The end of project

It's the last day of project and we are all trying to work out how we got here! We've had an emotional, at times exhausting but at the end of the day rewarding project where we are all really pleased to see how the girls have progressed during our trainings and how MAGGA are prepared to continue their own version of GOLD in Malawi into the future!

Camp at Senga Bay was lots of fun and certainly a different training environment for us all! We arrived in the dark so could only hear the lake but it was a brilliant view in the morning to wake up to its vast blue waters! Our wake up call on Saturday morning was punctuated by the arrival of many baboons running wild on the camp but we managed mostly to keep these at bay.

After breakfast we found some shade on the beach to begin training so started with some First Aid. We got very sandy practising the recovery position on the beach but everyone picked up the skills rather quickly and enjoyed learning the topic. In the afternoon we started on Advocacy and got some great ideas from the group on how they can speak out. It was interesting to train these topics with the girls on camp as they were a much older group than we have worked with when we trained these topics with the patrol leaders so we had a lot of different contributions.

In the evening we had a bit of a party on the beach with the girls and enjoyed spending some time getting to know each other. Andreah certainly gave some of the girls a run for their money in the dance competition!

We got up early on Sunday morning to watch the sunrise over the lake. It was such a clear day that we could see across to Mozambique! As the sun rose, Emily made her promise as an adult leader on the beach - a special moment for us all to be part of. At 6am we were joined by the MAGGA girls for morning exercises, putting on quite a show for the guards and other campers!

Our theme for Sunday was MAGGA development and we included activities to help both the rangers and MAGGA GOLD team develop their respective unit meetings and trainings to be effective and informative. The girls were very invested in the training and took lots of notes so that they could use everything we taught them in the future.

We got very sandy playing with the parachute on the beach, but it was a good opportunity to show the GOLD girls how to use it as we will be leaving it for them. Before we knew it, it was time to say our thank yous, hand out a few badges and pack away our tents so that we could drive back to Lilongwe. It was sad to leave the lake but was such a great experience to be able to go and stay there.

On Monday we met with a very tired MAGGA GOLD team at the office along with Dinara and Mphatso to finish training them on agendas, SMART targets, training plans and long term goals. We had a 6th year party for the final year of GOLD and surprised everyone with our cake, streamers and balloons. We were pleased that we could leave the GOLD team in a position where they knew their next steps and should hopefully be able to run their first trainings before December.

We headed back to the MAGGA offices on Tuesday to meet again with Dinara and Mphatso and evaluate our whole project. We shared some of our favourite things of project along with our hopes for the development of the GOLD team. Dinara and Mphatso were equally pleased with the project this year along with the previous 5 years of GOLD in Malawi and were sad that there will be no UK team coming out next year.

Wednesday is our last official day of project so we headed back to the MAGGA office with a few gifts for all of the staff. It was lovely to see how excited everyone was about their gifts, both personal gifts and some to the three regions of MAGGA. Dinara and Mphatso took us to visit the plot of land MAGGA have bought to build their new offices on and talked us through the plans. It is very exciting to think about the development and how much of an impact it will make to the girls at MAGGA.

After a lot of hugs and farewells to the MAGGA staff, our preparation for onward travel has begun! We made a visit to the market for souvenirs and are now starting to pack ready to leave for Dedza in the morning.

We might post some updates on our travel on social media to let you know what we are all up to over the next week. You are welcome to keep in contact while we travel, however we would like to remind you that all donations and fundraising monies have gone solely towards our time on project whereas our travel is now being paid for by our personal money.

Thank you to everyone who has supported us during our project, both at home and in Malawi.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Last few trainings in Lilongwe (don't cry Ruth)

Team Malawi have had quite a few varied and unexpected days! On Tuesday we had our final day of training with the patrol leaders in Lilongwe. We trained the girls on Violence against Women which they were all very knowledgeable about. It was interesting to hear some different comments from the girls than we heard in Blantyre but also was promising that even the youngest girls were very clear on what behaviours are abusive and non-abusive in a relationship. It is good to see how involved the girls get in our trainings and how much information they take on board.

In the afternoon, we taught them some of our much awaited crafts! We changed things around from Blantyre a bit, this time teaching paper flowers, pencil toppers and friendship bracelets. All of our crafts were very popular and we had to rapidly prepare extra resources whilst the girls were rushing to do all three!

On Wednesday we were invited to the MAGGA board meeting, but unfortunately when we arrived in the morning, a lot of the board members were still travelling to the offices. Never wanting to waste a dull moment, we pitched up outside and used the time to plan our trainings for camp at Senga Bay. We were invited to join the meeting in the afternoon and the board members were very interested to hear how our project has been going. We updated the board on the progress of the girls and the MAGGA GOLD team in particular so that we could give them feedback on their next steps to develop the project for the future.

