That’s a total clickbait title – for the first time, I deliberately didn’t book a qualification at Try Inspire Qualify because there were none I wanted to do that I haven’t already done.
Try Inspire Qualify has a lot in common with Camp Wildfire, actually: a lot of adults taking the weekend off being responsible to act like Guides(/Scouts) and do adventurous activities in the grounds of a stately home with the possibility to buy lots of badges to remind them of said activities. The event badges comes free with the welcome pack at TIQ and you don’t have to pick a patrol colour for it, there’s no music and very little drinking but otherwise, yeah. Adult adventurous activities weekend!
It’s the third time it’s been held and when a pandemic isn’t ravaging the planet, it’s held every two years in September. In 2016 I got my archery instructor award and in 2018 I got my fencing core coach award (and also became a She Rallies tennis coach, although nothing ever came of that). In 2020 it obviously didn’t happen and in 2022 there was nothing on offer to expand the warrior-in-training section of my CV. So I figured I’d join the majority in just going for the fun – activities, workshops and doing a Guidey thing with no kids and no admin.
I knew some of my timetable in advance – I got assigned canoeing and raft-building. They kind of have to tell you that rather than leaving it as a surprise because there’s a certain amount of kit you need for watersports that you wouldn’t otherwise bring. You choose your activities to a certain degree: they give you the list and you number them from the ones you want to do down to the ones you’d rather die than do. I don’t remember my exact list but I assume I put watersports pretty high up because that’s my thing the last couple of years and I’ve never really done it with Girlguiding, and I assume they jumped on it and that it’s one of the least popular categories, at least among adults. The rest, anything outside of 11.30-13.00 on both days, that was left as a surprise for my personal timetable on arrival. I was expecting two or three bits of paper and a badge in a brown envelope but actually, all I got was one sheet of paper with my timetable on one side and a map of the site on the other and an “Are you sure you want to camp? Ok. You’re on Bridges”.
Yes, I opted to camp. TIQ is an indoor event and we’d be sleeping in bunk beds in various buildings around the site but a week before it happened, my Brown Owl mentioned that she was camping with her Inspire group. Camping?? I didn’t know camping was on offer! I hadn’t asked because no one wants to set up and maintain a toilet block for one person but since there was a group, there was no reason not to join them. So I emailed Region and was told no problem, but that Inspire were bringing their own tents so I should bear that in mind as it would add to the equipment I had to bring. Blink blink. Yes, I entirely intended to bring my own tent. I didn’t literally mean “join them”. I’d rather be inside, really, especially given the weather forecast, but it’s still just a little early in the plague for me to be 100% comfortable sleeping in a dorm with strangers. I know I’m in a tiny tiny minority at this point but apart from the fact that camping is just fun (even if I never sleep and I have to swear at the tent as I put it up in the rain), I’m just more comfortable not sharing air with people.
The reason Inspire were camping was that there wasn’t enough inside space for everyone coming this weekend but somewhere along the line, a miracle seems to have happened because there was enough space. In fact, in the end, there were only three of us camping. Two of them shared a little two-man on Apple Tree and I had my big four-man on Bridges all by myself. That felt a bit weird at first, as no one came and joined me throughout Friday evening but let’s say right now that I made the right decision! All I heard on Saturday morning was complaining about people snoring in the dorms. I’m almost very sensitive to light so people traipsing across the room to go to the toilet all night, flashing their torches and switching on the hall light, that would have driven me crazy. Bunk beds creaking as people move. No. I’m so glad I camped and I’m especially glad I took the big tent because it was absolutely palatial to come back to. Room to spread myself out, room to spread my damp watersports stuff out, privacy to eat all the food I’d brought with me rather than go to the Barn for lunch – a good decision all round. All I heard at night was a herd of cows yelling and the goat that shared my field yelling whenever I walked in its direction.
I mentioned the weather forecast. It rained all week. It rained on Friday morning. I was expecting a dismal weekend in a tent and a dismal weekend doing outdoor activities in the rain. In fact, the rain stopped half an hour before I arrived at Foxlease and it got brighter throughout Saturday until on Sunday, a few of us complained we hadn’t bothered bringing any sun protection and at least this and that activity were under shady trees.
