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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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Playtime for Team Sri Lanka!

I start this post with an apology for the fact this blog’s only just reaching you now, several weeks after our third briefing. Life has been pretty hectic for the whole of Team Sri Lanka recently. Both Jade and Lizzy have bought and moved houses; Lizzie has had archery competitions and I have been doing lots of fundraising with other members of my Senior Section and job hunting. Sarah has signed a new work contract that takes her up until we go on project and Jenny is selling loads of our lovely badges!

So, travelling back to the middle of June, Team Sri Lanka descended on Bedford to be the first official guests in Jades shiny new home. The trip down gave us some practice for the unpredictability of Sri Lankan transport, Sarah and Jade were the only two to manage to avoid any complications (and then that was partly due to Jade already being there!). Lizzy S and I had planned to meet on our train to Leicester, but this initially failed when I missed my train at Sheffield (This was right after I had posted on Facebook that as of yet I had had no travel issues). This sorted itself out though when Lizzy’s train was late into Leicester, so we managed the last leg of the journey together. Jenny meanwhile was having fun with luggage. The week before briefing, Jenny had been in Germany with work, and whilst Jenny had made it back to England, unfortunately her suitcase had not. Poor Lizzie by far had the worst journey down. What was initially a 4 hour or so journey turned into an 11 hour trek, what with train delays and Lizzie missing her stop! Poor Ben (Jade’s fiancé) was a part of this as well, making 4 attempts to pick Lizzie up from Milton Keynes, at one point driving around in circles as we tried to work out where Lizzie was and the best way for her to join us! Eventually, however, at the small hours of Saturday morning, we all made it and GOLD Sri Lanka 2015 was reunited for third briefing!

The weekend was an incredibly productive one with us going through the session plans we had come up with, creating some more; sorting out a bank account; planning our onward travel; reviewing our kit list and risk assessment; looking what we would like to take with us on project in terms of gifts and how we would like to commemorate the fact this is the last year of this GOLD project. All in two days! As well as a lot of serious and important things, we also made sure a few less serious items were covered. Lizzie and Jade practiced some of their songs, introducing some formerly unknown variations to us, we caught up with how everyone was doing, laughed an awful lot (to tears at more than one point!) and definitely made sure to check out the playground on Jade’s estate. They had some cool stuff on there that we hadn’t seen before, and we of course had to check out the zip wire! There was swings and slides, beams to work along, some weird see-saw and we also had a mini work out on the gym equipment they had. There was also some weird wheel thing that we tried to take our picture on, that definitely required balance and team work to achieve!

Third briefing was the first time we had come together as a team without all of the other Goldies. It was a great chance to get to know each other even more and plan what we are going to do whilst we are on project. As I write this Team Malawi and Cambodia are both on project with Team Rwanda getting ready to go in the next week.

And as we prepare for our fourth briefing, we wish all the best of luck to the summer projects and hope they have an amazing time with their sister guides!

Rachel and Team Sri Lanka x

#Sri Lanka #girlguiding #gold2015 #briefing

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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Meet the Team: Jenny

Name: Jenny Patterson

Age: 28

Dream job: Presenting the weather - wear lovely clothes, have your makeup done and only work a couple of hours a day!

Guiding roles: Brownie leader, district commisioner and a leadership qualification mentor

Greatest Guiding moment so far: Making my Senior Section promise in the sea in Thailand

Favourite food: Custard

One bucket list item: To fly a plane

If I was an animal I would be: elephant

What I would like to get out from the trip: I hope to make new friends and have some new experiences

Quote: Bring it on!

Jenny is our photo and video coordinator. She gets to pick which photos you all get to see. Hopefully she will pick nice ones!

#meet the team #gold2015

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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Well, it’s all happening at the minute!

It is safe to say the past week or so has been a busy one for Team Sri Lanka. We potentially have dates, travel for third briefing is being booked (watch out Bedford) and our lovely uniforms have been sent off for. And thats only the beginning!

Look what's here!!! pic.twitter.com/k5ia9YafCt

— GOLD Sri Lanka 2015 (@GOLDSriLanka15)

May 19, 2015

That’s right, we have badges! And aren’t they lovely? Mind you, I think we are all a bit biased. These lovely badges are a part of our fundraising and can be obtained from your closest member of Team Sri Lanka or by filling out the order form here.

If you want you can just buy the badge on its own, but if you’re stuck with what to do with your unit one evening, why not take a look at our challenge pack here? It’s full of fun challenges for all ages, from putting on a sari to making your own Sri Lankan delicacy. It covers six different areas, including arts and crafts, songs and games, and geography and wildlife.

So why not give it a try? We would love to see any pictures and hear any stories from your Sri Lanka themed evenings, so feel free to share them on our Facebook page and on our Twitter!

That’s all for now, hopefully you’ll be back here soon after the next exciting step on our journey!

See you soon,

Rachel x

#Sri Lanka #GOLD2015 #Girlguiding

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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A GOLDies guide to Second Briefing

1. Know how to act…

…And that’s from inside a duvet cover. This was our Friday evening icebreaker upon arrival to Scout Park in Bounds Green, London. Each team had to describe and act out as many Guiding related words as quick as possible. I am happy to report that we came in second, mostly thanks to Lizzie’s amazing acting from within a bed sheet.

