One week to go

As the title says, it's now just over one week to go until my GOLD project. On Saturday, I was lucky enough to attend the Midlands Region International Debrief, despite having not been on my trip yet! Whilst it was great to see photos and hear stories from all the other region trips that have happened this year, the most exciting bit for me was the chance to catch up with some fellow GOLDies - one who went to Guyana in 2013, and one who arrived back from Malawi and her onward travel last week!! It was really useful and important for me to chat with them and to see how excited they are for me, because right now, I'm at the stage of feeling a little overwhelmed and a lot underprepared!! They did assure me that this is totally normal (which I did know deep down but still appreciated the assurance) and that despite all apprehensions and nerves, I am going to have an amazing time - another thing I do actually know, but just need to keep reminding myself of!!

Three weeks in one country; sleeping, cooking, planning, working in hostels with 5 teammates; and leading and training people who may not necessarily understand the language being used is a daunting prospect, and while overall, I relish the challenge and am eager to get going, there's still that child in me that used to hide behind my mum's skirts whenever I met anyone new.

But. Time to put the nerves away and to crack on with the packing... Now, where DID I put my passport?!

The one where I throw myself off a tower several times...

I love abseiling. I do it every chance I get, even if it means going out after work and helping out with a late night training session here at Caythorpe. I've abseiled off a 100ft (~30m) sea cliff in the Isle of Man, and a 100ft waterfall in Australia. Abseiling is pretty much my favourite thing in the whole world, and most of my friends know that. So when I was planning what to do for my fundraising, obviously I thought about abseiling. But it's not a challenge for me, and it should be a challenge if you want people to sponsor you. There's not a building, cliff or rock face here in the UK that's tall enough to be a challenge for me. So how could I make it a challenge? An endurance abseil! So, I decided to do an hour long abseil session down the 40ft (~12m) tower at work- with the aim of 40 descents during the hour - and set May 12^th as the date. 

At 5am on Monday morning I woke up, suddenly very nervous. My head had just done the calculations - 40ft tower, 40 descents, that meant abseiling 1600ft (~480m). That's a long way. It also means I'm doing one descent every minute and a half - from clipping in at the top of the tower, down to the bottom, unclipping and running back up the stairs to the top again... My head kept spinning - Would it be faster to walk down or jump down the wall? What would be the quickest way to clip and unclip myself from the ropes so that I could get back up the stairs? Oh my, the stairs. Would my knee (always a little bit dodgy) cope with the stairs? Eventually I managed to persuade myself to sleep again and get a bit of rest before the time.

It was an easy morning at work, there were no guests on site, so we had a meeting at 11.30, lunch at 12, and then it was time to go. With my four helpers (Brit, Lewis, Hannah, and Amy), we set up the abseil ropes and I harnessed up, and stepped off the tower, ready to go, with various cheers from people working below me. Lewis checked I was safe, and the timer started. I flew down the wall, Hannah helped to unclip me, and I was back to the top of the wall again in 34 seconds. After 5 minutes, I'd done my first 5 descents. It was only going to get harder though. After about 14 descents, Lewis and Brit commented that I should have said I was doing a sponsored stair climb rather than a sponsored abseil, because that's where the hard bit was. I flew up them the first few times, but a 46 step spiral staircase isn't something to be taken lightly. I soon slowed down, including suggesting I take a nap half way up the staircase at one point. Apparently I wasn't allowed. 

At 25 minutes, I'd done 20 descents - half way to my aim of 40, and Amy took over from Brit at the top of the tower. After about 25 stair climbs, I grabbed my inhaler for some much needed lung relief - definitely worked! I hit 30 descents with about 20 minutes left. I had to do 1 descent every 2 minutes to hit my target. The stairs varied from feeling like the longest staircase I'd every climbed in my life to feeling like I only had to climb 2 stairs and I was at the top. With 10 minutes left, I had 5 descents left so, like any true endurance runner, I sprinted to the finish. I climbed out of the tower for my 40^th descent at 56 minutes, and hit the bottom with 3.5 minutes left, so I headed back up to do one extra one, because there's nothing like beating your target. I took it a bit slower though, and enjoyed it! 

