th we reunited in Liverpool for our third (and final face-to-face) briefing weekend. The agenda was packed but full of fun things as well as the serious business. Here’s our top three things you should know about what we got up to. 

•  Team Aruba 2017 Badges Have Arrived…

…and we hope you like the designs. Between us we now have over 1000 badges in total – including a stock for our participants and new friends we’ll meet in Aruba. If you’re in the UK and would like to help us will the final stretch of fundraising, or just love badges (these ones are pretty cute if we do say so ourselves), these are now available to buy for £1 each + P&P. Get in touch with the team member you know the best or drop us a message via our Facebook page and we’ll pop them in the post ASAP. 

• You can never have too many resources for inspiration…

…but we need to only take what we might need with us to Aruba. Saturday afternoon and Sunday morning were spent combing through digital and hard copy versions of resources from WAGGGS, Girlguiding and other youth organisations in order to prepare activity plans for our training sessions with Aruban guides, their leaders and women from the community. We’ve made great headway with over 50 different activities selected so far and will continue to work on this in pairs over the next six weeks before our next catch up over skype.

• GOLD Team Aruba is a TEAM (probably the best team).

On Saturday night we headed out into Liverpool to take on the challenge of Tick Tock Unlock – an escape rooms activity. Together we were locked in a room full of puzzles and deciphered the clues in (what we were told is) an impressive 51 minutes to achieve our freedom and the chance to don fancy dress (as has become our Saturday night custom). We then headed over to Turtle Bay for some celebratory Caribbean food and a taste of some of the flavours we might find during our project. I unfortunately cannot share with you the video of our very impressive dance moves, but safe to say it was another great bonding experience for our team.

Writing this on the train back to Hull as the weekend comes to a close, I think it’s safe to say that we are now more than a team assembled to participate in this project – we are a group of friends who are ready to seize opportunities and face challenges together to share the value of Guiding and Scouting with more girls and women around the world.

Stay tuned as our adventure begins…

Pippa

Second Briefing: Top Seven Things We Learnt

Pippa here, sharing an update after our second team briefing weekend (though with lots of input from my fellow team members). During the weekend we did some role-specific training and I heard about the blog which our team leader Helen contributed to during her trip to Cambodia last year (you can read it here). Taking inspiration from some of their formats, here's a 'Top Seven Things We Learnt at Second Briefing".

1. We can run a successful training activity together. 

First thing on Saturday morning we ran a training activity on Girlguiding's programme renewal for three other GOLD project teams. And it went really well. We thought about the feedback we received and will use this in the next trainings we run.

2. Glue guns and safety pins are excellent tools for fancy dress assembly. 

Our team leader, Helen, came prepared with all the tools we needed to assemble our costumes for the Best of British themed evening entertainments. We had the 'Adult Literature' category and a guest appearances from Gandalf the Grey, Arthur Dent, Lord of the Flies, 39 Steps, Frankenstein and Guiding Magazine.

3. WAGGGS have some pretty useful resources. 

WAGGGS stands for the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts. Three representatives from their programme department ran a session for us and introduced us to resources we could use on our project. Have you heard about the Climate Change Challenge Badge or Prepared to Learn, Prepared to Lead?

4. And cute mascots can make any subject engaging.

During one of the activities in the WAGGGS session we were tasked with summarising Fit for Work, Fit for Life. We liked how it helped young women work out what skills they had and what they needed for their career, but also the cute mascots for each module. So much so that we have created our own to use in Aruba!

5. Mental Health is as important as physical health. 

On Sunday we had the opportunity to choose which of 3 training sessions we attended. Three of Team Aruba attended a training session on mental health. After learning about what mental health is and the importance of mental wellbeing before, during and after project we came up with a plan of how we can look after ourselves and each other on project. Our favourites were beach yoga, 30 second dance party and "trash and treasure".

6. It was the last time all the 2017 GOLD Teams would be together.

Second briefing was the last time where all the GOLD participants for 2017 will be in the same place at the same time! The next time some of us will meet is at debrief as our third and fourth briefings are just our teams. Team Aruba will be at second debrief in November (with teams going to Ghana, Estonia and Rwanda).

7. We have lots of reading to do!

At the weekend we were introduced to so many wonderful resources by Girlguiding UK, as well as WAGGGS. We're going to be using these as some inspiration for delivering our own training on Aruba. Following Saturday night's quiz on adult literature created by Bridget it would seem most of us need to get reading up on our British literature too!

Until next time.

GOLD Team Aruba