Guides Reunion

First of all I must say how wonderful it is to see so many of you again. Some of you I haven't seen since you left Guides many years ago and others I do see fairly regularly as you live and work in the town but to see you all together in the place where we used to meet is a very rare treat. A big welcome to you all.

It is lovely to see so many of you who have come quite long distances to be with us such as Elaine from Coventry, Mandy from Oxford, Tina from Somerset, Margaret Houghton and Margaret Tinker from Suffolk, Gill from Hampshire, Nicola from Derbyshire and Sally from West Yorkshire. I do hope you all enjoy catching up with each others news and reminiscing about your guiding days. It is also great to see so many of our leaders Vicki, June, Wendy, Margaret, Judy and Jane They worked so hard to make our meetings and camps such a success and we are delighted to share the afternoon with them.

Perhaps I should say something about why this reunion has come about. The first thing was that it is 100 years since guiding began and of course this always brings back memories from the past. The next significant event was chatting to Ken and Lorna Haverson and discovering that they knew a man who would put old cine films onto DVDs and not be too expensive. Mick is here with his wife Marlene and am sure you will agree he has made a wonderful job of these old films. About 60 DVDS have been ordered so far and they are all labelled up ready for you to take away. Mick has spent a lot of time doing these for us and when he knew that any profit would go to Cransley Hospice he decided to charge us even less so there should be a generous donation for the hospice. As a little token of our gratitude there is a small gift for Marlene and Mick with our thanks.

The final thing that made this possible was my fantastic Trefoil Guild Ladies. You can pick us out because we are wearing the Trefoil Guild scarf and they are doing all the work. Cransley Hospice is our chosen charity this year and they have made and donated all the cakes to increase the donation. For those of you who do not know the Trefoil Guild is for anyone over 18 who agrees with the principles of Guiding but is not able to help with running a unit. We have monthly meetings but we also have great fun. 5 of our Guild joined the County holiday to Waddow and it was really lovely - two of us even did grass sledging - quite amazing and we are planning a sub-camp at the County Centenary Camp so next year some of us will be camping. If you would like to know more about us please have a chat to one of us.

Finally I should like to say how pleased I am that Guiding is flourishing still. We had a launch party in Northampton with over 4,000 attending plus mums and dads and we have lots planned for the centenary year.   In January there is to be a dinner at Wicksteed park open to all adults who have been or still are in the movement. Why not get a table of 10 together and meet up again?

There are lots of items from the past to look if you have time and a few things to do. Enough from me. Do have a fantastic afternoon renewing old friendships and catching up with the news.

Marie E Burton