All the way through the hour, I had my friends and colleagues cheering me on, with random shouts of "How many have you done?" and "How long left?" which I generally let Hannah answer because I couldn't breathe! So I'd like to say thank you to everyone cheering from the ground, and an even bigger thank you to Lewis, Hannah, Brit and Amy for their technical support - I literally couldn't have done it without them!

I'd also like to say a big thank you to everyone who's sponsored me so far - Right now, I'm not entirely sure how much I've raised, because there's still money coming in, but I think it'll be around £200. If you'd like to sponsor me in retrospect, you can do so either in person, or on my justgiving here. It all helps to get me to Latvia for my GOLD project!

PS - I also owe a thank you to PGL Caythorpe Court for the use of the tower, and to the Chief Instructor Lana for letting me go for a shower and sit in the office doing some laminating for a while before I went back out to work with the kids - it took me a while to return to a normal colour! 

Second Briefing - Just like the first, but a little bit louder...

So this weekend found all the 2014 GOLDies (i.e. everyone doing a GOLD project this year) at Bramhope Scout Campsite, just North of Leeds, for our second briefing. We arrived scattered throughout the evening, with those of us on trains appearing on time, whilst those in cars were definitely late - apparently driving up the M1 on a Friday night isn't the best idea - who knew?!. The fog also descended which didn't help the drivers, but eventually Team Latvia were reunited at about 11pm - at which point we decided a Team Sleep would be the best use of our time!

Saturday morning started with the sad (but not entirely unexpected) news that the Ukrainian GOLD project has had to be cancelled this year. We are all really sorry for the Ukrainian team, and hope that they have a fun year whatever they end up doing. They are all guaranteed a place on a GOLD trip next year, if they want it, so I wish them all luck with next year's projects!

After breakfast each team did an interactive presentation or activity about their country or project (even the Ukrainian team), which provided a highly entertaining morning with a wide variety of tasks, ranging from finding hidden facts to true or false quizzes, to blockbusters, to tying neckers and playing with balloons. We learnt a lot about the other projects and their aims, which was really interesting, as a lot of the first briefing was focussed on our own project. We also discovered some teams know A LOT about what they're meant to be doing in country (Peru!) and some know nothing (Latvia!).

Next up was some time in our own groups. For Latvia this meant attempting to plan our lives and fit in two more briefings before we go in October. We didn't manage it. In our team of 6, we have two members who work Monday-Friday office jobs, one who works freelance, one who works nights at the weekend, a nurse on shifts, and me who works 6 days a week with often strange timings. We tried every weekend, we tried mid-week, we tried a combination of the two... we discovered it was impossible. So Team Latvia will be together again for 3 days in August, and will be having LOTS of teleconferences to make up for our lack of briefings! 

We also discovered that Team Latvia love squash.

After lunch (soup!), we had workshops on delivering trainings and WAGGGS, as well as working with translators and facilitation skills. It was a lot of fun, but also a lot of information, and there were some very sleepy GOLDies at dinner time!

BUT. We soon woke up again because the evening was BIG BROWNIE BIRTHDAY! Each team had selected a Brownie badge and based an activity on that badge. We had the entertainer badge (create a dance for your country), we had the hostess badge (plan a party relay race style), we had the world traveller badge (play Good Evening Friend Brownie with various greetings from around the world), we had the designer badge (create a brownie uniform from a different country out of recycling), we had the booklover badge (sack race with book related questions), we had circus skills badge (put food in each other's faces basically...), we had the dancer badge (create a dance based on a fairytale, with props), and Team Latvia's Swimmer badge (relay race with swimming kit and bubbles...). As you can imagine, there was a lot of laughter and a lot of mess! But once again, I was amazed at how quickly a group of 18-30 guides can tidy up - within 10 minutes (including time for photos) the hall looked just as it did before we started!

Team Latvia 2014

Unsurprisingly, we all slept VERY well that night! Team Latvia almost didn't wake up for breakfast, as we all forgot to set/turned off alarm clocks. Luckily I woke up at 7.45, and in 10 minutes we were all out the door (including two members showering!) - and even with enough time to get good seats at breakfast!

Sunday morning saw us learning about our various roles - documenting (writing blogs and taking photos), accounting (yawn) and first aid (in the smallest hottest room in the world) - followed by more team time (which turned into us buying badges in the campsite shop!). We also planned most of our Challenge badge, which will be coming out very soon!