Thursday was yet another unexpected day - as you may have gathered from Facebook and Twitter, we were invited to the MAGGA AGM. It was not quite the format we expected and a bit difficult to know what was going on at times due to some of the speeches being in Chichewa, but it was great to see so many people there all passionate about guiding. The theme for the meeting was 'Let us unite to end violence against women and girls'. There were a lot of passionate speeches on the topic from all ages, including a very young guide from Mzuzu. A lot of the girls we have trained in Lilongwe were involved in the meeting with their fellow Brownies, Guides and Rangers showing some of their chants, sketches, self defence and exercises.

An MP from the Ministry of Gender, Children, Disability and Social Welfare was a guest of honour at the meeting and gave a rallying speech to the girls and women, encouraging them to stand up against violence and abuse. She also presented flowers to members of MAGGA who were being recognised for their achievments and even called Ruth up to the stage to represent our GOLD team!

We were given our moment on the stage to summarise the whole 6 years of GOLD in Malawi and the work we have been doing this year. In true guiding style we finished our presentation with a few songs! We lit some candles to sing Guiding Light and finished with the Rainbow, Brownie and Guide closing songs.

We were invited back onto stage a few more times including during a speech from the MP, however since a lot her speech went into Chichewa, we ended up looking very confused on stage!

At the end of the meeting, we were scooped up into a bit of a disco on the stage with all of the Brownies, Guides and Rangers. A lot of the girls who have been to our trainings came running over to see us, some already with badges pinned on that we had given them.

Since returning from the AGM, we have been hastily packing for camp at Senga Bay and will be on our way on Friday evening. Quite an eventful few days but the adventure is not quite ending yet!

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi xx

Tours and trainings

On Friday we were given a tour of Lilongwe by the MAGGA GOLD team - who knew you could fit so much into a day! We started by driving to the new stadium. This was especially interesting for Ruth as it was not built last year. The stadium can seat 50,000 people and can be seen from all over Lilongwe. Unfortunately we could not go into the stadium to look around as it is still a building site but it would be interesting to see it in a few years time in action!

We then travelled to see a monument for the first world war and on to visit the parliament building and the mauseleum. The mauseleum was a memorial for the late president Banda. We had our lunch at an authentic hostel where you could stay in mud huts by the lake. The MAGGA team took us to the Lilongwe Wildlife centre in the afternoon and stopped at a village on the way home that is often frequented by Madonna on her trips to Malawi! We were exhausted by the end of the day!!

On Saturday we spent the day at our hostel preparing our training plans for the next week. In the evening we were invited to a fundraiser at MAGGA to subsidise fees for our camp at Senga Bay next week. It turned out not to be quite the English tombola fundraiser we were expecting - the music and dancing started early and we left when the party was in full swing!

On Sunday we started our training with patrol leaders in Lilongwe. The group turned out to have a mix of Brownies, Guides and Rangers but they were all very enthusiastic and gave some good contributions to our trainings on Advocacy and First Aid. Having done some of these activities before in Blantyre, it is interesting to see the different ideas that come up in our discussions. The activities went particularly well considering we were competing with at least 6 different church services at once throughout the day that were in different rooms around the school.

We have continued training these girls on Monday, running activities on Teamwork and Leadership. The girls were especially excited to play with our parachute, as it is something they have never seen before. Since our training with these girls has taken place in a school, today we got chance to meet a class who were having an English lesson in the classroom next to ours. We certainly caused a stir with our acivities and games when the school children came out for their break!

It has been a busy few days but it is really nice to see how much the girls have learnt from our trainings.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

P.S. Somehow we have managed to increase the amount of luggage we are carrying between hostels! Hopefully we can cut this lot back down again before we fly home...

(Ruth has been shopping!)

A Malawian birthday

We may have been a bit quiet on the blog over the past few days but its only because we've been doing lots of trainings! Our journey back up to Lilongwe on Tuesday was a lot better than we had expected thanks to Ruth's savvy bargaining skills in the bus station. We piled onto a local bus with all of our bags and resources and settled down for a long journey back up. The journey didn't take nearly as long as we expected and we were soon back in Lilongwe, as if we had never been away.

On Wednesday we started training the Malawian GOLD teams at the MAGGA headquarters and finished the training on Thursday. We started the training with only 4 participants but by the end of the two days we had trained about 20 people. It was nice to train some different topics and hopefully we have left the Malawi GOLD team in a position to start planning their own training sessions for guide units around Lilongwe and then further afield in Malawi.

We have spent a lot of time training the team on how to plan, deliver and evaluate their own training sessions on Teamwork, Communication, Advocacy and Leadership. Some of the girls are ready and enthusiastic to start trainings but we also hope we will be able to help them set up the Malawian GOLD project as a sustainable venture which the younger girls we were training in Blantyre will be able to join with when they are older.

