To the woods and beyond....

Post by Katie

Friday morning saw us up early to catch a bus to Pure, where Autumn Camp would be held. We were excited to meet old friends and make new ones, but also sad that this would be our last activity on GOLD.

We found the campsite hidden behind the trees, and with temperatures below freezing we were glad to be sleeping indoors, although it would have been fun to sleep in the bell tents with a fire stove in the middle.

Soon after we got there, coach loads of Brownies and Cubs began to arrive. After marching to watch the flag being raised while listening to the Latvian national anthem, our first task was to keep around 100 Brownies and Cubs entertained. We did a 'Clap and shout if you agree with...' game as an icebreaker, and another game where everyone was given an animal and then had to find other people with the same animal without talking. We've never tried it with so many people and there was much hilarity. We finished by playing a team relay game with balloons.

After this, we played a wide game with them, which involved sending them out into the forests, and half of them being Zombies, while the others tried to escape! It was great fun, and the Cubs and Brownies really enjoyed it - they were still talking about it the next day!

Sarah's best zombie impression

In the evening we played Capture the flag (or candle in a jar) outside. We discovered that the most effective way to avoid capture is to team up and act like a crab, and the most effective way to get caught is to stargaze. I'll leave it to you to guess which team member did which strategy. Later on, Storytime was held, where leaders tell the Scouts and Guides about times when they were proud to be in Scouting or Guiding, or an interesting adventure they had.

Saturday morning we were woken up with words that would get anyone moving. "In 15 minutes, this room will have all the Cubs and Brownies in it." If that won't wake you up, nothing will! After breakfast and flag raising, we pitched in to help with one of the activity stations being run by our friend Liga, which was Kim's game. Sarah K & Net surpassed the rest of us in memorising the objects hidden under the cloth. We also played what has become a firm favourite for us, chaos tag.

The Scout and Guide campsite

Unfortunately we had to leave at midday, in order to go back to Riga to do our project analysis and to pack for our morning flight the next day. It was great to see some of the friends we'd made over the past weeks, and to meet new friends, though bittersweet as our project approached it's end.

In true Team Latvia style, our final official meeting was conducted in the Tea House with the Chief Guide Agnija and cake, biscuits and tea. We discussed what we've achieved, the many units we've met and worked with, and aims for the future.

Later that evening, Agnija came by our flat to say a final goodbye, and to our surprise and delight we were given gifts of Latvian tea, chocolate and Latvian neckers which we proudly wore on our journey home.

On Sunday, with heavy hearts and heavy bags (I may have bought quite a lot of chocolate.....) we hopped in the taxi to the airport, arriving in time to have a quick breakfast before boarding the flight. We all arrived safely home and are now readjusting to non-GOLD life, though we're looking forward to our De-brief weekend at the start of December.

We're going to the zoo, zoo, zoo!

Post by Laura

Unfortunately, our leaders' training day on Saturday had to be cancelled...so instead....we went to the zoo.  We got on the tram slightly unsure of where to get off, but quickly realised there were several families with young children that would clearly lead the way.

On arrival, the first animals we encountered were goats and sheep labelled as chickens - it was going to be a good day.  Other highlights included: a ridiculous amount of time looking at and filming the giraffes, Net filming a climbing tortoise for over 2 minutes, the huge crocodile in the reptile house as well as our favourite little lizard, the gecko and the sting rays in the aquarium.

After the 16 hectares we covered at the zoo and to celebrate our project so far, we headed out to a traditional Latvian restaurant and folk club for dinner.  The food and atmosphere was soaked up and enjoyed by all.  We even managed to cheer up our waiter who was clearly rushed off his feet.

An early-ish start on Sunday found us at the train station where we met some Scouts in time for the 9.50 train to Jurmala to go sailing with the Sea Scouts we had seen twice in the last two weeks.  After a 4 km walk from the station, we arrived at the Sea Scout jetty and were greeted by the leader Valdis. The Scouts got out some little sailing boats, a larger sailing boat and several canoes and kayaks.  