After lunch (all the leftovers you can imagine), all the GOLDies cleared up the two blocks we had been using, in record time. I hoovered. Then my team mates set off party poppers just after I'd hoovered. Thanks guys.

Our final half an hour consisted of an inspirational speech from Anna, GOLD co-ordinator, a slideshow of photos from our GOLD journey so far, and the realisation that this was the last time all of the 2014 GOLDies would be in a room together. We've been given all the tools and information that we need to undertake a successful project, and from now on, we split off down our own paths. In December, Team Latvia will join up again with Team The Gambia and Team Sri Lanka for a debrief in Northamptonshire, but the other teams (Peru, Cambodia, Guyana and Malawi) will already have had their debrief earlier on in the year.

2014 GOLDies with Anna (left - GOLD Co-ordinator) and Carly (Right - Events Co-ordinator)

Good luck to everyone on their projects, and I can't wait to read all your blogs! (I'll put up links to all blogs on here in a few weeks if anyone is interested about any of the other projects)

Abseiling...

So. It's been a while since I updated, but things have been plodding along - both GOLD-wise and life-wise! I started work again, so GOLD got put on the backburner a little bit while I settled in, but now I'm back and bursting into action - just in time for GOLD briefing number 2 at the weekend! We've had two conference calls to plan for the briefing as the team have to come up with an interactive presentation about Latvia, and an activity for the evening entertainment... The theme is BIG BROWNIE BIRTHDAY (it's 100 years of Brownies in case you didn't know!), and so each GOLD team is running a Brownie Badge - we're doing the Swimmer badge, and we're very excited! I'll write more about that after the weekend, I don't want to give too much away!  

The conference calls have been a bit of a challenge - you try finding a time when 6 people are free to chat, when two of them work 9-5 office jobs, one is a nurse working shifts, one works freelance, one works nights at weekends, and one is me who works all sorts of times! Unsurprisingly, we haven't managed it yet, but we're having calls with the majority, and filling the rest in afterwards - everyone has managed at least one of the two so far, so that's good! I think finding times to organise will be the biggest challenge for our team. 

In other news, I am back on the fundraising - I have managed to organise a sponsored abseil on May 12th - I am going to be abseiling for a whole hour, constantly up and down the 40ft tower at PGL Caythorpe Court. I'm hoping to do 40 descents during the hour, and any sponsorships over £10 can suggest things for me to do whilst abseiling - perhaps the YMCA, or the cha cha slide (not sure how I'll do that one, but you can suggest it!)... the more original the better, and as long as it's safe, I'll give it a go! I'm also hoping to film a lot of it, and create a video at the end to prove to everyone that I did it! (As long as the camera batteries last...) 

If you would like to sponsor me, you can do so at my justgiving page or by speaking to me directly. I need to raise approximately £2000, and I've got around about £800 so far, so please help out! 

That's all for now... more next week all about second briefing! 

First Briefing

This weekend, we had our first briefing. The first time that everyone who has been selected to undertake a GOLD project in 2014 got together since INTOPs. There are 8 teams: Cambodia, Sri Lanka, The Gambia, Malawi, Guyana, Peru, Ukraine and, obviously, Latvia. There are participants from all over the UK, ranging from Bognor Regis and Plymouth (and possibly beyond) in the South, to Aberdeen in the North, with everywhere in between covered too. 

Map of UK showing where we all came from

With the support of Anna, the National GOLD Co-ordinator; Carly, one of the Events Co-ordinators for Girlguiding; and the two fabulous cooks, Cara and Marie; we dived head first into the tasks of getting to know each other (does anyone snore? who's accident prone? and what's your favourite gummy bear flavour?), making the first decisions for our projects (what colour hoodies should we have?), laying out our expectations for ourselves (shower) and our Team Leader, Alice (be Switzerland, and provide gummy bears...), as well as having so many other important discussions. 

The sun came out and so did we! Team Latvia 2014

Interspersed with these discussions, the Team Leaders of the various projects lead us through sessions on fundraising, culture shock, health and well being, the GOLD journey, PR, kit and packing, and group roles. Whilst some of it I knew from previous travels, it was all interesting and useful, and allowed both leaders and participants the chance to dispense knowledge, hints and tips from the wide experiences we've all had. 