Today has been a special day for Team Malawi as it is Louise's birthday! We had a treat at lunch as the girls appeared with a cake that had 'Happy Birthday Louise' written on it. We have started our evening with having our dinner in our dresses we had made in Blantyre. We are now going for a chilled out pamper evening after our busy days of training.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

The last day in Blantyre

Our last day of training was a sad one because it meant we are leaving Blantyre, but it was still very successful. The weather changed on us this morning and we woke to a cold damp day. We were pleased to find pretty much the same girls as yesterday arrive so we could build on our trainings. The leaders told us they had been testing the girls on our trainings last night, so they all showed us the recovery position and told us what they could remember about advocacy. It was really nice to see that everyone has been taking our trainings seriously and have been practicing what they have been taught.

We started this morning with our violence against women training, discussing beauty around the world, stereotypes of men and women and qualities of good and bad relationships as well as the importance of a girl-only space in guiding. Everyone got really involved in the session and came up with a lot of good ideas.

In the afternoon we taught a few crafts - a very popular topic, and hopefully something they will be able to reproduce without us. We finished the day with some songs and a lot of photos with all of the girls.

It is sad to be leaving this group of girls in Blantyre, but it is nice to know that they have found our trainings useful and that they will continue to spread our messages with the people they meet.

We are now preparing for a long journey back up to Lilongwe tomorrow so it's an early night for Team Malawi!

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Probably the most unexpected day yet!

What a day! We have managed to fit so much into today - the second day of training is complete. We had a slightly older group today, mostly the older girls from yesterday but a few new girls as well. We started the day with a few more leadership activities before starting our morning session on advocacy. The girls worked really hard and had a lot of ideas about what issues they should stand up for and how they can speak out.

Our afternoon session involved a lot of first aid activities which we think the girls found really useful. They are all now well trained in the recovery position, things to put in a first aid kit and the importance of washing hands properly amongst other things.

The surprise of the day was that our dresses were ready! We are all very pleased to have had traditional dresses made for us and are looking forward to wearing them.

We stayed at MAGGA in the evening to have a campfire with some of the girls. They shared some of their songs and dances with us and we shared a few of our songs as well. We particularly enjoyed the songs that we both knew, especially because we couldn't join in when they sang in Chichewa!

We are looking forward to tomorrow's training but are sad that it is our last proper day in Blantyre. I am sure further adventures are waiting to greet us when we arrive in Lilongwe.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Tarcondwa

Moni, muli bwanji? Tarcondwa! (for those of you who are less versed in the language of Chichewa, we have been taught to say 'Hello, how are you? We are happy!') We have had a very hot couple of days in Blantyre. On Friday we had some free time in the morning so we took the opportunity to visit St Michael's and All Angels Church - the second oldest building in Malawi, built in the late 1800's by scottish missionaries.

We were allowed to look into the new church which has been built on the site of the mission, to allow more people to attend the services. It was a very big, well looked after church building - a shame we couldn't stay for a service. We were also shown into the original church which surprised us by how English it felt from the inside. We met some of the ministers from the mission before being allowed to visit the H.H.I mission primary and secondary schools, which were also on the site of the mission.

It was the last day of term at the school so all of the students were waiting to collect their grades and reports. We spoke to a few of the students, who seemed quite happy with their results. We met a teacher called Alice, who told us about a few of the school buildings and let us wander inside some of them. The teachers of the team were particularly interested in the alphabets, times tables and weather painted on the wall.

Back in the main town of Blantyre, we trawled the fabric shops for Tchjenga fabric and managed to find tailors to make us some traditional dresses - we will keep you updated on this!

When we got back to our hostel, Gertrude, the regional commissioner for the south of Malawi came to meet us. She was very glad to see us and pleased to hear our plans for trainings this weekend.

We finished the day sorting our training plans and preparing our resources for the first day of training.

On Saturday we had our first day of training! While we were waiting at the MAGGA resource centre for more girls to arrive, some of the staff were trying to teach us phrases in Chichewa. The girls were particularly amused at our pronunciation of the Malawian Guide promise:

Ndikulonjeza kudzipereka kugwira ntchito ya, Mulungu kutetza dziko langa ndi anthu enu, Ndikusunga lamulo la Guide.

We started the day with only 6 guides doing a lot of icebreakers and teamwork activities. A few hours later, a truck arrived with 30 more girls ranging in age from 6 to 16. The girls enjoyed playing a bit with our parachute, before doing some leadership and teamwork activities. We were given nsima for lunch which we had a go at cooking but we weren't nearly strong enough to stir it properly!