Then before activities on the water began, we had a small parade and flag ceremony involving raising the Latvian Scout and Guide Sailing Team flag next to the Latvian flag and the Union Jack which we had brought with us.  We then led some games with the group to warm up a little before taking to the water.  The Scouts paired themselves off and took a member of Team Latvia with them out on the canoes while the remaining scouts were taken out on the sailing boats.

When the Scouts had returned Team Latvia to dry ground, Katie decided she'd had enough of canoeing for the day but the rest of Team Latvia went back out on the Kayaks on their own.  Meanwhile, on shore a fire was started where the Scouts sat around to keep warm, eat their lunch, cook sausages and toast marshmallows.  Some were also still being shown the ropes on the sailing boats.  

After the rest of Team Latvia had returned to shore and eaten their own lunch and warmed up by the fire, Valdis and Agija offered to take us out on the larger sailing boat for a go.  So we all jumped in the boat and Sarah S, Sarah K and myself took it in turns to be the captain in charge, accompanied by our inflatable parrot prop we had also brought for sailing, named Carruthers earlier in the day when out on the kayaks.  Sarah S and myself had never been sailing before and really enjoyed it.  Sarah K had done it before and got us stuck on a sand bank.

On return to shore, it was time to pack up and there was another parade and lowering of flags ceremony to finish the day.  We said our goodbyes and decided to give Carruthers to Agija as her new mascot when representing Latvia and set off on the long walk back to the station.

    

It's not planning unless there's cake!

Post by Sarah K

Tuesday started off at a fairly leisurely pace, as we rested in the apartment and Net cooked us lunch :) We wandered down to Riga train station and got a train to Lielupe, which is at the Eastern end of Jurmala, and headed to the beach.  It was a bit colder today than it was last week so Laura and I decided not to go for a swim, but we had an hour or so relaxing as a team on the beach, running, doing yoga, playing frisbee and eating our sandwiches.

Sarah S, Laura and Sarah K doing some beach yoga

We left the beach and aimed to take the most direct route to the school to meet the Sea Scouts.  Laura decided that the best way to get there was to walk straight through the forest (without using a map!), but thankfully we arrived in plenty of time and didn't get lost!

We started the meeting by playing Granny Tag, while narrowly avoiding running into trees, and then went inside for woggle making.  We had only managed to figure this out this morning, and therefore it was a bit of a challenge trying to teach them!  Valdis (the Sea Scouts leader) supplied us with some leather to use for the woggles, and Laura and myself set about trying to explain what to do.  We found that it was actually easier doing a practical demonstration in smaller groups and therefore split the group, so there was one of us to 3 or 4 scouts.  They all eventually managed to make a woggle (some more successful than others), but they seemed to enjoy the activity and will be trying it again!

Once again, our trek back to the train station was through the pitch black forest....but this time we managed to actually find a lit path and was not as scary as last week!

Wednesday was a day filled with planning....and planning we only do when there is cake.  So after lunch with Laura's friend Karlis, we found a new coffee shop called Kuu'ka which does amazing cheesecake and gluten free chocolate cake (which made me really happy!!!!!) and settled down to plan our meeting for Vabole on Thursday.  We were told by the leader that we could do anything we liked, and therefore threw a few ideas around before agreeing that it should be all about international Guiding.  We settled on doing a craft to represent each of the WAGGGS World Centres (more on those in tomorrows blog!), and decided that we would need to spend the evening making prototypes in order to be prepared - think Blue Peter with 'here's one I made earlier'.  Once planning was complete we jumped on a tram and headed back to Riga Unit 66.  However, this evening we were meeting with the Cubs and Brownies, rather than the Scouts and Guides as we did last Thursday.

Planning in Kuu'Ka cafe

We had decided on a bit of an international Guiding and Scouting theme for the meeting this evening.  We began by playing a zombie name game, followed by a sitting down game which caused much laughter as it involved sitting on other people.  Then we played an international version of Connect.  We then moved on to complete a couple of crafts to represent two of the World Centres.  We made St George's cross flag badges for Pax Lodge in the UK, and Festival Snowflakes for Our Cabana in Mexico.  For all the other World Centres we played some games - for Our Chalet (Switzerland) we played the Moo game, for Sangam (India) we played Gecko (fast becoming the teams favourite game!), and for Kusifiri (Africa) we played Elephant football.  We rounded off our evening of fun playing Kung Fu jungle, which the Cubs and Brownies were very good at :)

The Moo game...

