Centenary Celebrations a Success

I never knew how much work went into planning a programme. Now don’t get me wrong I have planned many events and programmes, but most of them just took place during the evening or for a few hours during the day. I like to think of myself as an expert programmer since I have been at Pax Lodge for over five months, but I was still nervous when our World Centre Manager asked me to plan our Centenary celebrations. The idea that on this specific day millions of other girl guides and girl scouts would be celebrating the birth of guiding just as we were scared me a bit. I wanted to plan the perfect day to celebrate this mark in our history.

My planning for the event started months ago, but on April 10^th I woke up at 6:00am to get an early start on set up and do some last minute preparations before people started to arrive at 10:00am. The night before I had spent hours making paper chains, painting posters with Happy Birthday in multiple languages, putting up lights, and continuing to decorate the conference room. I grabbed a quick bowl of Frosties and began getting activities set up, getting the projector ready to go for a centenary video kick-off, got materials for our service project at Pax Lodge and did a final check of the agenda for the day. Around 8:00am we all met in the Our World Lounge for our morning meeting where I went through the timeline for the day step by step so that all of the volunteers knew where they needed to be and at what time. By 9:00am it was time for flag ceremony and Nefeli and I walked over to Waterhouse Close to finalize what he wanted us to do with the vegetable garden later on in the day.

People began arriving a little before 10:00am as I grabbed all of the volunteers and set up chairs in the conference room for our big kick-off for the day. Maia Faulkner, our World Centre Manager, started off our Centenary celebrations with a few words of inspiration before we watched an amazing Centenary video that featured nearly all of our volunteers. I was so proud seeing my fellow volunteers’ thoughts on celebrating the past 100 years of guiding featured and their voices heard around the world. Following the video, we officially welcomed the participants into the Pax Lodge family with a pinning ceremony before we broke the ice with a quick game of human bingo.

Next up was participating in two service projects. We split up into groups and half of us headed to Waterhouse Close where we assisted in preparing their backyard for a vegetable garden. The other half went with our Event Assistant, Julia (from Austria), to craft get well cards and flowers for the children’s ward at Royal Free Hospital. It was such a beautiful day and we were really able to lessen the amount of work that the elderly residents at Waterhouse Close would have had to do if we had not helped out. Some of the residents came out and we were able to assist them with sprucing up their personal gardens. We worked our muscles to the brim as we turned over piles of soil, removed rocks and pebbles, and broke down dead branches while during a general clean up of the garden. There is still so much we could do to help with this project and I am already planning my visit to continue to see this project through until the end.

Despite getting a bit muddy we were all excited for our next challenge. The Pax Lodge Centenary Challenge around the Hampstead community and into Hampstead Heath. The overall challenge was to spread this exciting day with the non-guiding and scouting community whether that be explaining our promise to a stranger on the street corner or sharing the “plant” theme with a local florist owner. We tried to get as many of the 100 tasks completed but I have to admit we were easily distracted by the breathtaking view from Parliament Hill and the picture perfect weather. Our entire group enjoyed lunch in Hampstead Heath Park as we chatted over sandwiches and biscuits.

Sadly, around 2:00pm it was time to head back to begin all of the activities that each of the volunteers had planned. After a quick energizer the participants were ready to start their first activity…Centenary BINGO!! It was a great way for them to learn some of the important events in the history of our movement. We continued the next three hours with more fun-filled activities that were centred on the four elements of the centenary: plant, good deed, international, and fun.

My main project during the activity section of the day was working on the time capsule. Since it is such an important day in our history I thought it was crucial that we document the day and the past 100 years in the eyes of Pax Lodge’s past and current guests, event participants, volunteers, staff, and more. I even got word that a group of Irish Girl Guides were making items for our time capsule during their centenary celebrations. Our plan is to place it in a time capsule and bury in our back garden for the next eleven years to open on Pax Lodge’s 30^th birthday on March 15^th, 2021. I hope that I am able to come back to Pax Lodge for the big reveal. Also, we had everyone address a postcard and write a note to themselves that we are going to send to them when we reopen the time capsule.

Just after 5:00pm we had finished our day activities and people had an hour to relax, take part in the Pax Lodge scavenger hunt, or roam through Hampstead before dinner time. I on the other hand didn’t have time to relax as I had to make confetti, blow up 100 balloons, clean up after our day activities, and reset up the conference room for the evening programme. After dinner I did some final checks before quickly changing into my international uniform.

I really strived to theme the evening programme around the volunteer’s various international birthday and celebration traditions. These ranged from singing a Pax Lodge favourite the Danish Musical Instrument song (sung by Katrine our RV from Denmark) to doing Henna (thanks to our artistic RV Nour from Syria) and learning some Greek dancing from our Assistant Programme Manager Nefeli. Next up was a little game of “Who Wants to be a Centinionairre?” that tested their knowledge of WAGGGS and the four World Centres. This lead up to my favourite part of the evening, where we renewed our promises together. Over twelve countries were represented as country by country lit a candle that was placed next to their respective flags and said their promise in their native language.

It was a special moment that everyone will remember, from the forty brownies to the groups of adult members and trefoil guild in attendance. It’s moments like these that remind me that despite the 10 million members of WAGGGS being located throughout the world we are all united. We may speak different languages and have different promises, but we all come together and celebrate the birth of our movement. Together we are going to ensure another 100 years of success and growth of the guiding spirit.

The night was topped off with a surprise birthday cake that was quickly broken into after we sang “Happy Birthday” to WAGGGS and made our wished for the future guiding. Despite the stress and long hours it took in planning the event I am so happy I was able to have the opportunity to plan such a special day in our history.