We finished the day with a few more leadership activities and the girls showed us some of their songs and dances. We haven't quite mastered their dance technique yet!

This evening we have been rearranging training plans for tomorrow. We should be training more guides tomorrow - we'll let you know how it goes!

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Travelling South

Although we haven't started training yet, a lot has happened in the last couple of days. We enjoyed having some time to sleep on Wednesday morning to catch up after all of the travelling but we soon got to work on our training plans. We pitched up in the sunshine at the lodge to pull together our plans for training in Blantyre.

Not long into our planning discussions, two members of staff from MAGGA - Miriam and Dinara - joined us. It was great to hear how enthusiastic all of the MAGGA staff are for our trainings and we were really pleased to see how hard they have been working since the 2014 project. Miriam and Dinara left us so excited to begin training and we are hoping they will get as many people as possible to come along.

On Wednesday afternoon we took the opportunity to explore a bit more of Lilongwe before going to the bus station with the MAGGA drivers where they helped us sort our buses to Blantyre.

Ruth introduced us to a chinese restaurant in the evening along with her favourite dish - ants on a tree (no real ants were involved in the eating of this dish)!

We had to be up very early on Thursday morning as Victor, one of the drivers from MAGGA, came to pick us up from the lodge at 6am. While we were waiting for the bus, we did our own 'wake up and shake up' dance to some popular malawian music.

The coach that came to pick us up was luxury - a deluxe coach which travels a lot faster than the local buses, handed out food and drinks, as well as stopping halfway to let us stretch our legs! During the journey, Ruth met another traveller who used to live near her in the UK before moving to Malawi - what a small world!

The trip to Blantyre took us about 5 hours and gave us chance to see some more of the malawian countryside and markets. Blantyre is a much busier city than Lilongwe - something that surprised us considering that Lilongwe is the capital city.

After bringing all of our things to our hostel in Blantyre, we took the opportunity to explore some of the town and look at some of the places we might want to come back to later on.

We are just finishing some of our training plans now and will soon be getting ready for another busy day tomorrow before training starts.

GOLD love,
Alice and Team Malawi x

We're in Malawi!!

Hello to you all from Malawi!! We woke up in our travelodge at Heathrow on Monday morning raring to go and piling all of our many bags together. After a lot of heaving bags through the airport, we got to the gate to find that our first flight was a double decker plane!! We seemed to be a lot more excited than other passengers about this...

It was a LONG 10 hour flight to Johannesburg but we managed to pass the time making use of the on board screens, investigating the upstairs of the plane and doing our evening trash and treasure in the dark! Before we knew it, we were in South Africa, but not without watching the sun rise over the South African skyline from the plane.

A short while later we found ourselves on our second flight, to Lilongwe. Coming from a double decker plane, it seemed a much smaller flight to Malawi, but we had a safe trip and it wasn't long before we finally set foot on malawian soil. We were given a warm welcome by members of the MAGGA team who had come to meet us at the airport.

On our drive from the airport, we were able to witness the Malawian culture straight away and enjoyed views of the vast landscapes. Ruth in particular enjoyed seeing how Lilongwe has changed since her visit with the 2014 team last year. We also had our first experience of seeing mice on sticks up close, as some of the MAGGA team bought some, but don't worry, we didn't eat any! We were taken to the MAGGA headquarters to meet some more of the team, before heading to our hostel for the night.

We managed to see a bit more of Lilongwe on our trip to the supermarket, but the whole team are now well and truly ready to drop, after such a long journey with very little sleep. We can't wait to get started with our trainings this week - we'll let you know how it goes!

GOLD love,
Alice and Team Malawi x

The Final Countdown

The time is here! In a week's time, we will be in Malawi!! We have been very busy over the last few weeks with the final preparations for project. We have our training plans ready and are gathering our resources together.

Make sure you can stay up to date with our project while we are away - make sure you subscribe to our blog, follow us on twitter: @GOLDMalawi2015 and like us on facebook: www.facebook.com/GOLDMalawi2015

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Hard at work with the Malawi Challenge!

Well Team Malawi have been hard at work preparing for our trip, but as far as we hear it, so have you! Badge orders have been racing in from all over the country and so have a few photos of people completing the challenge:

1st Hanham Rainbows have had fun making snake pencil toppers and people snowflakes:

4th Durham City St John's Brownies have been making cheesy snakes and milk bottle elephants:

We love to hear from you as you complete our challenge, so please do send us any photos you have to goldmalawi2015@outlook.com or send us a tweet @GOLDMalawi2015 

If you haven't ordered your badges yet, get in touch now whilst we are in good supply.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Badges, Bookings and Briefing!!

