Back in June, a group of 25 Rangers from 5 units across Middlesex West met up at Pax Lodge for one of their International Adventure Days.
Their International Adventure Days are led by the volunteers at Pax Lodge who are members of the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts from across the world. They ran a mixture of activities from their home countries and activities to learn about each of the World Centres.
In the afternoon we were also joined by a group of Girl Scouts from Texas who were visiting London.
Learning about the Volunteers Home Countries
First up, we stayed in the UK with presentations from a volunteer from Scotland who taught us a traditional dance that you would see at a Ceilidh, and a volunteer from Staffordshire who told us about the potteries, and we designed some plates ourselves.
We then had a volunteer from South Africa talk to us about South African Girl Guides and the country itself, she also taught us a hand clapping game that they play where we sing a song and move around in a circle getting faster and faster.
Next up, a volunteer from the USA told us about Girl Scouts and taught us some line dancing.
We learnt about carnival and Soca music from a volunteer from Trinidad, she was also a Ranger leader, so we learnt all about what Rangers is like in Trinidad and Tobago.
A volunteer from Nigeria, taught us about Guides in Nigeria and we tried out a tower building activity from their programme.
And lastly, we had a volunteer from Mexico tell us all about Mexican Guides and taught us a repeat after me and action song in Spanish about making bread!
Learning about the Five world centres with different activities for each one.
Our first world centre Kusafiri, we discovered its history and what you can do there. We played a game of telephone to help us learn facts about Kusafiri, the other World Centres and international opportunities.
For Sangam, we learnt all about the World Centre and did some traditional rangoli patterns using resources that had been gifted to Pax Lodge by a group of Indian Guides who had previously visited.
We ‘travelled’ to Nuestra Cabana to learn about that World Centre before playing a game called Cabins and Visitors getting everyone running around and having a good laugh!
We learnt the history of the oldest World Centre, Our Chalet, before heading outside for a snowball fight game!
Lastly for Pax Lodge, everyone had a tour of the building, learning all about its history and the World Centres that came before it in London. Everyone then headed outside to swap badges with the Girl Scouts.
We then gathered round the flag pole for the Pinning Ceremony. Each World Centre has their own unique pin which can only be gained by being at the World Centre in person. During the pinning ceremony everyone had to make a special promise and were then presented with our badges. We then all sang the Pax Lodge song before one giant group photo!
We also had a special award of our own to give out. We all gathered so that Hannah from 3rd Hayes Ranger Unit could be presented her Commonwealth Award by Jenni our County Commissioner.
