December 8, 2016
The Kingaroy Girl Guides will be painting a new name on their honour board over the summer holidays – the first one they’ve added to it in the past ten years.
On Wednesday, at their annual break-up meeting, 110 separate badges were awarded to the troop’s 35 members.
They ranged from pins that marked how many years the guides had been members through to rarer badges individual Guides had achieved by undertaking special challenges – anything from keeping a food diary for a week to serving the community or researching a specific topic.
But the biggest award of all – a Junior BP Award, named in honour of Girl Guides founder Robert Baden-Powell because it is Guiding’s highest honour – went to 12-year-old Kingaroy State High School student Jade May.
Jade has been a Guide since she was six, and she is the first Kingaroy Girl Guide to win a Junior BP Award since 2006.
Jade said she hadn’t kept track of exactly how many hours of work she devoted to the task of winning the Junior BP Award, but knew it took her at least a year to complete.
Her mother Amanda, who has been the Kingaroy troop’s leader for the past 17 years, said while she was naturally very proud of Jade’s accomplishment, she was just as proud that five other troop members are now also well on their way to winning the same award.
At Wednesday’s ceremony, which was attended by both junior and senior Girl Guides and many of their parents, five other Kingaroy Girl Guides received Bronze Endeavour awards, which showed they were now half way to achieving a Junior BP Award, too.
Cr Danita Potter, who helped present the awards, told the troop she’d been a Girl Guide herself in the late 1970s, and had joined at the same time as Jodie Venaglia, who went on to become the first name on the troop’s BP Award honour board.
“When I was a Guide we were in the old Guides Hut, which was about half the size of the one you’re in now,” Cr Potter told the audience.
“The old hut was in a different location on the grounds. It was a very narrow, old wooden building and I can tell you a lot has changed over the years.
“But one thing hasn’t changed – the flagpole is in the same spot it always was.”
Afterwards, guests and Guides got to enjoy a special cake made in honour of Jade’s accomplishment, along with a light supper whipped up in the hut’s kitchen by members of the troop’s support committee.
Amanda told southburnett.com.au her troop members were so keen that several had already approached her about doing more work towards their badges over the summer holidays.
“I really can’t say no to them – they’re very keen about Guiding – so even though the troop is now in recess until February, I’ll be helping them wherever I can.”