2. Never work with animals

Each team had to present a 10-15 minute interactive session about our project or country. Ours was based off our challenge badge. This saw each team turning themselves into elephants, buddah and tuna, including some opting for being tins. Other teams sessions involved us talking to Latvian trees, decorating guinea pigs for Peru’s annual festival and learning about womens rights both here in the United Kingdom and in Rwanda.

3. Learn how not to die!

This is what Jade spent Saturday afternoon learning during our role specific training sessions. We now know that we can’t share food, bottles, cutlery or pretty much anything I think… We also have decided to replace the first aid kit with a roll of duct tape since that can fix anything, first aid related or not. Whilst Jade was learning about the joys of being responsible for our health and well being, Lizzie finding out the best way to use resources and where to get them, Jenny was learning how to get our good side for photos and Sarah was getting the low down on how to haggle and not spend £15 on watermelons (like Lizzy nearly did!). I myself had a lovely time learning about how best to use social media, and how Girlguiding themselves use the various platforms

4. Know your TV programmes!!

Saturday night we all got to star in well-known TV shows . Sort of… We were on The Great British Bake Off, Gok’s Fashion Fix, Catchphrase, Crystal Maze and Scooby Doo (complete with flat pack mystery machine). As Team GOLD Sri Lanka, we time travelled back to the 80’s for a Funhouse special, complete with Patricia Sharp. We had the other teams being chocolate unicorns (balancing chocolate biscuits on their heads), running around with cotton wool on their noses and trying to eat suspended donuts. It’s safe to say the whole night was a hilarious mess!

5. Know what you’re part of

We had the great privilege of being visited by Nefeli on Sunday afternoon. Nefeli is an Educational Programme Coordinator for WAGGGS (the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) and came to tell us all about the different resources and programmes offered and how we could use them when we are away on project (and maybe in our own units as well). We also learnt a lot about WAGGGS as an organisation and how it works and is supported.

6. Wish everyone well

Because this is the last time we could be seeing some people. Everyone’s next briefing will just be in our teams. In fact, our fourth briefing could be happening at the same time as some teams are out on project! And that is just a really weird thought! As a winter project, we’ll see two or three of the teams at our debriefing in December, but we have no idea when/if we will see the others! They have all an amazing time ahead of them, just like us! You can go and follow their adventures on their blogs as well: here’s Cambodia, and Peru, The Gambia and Latvia, Zambia, Rwanda and finally Malawi. We wish them all the best of luck on their journey’s and look forward to seeing what they get up to.

And that was second briefing. Two and a half days of laughs, giggles and getting to realise that we are actually going on this amazing, once in a life time adventure!

Speak to you soon,

Rachel! x

#Sri Lanka #gold2015 #girlguiding #briefing

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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Meet the Team: Sarah

Name: Sarah Waterfield

Age: 25

Dream job: Outdoor Environmental Tutor

Guiding roles: I help with a Brownie Unit in High Wycombe

Greatest Guiding moment so far: Planning and running the 50th Birthday celebrations for East Bergholt Brownies

Favourite food: Falafel and salad all packed into a hot pitta!

One bucket list item: Dive with whale sharks

If I was an animal I would be: a swallow

What I would like to get out from the trip: I would like to share Guiding and see how it works in Sri Lanka

Quote: Be yourself, everyone else is already taken.

Sarah is going to be our Treasurer and therefore responsible to make sure we don’t spend £15 on a watermelon (like Lizzy almost did)

#GOLD2015 #meet the team #Sri Lanka #girlguidinguk

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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Much love to the other teams as well! @GOLDMalawi2015 @GOLDCambodia @GOLDGAMBIA2015 @GOLDRWANDA2015 @GOLDPeru2015 @GOLDZambia2015 #GOLD2015

— GOLD Sri Lanka 2015 (@GOLDSriLanka15) April 26, 2015

#GOLD #Twitter #Sri Lanka

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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GOLD Sri Lanka wish you all luck on your adventures! #GOLD2015

— GOLD Sri Lanka 2015 (@GOLDSriLanka15) April 26, 2015

#GOLD #Twitter #Sri Lanka

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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Well that was an amazing weekend! Lots of laughs & important stuff (like food)! Watch out for the blog post! http://t.co/pP9lAhr4fA

— GOLD Sri Lanka 2015 (@GOLDSriLanka15) April 26, 2015

#GOLD #Twitter #Sri Lanka

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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Had a great morning learning about @wagggs_world. Thanks to Nefeli for coming & visiting! #GOLD2015 #preparedtolead http://ift.tt/1JGYA2p

— GOLD Sri Lanka 2015 (@GOLDSriLanka15) April 26, 2015

#GOLD #Twitter #Sri Lanka

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goldsrilanka2015 · 9 years

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80's flashbacks at 2nd briefing! Any guesses as to what TV show we're recreating? #GOLD2015 http://ift.tt/1OpV3Mt