Since second briefing, whilst being away from the social media for a while, Team Malawi have still been buzzing with activity. Several phone conferences and a lot of emails and texts have seen a lot of work covered and progress made. The big news of the week - we have been given dates for project! We are still finalising the details but it is so exciting to be able to actually write it properly on a calendar at last. Let the flight bookings commence...

Whilst we are most excited to know the dates of our project, we have many things to be pleased about this month. Our badges have finally arrived, so if you have ordered badges they should be with you soon. If you haven't ordered any yet, get in touch as you will want to get your hands on them - they look really great! If you know a team member personally, contact them directly, otherwise you can always reach us at goldmalawi2015@outlook.com

We have also been away on third briefing this weekend - busy times for Team Malawi! After a rather long journey down to Hampshire (a lot longer for some of us than others) including an eventful road trip in Ruth's car, we made it to Andreah's house to begin the weekend. Once we had completely filled the house with resources and luggage for the weekend, we began with the third briefing tradition of GOLD Malawi teams - tie dying our pants! This is a tradition set up by the first GOLD Malawi team and has been done at the third briefing of every following team.

We began Saturday morning bright and early, setting our aims for the weekend as we had so much to get through, with it being our last physical meeting together before we go to the airport. Ruth started us off by updating us on the contact we have had from Malawi so far and helping us to work out what we think the key themes of our trainings will be: Recruitment and Retention training; PR and marketing training; Leadership and Advocacy training; and training the Malawian GOLD teams. MAGGA have set up their own 'GOLD' teams since last years UK team went; we are going to help train their teams so that they can go on and train new leaders around the country after we leave.

After a lengthy discussion between the teachers and the non-teachers of our team defining activity plans, training plans and session plans, making sure we all understood what we meant by each of them, we started to fill out training plans for each of our main themes. We spent most of Saturday hard at work with our training plans trying to fill out as much of the details as we could to make the best resource we can for on project.

With much hilarity, we managed to unravel our tie dyed pants and see the wonderful patterns and bright colours we had made. In the evening, we headed out bowling for a break and had some very close rounds. Louise was worrying more than just our team with her violent back-swing!

Team Malawi doesn't rest however, and after we had got back from bowling and had enormous amounts of curry for tea, we started to discuss the kit list again to work out what people still needed to buy in the few weeks we have remaining before we fly out.

On Sunday morning we spent a lot of time reading through our health forms and risk assessments - a paperwork heavy morning! After a lot of clearing up, last minute questions and writing to-do-lists for the coming weeks, it was time for us to get on the road again, or rather all pile into Ruth's car for the drop off home.

One more addition to the team this weekend, was a mouse each! Alice made everyone a mouse mascot to take on project with them as a travel companion.

We have just over four weeks left now until we leave for project, so keep checking back for updates as we prepare to go on project. There is so much to do!

Don't forget to follow us on Twitter: @GOLDMalawi2015  and like us on Facebook: www.facebook.com/GOLDMalawi2015

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Second Briefing at Scout Park, North London

Our second briefing took place on 24th - 26th April at Scout Park in North London. It was a great chance to catch up with all of the other teams as well as physically spend some time together and talk without a time limit on the conversation (unlike our phone conferences which seem to like to cut us off before we are finished).

Friday night was just a good chance to talk to everyone and get prepared for the weekend of trainings, but it wouldn't be a GOLD briefing without great hilarity in the evening entertainment. Playing charades with guiding names and places seemed a little too easy to start with, but by round 4 we had Ruth in a duvet cover trying to act out some of the words (I can't tell you what they were - I still don't know!)

When the alarm clocks went off on Saturday morning, we were probably one of the most reluctant teams to get out of bed, but once breakfast was over we were fired up and ready to start the day of trainings. The big event of the morning was our interactive sessions run by each country team. We had been told to prepare a 15 minute session based on either our country or our project aims. Team Malawi decided to run a 'Dragons Den' style session based on the Five Essentials of guiding, asking each team to pitch guiding to us based on one of these essentials. It involved a lot of time keeping and a few TV voice-over impressions, but we got good feedback from the other teams and along with the other teams sessions, it gave us some good ideas to use on project.

Our group time over the weekend was so busy - Ruth had a lot to fill us in on from MAGGA, we managed to come to a decision over what colour of hoodie to have (very important), as well as making lots of other important decisions about onward travel, kit and trainings.

Ruth is ready to go during group time!

For the Saturday afternoon's trainings, we had some very helpful visitors from CHQ firstly giving us a training and facilitating workshop and then doing separate trainings for our individual roles (Treasurer, First Aider, Written Documentor, Resources, Photo & Video). It was really useful to have their input as to how to make the best of our roles.