It was great to learn so much, and for me, I learnt two main things. Firstly, the session on culture shock allowed me to put some theory behind what I've felt so many times before. I've felt it, I've experienced it, I've dealt with it, but I don't think I've ever really understood it, so it was awesome to be able to reflect on past experiences and put words to how I was feeling at those times. 

Secondly, I came to realise that, whilst GOLD is a guiding project, when it all comes down to it, it is a Community Action Project. It's developing youth organisations overseas, and I think when it comes down to me talking to the general public about what I'm doing, that's a clear way of explaining that this is not just another one of my guiding jaunts. It's through guiding, and it's developing guiding, but strip away all of that, and I'm going out to Latvia to help young people over there to have an organisation that they can be proud of. Like I'm proud of Girlguiding. 

Oh, and we also had a chance to have fun, with our first night of acting under duvets, and our second night of Winter Olympic themed chaos (including an appearance from Clare Balding - and a tweet from the ACTUAL Clare Balding!), it was great to be having so much fun with new (and old) friends! 

OMGosh - It's Clare Balding!!! 

(Photos taken by Anna - sorry I stole them!) 

Making A Difference

During my fundraising, I am always on the look-out for grants and awards to apply for, which will help me towards achieving my goal of £2000 for GOLD. These grants sometimes have the most simple questions (Name, Age, Describe your trip...), and sometimes, they ask for more complicated things. Today, I have been trying to fill one out which asked the question:

Please tell us how this grant will make a difference to you as a person

Well. That threw me. I'm not doing GOLD to make a difference to myself. I'm doing it to help other countries, and their Guide (and Scout) organisations - in my case, that's Latvia. I went to both India and Finland for myself, and whilst both of those opportunities did involve me helping other people (as staff in both instances), I purely did it because I wanted to go, I wanted to experience things, to develop, to change... The helping people was an added bonus. But this one, Latvia, this time, wanting to go is the bonus. It's not like I woke up one day and thought "Of all the countries in the world, Latvia will have the biggest impression on who am I as a person." It's not even like there's a cool camp happening there that I really want to be involved in, and I have to go as staff because I'm too old to be a participant. There's a project to help people, to help Guiding, and I want to help. I'm there to make a difference to other people, not to me.

But I know that at the end of the day, whatever your motives, everything you do in life makes a difference to you. But I don't know how. So I closed the grant form, and left it for another day... and then I had a flash of inspiration, and I wrote...

I have been lucky enough to attend a wide variety of Guiding events throughout my life, and each one has made a difference to me in ways that I never expected, and often don't realise until a long while after the end of the event. Sometimes it will be skills learnt and developed, whether leadership or teamwork, or practical (how to cook for and serve 3,500 hungry Scouts and Guides). Sometimes it will be future opportunities arising, getting more involved in WAGGGS, or the chance to help run the next event. More often than not, it will be friendships gained that become more important than I could have imagined.

Right now, I anticipate that GOLD will help me to develop my "transferable" skills - including organisation, time-keeping and in training others (useful for both my Guiding life and my career), and to allow me to experience new ways of Guiding and Scouting that I can bring back to the UK and use within my own local guiding. However, I have no way of knowing the full extent to which this grant will make a difference to me personally, but I am excited to make that discovery.

Unfortunately, the box on the grant form is too small for that answer, so I'll have to re-write it more succinctly, but I think it's important for me to remember that this will make a difference to me as well as Latvian Guides and Scouts.

PS. if you know of any grants/awards that may be able to help with my fundraising, please let me know - I love filling in their forms!

PPS. - if you personally want to donate some money towards my trip, my justgiving account can be found here.

Thank you!

I'd just like to post a brief, but heartfelt, thank you to Girlguiding Leicestershire for their generous contribution towards my trip. I arrived home from my non-Guiding travels to a totally unexpected, and rather large, cheque, and as always, a lovely letter from the County Commissioner.

Having grown up in Leicestershire, and under the wing of the incredible Leaders that this county seems to have in abundance, I am all too aware of the impact they have had on my life, and I am so grateful that they continue to support my Guiding adventures. 

Thank you so much to everyone!