TREGADILLETT Brownies celebrated their 40th birthday on Monday, May 15, at Tregadillett Community Hall.

In April 1977, Tregadillett Brownies was founded and now 40 years later it is still going strong. In September 1992, Sara Fuge became Brown Owl and 25 years later she is still going — but maybe not quite as strong.

So this year in 2017, Tregadillett Brownies have had much to celebrate and were pleased to have an excuse to party.

During one of their regular weekly meetings, the current Brownies and many ‘ex-Brownies’ and ‘ex-Leaders’ got together to celebrate in style. The party had all the food provided by Tesco of Launceston and Barnecutts Bakery made a special birthday cake.

Sara said: “We actually started celebrating earlier in the year by having a competition to design a special ‘Birthday Badge’ to give to everyone. All the girls submitted a design with the adults choosing the best four. Then the Brownies decided on the final winner by voting for their favourite one. There was an overwhelming winner, designed by Skai. The badge was sent away to be made up and then given out to all the girls. We had enough badges to give to everyone who came to the party too!”

No party would be complete without games, and those who attended the party were able to join in with a favourite of the Brownies — ‘musical chairs’.

Sara said: “We were fortunate to have several girls who have recently moved up from Brownies to Tregadillett Guides, with us to celebrate. They weren’t the only ones to join in with the games, some of the slightly older people did too!”

While everyone was eating, they were able to have a look at some memorabilia including old uniforms and badges and lots of photographs that people had brought along to show. Everyone enjoyed reminiscing over old memories of outings and activities and the fun they had over the years.

Several ex-Tregadillett Brownies have also gone through the Guides’ senior section and on to become leaders of units themselves as adults.

Emma Boucher and Emily Creber both belonged to the unit and came back to celebrate it birthday.

Emma now runs the Rainbow and Guide units at Tregadillett and has also been district commissioner for Launceston. She is now the division commissioner for North Cornwall.

Emily helps at Rainbows, Brownies and the senior section and she completed the Queen’s Guide Award in 2015.

Hannah Stagg, a former member of the Tregadillett Brownies and Guides, is training to be a leader.

Sara said: “It’s very exciting to be part of watching the young girls start out with us and then progress through Girlguiding and seeing ho they grow into.”

She added: “It is wonderful that Tregadillett Brownies has been going for forty years as part of the Girlguiding movement, which is now over 100 years old! In the past, adults have given time to provide the fun and experiences for the youngsters and in that have also gained from it themselves. Then as time moves on, it is over to a new generation of young girls so that can experience what they did.

“Speaking personally, over my twenty-five years of being a leader, I have had so much fun with the girls. I have enjoyed the weekly meetings and the friendship of the other leaders and also have had great fun while taking the girls away for the ‘mostly’ annual pack holiday.

“There have been times when it has been hard work and challenging but I still love it! We are now at a stage when we need more adults to help with running meetings — not necessarily at our Brownies, but in the Launceston District.

“We have so many young girls on the waiting lists that we could open new units to accommodate them all is only we have the leaders. It is frustrating that we have to explain that we have to put their names onto a waiting list, as we don’t have spaces for them all.”

If anyone would like to become part of the Tregadillett team and help provide an opportunity for young girls in North Cornwall to join a Guiding group they are asked to get in touch.

It is voluntary based but expenses will be paid. DBS checks are necessary.

All relevant training would be given.

For more information call 07376 930335 or email [email protected] or search for: Girlguiding Join Us on the web.