GIRL GUIDES

Hawera Star, Volume XLVIII, 30 March 1929, Page 16

GIRL GUIDES

NOTES BY “GUIDER.” Miss Dorothy Corrigan returned to Hawera: this week. There will be great rejoicing in the Brownie, world when Mass Corrigan appears among ns again. Miss' Watt (Dunedin), Head of Camping Otago, is in charge of the camp for Guides and Guiders at Kaupokonui Beach. Among the Guiders in camp are Mrs King (district captain, Hawera), Misses Stewart, Death, Henson, Hooper,. Lysaght, Lennon, Clement and Burge (Hawera), Misses Bridge and Young (Mantua), Miss Johnston (Ivaponga). and Miss Closhe (Stratford). . , ■ Wo regret that Miss Ruth Mills (Brown Owl, 3rd Hawera Pack) has been indisposed, and wish her a rapid return to. health and a) happy holiday. During her absence, Miss Southeombo is taking her pack, with Miss Anne Page as Tawny Owl. Miss I. Skinner (Provincial Secretary . ■for Taranaki), who lias been the guest of Mrs E. F. Page this week, has relumed to New Plymouth. Miss Ha.wken (District Commissioner i*oi' Paten and Mokoia-) has returned from a. motor tour of the East Coast. GIRL SCOUTS IN CALIFORNIA. "If any Girl Scout comes to California to stay a year,” writes Dare McMullin in the “Guidex,” “we advise i her to bring her rain hat and her woolly | skating cap and mittens. Then we have to teach her to wear the woolly cap m summer and the rain hat in winter! For the only time we ever see snow is when wo summer-camp in the heart of the Sierras, while our winter months of December to April are our only rainy ones. Summer in California is hot for walking, all the grass is dry and fires must be made most carefully, and shade other than in the deep woods is something to dream of. With the first rains • wo get a. sort of Irish spring. All the fields and little smooth hills, that have been the colour of a well-browned loaf, turn over-night into ai soft green.lawn. And wc know that if we hurry out for a glorious shouting Saturday, tv ith chops and potential toast and roast apples in our knapsacks, we shall come home with enough mushrooms to “stage” a supper for the whole troop. I don’t, know any better rum than, racing up and down a springy hill looking for the shining humped back of a mushroom, and with an infallible cap - tain to look over every one before it goes into the basket, wo> have no worries that our few toadstools could creep in. And what Girl Scout’s heart in California does not lift at the sight of the scarlet toyon berry, our holly at Thanksgiving and Christmas time, to .be met with on the little oak-crowned lulls of home as well as in the great sweeps of chaparral that clothe our coast mountains? And last, a Girl Scout’s pride is involved in happening upon the very first peeping wild flowers, after the long dry grass and the pungent tarweed has been beaten down by the rain. . There might, be a great round California poppy (did you know the old Spanish name for it' is Copra de Ora, cup of o-old?) gleaming out any December morning, and some other roaming troop see it first. Our birds come back with the wet weather, after their September villainy with the fruit orchards. Wc don’t reproach them, think of the bugs their spring crops will be fuR of! And how could you be cross with a blue jay that looks like, a jewel on a buckeye tree, or a robin asking you for water in the birdbatli because, he says, he has. tried so many birdbatlis and yours is the best. Or a. lark nearly breaking your heart with his bubbling, or a quail', to hear whose call is to feel a very part of the wilderness? It is in winter, if we are lucky, wo hear the great Northern geese flying to the valley marshes, or see 1 the V’s of ducks shooting over like bullets. Herons may be walking up the very streamlet we have chosen in search for watercress. And that is another thing we: only have when it rains—our brooks. The only waterbeds that last through a California 1 summer, except ini steep places, are rivers large enough to have bridges over them, and those, as you know, arc not the kind you cam explore: by -walkin" down their centres, or hopping from rock to rock. We slicker up and downin the rain whenever we get a chance, and every year must have at least one “rain-picnic,” with a fire to test oui woodmanship. Sometimes we just can’t stay indoors -on a Saturday night, with. Orion sparkling at his clearest and the -whole world smelling richly of moss and fallen leaves. Wc roll up our'.blankets in a ixmcho and stack our pots and cups and food in a car, and go off on a "prospect.” A prospect for us is any trip into the out-of-doors. I think, !tOQ, that wo bring back more Scout gold from our winter prospects than from onr big summer expeditions, because wc have learnt to find it for ourselves, and close at. home. Even to-day, m the Bret Hartc, country of the Sierras, the old prospectors will tell you: “Gold is where you find it.”—The Girl Scout Leader. GUIDE UNIFORMS. Headquarters have sanctioned a new pattern, for Girl Guide, overalls. The collars are cut with a lower -neck to frive more freedom and the overall 19 cut with two inverted pleats from the waistline. MAGIC CLOAK. (A Brownie Game). Brownies move slowly about the room with their eves shut. When Brown Owl says ".Stop,” they kneel down where■ever they happen to be and hide their eyes with their heads on their knees. Brown Owl covers someone with the magic cloak and the_ others then look up and guess who it is. A SIGNALLING GAME. Guides stand in a line with the signaller in front of them. She sends odd letters and tl*ose who can read them step forward, and those who do not know them step backwards. _ The first Guide, to pass the signaller wins.. * * * *”

G aider (testing recruit, in. her tenderfoot): “What does it mean if the Union .Taclc is flown half-mast?” Recruit: “Morning.” Guider: “Do you know what at. means if ron see it flown upside, down?” Recruit (after much thought): “Evening, I suppose.” TO USE A SAW PROPERLY. _ It is said that very few women using a saw know how to start and cut. As Girl Guides should certainly be adepts in the use of this article, here is the proper way to go about it. The correct wav is to place the left thumb (oi knuckle) against lie blade of the saw, as a guide against which, it can start to work. Draw the saw upwards a few times to “nick” the edge of the wood, and then if the first few strokes are; taken carefully and steadily, the. teeth of the saw will not leap up and lacerate that left- thumb, as the nervous novice imagines they will.