Whickham Trefoil News – Summer 2019

It is a long time since I sent any news to the County magazine so would just like to let you know how Whickham Trefoil is getting on.
It is 18 months since I took on role as chair person again, after a 2 year break, and although all our members are that bit older, we are still enjoying ourselves and having fun.

We always try to have a varied programme, and particularly last year we enjoyed all the events that took place to celebrate 75 years of Trefoil. We were kept busy ploughing through the Trefoil Challenge, which I believe a number of units in Durham North took on as well. Two events that spring to mind were singing 75 guiding songs held at Rickleton cricket club with a lovely buffet, held on a very sunny day. It was a race against time to finish the last few songs but we did it!!!The other event was a Celebration service held in St Michael the Belfrey at York to finish our special year off. It was a wonderful NEE event and the church was full to capacity, with contributions of shoe boxes full to overflowing with the gifts to be shared out in York for people with all sorts of problems. All the boxes were covered with red and gold paper, and made such a beautiful display.

This year we have another challenge to take part in, aptly named “STARS”. S and T started us off in our March magazine, with 5 challenges to be chosen out of 8 options, S standing for Skills, and T for Together. One of my S options was to “brush up on old guiding skills” which some of us have completed by making a raft & sailing it with a lighted candle on it, and making a woggle. For T a few of us joined 2nd Whickham Brownies in Chase Park for a tree walk. This was slightly adapted for us oldies but we did learn a lot about the history of the park, and how to work out the age of a tree planted all those 300 years ago when the park was first opened.
Nearly all of our members were able to attend the County celebration party in April which Lisa thought would be a good idea to mark the 30 years since County Durham was split to form Durham North and Durham South. but also to mark Trefoil’s 75th anniversary. It was a superb event which was so very well organised, plenty to keep us busy, and a beautiful afternoon tea. Thankyou from us all for including Trefoil.

We are all looking forward to our next magazine which will cover A for Action, and R for Roam. We will then finish with S for Self, fortunately we have until March 2020 to complete our challenges, gain a badge as we go along, and hopefully thoroughly enjoy ourselves. Why is it called STARS you may wonder, because we have been told we are all stars, and can gain badges to prove it!!!!

Our membership at last count was 14, and again “hopefully ” we may have welcomed new members at our July meeting.

Mo Timmins
Whickham Chair