Votes please!

Please circulate this as far and as wide as you can.....

We are applying for funding from NatWest Community Force to pay for PV panels for the new building at Herons Wey. For details please look at www.heronswey.org.uk/fundraising

The projects with the most votes will get the funding so we need your help. To vote please follow this link http://communityforce.natwest.com/project/348 and then press the button "Vote For Us" - that is all there is to do!

Please forward to your Leaders, parents of the girls, your friends, families, work colleagues.........You have until October 23rd to vote. Thanks (when I last looked we had 1091 vots already and it only opened at lunchtime today....Brilliant but we need more.

This made me laugh

Sometimes the questions parents ask make you wonder about their parallel universe. I was recently told the following which took place at a parents evening before a Browie residential. On coming to the end of the usual briefing, the Leader asked for questions. One parent responded with the following "If what happened in Norway happens at your Pack Holiday what will you do?" The leader's response was "Until the Guide Association issues me with a gun, I guess I would just have to call the Police!"
Well, it might happen........but we will have done a risk assessment to minimise the risk, after all.

Welcome back

Welcome back after a Guide-free August. I expect this is your first week back as it is for me.

I got quite a bit done over August including:

• Applying for a grant from NatWest - the next stage is to get as many as people as possible to VOTE for us. More details later


• Organising a Christmas Raffle for Surrey West, Surrey East and Greater London West to support campsites and properties in Surrey. You will hear more about this later this month.


• Getting quotes for PV Panels for Herons Wey


• Reseeding part of my lawn


• Creating a new flower bed


• Doing lots of cooking


• Increasing my cycling distances - now 15 miles.


• etc etc

So quite productive.

Goodbyes

Today I heard that a colleague who has worked for my employer for longer than me, is leaving at the end of August. It wasn't a surprise as I know she had been having a difficult year but the sad thing is that she leaves before I return to work so I am not going to be able to say goodbye face to face.
I am now the oldest person in my team......should I be worried?

What if your best isn't good enough?

In 1975 I gained my bronze medal in lifesaving. I know this because my Mother found it recently and gave it back to me. Of course I remember doing the test and getting a cloth badge for it but the medal was a surprise. What I most remember, though, was the tester saying that she had passed me but if I saw someone in trouble then I should hope someone else would save them. Looking back on it I imagine if I was so bad that she must have been tempted to fail me - but, having passed me, should she have said what she did? Surely it would be better for someone to do something even if ultimately they were unsuccessful than do nothing?

Summer Holidays

Tomorrow is my last day at work before my Summer holidays. I go back on September 5th, so the extended break gives me plenty of time to catch up with all the things I have on my to-do list. This includes lots of work on the garden as well as increasing my cycling distances (currently 10 miles done in two halves with a cup of tea in between) and picking lots of fruit and vegetables for the freezer. There will be Guide work as well including budgets, getting further building quotes at Herons Wey for solar panels, a new dry shelter for Ramsdown and Richards Hill so they will be genuinely deluxe sites and thinking about Weyside's toilet refurbishment. The second and fourth week of my five weeks I will be away so I will have proper holidays.
If you are now on your holidays, I hope you get the month off and do no more than necessary so your batteries are recharged for September.

Herons Wey

At last the building work is coming to an end with the toilet block more or less finished apart from some tidying up and the finishing off that will happen in January. So we are looking at what we can do to raise some more funds to install PV panels for generating energy, putting up a dry shelter behind the new block and refurbishing Weyside's toilet/showers. So we have had some meetings and are hoping to run a series of events in 2012 which could include an event for Rainbows in January - and another in December, concerts (one booked on September 1st already), plays and suppers. If Herons Wey is to earn its keep including major refurbishments it needs to be used outside the camping season and this is our aim. In addition, we hope to establish a programme for schools so they can come and do activities during the week. Then there was a suggestion that it could be used for cross-country athletics events. So there are lots of ideas but it will need bodies to run them. Watch this space......