I love Sparkle & Ice. I haven’t missed a single year, not even 2021, when it was cancelled because of some killer mutant virus. I took a mix of Guides & Rangers in 2017, just Rangers in 2019 and 2020, volunteered in 2018 and 2022 and I’m taking my new Rangers this year. However, this might be the last of Sparkle & Ice. Girlguiding are selling off all their Training & Activity Centres because they’re not profitable enough to be worth maintaining for the relatively small proportion of members who use them. I’m sure they’ll find new venues for big events like Wellies & Wristbands, and as it’s only a regional event, I’m sure a new home can be found for Try Inspire Qualify but Sparkle & Ice is the unloved one of the large events, the only one that didn’t go online/at home during the lockdowns (to be fair, we did squeeze it into February 2020 right before we knew what was about to happen but it got utterly ignored in 2021) and therefore, the one that’s most likely to be dropped if we have to find a new location. It’s also likely if we do find a new location that I’m not going to be able to get my girls there. Girlguiding have confirmed that none of the big events are going to happen in 2024 but they’re hoping to bring them back. Well, we’ll see.
Anyway. I seem to have named most of the Sparkles. 2017 was the muddy one. 2019 was the cold one. 2020 was the one with the storm. And 2023 was the biggest one: not only the biggest Sparkle & Ice ever held at Foxlease but the biggest Sparkle & Ice Girlguiding has ever held anywhere. And, it turns out, that’s not actually such a good thing.
I brought my brand new Rangers, some of whom have never been on a Guide camp. We used our region new unit equipment grant to buy two two-man tents (warmer than putting them all in a borrowed huge five-man), some groundsheets and survival bags and we pitched up alongside the Guides, Rangers & leaders from my Brownie district. I’ve been a solo Ranger leader all along but I had a Ranger aged 18+ who was also a Guide leader and although she used to come as a Ranger, she fulfilled my need for a second adult. Now I don’t technically need a second adult but I attached us to these other units as a kind of backup.
I’ve said many times that after our 2017 experience, I wasn’t taking girls to the optional extra Friday night and I was correct not to – Friday night and Saturday morning were truly sparkly and icy. We arrived 9am on Saturday and had some difficulty with the new tents (leader tried to get them to practice at the meeting previous to camp…) then we went off for activities and this is where it came apart a bit. I was delighted in 2018 that Sparkle moved off a single field to use Foxlease’s entire site and all its adventurous activities but by now, what with it being Foxlease’s last event, it was packed. Three hour wait for zipline. Don’t go near the high ropes stuff because it’s a sea of orange helmets queuing . Be at the escape rooms the moment it opens to book a slot. I admit, we skipped the space stuff and the bushcraft but everything else – you just couldn’t get near it. Even the cinema room was too full. We did archery twice as it’s drop-in and we stopped off at craft but we spent more of Saturday back at the tents than doing anything and we spent the entire late afternoon and evening in the Warm Zone, playing quiz games.
It’s nice to see Sparkle & Ice being popular but I don’t think it sold itself to my four first-timers. I don’t think it particularly sold Foxlease or national large-scale camps either. Then I feel responsible because it was my idea and my unit. I’m glad they had the experience because it’s good to see what winter camp is like (strictly for one night only) but I think I’d have enjoyed it more as a volunteer. The Guide leader thanked me for “giving the girls the opportunity” and I think “remember the time we camped in November when it was -2°??” is going to be something they talk about for decades but I don’t think it’ll be “remember how much we loved that camp?”. At best, this was type 2 fun.
The good? Well, I liked that there was paracord woggle-making although the volunteers were apparently handed several spools of paracord and told to just come up with something to do with it. I do love a craft I can wear as part of my uniform. We have camp neckerchiefs in my new division and I can wear it on that. I liked the escape rooms, especially as our little group of 5 got other girls tacked on to make a bigger group and get more people in but it also meant meeting new people and not just seeing them as they walked past. Finished off my Trefoil 80th badge, those escape rooms did. I liked getting a go at archery. I liked seeing Sparkle & Ice sparkle in the ice, although those tents were bitter by 9pm.
The bad? Not being able to get onto activities. And the food was distinctly underwhelming. Dinner portions were tiny, the doughnuts were rock solid, the lunch soup was unidentifiable and my vegetarian Ranger failed to find the vegetarian hot breakfast option. Also, although there was undiluted squash at every meal, there was no water in the marquee, meaning you had to keep fighting your way down the long tables to go to the tap behind the queue in tge wall of the courtyard. No juice at breakfast either. I 100% support the Rangers who tried to convince their parents to stop at McDonald’s on the way home.
And let’s do this properly: the ugly? Well, the night was very cold and although I probably won’t take my girls back to Sparkle & Ice, I’m probably not going to get to offer them Wellies & Wristbands because the trustees are selling off all Girlguiding‘ activity centres! Foxlease just celebrated its centenary a year ago and now we’re losing it. Girlguiding say such a small proportion of members uses the centres and we can and do use our local adventure places – but we only have two local ones. One is “temporarily closed”, by which I mean we haven’t got the faintest idea whether it’s ever going to reopen, and the other seems to have been a bit run into the ground by combined ownership with the county Scouts and a local commercial provider. I’m hoping to take my Rangers there in spring for that ziplining they missed out on but we’ll have to see if it’s even going to be possible.
We officially closed at 9.30 on Saturday night, just like in 2017, with a fireworks display. This angers local residents so it hasn’t happened for the last few years – I wondered if this being Foxlease’s last event, they wanted to go out with a bang and no longer have anything to lose from upsetting the neighbours. It was a good display – nice and sparkly! Then I filled my long hot water bottle, got into my complex network of sleeping bags and blankets and tried not to freeze.
Next year I’m going to do my own Sparkle & Ice again, probably in a shepherd’s hut. Maybe a winter sleepover for the girls – indoors, this time.