Arriving on One Happy Island

The 23^rd August was a very long day, but one that ended with our arrival in Aruba: ‘One Happy Island’ as the carpet at the airport proclaimed. Our journey, summed up in facts and figures looked a little bit like this:

Arriving after dark last night, the island sparkled with all the lights and looked like a firework with the illuminated cruise ships heading out into the Caribbean Sea from Oranjestad. We went met at the airport by a fantastically warm welcome from a local leader (Anneline) and two pioneers (Anna and Angela) who helped us navigate the island and find our accommodation.

As we drove to our apartments, Anna and Angela tried to orientate us to the island: the airport’s sort of in the middle on the south coast, we’re staying further east in Pos Chiquito, Noord is in the north of the island and Santa Cruz is right in the middle. Along Route 1 from the airport, we saw the ‘Green Corridor’ works on this main road and past the desalination plant which provides the islands drinking water and Balashi Brewery (we’ve been recommended to sample their wares while we’re here). We were humbled by the young women’s language skills (they speak four languages) especially when we were so tired we were struggling with English ourselves. Having got up at 6am UK time (1am Aruban time), it was 22 hours later when we finally went to bed.

We’ll meet with the board soon to confirm plans for the next three weeks of project, but we anticipate that we will be going to group meetings for Padvinsters and Pioneers in Dakota, San Nicolas, Pos Chiquito and Saveneta, running activities at a camp on our second weekend, and working with community groups in the same districts to encourage them to become leaders! 

Final Preparations and a Few Home Comforts

It's finally here. The last weekend and penultimate opportunity for packing before our departure for Aruba. The team are very excited as we fill out suitcases, holdalls and rucksacks with lots of important items. Each team member has a special role to fulfil and each will need equipment to help them in that task. But at the same time we will be away for three weeks and everyone will need a few home comforts from time to time. Here we have an update from each of us on the priority items we're packing:

Helen - Team Leader

As Team Leader, Helen will need to have all the essential bits and pieces to ensure we are a well co-ordinated unit. And if you're going to carry a lot of stuff then you need a suitable rucksack. Inspired by her GOLD team leader last year, Helen has invested in a special new day sack for this trip with lots of pockets! Her home comfort (provided he fits in) is 'Polo' her teddy.

Bridget - First Aider

Bridget is our team first aider, and having heard about the climate in Aruba we think sun and heat might be the biggest change from the UK. As such Bridget is packing a battery powered fan to keep us cool. Doubling up on home comforts, she's packing some favourite teas and her teddy 'Athabasca'.

Amy - Treasurer

As our treasurer, Amy will need to keep track of our budget and so she's downloaded a special app to record all of our receipts and manage our spending. Amy's currently packing, so we'll add in her home comfort when she's been able to decide what'll fit within the weight limit for our flights!

Rachel - Training and Resources Co-ordinator

Ready for all our training sessions, Rachel is coming prepared with a trusty pencils case full of useful writing implements. Similarly, her home comfort is also cuddly - 'Simba' will also be coming along for the ride.

Laura - Photo and Video Co-ordinator

Laura is in charge of capturing our experience on film, so her top priority to pack is her new camera. Laura's a fan of all things sheep, so 'Shaun' is one of her home comforts, along with some sweet treats for the journey and marshmallows for a BBQ one night during our stay.

Pippa - Written Documenter

As written documenter, I'll be co-ordinating our blog entries, social media reports and making sure we write stuff down to use in our final reports. I'm packing a laptop to help us with task (as well as for keeping track of the budget and looking up any last minute ideas for our sessions). Like Laura, I want to take a bar of Bournville dark chocolate as my home comfort - but I haven't bought it yet so I better head to the shop and make sure it gets in the bag!

Our next update will come after we've set out on our project - stay tuned to our Facebook, Twitter and Instagram for updates!

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

Laura’s GOLD Marathon!

You can support Laura's GOLD Marathon at: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Laura-Bathgate-GOLD

This coming Sunday 21^st of May I will be running my very first marathon! Yes that sounds very scary, so why on earth would I put myself through 26.2 miles? To raise money for GOLD Aruba 2017 of course – below you can find out more about my marathon journey and how to sponsor me.

Since moving to Killin, a small village nestled in the southern Scottish Highlands, 3 years ago I’ve caught the running bug. I run 10Ks fairly regularly and had done a couple of half marathons so with the announcement of the brand new Stirling Scottish Marathon coming at the same time as I found out I had been given a place on a GOLD project I knew that I wanted this to be my first 26.2, and that raising money for GOLD would be the motivation to get me through the training and the day itself.

I started my training plan on the 1^st of January but just weeks later fell off the rails with sore shins caused by off-road winter training in trail shoes which don’t offer as much biomechanical support as my road running shoes. After a few weeks recovery, some cycling and armed with new supportive insoles in mid-February I tentatively started from scratch again, having to be extremely careful not to do too much and aggravate the injury again.

I ran my first real test mid-March completing the Alloa half marathon in a time much quicker than I’d expected when I’d set out just hoping I would make it round. Other highlights along the way have included a glorious 16 mile run around Loch Venachar and the Chocathon Challenge. Now just days away I’m happy that I’ve done what I could in terms of preparation, it may be very different to the training plan I set out on in week 1 but I really feel like I’ve come out of the experience a stronger person.

Girlguiding has given me so many amazing experiences, gifted me with so many great friendships and taught me so many skills over the last 20 odd years and I couldn’t be more thankful for this. GOLD is giving me the opportunity to give something back to the worldwide Guiding community. To help meet my £2000 fundraising target I have been lucky to be supported by local guiding, my local rotary club and have also been very busy baking and running a fitness class.

With just a few days to go I’m now looking forward to getting started on Sunday, I can’t wait to run around the beautiful Stirling countryside before we finish in the city. I’m not looking for a particular time, I’d really like to enjoy my first marathon, to make it round in one piece (and be able to walk at the end of it!) and most of all raise some money for GOLD  Aruba 2017.

Last but not least! Here is the link to my just giving page: www.justgiving.com/fundraising/Laura-Bathgate-GOLD 

All donations are gratefully received so thank you in advance!

Laura

It's Infographic Time!

As of this week our flights are booked and the dates for our project are set. Rather than bore you with a long story about the logistics of our trip, we've boiled it down to some key numbers and represented them in this infographic:

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