Queen's Guide Award

The Queen’s Guide Award is the highest award that members of Girlguiding UK can work towards. The Award is open to any members aged 16 to 25 and must be completed within three years or before your 26th birthday, whichever is sooner. The Award is based on the concepts of personal challenge and participation, it is split into five sections: service in guiding, outdoor challenge, personal skill development, community action and residential. For each section there are a number of activities or challenges that need to be organised and completed by the Queen's Guide.

Hedgehog and a close Girlguiding friend, Little Owl, took just under three years to complete their Queen's Guide Awards. They held an unoffical ceremony in Newbury at the beginning of 2009 to celebrate completing their Awards and to thank all those who supported them. In December 2010 they were invited to the House of Lords to be offically presented with their Awards by Baroness Benjamin.

For their outdoor challenge they completed a 50 mile walk around the Isle of Wight in October 2006 and aimed to raise £1000 for Bliss The Premature Baby Charity. To involve their two Brownie Units and to boost the total amount raised they also organised other fundraising events:

    + 22 February - Thinking Day Newbury District event.
    + March - 5th Newbury St. Nicolas Brownies unit sponsered event.
    + May - Crafty Craft Stall in Victoria Park.
    + June - 8th Newbury St. John's Brownies unit sponsered event.
    + July - District Brownie Reveals at Snelsmore Common.
    + October - Isle of Wight walk, 50 miles over 4 days.
    + November - Christmas Ideas evening at Shaw-cum-Donnington Village Hall.

A huge thank you to all our supportors over the year.
The total amount raised was £1,510.13.
To find out more about Bliss please look at their website: www.bliss.org.uk
The picture is an article published in our local newspaper. It shows some of the Brownies and Little Owl handing over the cheque.