Northwood Brownies Virtual Pack Holiday

Like many other leaders, we were disappointed when we could no longer meet with our Brownies due to lockdown. Alas, this was not going to stop us, and thanks to all the virtual technology at our fingertips we began to plan our pack holiday as normal. In preparation for this, we arranged a zoom unit meeting beforehand to ensure that it would be feasible to undertake, and it was a success - hooray!

We planned the whole weekend then set up individual packs with general information, programme, menu, daily jobs and all the resources that would be needed for each participant. The parents came around to our gardens to collect the packs from an acceptable social distance and then it was all systems go.

Friday night at 5.30pm there was a welcome zoom session to set the scene and ask the girls to go off and create their own dens to sleep in during the weekend. We zoomed again at 8pm for a campfire and hot chocolate from our dens. The slight time-lapse was interesting when singing but it added to the fun!!

On Saturday morning we sent a greeting via the WhatsApp group asking the girls to get up, have breakfast (remembering to clear away all their own dishes!) then carry out their daily jobs. The first zoom session of the day was at 11am where we worked towards and achieved our Aviation badge. The afternoon zoom activity at 2.30pm was to create a rainbow (made using skittles in a circle on a plate then adding water) then sending the girls off to create the word Northwood using anything they could find – the results were amazingly creative. Saturday night’s zoom was at 7pm from our dens and all the girls performed their own versions of a familiar song using their own words – again the creativity was amazing.

Sunday morning began with another WhatsApp from us to set out the plans for the day. The plan was to meet at 11am to write letters to a keyworker to thank them for the fantastic work they do, however, Zoom decided to fail us and apart from Tawny Owl (who was the host), no one could log in! Luckily, we were able to send a WhatsApp message to set the tasks for the girls then we continued to try to access Zoom again. At long last, we managed to have a Zoom session at 4pm where we finished off all the weekend tasks and each girl was able to explain and show everyone what they had done.

Our final closing ceremony zoom meeting at 5pm included all the parents, who each presented their daughter with her certificate of achievement from the weekend, stating what her ‘best’ was. Over the entire weekend, the parents posted photos of their daughter undertaking all their tasks. From the 393 photos that were posted, we have selected just a few to share!

This weekend would not have been so successful without the full support of the parents. They were 100% on board with us and it was most rewarding. I think now they realise just how exhausting a real pack holiday actually is too!!!!