Once we made it back home we started prepping our crafts for our day with the Guides in Vabole - but more on that in the next blog post!

Apartment of the rising sun (or not)

Post by Katie and Net

On Friday we ventured over the river to explore the other side of Riga, visiting a Russian monument, the National Library, which is quite an impressive piece of architecture, and a cat cafe.

We also planned our session for the next day, where we would be visiting a unit in Valmiera. To get there in time, we set off in darkness to catch the 7.30am coach for our 2 hour journey.

This was our biggest group yet, with around 40 Scouts and Guides for the 1st session. We started off with the inflatable globe throwing name game and then played zip zap being, where you send the 'zip' around the circle in various directions. We had planned to have 4 activities that groups could rotate around, and were able to quickly adapt this to 5 activities with so many participants. I ran an activity where the group has to balance a stick on their fingers, and then lower it to the ground without anyone letting go. It's deceptively tricky. Net played Robot, where one person is blindfolded, one person can't speak and another can't hear, and they then have to guide the blindfolded person to a destination. Sarah K ran Paper Islands, challenging groups to get from one side of the room to the other using a few pieces of paper to avoid touching the floor. Sarah S's groups had to work together to move a string hoop round while they were all holding hands. For Laura's activity, each member of the group acted as a different part of a body, and worked together to blow up a balloon and walk together before popping the balloon.

 About 30 Cubs and Brownies showed up for our 2nd session. We started with the globe name game again and followed with Make me a...shape. This time one group made a fully moving bus and almost disappeared down the corridor entirely. Our next activity was the True or False WAGGGS and WOSM game to learn facts about the two World Organisations that the Latvian Scouts and Guides are a part of, and the World Centres corners game. We finally sang Get Loose and Alice The Camel and exchanged badges.

Afterwards we went out to lunch with two of the Scout leaders, Martins and Artis, who also showed us around Valmiera including a great view of the surrounding countryside from the top of a church spire, a BMX track and a forest with a treehouse and playground! 

We eventually got back to our apartment 14 hours after leaving, having travelled 210km, and had a very busy day! Our next couple of days are relatively relaxed so we've got some well earnt recovery time... 

We've arrived!

Post by Katie

We're in Latvia! After going to INTOPS 13 months ago, finding out we'd been selected for Latvia 10 months ago and all the planning, our project has begun.

And in true GOLD style, it's been a whirlwind so far.

We successfully made it to Riga and up the 3 flights of stairs to our flat late Thursday night. We stocked up on food the next morning and had a wander through the Old Town of Riga before meeting up with Liga to talk about GOLD in Latvia.

We helped Liga to plan her first meetings of the year, one for each age range, for the next day, and 1 hour before the train was due to leave, decided to travel to Ogre, where the meeting was, so that we were there ready for the morning. Cue some quick packing and travelling to the train station, but we made it.

Saturday was spent at Liga's unit. We ran games for Brownies and Cubs to get them excited about Guiding and Scouting, and for the Guides and Scouts we ran activities to make them think about how they treat others both at their meetings and outside of them.

Finally we ran a Look Wider taster session for the Rovers and Rangers to demonstrate what we'd do at a Senior Section meeting in the UK. We first covered Leadership where the Rovers and Rangers had to lead an activity; they came up with teaching us a traditional Latvian folk song by making us listen and write down what we heard phonetically. We next did the Fit for Life Octane, for which we played Newspaper Hockey, and finally International, which involved talking about what you'd pack in a rucksack to travel with. 

And did I mention that this all took place at the Latvian Scout and Guide museum? There were exhibits from the very start of the organisations and the museum also covered the Soviet Union occupation, when Scouting and Guiding were banned and those Latvian Scouts and Guides that had managed to escape were scattered across the globe; impressively they continued Latvian Scouting and Guiding, for example there's a Latvian unit in Nottingham.

So now we're back in Riga, ready to recharge and prepare for our next adventure!