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Centenary year for GirlGuiding


Becca44

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I have not been geocaching for long but i have been wanting to do it for several years, however never had the money to actually buy a GPS... until i suddenly got given a second hand one. Anyway I have always been involved in Girlguiding, running several groups. This year as people may have heard is the centenary year and groups are being encouraged to do something special.

 

Now my idea is to create a geocache (it's a bit different to the normal ideas), situated in the village that we run the pack in, related to GirlGuiding. I was thinking a cache that was decent size, maybe an ammo box that the girls could help hide and decorate. We have also created a small fact sheet about geocahing and plan to get them involved by learning how to use coordinates, doing small treasure hunts etc. The girls themselves are aged between 7 and 10years old and we already do a lot of outdoor activities as we live in quite a rural area.

I was thinking of filling the box with;

- a trackable item - that they can monitor throughout the year

- girlguiding badges

- girguiding items

- some info about our group etc

 

Does anyone have any more idea and how do you think it would go down? Also does anyone know of any Girlguiding related Geocoins, i have seen scouting ones but they are no use to us i am afraid. :blink:

 

Thanks

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What a coincidence.

 

I am in the process of taking over as guider in charge at our local Brownies group and I was chatting with my hubby about the possibility of taking the Brownes geocaching.

 

We have come up with ideas from me hiding caches for them with special geocaching badges inside to commissioning a brownies coin for our county or even the wider Brownies units, if we could get the buy in from many units it could be a possibility.

 

We have also thought about getting a travel bug for our unit and sending it around the country visiting other units.

 

I do like the idea of having a unit cache that the girls can contribute to may have to think of somewhere to put one of those.

 

I am also going on a county training course this weekend and one of the topics is learning about geocaching for those who've not heard of it, and the best way of doing it with our girls.

 

Teresa aka 'T'

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One trackable may not provide much excitement but how about each guide or "patrol" launching their own. TB18V3F is doing the rounds in the UK and appears to be a similar idea for a primary school in the US. The TB is a clay model made up by a class and each class in the school has made one. They have then been launched and given the TB name according to the class teacher (or so I believe). One person in the school seems to be coordinating the reporting on them all. In this way there are many reports and the guides could see how theirs was doing compared to the others. They could be given Guide related missions how about something like being photographed outside Guide HQ. Having many also provides insurance against the inevitable loses.

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I'm a Ranger and Guide leader and we were thinking the same thing for the centenary!

 

Did you know that there is a cache at Pax Lodge (the World centre in London) so if you take your Brownies to London for any of the events you could do that!

 

Our Rangers are linking Geocaching to the wacky 100 bit of the adventure 100 badges and are going to try and find 100 caches during the centenary (could be a big challenge!). We also have a tag and just need to find a suitable tb to send around then we may even put our own cache out (lots of scout ones around here).

 

We've only taken a few of our Guides caching and they loved it but find it easier to take the smaller group of Ranger out (only 10 of them and 30 Guides!) We're introducing a few Ranger units up here to caching with a night cache in a few weeks hopefully so should be fun :blink:

 

With Brownies I'd def say to get them all involved somehow with picking items and maybe give each six a tb :D

There has already been 1 cache published that I know of that is related to the centenary (GC1Y3T6) and I'm sure more will be appearing soon.

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I did wonder how many other Guiders there were on here. Great to hear your ideas and yes i would love some Anglia/Bucks badges if thats ok, we can send some back as 'swaps!'.

Be great if we could get girlguiding coins in wider use, everything helps the cause! :laughing:

 

Just last week I found several Guiding Caches:-

 

GC1VXBD

GC1VXEC

GC1VWCT

GC1VWJ0

 

All setup to celebrate the centenary. Nice caches!

 

Jon.

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Hi

I am a Cub Scout Leader and have set a series of caches with Scouts and Guides in mind "GC1KF1M"

Have a look and see if this is the sort of thing you would like to do. we have run evenings and day activities based around it, and it caters for the different sections and abilities.

I have also set a series highlighting the headquarters around our district. :laughing:

Good luck

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Guess what another guider with the same idea :blink:

 

i thought that my Rainbows would be interested in this as a different way to comemerate the centenary but it looks like great minds think alike.

 

but as we meet in a school this will not be suitable as a cache site and i live a distance away so i may have to ask if one of the parents would be prepared to "lend" a site.

Edited by Ururupuin
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:blink: I am a Brownie Guider who has just moved to Leicestershire from Northamptonshire. I have been a guider fo 26 years and geocaching for 4 years and would love to combine them. Hopefully with my new pck we could set a cache, there are already lots around the Ashby de la Zouch area.

 

I also released a TB a Northamptonshire County Standard Badge some time ago, and it is happily travelling around Germany at the moment. I would also like to set another couple going wich could stay in the UK hopefully for girls in the movement to find.

 

How about a group of guiders getting together for badge swaps etc at Mega Scotland!

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My daughters suggested geocaching to their guide leader who pooh-poohed saying, 'We do proper map-reading in guides'. I'd be interested to know if geocaching can be used towards any badges since guide leader gave a definite 'no' without a moment's thought.

 

After quickly checking the syllabus' I would suggest it can be used in part for the Hobbies badge, Outdoor Pursuits, and Healthy Lifestyle. You could also look at the Finding your Way badge as well. Check them all out here Hope that helps

 

Nicky (Guide Leader)

Edited by Smithbats
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My daughters suggested geocaching to their guide leader who pooh-poohed saying, 'We do proper map-reading in guides'. I'd be interested to know if geocaching can be used towards any badges since guide leader gave a definite 'no' without a moment's thought.

 

I would point out to this leader that she is somewhat behind the times!

the generation that she is instructing will be more likely to be using GPS devices than paper maps and compasses. However in my opinion they should be able to use both along side each other.

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My daughters suggested geocaching to their guide leader who pooh-poohed saying, 'We do proper map-reading in guides'. I'd be interested to know if geocaching can be used towards any badges since guide leader gave a definite 'no' without a moment's thought.

 

I would say it could be for Hobby or outdoor pursuits badge. It doesn't tie in with the other ones very well. (I've debated trying to use it for finding your way)

I agree that proper map reading is important but I'm sure using a GPS could have a part somewhere and anything that encourages girls to get out walking instead of hanging around in front of a computer is a good thing ;) The real trick to get it to happen is if you offer to run a session (or 3 if it's the outdoor pursuits badge) for the Guides. Then the leader really can't complain! :)

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;) Like others on here, I have used Geocaching with my Scout Troop for a number of years. We have a few dotted around Northumberland that they have put out, its got to a stage where each camp they like to place a cache.

 

I also got 3 coins for the whole group last year and sent them on a 12 month long race. This ends at the end of September and it looks like the Cubs have won by the odd thousands of miles. I got a map of the world and put pins in so they could see how well their coins were doing, and that kept their interest going.

 

Anyway good luck in whatever you do with them and Happy Birthday as well. B)

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After posting on here I have now been on a county training day and one of the workshops that was run there was on Geocaching. Everyone who went on the workshop really enjoyed it and was still talking about it at the evening meal.

 

The walking advisor for our county is trying very hard to bring Geocaching to all units and is wanting each division within the county to have its own cache.

 

The county have also purchased 6 GPS units (through grants) that can be loaned to any unit within the county in order to take the girls out geocaching.

 

I also discussed with him the idea of launching a guiding geocoin that he things is an extremely good idea which he is going to take forward and hopefully we will be able to launch it within the centenary year.

 

T

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