Woke early with warm sunshine on the tent and the sounds of the A25 Dorking to Guildford traffic!
It's great to be camping at Faurefold in the summer, we've only ever camped here in the autumn and winter with our Guides whilst doing the London South West 4 Seasons Camping Challenge. It's strange to be here without Guides though! We've had fun looking back through the past visitors books tracking back almost 20 years of winter holidays with Southfields Guides, recalling familiar and now not so familiar names and activities!
The Faurefold Management committee joined us for coffee and showed us the preliminary plans for a new build - all very exciting and good to see the property in safe guiding hands.
How to spend our day? Leith Hill - highest point in the region, Box Hill - where the Olympic road race came out to or Ranmore Common with stunning views over the Surrey countryside? We drove up onto Ranmore admired the view and decided that as we knew the area around Dorking we'd set off towards our next destination instead. Settled on NT Osterley Park and braved the M25/M4 ORN which wasn't too bad at all.
Hadn't visited Osterley house and gardens before so we really were exploring new pastures. Fascinating discussions with some other visitors and NT volunteers about the role of women in upper class society 3
250 years ago, Mrs Bunce the Housekeeper was married to the Steward - they effectively ran the house and estate. What education and training would a woman of that standing have had? All very interesting. It was also interesting to hear that Osterley is self financing and depends on weddings, events and film directors for revenue. Did you know that the latest Batman film was recorded at Osterley?
On to Willow Tree, Middlesex West for an excellent evening with an open invitation to volunteers and Trefoil Guild members from across the County. No one took up Karen, the County Commissioner's, offer to stay over though - what a shame, Willow Tree is a stunning site!
Over and over again as we visit campsites and Guide halls around the Region I am reminded of the huge amount of volunteer time and dedication that goes into not only providing the weekly 1.5 hour sessions of guiding for the girls and the preparation that gies with it, but also the residential opportunities.
A bit more about guiding . . . .
Guiding is membership funded and run by volunteers who provide programmes led by the girls. The residential opportunities that we hope to offer to every girl each year depend upon volunteers to take extra time, often from their annual leave allowance, to run. In addition the campsites and indoor accommodation are operated by management teams and service crews of volunteers who will very likely also be bands of fundraisers, gardeners, painters and decorators, cleaners, plumbers, booking clerks and treasurers. We are immensely grateful to all our volunteers for all that they do to make guiding happen for the girls. If you are one of those volunteers reading this blog then thank you. If you have stumbled across the blog and are not yet involved then please do consider sharing your time, even just a very little bit of it, it's extremely rewarding and great fun. Check out girlguidinglaser.org.uk or the national website: girlguiding.org.uk for more information about what we do and how to join.
No comments:
Post a Comment