One of the things my Brownie parents comment on the most is “It would be nice if she could have gone to camp”. Yeah, it would, but we don’t have a camp licence in the unit, we’re struggling to keep the unit running week-to-week and we don’t have as much free time as you might imagine to arrange camps. And they take some arranging, let me tell you.
Girlguiding runs now five large-scale events at its various TACs, one of which is an hour or so away from us. These events don’t require a camp licence because we’re covered under the centre’s licence. It’s a great opportunity for units like mine. So we offered it out. From eighteen girls, we got six, one of whom is the other leader’s daughter. All desperate for Brownie camp until we actually do one, of course.
Now, to be fair, our original plan was to use the indoor accommodation but between telling the parents and getting the forms out, that sold out. We decided to plough on with tents. And for the record, I was very dubious about this. I spent at least a couple of weeks repeating “Are you sure? Definitely? You’re sure you want to do this?” and Brown Owl was sure so Snowy shook her head and got on with the paperwork.
(One consent form and one three-page health form for each girl. One three-page health form for each adult. Two Residential Event Notification forms for District. Two sets of cheques to the venue. Risk assessment and two home contact forms. Activity plan impossible as we weren’t planning the activities. One travel info form and one dietary/health/photo permissions info form to the venue. For 36 hours away at an event someone else was planning.)
We borrowed our equipment from District. Two five-man tents, a couple of spare mats, sleeping bags, bivvy bags for emergencies, water carrier & two lanterns. To be carried by six 8 to 10-year-olds half a mile across the campsite along with their own bags and bedding rolls. Bless the centre for having heavy-duty mud-proof trolleys and we did at least three journeys even with those.
Getting camp set up was slightly scuppered by the fact that I was double-booked for that first evening, something I’d made clear before we’d even booked camp but we’d decided it was ok for Brown Owl to be on her own for three hours in the evening, one of which the Brownies should be in bed for. Where the problem came in was that I needed to leave by 7pm and we didn’t have the tents up by then. The Brownies have never put tents up before and Brown Owl is a keen campervanner and couldn’t put them up on her own either. My original plan had been for me to arrive on my own fairly early in the afternoon, since I don’t work Fridays, and get everything set up so they could move in. It would take away the fun of pitching the tents for the girls but better that than having to wait until 11.30pm for me to get back to do it. In the end, we planned to arrive at 5.30 which should give us time. Except that Brown Owl had to detour home twice and didn’t arrive until well after six. And my Brownies are the kind of girls, like my old Guides, who don’t understand why they should have to do any work. One eye on my watch, trying to get two five-man tents up while yelling at the Brownies “Put the poles together! Don’t sit there! Do some work!” I know, it seems mean but genuinely, they want us to do all the work for themĀ while they sit and talk and I didn’t have the time for that. Neither do I haveĀ any patience for that “Work faster, Snowy Owl, we’re bored” attitude.
I left at 7.10 with both tents up. The Brownie tent still needed 80% of its guys pegging down and the leader tent didn’t have an inside but Brown Owl could manage that. She took the girls off to dinner and then got the tents habitable and got them into bed. They were “terrible” that evening. She had to come out of the tent and tell them to be quiet because they were overexcited and that makes them loud. By the time I got back at five past eleven, the entire site was enveloped in an eerie silence. I’ve never seen anything like it. And they remained silent until 6am, which is earlier than I would have liked but not an unreasonable hour, particularly when they woke up our corner of our furthest field by singing campfire songs. I don’t sleep in tents anyway so I was awake when they started and I’d far rather they wake up singing and giggling than being grumpy and tearful. No, I utterly commend my girls for being really good that first night. Brown Owl had paired the big ones up with the little ones for “toilet buddies” so they never had to go out in the middle of the night in the dark on their own and they managed that fine with absolutely no fuss. 10/10, lots of gold stars for Friday night, will do Brownie camp again.
We had activities on Saturday. We started with the mysterious “Night Line” which turned out to be a rope strung through the woods which you followed blindfolded while your partner guided you round hoops, tunnels, roots and a commando net. Next was climbing, where two of the girls absolutely couldn’t do it and some of them were scarily good. Chill out zone involved jigsaws, colouring-in, giant lawn games and a movie in a room without enough seats. After lunch we were split in two groups and three of us went off to do whittling and five to pioneering. I went to pioneering because I’ve done whittling before and Brown Owl hasn’t and we eventually picked names out of a hat to pick the two girls who also got to do it. Wasn’t as good as when I did it at TIQ. They made feathersticks – cutting curls down a stick. They’re really good for setting fires but they don’t scream “look at this amazing thing I made!” In the pioneering corner, we learned lashing and knots and built a catapult. Our crosspiece was too high so it didn’t shoot very well but the girls were excited about it being a catapult.