In true GOLD style, the Saturday evening entertainment involved fancy dress, competition and a lot of team effort. Each team came dressed as a TV show and ran an activity based on that show. We decided to go as Scooby Doo and run a treasure hunt. Andreah certainly had the best costume as the Mystery Machine!

The team trying to make a mouse out of melted marshmallows and rice krispies

Andreah balancing some chocolate digestives

Louise trying to get the After Eight into her mouth without using her hands

M eating doughnuts on a string

Emily about to do a fashion show in her outfit crafted by the team

Alice writing the promise in chocolate sauce

Our final effort of the promise written in chocolate sauce (and a few strawberry laces when the sauce ran out)

Team Malawi in our Scooby Doo costumes

Andreah's amazing Mystery Machine costume

We managed to fit in some more group time on the Sunday morning before being led in a WAGGGS workshop which taught us a lot about the resources available from WAGGGS and how we might be able to use them on project.

All too soon, it was time for us to all leave again. We can't believe how fast the time is going and that we only have third briefing as the next time we will meet before we head to Malawi!

Thank you to Anna, Carly, Rachel, our brilliant team leaders, wonderful cooks and all of the trainers who came in to support us over the weekend. We can't wait to see you again after project!

Don't forget you can keep up to date with Team Malawi and our GOLD journey by subscribing to this blog by email, liking our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/GOLDMalawi2015  and following us on Twitter @GOLDMalawi2015

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Introducing.... Ruth

Hello. My name is Ruth I am the GOLD Leader for Malawi 2015. I was lucky enough to go to Malawi on the GOLD project last summer in 2014 and I am now busy planning for this years project. I am looking forward to the challenge of returning to Malawi as the leader and being able to see first hand how MAGGA has developed over the last year.

I have been a member of Girlguiding since the age of 5 and have progressed through the guiding sections including gaining my Queen Guide Award. I am currently the assistant ranger leader with 1st Quorn Rangers in Leicestershire. We have a thriving unit of 30 rangers, which keeps me busy! I am also a Girlguiding Media Spokesperson and a Prospective Trainer.

As a member of guiding I have been lucky enough to travel to Australia, France, India, The Falkland Islands and Chile as well as to Malawi in 2014. I have a love for international travel and following on from project last year chose to visit a friend in Cape Town, South Africa before exploring Madagascar.

My favorite foods are pizza and chocolate! My favorite animal is a penguin and I have a vast collection of penguin items at home.

Introducing.... Louise

Hello, I’m Louise – after dithering about these past few years, I decided in 2014 to stop ‘just thinking about doing it’, so I attended INTOPS and applied for GOLD. It worked out well, as here I am, a member of the fabulous GOLD Team Malawi 2015 and buzzing with anticipation and excitement for our forthcoming project in the summer. I’ve been very lucky to have been away with Guiding before, however I have a sneaky suspicion that this is going to be completely different.  Apart from a brief stop on the continent of Africa, this part of the world is going to be a brand new experience for me, which adds to the excitement – I love a good adventure, eek, I can’t wait!

I’ve been in Guiding a while; I joined as a Brownie back in the early ‘90s (the era of culottes and sweatshirt) and haven’t left.  Now I’m a Brownie Leader and have been Brown Owl in Caddington (near Luton) since 2007. I’m trying to avoid creating expectations for my GOLD experience, so it’s all about being open-minded and prepared for anything.

Can someone tell me the difference between Turquoise Surf and Hawaiian Blue?

Last weekend Team Malawi had our second phone conference. It was really great to catch up with everyone - once again everyone has been working really hard with fundraising, preparing for second briefing and spreading the word about GOLD!

Our biggest accomplishment since our last phone conference was the completion of our challenge badge pack (now available from any team member or by emailing goldmalawi2015@outlook.com). The badges that go with the challenge are taking longer to be produced than we were anticipating, but we can take any pre-orders so just contact a member of the team or email the group directly to order yours. The challenge badge has been a real team effort and has four sections: Culture, World Guiding, Songs & Games and Animals and the Environment, plus a PR challenge for all sections at the end. We can't wait for people to start our challenge, so send us pictures and updates as you work through it on Facebook: www.facebook.com/GOLDMalawi2015 and Twitter: @GOLDMalawi2015

A lot of our time was also spent finalising details for second briefing, but more on that later!

Perhaps the biggest decision of the evening was what colour kit to go for. The choice of hoodie colour in particular was so vast and the difference between 'Turquoise Surf' and 'Hawaiian Blue' was a little too trivial for some of us. Despite our best efforts, we only managed to narrow the colours down to two choices, so will have to make the final decision at second briefing.

It wasn't long before our 2 hours was up and we had to leave the catching up until the next time. Luckily for us, that isn't far away as we are heading off on second briefing this weekend!

