1st Nettlebed Brownies
We are a Brownie Pack in South Oxfordshire.
We are part of Girlguiding Anglia
We meet regularly once a week throughout the school term.
We usually have a Pack Holiday under Canvas each summer; it is great fun, we all really love it.
We like playing Wink Murder and singing Campfire songs
We like following trails, cycling and having Treasure Hunts
The Brownies have enjoyed a variety of meetings, for example being spies and Detectives, playing rounders and cuba, making gifts for Fathers' Day; not to mention a District Camp Fire.
May to July 2002
Nettlebed Brownies have just finished the end of a busy Term enjoying a full and varied programme of activities, badgework, and visits.
Our Pack had a full day out by train, to visit Windsor castle, eating a picnic lunch in the grounds, a boat trip up the River Thames, feeding the swans, having rides at the children's fair ground, before going ten pin bowling at Maidenhead.
Fund raising for our Pack funds, took the form of Brown Owl doing a run from Nettlebed brick kiln to Bix Church, and an indoor mini fete of table-top games.
Playing games continues to be popular with the Brownies, especially their old favourites like the Smartie game, Customs Officer, Tax Collector, beetle, wink murder, shopping, bull, steal the treasure, Six, stalking, Sevens, stations, ladders, miming the badge, not to mention parachute games!
We enjoyed a Sports and Mini Olympics evening with one of our Pack Leaders, Rachel, and were fortunate enough to have an evening suitable to do this outside! The Brownies deserved their medals for their efforts.
We have also been busy with badges, with a Ready steady don't cook evening which Hannah organised, as part of the Cooks badge.
Tawny Owl helped the Brownies with the sight awareness badge, including organising a visit of a puppy walker for the Guide Dogs for the Blind who brought along her dogs, and talked to us about the work of a puppy walker and a guide dog. The badge work included touchy feely activities, tasting foods, smelling items to identify them, and making a tactile collage. The Brownies also did some fund raising for the Blind with a non-uniform night, and being allowed to wear very bright coloured clothes on payment of a £1 "fine".
Our fire safety badge work included a very enjoyable, visit to the fire station, which ended with the Brownies squirting water from the hoses- a few wet Brownies greeted parents on collection that night.!
Another badge that we have done this term was deaf awareness, the Brownies were very quick to learn to sign the alphabet, and concluded the evening by signing Brownie Bells.!
Our quiz night, challenged the leaders and Brownies alike, with Brown Owl struggling to identify any of the songs from the Pop round!
The Queen's Jubilee celebration was marked by us walking from Nettlebed to Doves house in Nuffield where we had a campfire and bar-b-que before enrolling a new Brownie.
The Pack all did the World Guiding badge, cooking and tasting food from a commonwealth country, making a jigsaw, learning about the World badge and making one, learning a song and a Promise from another country. We also had a visitor to the Pack to talk to the Brownies about her experience as a Brownie and a Guide. We were shown her camp blanket and badges, including her Queen's Guide badge, and badges from the Queen's Silver Jubilee year.
At the Nettlebed Fete the Brownies joined the procession, which this year had the theme of the Queens Jubilee, the Brownies dressed up as Coronation mugs. The Brownies also helped run our stall at the fete, which was popular and well supported.
Our term ended with a well supported Dads and daughters cycle ride from Nettlebed along tracks, lanes and paths, with bikes of all shapes, sizes, and colours, to go down hill and uphill, through puddles and mud!
A much needed "emergency ration" stop to admire the view was needed after one hill, for the heart rates to recover!
It was an uneventful fun evening, apart from one puncture and a chain coming off, before returning to the Church Hall for refreshments which Dove had all ready and waiting to revive us.
The Brownies were given their Adventure Out badges, a little later than planned for, because last years foot and mouth outbreak had prevented us from taking part in some of the required elements!
The Brownies were not the only ones to be presented with badges, Rachel and Laura two of our Pack Leaders, were rewarded for their commitment to helping with our Pack, by gaining the Community Service badge.
A Brownie Pack in Australia has contacted us via our website, and we are looking forward to keeping in touch with them, this could be the beginning of a very exciting new relationship.
Sadly Checkendon Brownies have now closed, so to enable some of the children from that Pack to continue to enjoy being a Brownie, we have taken some in from there, who have settled down with us very quickly.
The impending closure of other local Brownie Packs, impacts on our waiting list which is growing- if you have or know of children wanting to join our Brownies please put their names on the waiting list ASAP. We will be giving priority to children who attend Nettlebed school and to those who live in Nettlebed, but even then there is no guarantee of a place at our Pack!
If you feel that you could give time to run a local Brownie or Guide Unit to prevent Units closing, please come and have a chat to one of us!
We have four sixes in our Pack:
We are the Elves
We are the Kelpies
We are the Pixies
We are the Sprites
For things that we have done in the past, please look at our Archive Page
If you want to know more about Guiding in general, the official Guide Association site is at
Girlguiding UK
There's a super Guiding resources site at Best of Guiding UK
We would like to thank Dianne for some of her graphics which we have used on this site. Dianne may be contacted at: Dianne@D-D-Designs.co.uk
Another super site is at the Net Guides site
If you want to know more about us, you can email our Brown Owl
If you have any problems with this site please email our Webmistress