Condover Hall
An exciting weekend with nearly 200 Stafford Brownies and Guides: October 2023
Thirteen of our Brownies left for a weekend at Condover Hall on Friday the thirteenth. Fortunately there is nothing in the old superstition and everyone had an amazing time, pushing ourselves to do more than we ever thought possible.
We stayed in the grounds of the beautiful Condover Hall with close to 200 Brownies and Guides from Stafford who came together to make friends and have fun. The Brownies were very excited to see girls they knew from other units, some they didn't realise were also in Girlguiding, others they hadn't seen in a long time.
Most of the activities were outdoors and fittingly, the only rain we had was while we were taking part in survival skills, learning to make shelters, with mixed results; some persevered and created a shelter from the rain, not caring that they were already wet and muddy, while others considered a good shelter was one held up by taller friends!
Our Brownies practiced some of their knots and teamwork by successfully building buggies from logs and barrels.
Their buggies were built well enough for the girls to ride on them as the raced down a gentle slope; the next challenge being to roll them back up the hill.
The Brownies and some of their more intrepid leaders climbed a tall pole, but that wasn't the end of the challenge; getting onto the platform, while the pole gently swayed looked awkward enough from my place safely on the ground, but the girls gave it a valiant effort.
Having reached the top was the leap of faith towards the trapeze swing, and some actually made it!
We also recognise the immense achievement of some of our Brownies (and leaders) who are not as happy up an imposing height, who also gave it a go and got slightly higher than they thought they'd be able to. We are very proud of their individual successes!
Not all our activities were outdoors.
We showed off our best dance moves, including a dance off against another brownie unit. We beat the mission impossible style laser maze. We tested our memories on the grid of stones and explored the indoor caving system.
Our days were so packed that we were grateful for our cosy beds in the dormitories chatting with friends before sinking into sleep.
As we waved off the Brownies they asked as one - When are we doing it again?
Thank you to Our Girlguiding sisters for organising the trip, to everyone at Condover for making it work and to SPAR on Westway for keeping us in sweet treats!