So, the activities. I got a good selection! For some reason – maybe it said it on the booking information – I thought I got two activities and two workshops across the weekend. I looked at my 2018 blog posts and I spent all of Saturday on the fencing, Sunday afternoon on the tennis and still got two activities in on Sunday morning so I probably should have realised there was far more space in the timetable than that. In fact, I got no workshops. I assume they’re the “Inspire” part of Try Inspire Qualify and I find them the least inspiring bit. No, I got all activities. Good activities. Seven activities!
Saturday morning was abseiling and canoeing, with backwoods cooking and traditional skills in the afternoon. Sunday morning was pioneering and raft-building and then bushcraft in the afternoon before I took my tent down and went home. Oh yeah – another benefit. You have to have the room empty and spotless by 11am, which means you have to have it empty and spotless before you go off to your first activity at 9/9.30. Not if you’re camping! Nice lazy morning for me!
I thought that was a pretty good selection. More… earthy? You often get aerial/high ropes activities like climbing, Jacob’s ladder, tree climb, zipwire and those are all very well but I liked that I’d mostly got a set of outdoors activities rather than adventurous ones. Everyone had a different timetable but you did meet the same people over and over again. Emma, for example, was with me for abseiling, pioneering and raft-building and I think quite a few of us went straight from backwoods cooking to traditional skills.
Abseiling was much as you’d expect. Get into harnesses, go up the tower via the stairs inside, get clipped onto three ropes at the top, lean back – this was the part that people found most difficult and indeed, it sent at least two of the group back down the stairs – and then lower yourself on the rope. We had to take watches and bracelets off, which I’ve never had to do for high ropes stuff before but one of our group demonstrated why by catching her silicon medicalart bracelet in the ropes at the top, damaging her wrist and sending the band pinging beyond the boundaries of the abseiling area. I like to really feel like I’m secure on the rope and of course, it’s a dymanic rope. It’s got 20% stretch. No matter how much the instructor took it in, the moment my weight goes on it, it uses that stretch so it never quite feels secure enough. But I got there eventually, got over the edge and I enjoy abseiling once I’m over the edge and I can feel that I’m hanging from the rope. Only one turn each, unfortunately.
Canoeing… well, I’ve never shared a canoe before. In theory it’s easier but in practice, I just itched to have 100% control. That’s partly over forward motion and steering but also over balance. This is supposed to be something of a try at something you’d do with the girls, so we did some games. I hated “everyone hold hands and stand up” and I hated “can you walk across to the furthest boat and then back to the opposite furthest boat and then back to your own?” but I did enjoy the game with the foam ball where you have to throw it into someone else’s boat without getting it in your own from someone else. I don’t really see much opportunity to play it again but if I can, I will.
Backwoods cooking wasn’t as backwoodsy as I expected – a bag of oranges on the table was a good sign this wasn’t going to be foraging. We made campfire pizzas, which means putting toppings on a half-wrap, wrapping it in foil and then lighting a small fire in a barrel to cook them over. It came straight after lunch, so no one was particularly hungry until those pizzas were cooked. We also hollowed out the little oranges, filled them with cupcake mix and baked them in foil in the fire itself. I skipped the popcorn over tealights because I’ve failed at that enough times but I did enjoy` the floating fire – a foil loaf-shaped tin floating in a metal bucket of water. Light a fire in the tin and cook a marshmallow over it! We can definitely do that at Brownies – at a push, you could even do that inside, although we won’t.
Traditional skills is whittling. I made the elf/troll in 2018 so this year I decided to have a go at a Christmas tree, which uses much the same ideas. I made my trunk too thin and it snapped off and it was a little bit frustrating to see someone manage an elf and a tree and both of them to be exquisite but there. We compare against ourselves, not others. Someone pointed out that whittling is the most expensive activity because everyone goes home and buys the knife and the kevlar glove and yes, I did that last time.
