SSAGO News – Summer 2011 1

Summer 2011

This Year In

SSAGO

INSI

DE IN

SIDE

SSWIGS in A Series Of Unfortunate Events SSAGO During The 60s and 70s

LUUSAG and StinGS’ Slovakia Trip Your New Exec Committee Reports Coming Soon To A SSAGO Near You

SSAGO News – Summer 2011 2

Caution: This article may

contain content of a traumatic nature – there is a good ending though.

Stranded under

a bridge for three hours?? Not how I envisaged my first Friday back in Uni

after Easter. Maybe revising, catching up with friends, or

sleeping … but not battling thunder storms and torrential rain! This interesting little situation arose from a brilliantly planned

Easter camp for the SSWIGS. A weekend away at Blackwell Adventure near Birmingham, a weekend that promised campfires, raft building and a trip to the mouth watering Cadbury world. At 16:30 from Swansea the second car full of people and kit left for the two and half hour trip to the camp. Little did us occupants know of the intrepid adventurers we were about to become.

Half an hour away from our final destination a problem with the car began; revs were lost, and momentum ground to a halt. After a half an hour wait for a recovery truck, and then another amount of time spent watching the bemused mechanic faff about, it was finally concluded that the car, to the owner’s dismay, was pretty much dead.

So, with three passengers not required to escort the tattered corpse back to Swansea, the executive decision was taken by our driver to deposit me and the other passengers by the side of the road. Now, you must understand, he had clearly taken our welfare into consideration by asking the recovery truck driver to set us down near a bridge - shelter you understand, because, he clearly knew the hardship we were about to endure.

SSAGO News – Summer 2011 3

Having made the plan for the other car to shortly return from the camp and pick us up, the three of us settled on the verge for a little wait. Around an hour later, we started to feel a little uneasy, with the rain starting to fall we moved all our kit, and ourselves under the bridge that held up the M50. Still no one had come to rescue us, so a call was made to our leader - there had been another momentous and unjust disaster!

While shopping for our food, a little toe rag had stolen the money reserved to pay for our camping pitch! Police and supermarket officials had been called, but in all the pandemonium it had been impossible for us to be collected. We were, however, reassured that someone would be with us as soon as possible and we settled ourselves in again for a longer wait. With hunger in our stomachs and bladders fit to burst we sat under our little bridge that was fast becoming home and decided song was a good way to keep our spirits up. As darkness drew in and a thunderstorm came and passed, we snuggled under blankets and snacked upon what little food we had.

Our knight in a shining ford car came to rescue us around 22:30. We were taken to the wondrous place that is McDonalds to restore our strength before finally arriving to camp around 23:00. One member down and a total journey time of around 7 hours meant that we had finally arrived. The rest of the weekend went off without a hitch - if you exclude the torrential rain! Fortunately, it cleared up for our afternoon of raft building. A challenge which, of course, the SSWIGS girls won! On Sunday we had a wonderful time at Cadbury world eating lots of chocolate and seeing lots of different bars made!! All in all we returned home completely shattered, but with smiles on our faces, after all, which other club offers you that much adventure, in such a short space of time?

Ceinwen Cloney SSWIGS Publicity Officer 2011-12

SSAGO News – Summer 2011 4

SSAGO during the 60s and 70s

In 2009 Southampton SSAGO celebrated the 10th anniversary

of its re-founding. It is unknown when the original club was formed but it folded in the 1980s before being reborn in 1999. We have in our possession the log books from the 1960s and 70s and they provide a great insight into what SSAGO, or the Scout and Guide Club as we were called before the creation of SSAGO, got up to then. I am unsure whether other clubs keep log books but, for anyone who doesn’t, we keep a record of all the socials we run and attend and include write ups and pictures from some of the best.

A selection of articles from the log books (there are around 800 pages!) have been digitised and are currently being published online for people to view. We decided they were a fantastic resource and it seemed a shame that people were unaware of them.

SSAGO News – Summer 2011 5

Something which was obvious from them was how different rally was back then. One such rally in Leicester in 1965 included lectures and discussions on racial problems and a career in advertising on the Saturday morning followed by afternoon activities including tiddlywinks and drama groups! However the barn dance appears to be a tradition going back to the earliest rallies, as does all night campfires, with this one finishing at breakfast on Sunday morning.

Hopefully the digitised log books will be online by the time everyone receives this newsletter, however an email will go out when they are if not. I would recommend having a look at them, they are good fun to read and it helps to get an idea of student Scouting and Guiding through time.

Please visit our graduate website www.ssagg.co.uk to have a look at them. If you have any related questions please fill out the contact form on the website.

Rob Spence

SSAGO News – Summer 2011 6

& Slovakia Trip

This summer, LUUSAG and StinGS headed off to Slovakia for a

fun and exciting exploration of a little visited country of Eastern Europe. The country was new to everybody and incorporated sightseeing with the adventurous edge of scouting and guiding. The local city, castles and nightlife was explored on the first day. Slovakia had many all day water parks, so this made up day 2. Visiting the TV centre in the middle of the forest was interesting, especially ending up the other side of the security guards! After being typically touristy and exploring the capital, we headed into the mountains on a sleeper train. Funiculars, langose and tatratea were what we found. After tobogganing, caves and hiking, tea and cake in large quantities was needed on the final day, whilst others went on an extreme hike. Badges and a Slovakian pub lunch bought, we headed home with further bonds between the Yorkshire SSAGO groups. Thanks go to Freya, Emma and Sophie for organising the trip!

Louise Rimmington – LUUSAG SSAGO Rep

SSAGO News – Summer 2011 7

Your New Exec Committee Reports:

Chair: Jamie Shirra from SCOGUI

Secretary: Robyn Dexter from PLUGS

Treasurer: Kirstie Wright from SCOGUI

Members Officer: Luke Dixon from Portsmouth SSAGO

Publicity Officer: Rebecca Todd from BUGS

Since finishing my exams I have: started to update the SSAGO website, and am looking into re-designing it; gathered some interest and ideas for SSAGO Brownie/Cub style badges; and I’m now turning my attention to publicising SSAGO at Gilwell reunion.

Since becoming chair, I’ve been mainly working with the upcoming rallies to make sure the events go well. I’ve had a few queries from clubs, and hope I have helped you out! We have also started looking at the SSAGO website, badges and developing a Leaders’ Programme Pack.

This term I have: attended the south west young guider’s conference; dealt with a lot of emails; received numerous club reports; and advertised the post of notifications manager. I have also been in contact with Girl Guiding UK to discuss stronger links between us.

This year I have worked closely with Loughborough Rally and have now started to develop a budget template for future Rallies. I've continued to work with past events and ordered the new exec clothing. All the accounts have now been handed over after a million problems with HSBC.

I’ve started work on the new members’ database and updated the membership documents. Discussed membership issues with multiple clubs, accepted some membership changes and started to rebuild the mini bus drivers’ database which should be available soon.

SSAGO News – Summer 2011 8

To A SSAGO Near You

SSAGO BADGES!

Because we can’t let the Brownies and Cubs

have all the fun!

Southampton Magic Rally Badges:

£1.50 Available Now!

Scottish Extreme Rally Bonaly Campsite, Edinburgh 18th - 20th November 2011

Are you ready for the Extreme Activities?