On a warm sunny Friday afternoon we arrived
at the Scout Park in Bounds Green, North London for our second training
weekend. Certainly the most urban of our training weekend locations – only a 5
minute walk from a London Underground station! We chilled out on Friday night
and had borrowed a projector to watch a film. We started a South African
gangster film which was all a bit serious so we changed to watch Madagascar
which was set in Africa and a great laugh. We had popcorn and it was very comfy
on mattresses on the floor. We also had a visitor (Jo – Girlguiding London
North West's international advsior) who was coming to see how Lizzie's Senior
Section residential permit was coming along. 
On Saturday more of our group joined us first
thing in the morning and we were briefed on how the trip plans were coming
along. We also thought about where we can minimise risk as a group (i.e how to
help us remember our passports, what might happen if we lost baggage), and
wrote a first draft of our kit list. (we also had to rip out of paper the
outline of as much of our kit as possible in a short space of time!). We were also all given paper passports which
we had to keep on us at all times (as we were subject to passport checks
throughout the weekend!)
After lunch we tried out of few of our Kenya challenge badge activities including making a football out of plastic bags –
surprisingly effective – and carrying water on our head and an elephant relay
(joining hands through our legs in a team and trying to race). Anne – our group mentor (who had lead a
region trip in 2012 also joined us for a cup of tea to chat to Lizzie and
Lindsay and to meet us all).
We had a grand signing of our team charter and we each had make the giraffe makaton sign and a
group call of 'harambee' which is swahili for working together.
We had an African cooking challenge for the
evening and the team had to make ugali, bean stew, and coconut rice, with fruit
salad for dessert which was all pretty yummy although we may need more practise
to perfect these dishes before serving them again! We then finished the evening
with a campfire to learn some new songs from each other and toast marshmallows.
Sunday we thought about how to keep ourselves
healthy whilst away. We discussed what were the most likely illnesses we may
have (I.e dodgy tummy, headaches, blocked noses, sunburn etc) and what we can
do prevent these (as all are preventable).
We finalised uniform design and advertised our Kenya challenge badge on
facebook, twitter, guiding forums – everywhere we could! We also chatted about our R&R time (rest
and relaxation time) and where we wanted to go in Kenya for this.
We then came together, had lunch and
evaluated the weekend and chatted about how we were feeling about the trip
(both nervous and excited).