The craft zone wasn’t great – they all wanted to make name bracelets but the vowels had run out long ago and you wouldn’t believe how many Es the girls have in their names (and their brothers’ and pets’ names, because they wanted to make them too).
We finished up with archery, which also wasn’t great. I don’t particularly enjoy someone else running the session anymore – too many “Oh, I wouldn’t do it like that” moments. Are you not going to make Brown Owl take off the jumper tied round her waist, the one that’s going to get caught in the bowstring? No, that hair is too long to be loose. But she did teach me how to be more consistently good at hitting these targets, which are lower than I like. The trouble was that we had about 16 people in our group and we only got one go each – partly because the other group had a dinosaur with them and the novelty of a dinosaur shooting an arrow is greater than a Brownie shooting an arrow. I promised them that I’d take them many times. I renewed my qualification yesterday, by the way, and got 100% in the exam.
That evening was when it all went wrong. We had a campfire and that was great. My girls have become enthusiastic singers and they requested two songs. They led one while I was on the phone and then I came down and helped them lead a round. 500-ish people is my biggest audience ever and that was a little intimidating.
The reason I was on the phone was that over dinner, one of the smaller girls started crying and for the last couple of hours, we’d never quite managed to cheer her up and eventually when she asked to go home, we were quite glad to say yes. Imagine dealing with a sniffling child all night long. Sorry for the unexpected long drive, parents. So after the campfire I took the three littlies back to the tent to help her pack up and Brown Owl took the three big ones to the night cafe and we accidentally met up again down the side of the house, delivered the girl to her parents and went back to the tents together.
Which is when disaster struck.
She’d taken the wrong sleeping bag. All the parents had been to the same shop and three of the six had the same gold-lined navy sleeping bag. The ten-year-old whose bag had accidentally been taken promptly burst into tears. We couldn’t console her. She wouldn’t sleep in the leftover sleeping bag. She wouldn’t sleep in one of the spares we’d brought. She missed mummy and wanted to go home and she sobbed so loudly that the tent next door told us in that bland smiling passive-aggressive way that some leaders have “Oh yes, I heard it all. Tent walls are quite thin, you know.” This child had been having the time of her life! She’d used an axe during the whittling, she’d been really good at the climbing, she’s good at archery, she’d enjoyed the meatballs, she’d been right in the thick of the campfire singing. But all of a sudden she wanted to go home and that was that.
It was 11pm by the time the parents got there. The four survivors were all asleep. The child in question was asleep in our porch, leaving us muttering “If she’d done that in her own tent, we’d have no problem.”
But in fact, we did have a problem. One adult cannot walk one child down to the car park. It’s a safeguarding issue for both of them. Neither can two adults walk one child down to the car park leaving four children alone in their tent for twenty minutes. In the end, Brown Owl went to fetch the dad while I milled around outside the tent and the child fell asleep in the toilet block with the door open while I tried to find a place I couldn’t see her and yet wake her up by calling her name. Now I see why three adults are so useful on camp.
Those two had the best of it. It rained all night. We had a thunderstorm at 2am, although our survivors slept through most of the thunder and didn’t see the lightning because of the blackout compartments in the tent. Our oldest got up to go to the toilet. Her toilet buddy refused to go with her and cried at the very idea so she calmly and cheerfully walked the 20 yards to the shed alone. Bless that girl. 5/10 for Saturday night, would not do Brownie camp again.
And then it rained all morning. We had our scheduled shop visit, we cancelled the kayaking because it would involve getting just too wet and we were a little let-down by the science zone and then we had to get down two large wet tents and transport all our kit with only four pairs of smaller hands to the car park.
Sunday was miserable, in short. I don’t think Brown Owl particularly enjoyed the camp. The second child to go home has refused to come back to Brownies, presumably from embarrassment, although she’s in the same class as two of the girls present, neither of whom are the kind to be mean to her over it. We’re still trying to get the tents dry two weeks later. And we’ve resolved that until we and the girls get more accustomed to it, we’re going to stick to one-night camps in future, preferably indoors.
I mean, we did some great stuff and I’m kind of glad we went… but we’re not doing it again.
(Compare how my older girls did in appalling winter conditions at the Sparkle & Ice series here)