Second Briefing- We are all GOLDies and in Guyana we would rather be!

Two weeks ago we had our second briefing weekend with all of the other GOLDies at Linnet Clough Scout Campsite in Stockport.

We arrived in dribs and drabs on the Friday night due to train delays galore (Amelia and Clare), getting lost on the roads down from York (Jess), and a long stressful day at work (Deborah). We were, however, not the only team with logistical difficulties, so tea was delayed until 10 pm. This left myself and Bec to have a good catch up with the other GOLDies over some lively games of cards and a "put a name to the baby face" quiz.

From being a lone pair at the start of tea, gradually our numbers grew. It was really lovely for Team Guyana GOLD 2013 to be reunited once again! Perhaps the most exciting part of the weekend was Jess giving us our beautiful team uniform when we had all arrived. We think its awesome!

After a fairly reasonable nights sleep (disturbed only by a very bright light outside our room window and some noisy beavers wandering past at about 5 am) we had our breakfast and were ready for the days training.

First up was each team giving a 15 minute, interactive training session to all of the other teams about their country and project. Team Guyana were first out of the 8 project countries. We delivered our information using an Articulate style game. Each team was given a bag of words, relating to Guyana and Guiding in Guyana, which one member had to describe to their team mates. Jess did a great demonstration (describing "Georgetown" and "Training"- quite difficult) and everyone got really involved :D. We then explained why we had chosen each word and how it related to GOLD Guyana 2013. For example:

Rainforest- Guyana has one of the largest, unspoiled Rainforests in South America; there is 50 million acres of it! In fact, the Rainforest makes up about 90% of the whole country!

Confidence- Our brief is to help grow Guiding in Guyana. We will do this by helping the leaders we meet to grow in knowledge and confidence. We are nurturing the seeds that previous GOLD teams have planted in Guyana.

We got some really positive feedback as well as some helpful suggestions as to how we can improve when we train in Guyana. The other teams did some great presentations too!

The rest of the day included facilitation training, lots of group time, Stop the Violence Training (a great new resource from WAGGGS- take a look at the website to find out more- http://www.wagggsworld.org/en/take_action/violence ) and a great session run by Hannah (a Guyana GOLDie from 2012 and Girlguiding Peer Educator) about how to plan and deliver successful training sessions. It was a really busy day, but we learnt a lot of really useful things for Guyana and it was a lot of fun :).

Next it was on to our evening "entertainment". We had decided to put new words to the song, "If I were not a Girlguide, there is something I would rather be...", to make it more appropriate to GOLD. So we sang:

"If I were not a GOLDie, there's somewhere else I'd rather be. If I were not a GOLDie in Scotland (Jess)/ India (Clare)/ Hawaii (Amelia)/ Japan (Miriam)/ New Zealand (Bec)/ France (Deborah)."

We had a very short rehearsal before hand so that we could come up with some inspired actions (including pretending to be a train and Frodo). That went surprisingly well! We then changed into our country themed outfits and went to join everyone in the main hall. There were so many great costumes and we laughed away through all the different acts, from a Great British Bake Off spoof by Team Malawi, to country dancing from Team Gambia! Then it was our turn... It all went well until it was my turn (half way through)! I just could not say my line- "Fans and Green Tea, Chopsticks with Sushi". It took me a while to get it out, but when I did I got a huge round of applause!! Then disaster struck again when Be
c hit me in face when trying to act being an aeroplane!!!

Everyone seemed to enjoy it though :D.

We had a really great evening and some really hilarious memories were made.

We were all quite exhausted on Sunday morning but breakfast and an energiser helped wake us up for our role specific trainings. There were 3 sessions on Accounts, First Aid and Documenting which made us all a bit more confident about what we need to do before, during and after project. We had some more group time where we discussed more about what we are actually going to do in Guyana (more on this coming soon!) and things we need to sort out before 3rd Briefing. But all to quickly it was time to pack, have lunch and clean up.

Before it was time to go we all gathered in the hall to say a big thank you to Carrie because she is moving to a new job in a few weeks. We also said goodbye and good luck to all the other teams; the GOLD Guyana 2013 teams will not all meet up together again :(. We watched a video about our GOLD journey from INTOPS to now. There was laughter and a few tears- it is incredible to be part of GOLD!

Third Briefing is this weekend- ahhhh very exciting! More blog posts coming very soon.

Lots of GOLD love

Miriam x