Sunday 26 February 2012

World Thinking Day 2012

Each year on the 22nd of February, Girl Guides and Girl Scouts throughout the world take the time to time to think about all of the other Girl Guides and Girl Scouts around the world (that's over 10 million in 145 countries, in case you were wondering), on the birthday of the founders of the movement Lord Robert and Lady Olave Baden-Powell. It is also a brilliant opportunity to raise money for the World Thinking Day Fund.

This year, our Division chose to celebrate by climbing a hill to watch the sunrise, having a cooked breakfast in a local village hall, followed by another walk after breakfast. This was also a perfect way to reflect on this year's theme for World Thinking Day: "Together we can save our planet."

Consequently, I was up at 5.30am yesterday morning, and by 6am I was driving through the fog to see the sunrise. This is a more accurate reflection of what we saw:



but it was a great idea anyway! There were great views over to the mouth of the river Axe:



(yeah, alright, you'll just have to believe me, I'm sure its amazing on a sunny day!). And we saw the hut where the man responsible for lighting the beacon used to sit:



After official sunrise time had come and gone we walked on, for I think about an hour, to our breakfast destination. Unfortunately there had been some technical hitches, but the Trefoil Guild ladies did an excellent job of managing to cook everything despite a faulty oven! In the meantime we learnt about Thinking Day, I got roped into reading a poem about Nature, and then we remade our promises. When we finally got breakfast, 3.5 hours after getting up, it tasted awesome! Two sausages, two hash browns, baked beans and bacon:



Plus OJ + tea, yum yum yum :D  Suitably refuelled, we were soon off on another walk, 1 mile for the Rainbows and some Brownies, 2 miles for the Guides and some other Brownies. Spring is in the air!



Considering we live in such a rural area, some of the kids obviously don't get out much, which is a shame. Some of them were super-excited about mud! And we had to stop so they could paddle in the stream! This is what is so great about Guiding, we give these girls opportunities to experience such simple things that they wouldn't otherwise have access to, for whatever reason. And by getting out and about and experiencing nature, hopefully they are more likely to want to look after it in the future!



On that note, the weather is fabulous here today, so I'm off out to enjoy it by taking a long walk with the dog!

Oh yeah, on a side note, we also spent some time delivering leaflets for the Guide coffee morning and jumble sale next Saturday. If you have anything you would like to donate to be sold, or if you would like to come along and buy cake and jumble, get in touch and I will give you more details!

4 comments:

  1. My first thought on seeing the picture of your breakfast was "ooh, meat! Gem must have been so happy!"
    Looks like you had fun and a great way to celebrate - Happy Thinking Day!

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    1. Oh Emma you know me too well! I was so excited about it and was going around telling everyone so! I also met up with my friends at a pub for lunch and chose ham ploughmans! Awesome porky pork day haha!
      It was a really great day! Happy Thinking Day to you too!

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  2. Your factoid of the day is that I 'officially opened' the beacon hut when it was restored, back in the day when I was 5 and cute :D

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    1. Aww bless! That's an awesome factoid, I don't think you ever told me that before!

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