Pioneering was re-planned at the last minute. We were supposed to make a bridge with the big logs but for some reason, we weren’t allowed to climb on them. Health and safety, I guess. So we could make the bridge and then admire the bridge, or we could use the broomsticks and make a catapult and then shoot something with it. We did the catapult. With pioneering, you get people who know knots and lashing and people who don’t and there’s no in between and the people who know knots definitely dominate. I taught some of the ladies the bunny-ears method of tying a clove hitch but my lashing is a bit “quantity over quality”. We had some trouble with the elastic that actually powers the catapult and more trouble with the “basket” – you need your missile to stay put on the end of the broom while you pull it back and that means you need something for it to sit in. An inhaler flies better than a backpack waterproof cover in a pouch, we learned.
Raft-building was right next to pioneering so instead of scurrying across the entire site, the three of us who were going straight from pioneering to rafts took our waterproof stuff with us first thing and spent half an hour sitting under a tree until everyone else arrived from their other activities. This was the one I’d most been looking forward to because it’s a rare activity that’s really difficult to find an opportunity to do on your own.
The usual plan for an activity-centre raft is a battenburg-square of logs with a barrel on each corner. We didn’t have enough rope for that, so we used the backup option. Tie two barrels together. Put them end to end with two other barrels. Shove a log down the middle and then force it out to the side, which gives you an edge to stand on and forces the rope into a kind of tension you couldn’t otherwise achieve. It saves half an hour of lashing, which children quickly get bored by, it’s really easy to make and carry and it turns out it’s really stable, even with four adults perched on top. It’s really manoeuvrable too, much to my surprise. Definitely my favourite activity of the weekend, although again I declined to stand up or to scramble across to the other raft.
And last, bushcraft. We made a shelter in ten minutes by the simple method of demolishing the previous group’s shelter – which needed to be demolished before we left anyway – and moving all their sticks to a different tree. We made a shelter for cooking at one end, it fitted five or six and you could comfortably get two lying down. Then we filtered some water – we put two much sand in our filter and it took forever and created a sludgy mess. Another small group got some pretty crystal clear water out but Theresa, who was in charged, pointed out that they had a clean bottle to start with – you cut a two-litre bottle in half, use the top half as a funnel and collect water in the bottom half. And then we lit small fires with ferro rods, batteries & wire wool, charcloth (that didn’t work very well, it wasn’t charred enough) and cotton wool rubbed in Vaseline. We also broke out the knives again and tried to make feather sticks.
We had a campfire on Saturday night. The wood was wet and although people think kindling is what you start with – and we had a bag of dry kindling bought by Inspire during the day – you need something smaller, punk, to actually light the kindling. We started at least six tiny fires which all went out but between me and Emma – a different Emma – and a bit of luck, one of our tiny fires became a small fire and when it got home enough, the wet wood didn’t entirely put it out. Because it was barely 48 hours since the Queen, our Patron and a sister Guide, died we kept the campfire nice and quiet. None of the rowdy songs. No Alice the Camel. We discovered we didn’t have a huge repertoire of sedate songs even between us but we kept it going as long as the fire kept going and I added two new songs to my songbook and it was just nice, a dozen of us in the woods, sitting close around the firepit, singing gently together instead of joining the other 85-ish in the bar. Yes, I’d thought the Guiding version of Camp Wildfire would involve a lot less alcohol and I was wrong. However, no one turned up to any activities hungover, so clearly Guides have better self-control than festival-goers.
As a first-timer to the just “try” bit of Try Inspire Qualify, I think I’m even more of a fan. I’ve always been the person who squeals “Oh yes, go to TIQ, it’s a great weekend!” but now I’ve actually been in the thick of it, instead of in a separate room gaining a qualification, I’m in no doubt about going again.
Oh, and if you’re after badges, it’s brilliant. Our event badges got handed out at breakfast on Sunday morning. The Region Chief Commissioner came on Friday night to do a candlelight ceremony for the Queen and one of the Deputy Chief Commissioners was one of the Inspire girls around the campfire and in my bushcraft session, so we all got a Chief Commissioner’s Team badge. Then it’s also Foxlease’s centenary this year so I invested in a Foxlease100 badge and in a challenge pack and challenge badge to go with it. And finally, Girlguiding TACs have a set of badges for activities, so just like at Camp Wildfire, I came back with a set of badges for the activities I’d done, except Foxlease’s are huge. So all in all, I think I came back with nine new badges to go on my blanket.