Keep an eye on our social media accounts over the weekend as we try to keep you updated with our briefing. Also please take a look at our challenge pack which at the moment is available from the team members directly or from our team email: goldmalawi2015@outlook.com

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Introducing.... Alice

Hello! My name is Alice, I am 20 and I live in Shropshire. I am in my second year at Durham University studying Biology. I hope to work in medical research when I graduate. I have been a member of Girlguiding since I joined Rainbows at 5; I am now a Brownie leader with 4^th Durham City St Johns Brownies and a peer educator with Shropshire and Durham South counties. I have recently been presented with my Queen’s Guide Award in September 2014 which was so much fun to do. As a young adult member of Girlguiding, I really love being involved in big events with other senior section members and it is often these times where I have amazing experiences as well as making some of my best friends. My only travel experience is through guiding – I was lucky enough to sail across the North Sea twice in the Tall Ships Races with members of the senior section from Shropshire and West Mercia.

I am looking forward to so many things about GOLD but in particular just embracing the culture, which I know will be very different to what I have experienced before. I am the Written Documenter, so will be keeping you all up to date with our activities via the blog and social media – make sure you follow them all!

Random fact about me: I made my promise in senior section half way down an abseiling tower!

If I were an animal I would be: A giraffe

One food I cannot live without: It has to be Cheese

GOLD love,

Alice

Introducing.... Emily

Hi, 

I am the other Emily in the group and am very excited to have been selected to take part in GOLD 2015 and travel to Malawi. I haven’t done any travelling with Girlguiding yet and am looking forward to making the most of such an amazing opportunity. 

I am originally from Suffolk, where I helped with the 1st Constable Rainbows and the 22nd St Margaret's Brownies. These are the same units that I originally came up through myself. I have moved to Bristol, where I am now helping with the 1st Hanham Rainbows which I absolutely love! 

I went to the University of Worcester where I studied Archaeology and Heritage Studies with American Studies; I am starting at Bath Spa in September to do a PGCE in Primary Education. 

Food I can’t live without: Avocados and Chips (my very guilty pleasure) 

Introducing.... M

Hi, I’m M. There are two Emily’s  in the team so to avoid confusion, we tossed a coin (in fact a cent) for choosing a nickname. I’m really pleased to be a part of GOLD Team Malawi 2015. I’m looking forward to getting to know the other 5 team members, who are all really nice, helping guides out in Malawi and having a good time.

I started as a Rainbow and went through all the sections. I am now leading a lively but fun bunch of Rainbows in West London/Middlesex, whilst trying to complete my Queen’s Guide Award before I turn 26.

I’ve travelled as a senior section member with SSAGO to Iceland and Switzerland but am looking forward to travelling to Africa and experiencing the culture there.  My role in the team is the treasurer - to barter for bus fares and ensure we have enough money to buy resources for training.

If I were an animal I would be an Elephant, as they seem wise.

I don’t have a favourite food, but I do love blackcurrant squash!

Coming soon to a camp blanket near you...

I am SO excited about this! Very pleased to announce that I can FINALLY reveal to you the GOLD Team Malawi 2015 Badge.

The logo will be on all of our uniform for project and we will be selling the badge as part of a challenge pack very shortly - or the badge collectors among you can just get one for your blanket!

And here it is:

I hope you like it! Check back soon to find out more about the challenge pack that goes along with it.

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

Introducing.... Andreah

Hi, I’m Andreah Cole and I’m 25 years old. I am originally from Wigan in North West England. I joined Brownies aged 7, carried on to be a Guide and then never left! I became a young leader at 7^th Shevington Guides. I studied Architecture at Leeds Met, where I met my future husband Andy Cole (not the famous footballer). We enjoyed being part of the University ballroom dancing team. In my spare time I also helped at Rainbows, Brownies and Guides in Alwoodley. After finishing University, Andy and I travelled to America, New Zealand, Japan, China, Vietnam, Cambodia, Thailand, Malaysia, Singapore and Australia.On our return to the UK, I worked for CfBT inspection services in Skelmersdale and helped at 7^th Shevington Guides and Brownies.

I was selected to represent North West Guiding as a volunteer at the Queens Summer Garden Party at Buckingham Palace. Andy proposed at the gates of the palace! We got married on 7th June 2014 and went on honeymoon to South Korea and the Philippines. We moved to Aldershot, where Andy works as a Logistics Officer in the British Army. I work for Avnet Technology Services and help at 4^th Cove Guides. I am currently working towards my Queen’s Guide Award. 

I will be the Photo and Video coordinator for our GOLD trip to Malawi and am thoroughly looking forward to learning more about the people, culture and food in Africa as well as Girlguiding. 

Random fact: I was on 6 o’clock news in Japan, eating soup!
If I were an animal, I would be: an Elephant. 
One food I can’t live without: Chocolate cake!

