Guides in the mix!

Fun and Wellbeing have been the themes at the 1st Montgomery Guides, as they have found out by doing their Feel Good skills builder badges and their Mixology interest badges.

The Girlguiding programme runs on six modern Themes, including “Be Well” and “Have Adventures”.

The autumn term started with a day camp held at the Middle Park camp in the grounds of Powis Castle, just outside Welshpool, when 64 girls aged 4 to 14 enjoyed age-appropriate camping activities including learning to put up tents, and cooking on open fires and on portable Trangia cooking stoves.

The Day Camp was funded by a “Summer of Fun” Powys County Council grant and finished off a great summer of activities from the “Have Adventures” Theme. The older girls, including most of the members of 1^st Montgomery Guides, earned their “Camp” skills builders and their “Backwoods Cooking” interest badges.

Back from camp, the Guides moved onto the Theme for the autumn, which was “Be Well”, and including five activities for their “Feel Good” badges.

The girls thought about how to stay fit and healthy, and took part in games and activities about exercise and keeping fit, healthy eating, confidence, relaxation and sleeping well.

The girls found out about healthy eating and drinking by doing their “Mixology” badges, which started with some fun experimentation with ingredients for making mocktails, including fruit and vegetables, herbs, spices and flavourings.

The Guides were encouraged to dive straight in to find out by trial-and-error which combinations of ingredients worked … and which didn’t!

The girls then researched and worked their own ideas for mocktails, which culminated in a fun party evening making lots of different mocktails from their own recipes and using fruit, vegetables, herbs and spices to make (mostly) delicious and (mostly) healthy drinks.

On the last day of term, the Guide Leaders were pleased to award plenty of badges to the girls, including several purple “Be Well” Theme awards, and also some of the first Guide Bronze awards were presented since the unit re-opened earlier in 2022.

The Guides are aged 10 to 14 and meet on Friday evenings in Montgomery to enjoy a wide range of interesting, exciting and fun activities. Contact montyguiding@yahoo.com for more information.