Events - Item

Event Dates

Starting: Friday 5 October 2007
Ending: Sunday 7 October 2007

Report

The Guide ‘No Frontiers’ weekend took place from 5-7 October in Larch Hill, Dublin.  Guides from six different companies in Dublin and Cork came together for activities and workshops on the themes of International Guiding and Personal Development.

On Friday night, Mairéad Quinn welcomed the Guides and their leaders, and gave them an idea of what was planned for the weekend.  Then there was a game to help the girls get to know each other, followed by a campfire, led by Maria Carroll and Hazel Smith. The girls especially loved ‘My Pony’, a song that Hazel brought back from the national trip to Finland in 2004.

Saturday began bright and early with the official trial of a brand new CGI Guiding game, ‘Have you got the whole picture?’  This new board game has been put together by the girls from CGI who work on the Overtures Network. It helps the girls to learn about Guiding around the world.  The game was a great success, and the feedback from the Guides will be brought back and used to finish putting the game together.  Then there was a Capoeira workshop, in which the girls learned how to do this Brazilian cross between dance and martial arts.  You should have seen the looks of horror on the girls’ faces when they heard they would learn to do cartwheels with no hands!

After a delicious lunch, we were joined by some African visitors, from the IACI-Network.  A mixed group, based in Tallaght, joined in with Guiding activities such as wall-climbing, archery and gadget-making.  The founder of the IACI-Network, Yemisis Ojo, ran some workshops in bead-making, and taught the girls a bit about African dress and customs.  We had a fantastic afternoon, and we look forward to seeing this group again.  Hopefully some of the girls will join the local Guide companies!

After a lovely Mass said for us by Fr. Kevin from Templeogue we had a quick snack it was time to set off for our evenings activity.  The girls were in suspense all day about what they would be doing for the Saturday evening activities, and now the time had come to find out.  We piled into cars and a bus (LONG story!) and made our way out to Santry to go karting.  When this activity was over, we headed over to Pizza Hut for our supper.

On Sunday morning, Suzanne Mason introduced the new Chief Commissioner award, which is available for the first time this year.  The girls split up into five groups, and did some work on the options within the award.  They worked on some programme planning, communication ideas, web design and public relations, so now they can bring these skills back to their companies.  The girls seemed really enthusiastic, so hopefully we will have lots of applications for this year’s award.

Our next workshop was run by the Dance Theatre of Ireland and this was another very active session.  Then it was time for lunch, followed by a visit from a Dental Hygienist.  Helen told us all about food, nutrition, how to look after our teeth, and a bit about what is inside a cigarette.  Weed-killer, rat poison and other interesting ingredients – it’d make you wonder why anyone would want to touch the stuff!

Thanks go to the team who organised the weekend and to all the Guiders who brought their Guides along and willing helped in running workshops and various other activities over the weekend. A very special word of thanks is also due to Catherine Monaghan, Suzanne Stewart and Carol Dunne from the Dublin Diocese who willing gave their time to come along and feed us on Saturday.  Thank you also to the girls themselves for making it a great weekend!

Niamh Tumelty