Hello.. can you all hear me? Yes? Good!

We had our first team phone conference at the weekend - after a few hitches with the connection at the start, we soon managed to get deep into discussion about second briefing and the next stages in our planning.

Each member of the team updated the rest of us on their progress so far with fundraising and GOLD preparations. Everyone is doing so well! Ruth has been giving talks to groups about Malawi and her trip last year with Team Malawi 2014, Alice has been selling note cards and setting up the social media for the team, Andreah has been bag packing with her Guides, Emily has been arranging some local fundraising events and preparing an article about GOLD to go in her local newspapers, M has been networking and making plans for a craft day fundraiser and Louise has been gathering donations far and wide for herself as well as preparing some group applications for the team. So much progress since first briefing - well done everyone!

After the first draft of our badge design being sent back to us from Trading (the people in Girlguiding who check our design to make sure it fits with Girlguiding regulations and then produce the badge) we have discussed a few alterations which have been confirmed so we are VERY close to releasing the badge design to you! (I did badger Ruth a few times to let me release it but we have to make sure it is right first!)

We have also been discussing our team kit, which will be our uniform whilst training on project. After much hilarity over the sizes at first briefing (finding a top that is long enough to fit Alice, Louise and Emily that doesn't look like a dress on Andreah, M and Ruth is apparently more challenging than we thought) we now need to come to a decision over what brands and sizes we want so we can get things ordered.

Preparing our evening entertainment for the other teams at second briefing was the next topic of discussion, but more on that later!

After an update on how people feel about doing onward travel after project, we sent Ruth away so we could discuss our interactive session for second briefing - a session for all the other teams that we have to plan without the help of Ruth, but again all will be revealed in due course...

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x

P.S. Don't forget you can subscribe to our blog by email using the link on the sidebar, like us on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/GOLDMalawi2015 and follow us on Twitter @GOLDMalawi2015

First Briefing at Tolmers Activity Centre, Cuffley

Our first briefing was on 27th February - 1st March at Tolmers Activity Centre in Cuffley, Hertfordshire. It was the first time we have had time together as a team since we all found out that we had been selected for GOLD so it was a very exciting weekend. We started the weekend with a few ice breakers and skittles questions.

After quite a social and relaxed evening on the Friday, Saturday morning was the start to a much busier day! An unexpected fire alarm during breakfast saw an early start to the morning's energisers and we kept up the pace from then on.

Nothing like a bit of 'Get Loose Get Funky' to wake you up in the morning!

We started the day's sessions with discussing how to look after our wonderful leader Ruth, as well as how to support everyone in the team. We later had sessions on PR, fundraising, the GOLD journey and talked through situations we may come across on project.

Discussing our GOLD journey 'washing line'

We had some team time on Saturday afternoon to start to discuss some of the many things we need to start planning - from our challenge badge to phone conference dates, kit to onward travel. There was so much to discuss we could have stayed another week getting things sorted! We confirmed our team badge design (finished design to be revealed very soon!) and decided on our team roles.

Saturday evening's entertainment involved much hilarity - we were sent back to our team room to dress up in green, while the team leaders were setting up the main hall. When we were finally allowed back in, the theme for the evening was finally revealed: 'I'm a celebrity..' complete with Ant and Dec, celebrities and a snake, rat and crocodile! Ruth was a rather convincing Peter Andre...

The team challenges began and we were up against the other countries to win. After a rather tame newspaper tower challenge, we had to send two team members for the custard challenge - Louise had to be blindfolded and try to feed Alice a cup of custard whilst racing the other teams to finish. Andreah stepped up to represent Team Malawi in the bushtucker trial, eating a wide variety of strange things! The final challenge saw M racing to collect stars and coins from a pool of slime - a rather messy affair!

Presenting our newspaper tower - while it was still standing!

Louise and Alice (far right) getting covered in custard whilst trying to eat some of it

Andreah braving a 'spider' in the bushtucker trial

M (back, left) searching for stars in the pool of slime

After a rather busy day and an energetic evening, Team Malawi may have been one of the last teams to wake up and join everyone for breakfast on Sunday morning! After a few more energisers to get us going for the morning, we had more team time to finish off discussing kit. All too soon, it was time to pack up and depart. We had such a brilliant weekend but it won't be long until we are all back together again at second briefing!

Ruth and the team leaders teaching us another energiser

(Back, L-R) Emily, Louise, M and Alice with Ruth!

Investigating just some of our team presents from Ruth

We would like to thank Anna, Carly and Rachel, all of the team leaders, and our wonderful cooks for organising such a wonderful first briefing - we had so much fun and can't wait for the next one!

GOLD love,

Alice and Team Malawi x