Get ready for a summer of adventure

How are you going to celebrate our summer of adventure?

We launched our new adventure badges last month and we’ve loved hearing about all the adventurous activities you’re planning. Guide leader Sue talks to us about her plans for the summer:

What adventures have you got planned?

We gave the girls a choice about how they wanted to explore the local are a bit more and they’ve chosen geocaching. Geocaching is great as you can do it in rural or urban environments.

We’ve also just had a district fun day to help celebrate the Coronation and, as part of that, girls had the opportunity to have a go at some different types of adventurous activities like pioneering and climbing.

We’re also hoping to have a cookout if we can arrange to use the local Scout site. And we’ll enjoy playing rounders in the fine weather.

And we’re lucky to have a boating lake in our town, so we’ve arranged a kayaking session for our last unit meeting of term. We try to go every other year, if we can, and they offer paddleboarding or raft building as alternatives to kayaking.

Is adventure something new for your unit, or have you done lots of adventure before?

We always try and get out and about in the summer term if we can, but we need to balance the activities with programme. It’s great now that we can ‘reward’ the girls with the new adventure badges.

What would you recommend other leaders think about when they're planning their summer of adventure?

Make use of what you have around you. We meet in a town centre but have a park nearby that we can play sport in, and we have a boating lake we can use. Or something like geocaching is great to do in a town.

We wouldn’t usually be able to do things like climbing, but district or county events are a great way to introduce this to the girls. And depending on where we have our summer camp, there are sometimes activities available there too. Adventure isn’t just about abseiling or snowboarding – for the girls so many adventures are an activity outside of their normal routine. And when the weather turns colder, things like popup ice rinks at the local garden centre make a great adventure too.

Why is adventure important for girls?

We help all girls know they can do anything. And adventure can often be the thing that helps girls believe in themselves. Challenging themselves to have a go at the climbing wall, even if they’re only a couple of metres off the ground, could be higher than they’ve ever been before - and the sense of achievement and pride they get is unmeasurable.

What do you love most about the new badge range?

I love that all of these fun activities can now be recognised with a range of badges that look great – and especially that they recognise that its not all about climbing literal mountains – just personal mountains!

Buy the badges on our online shop and take a look at our adventure for girls finder to discover activities you and you’re unit can do. Or read our blog post about our new adventure badges to learn more about them.