Planet Mad

Warning: Guiding-related post. It's not exciting, unless you're that way inclined.

Before I took over my Guide unit in June, the Guider in charge was a lady of more mature years called Sheila. Sheila was a hoarder. Anything she found that could be potentially used at Guides went straight into the cupboard. All of the games and resources she made were also filed there. On second thoughts, "filed" implies that there was a logical system to it: if there was such a system, I couldn't find it. As a result, when Jen and I took over last term, our first job was to sort through the equipment.

Our first night of Guides without Sheila was an eye-opener. Jen took the two Young Leaders off into the room with the cupboard and spent two hours throwing things out. She used the YL's reactions to decide if things should be thrown or kept: "What's that? I've never seen one of those" "I'd never play that game" "Why on earth have we got that?!?" By the end of the evening, the cupboard was far emptier.

Last night we had another go at it. Three more bin-bags of rubbish came out of the room with the cupboard. Treasures now lost forever include a 1972 map of the area (used for walking round the area during last year's night hike: eeek!), several school hymn books and twenty bazillion felt-tip pens. Copies of The Brownie magazine from the 1950s and 60s were unearthed, then promptly binned; likewise a set of Your Patrol magazines from the early 90s. We also found a box full of Guide badges and cards (surprisingly up-to-date) and some thank-you cards from a party held way back in June: we'd not given them out becasue we didn't know that they existed!

I offer a big apology to those who are wincing at the wanton destruction of valuable archive material, but - and trust me on this - I feel far better about it all. I've still got the camping store to finish off, with its collection of 1950s canvas and mismatching tent poles, but that can wait for a sunnier day.