GIRL GUIDE NOTES

Otago Daily Times, Issue 22999, 30 September 1936, Page 15

GIRL GUIDE NOTES

By Guicler

FIRST CLASS HIKE First class hikes will be held on October 31 at Fraser’s Gully. Guides are to leave the Rattray street terminus (Kaikorai Valley) between 11.45 a.m. and noon. HANDCRAFT CUP The closing date for entries for the handcraft cup has been extended to October 31, in the hope that more companies will enter for it. The entries are to be sent to St. Margaret’s College. PHYLLIS CHEESEMAN CUP

The Phyylis Cheeseman Cup will not be competed for this year. WAYS WITH MORSE

Dummy Morse.—-The Guides stand in file in patrols, the first one facing the captain, and the others standing with their backs to her. She signals a letter to the first Guide, who turns round and signals it on the next Guide’s back, a stroke downwards with the finger meaning a dash, and a poke meaning a dot. This is continued to the end of the patrol, and the last one writes it down. After each letter the front Guide goes to the end of the patrol so that each one gets a turn at reading. At the end of the word, the fiPst patrol up with the word correct wins a point. Seeing Morse.—Collect -a supply of matches and dried peas. The Guides are in patrols with a supply each of matches and peas. The captain calls out a short sentence, with as many words as there are Guides in each patrol. In order, the Guides each take a word and write it in morse on the floor, using a match as a dash and a pea, as a dot. The patrol who is correct wins a point. Running Morse—Each patrol stands in file at one end of the room. A chalk line is drawn in front of each about four yards away and another about eight yards away.' The line nearest the patrol is a dot and the one farthest away is a dash. The captain calls out a letter and the front Guide runs; that is, for A, she would run once to the near line and once to the far line. The winning patrol is the one with the most letters correct. WOODCRAFT What place has it in Guiding? “Woodcraft is simply adventure of out-of-doors. The Guide discovers she must be alert and observant if she is to find the things she needs. “ Discipline and control are no longer a question of obeying a whistle; it depends on the child herself whether in a stalking game she can instantly stop still, flattened against a tree or balanced on one leg, knowing the slightest movement will give her away. . . “Out-of-doors one learns by experience In Nature there' is no favouritism. The reward is just and prompt. In camp the Guide who goes to bed forgetting to cover the woodpile must face the consequences when she tries to light the wet sticks next morning. Life out of doors is full of unexpected happenings. It is the sense of being up against something big that brings out big qualities, and meanwhile the Guide is learning to depend on herself and to judge by a new scale of

values. In camp, money counts for little and ingenuity for a great deal. She cannot go into the woods and buy furniture, but with a little skill of hand and of a great deal of ingenuity she can make herself a washstand, a table, or anything else she needs. “Woodcraft is not merely a means of character training to be discarded as the Guide outgrows the need; it may become an absorbing pleasure filling her whole life with interest long after she has left the company. So much of the amusement that attracts the public to-day fails to satisfy, because it consists so largely in looking on, whereas the real satisfaction is in doing. Woodcraft offers no passive pleasures but the stimulation of unravelling riddles, finding one’s way through unknown country, turning to use whatever may be found. Even if looking on at the life of birds and animals is one of its chief pleasures, it calls for quick sight, patience, skill, and a knowledge of the ways of wild things.” All are not cast in the same mould, and the right approach must be found. Do not persuade the materialistic to watch the sunset with you, or try to explain a rainbow to an embryo artist, or dissect and name the parts of a flower to the poet lover of life. First, then, there is the practical approach of something you can do about it. To cut a walking stick, to build a fire, to choose forked sticks for gadgets or make a collection. This is the normal approach of a young child, and some will never get further; but others will develop a second approach—curiosity. They will learn to play the game of hide and seek with Nature, tracking, stalking, hunting, watching, every discovery bringing a fresh question. To others it is the love of animals, a feeling of kinship with all living things, like St. Francis, and because they love they want to get nearer them and know how they live. Lying on the cold ground at 6 a.m. watching the rabbits at play would be the greatest treat of camp life to such a one. Love of Beauty—There arc artists even among the youngest. Was it the sunset through a pine wood that she saw for the first time in camp and cannot forget? These can be helped to see more, show them pictures and, if possible, help them express what they see. Crayons on brown paper, poster paints, pencil impressions to be turned into linoleum cuts later, are simple methods. Lastly, there may be a Keats, some lonely soul, just liking to wander and wonder alone.”—The Council Fire.