Happy Christmas to all the Forest Lake community and to our Guiding family. What a year we have had at Girl Guides. We are always amazed at the achievements of our girls and love to see how much these girls grow in confidence and resiliency. As we begin to wind down for a well-deserved break over the school holidays, we have taken time to reflect on the awesome year we have had.
We had started the year meeting at Richlands in a council hall which was a fabulous size and free, however we have always wanted to return to our actual suburb and luckily for us we found a new home. We now meet at Forest Lake Community House on Friday nights. It is right in Forest Lake and we couldn’t be happier – and believe our parents would agree. It is a lovely hall and meets our needs. We started the year with six very keen girls, and over the last term our numbers have swelled to between 18-20. It has been wonderful welcoming a whole new group of girls and parents into our Guiding family.
Throughout the year we have done some amazing activities and participated in service projects. Here is a brief run down of some of the things we have done:
Service Projects
- Clean up Australia Day
- Donations to the Smith Family
- Made dog biscuits to sell for the RSPCA
- K-mart Christmas tree appeal
- ANZAC day
- One of our older Guides went to Agoonaree and helped to take care of a disabled young person for the week long camp
- Adventure Activities
- Roller skating for Halloween
- Rock-climbingÂ
- Archery
- Camps
- Sleepover and trip to Daisy Hill Koala centre
- Guides Unit state camp (with 300 other Guides!)
- Training
- Some of our older Guides attending a day workshop to develop their leadership skills.
- Some of our Guides attending a camp skills preparation day also to get ready for our state camp
Fun Times:
- Mother/daughter night for Mother’s day
- Father/daughter night for Father’s dayÂ
- Visit to parliament house thanks for Margie NightingaleÂ
- Grab your Passport – fun region day with 100 other Guides
- Campfire with Gooda Guides
- Break up party at Bounce
- Pizza night
- Pamper night
- Chocolate wheel at the Forest Lake Festival
- International night
- Science night with the 4 elements
- Space theme night
- First aid training
- Guides got Talent
- Lots of craft and cooking and games!!
Our Guides have worked hard to achieve badges also this year and a few of them have included: Feet, Outer Space, Food, Camping. Huge bravo to one of our older Guides, Lily Mak, for achieving the first of the 3 peak achievement awards for youth members – the Junior BP award. This award takes around 18 months to complete and girls are challenged to complete activities from the seven parts of our program. Lily was recently awarded her certificate at the Southern Cross Region awards day. We are very proud of her.
Thank you to Blue Fin Fishing Club who continue to allow us to be part of their community nights by donating proceeds from sales of main meals. It really does help us to pay for our hall hire, leadership training and resources for the girls. We appreciate it very much. Thank you also to our community who supported us at the Forest Lake festival by playing our chocolate wheel.
Have a happy and safe Christmas and we look forward to another action-packed year of Guiding in 2025!
