The Promise

24 Mar 2024 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Last month I renewed my guide promise at a Thinking Day celebration day hosted by the Trefoil guild unit I had recently joined. What is the Trefoil guild I hear you ask?

Well, before I explain I thought I would fill you in on how I came to joining this part of the guiding association. As did many a young girl in the UK I became a brownie 50 years ago at the age of 7, guide at 10 and a ranger at 14. I didn’t last long in the rangers and left to join the venture scouts, but that is a different story. As a guide I helped out at my mum’s brownie guide unit and continued as a young leader while I batted for the other side as a venture scout. It’s a well known fact that daughters of guiders usually get drawn into leading units and I was no exception. I became a unit leader at 18, completed my adult leadership qualification and became Tawny owl, mum’s second in command in the 47th Bristol brownie unit. The guide association decided to create another section for 5 to 7 year olds, Rainbows. So in 1991 I set up the first rainbow unit in my area and became the guider in charge, while continuing to help at the brownie unit. Eventually I took over the reins of Brown owl from my mum and she took over the rainbows, a smaller and more manageable group.

Unfortunately, like many groups, our units didn’t survive the covid pandemic. Due to varying reasons, once restrictions were lifted, my merry band of guiders and helpers were unable to continue support me with running the units and my mum was in her 80’s and not able to commit to attending every week. Also I had started a masters in advanced nursing and couldn’t find enough spare time. So with great sadness the units folded.

Being part of guiding is like being in the mafia, you can’t leave, you know too much. So what happens to a guider who hangs up her neckerchief? This is where the Trefoil guild comes into it, or the old biddy guiders as I used to lovingly call them when my mum first joined. Of course now I’m a member I don’t call them that anymore.

As early as 1920 ex guides formed unofficial groups to maintain contact with their old guide companies and in 1935 the “old guides” organisation was formed, so my “old Biddy” name wasn’t far off the mark! The name Trefoil guild was adopted and became a self governing and self financing body from 1952 as a group for former guiders in the UK and overseas territories.

So what does the Trefoil guild do? far from being for old biddy guiders the organisation is open for anyone over the age of 18, for women and men. The 4 main aims of the guild are find friendship, give support, get involved and get active. Groups tend to meet once a month and get involved in various activities at these meetings. Members can be called upon to support units at meetings or days out to help with activities and keeping the girls safe. Mostly it’s an organisation where members can enjoy personal and social opportunities based on guiding and scouting principles without the added stress and commitment of running units.

As I’m still working full time I haven’t been to many meetings, so far my Trefoil experiences include eating! a cream tea, a post Christmas lunch out and a ploughman’s lunch at the afore mentioned Thinking day celebration. This day on 22nd February is celebrated by the guiding sisterhood throughout the world. The guiding family renews their promise on this day and this year by renewing my promise I became an official member of my Trefoil group. Although I did actually fluff up the promise by saying that I would serve the Queen instead of the King, you can hardly blame me, it’s what I’ve been saying for nearly 50 years!

The Tracks of Carole’s years

02 Dec 2021 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , , , ,

Music is so emotive and conjures up many memories good and bad. I love listening to Ken Bruce on Radio 2 and his feature The tracks of my years. Each morning for 5 days a celebrity chooses 2 songs a day and talks about the reasons they chose those particular tunes and why they are important to them.

Now I know I’m not a celebrity or famous for just doing my job like the people Ken has on his show, and no one would be particularly interested in my choices on national radio. But it got me thinking what are the songs that represent my life and could I narrow it down to 10?

Well yes I could and I have created some posts as if I was joining the lovely Ken on his radio show, although without him asking me all the questions.

Day 1

The first song on my list is We are the champions by Queen. When I was in my teens I belonged to a Scout and Guide Marching band as a Ranger Guide then as a Venture Scout. Every year we entered quite a few band competitions throughout the summer months in South west England. This particular year we won our first ever competition, also with individual section wins and first place for turn out (which we always won thanks to our army of mums who sorted our uniforms). This win kicked off a very successful summer for us and we won all the competitions that year. On the evening of that competition win there was a disco in the church hall where we practiced each week. A parent must have gone on ahead to tell them at the hall that we had won, remember this was the early 80’s there were no mobile phones or social media! When we arrived at the church hall and started unloading our equipment we could hear this song being blasted out and everyone was singing to us. It really was an amazing moment.

My second song is Grease Lightening from the musical Grease. It’s fair to say my youngest son Jake struggled at school and probably hated every minute of it. There’s no need to explain why he struggled, it’s not the point of the post. Jake went to a small primary school that encouraged the children to be creative and express themselves especially in performing arts. His good friend Holly decided to have a go at putting on her own production; Songs from the shows. She held auditions for her cast, directed and produced the the whole thing. Jake auditioned for the role of Kenickie for the opening number and for other parts throughout the show. At the time I found this very surprising as up to that point he would usually only reluctantly take part in any performances at Christmas and leaver’s services etc.

On the night of the show I have to say I was stunned at his performance, he burst onto the stage and sang and danced his heart out, as did all the kids on this stage. The whole show was a fantastic success. I do believe that this was the start of Jake’s love for performing on stage. He continued to enjoy productions at school and he went on to achieve a BTEC National Diploma in Performing Arts. He has been a member of a community theatre group for many years, plays bass guitar and sings in a band.

(very grainy old photo of Jake strutting his stuff as Kenickie!)

A life less ordinary

23 Feb 2020 Leave a comment

by Carole Gardiner in Uncategorized Tags: , , , , , ,

I don’t know about you but I find it quite annoying when non celebrity folk are referred to as ordinary. I’m talking about you and me, who are not members of royalty or famous for being on film/TV for singing, acting or presenting etc.

For example when the Queen’s honours are announced it’s usually reported about celebrities who get honoured for simply doing their job or for the amount of charity work they do because of their high profile status. It’s much easier for them to make a huge impact in charitable causes because of their ability to mix with fellow influential and wealthy individuals.

Then the “ordinary” members of the public who have been honoured may get a mention in a small column in the paper or a foot note on a social media post. But these people have to work considerably harder and jump through many more hoops to achieve enough to be worthy of such an honour.

But in my view no one is ordinary. We all have personalities, skills, interests, professions and quirks that make us unique and stand out. We are all capable of doing extraordinary things on a daily basis and many of us do,  through our family life, work, hobbies, sports or voluntary activities.

Last week I had the honour of helping a group of old friends by helping with the dressing for the local Gang Show. The Bristol South Scout District produce a Gang Show every year and is written, organised and produced by 3 members: Dave Wall, Catherine Elkins and Sue Lewis who I have known since my scouting/guiding days in the 80’s. The show is made up of a cast of cubs/brownies, scouts/guides, explorers and leaders. There is also a small backstage army of ex scouts, leaders, family and friends who do the scenery, costume, props, dressing, sound and lighting.

Every year they put on a fabulously entertaining show that is fantastic value for money. Everyone gives their very best, works hard and support each other through each production. Working backstage as a dresser is very rewarding and just a little bit manic at times.

This is a big commitment , 4 evening performances and a matinee on Saturday, also 6 months of planning, writing and rehearsing. This is in addition to the time given up for running of the cub/brownie/scout groups alongside family and work commitments of the leaders.

Not so ordinary members of the public me thinks.