By Bridget Harrison, Brown Owl – 1st Ballinger Rainbows and 1st Ballinger Brownies
Well, there was certainly a major gathering of Brown, Tawny, Wise, Snowy, Scops, Eagle, Barn and Little Owls at Ballinger just before Christmas for our special Girl Guiding Centenary Reunion.
Even a sudden dip in the thermometer did not discourage many hardy ladies from venturing out for an evening reviewing the history and development of Guiding both nationally and at Ballinger.
The newest Rainbows and Brownies had fun dressing up in old uniforms, reading the magazines and trying to recognise their own leaders in old photos, while many of the older ones there brought badges, photos and books to share.
Over the last few months we have built up a timeline of units in Ballinger and it seems as if the first Brownie unit opened in 1938 but then struggled during the war before re-opening again in 1948. Things went quiet again in the late 1950s and there is no more information until it was opened again in 1971. From then on there has always been a Brownie unit in Ballinger.
For many years there was a Guide unit too and Ballinger Rainbows was started in 1992.
We were thrilled to have every decade of our history represented by guests at the reunion and it was a fantastic, but very brief, trip down memory lane.
As well as past leaders, many past Rainbows and Brownies joined us and it was such a treat to see all these young ladies again. They all dived for the scrapbooks and there was much hilarity as they found younger versions of themselves.
All guests were asked to complete a postcard with a ‘Guiding memory’ and these ranged from camping in 1940s, through trials learning to knit, to many memories prompted by photos. We have started (yet another!) scrapbook to contain all these postcards plus the photos taken on the evening.
From a personal point of view, I would like to say a huge thank you to everyone who helped put the evening together, baking cakes, taking photos etc. and also to everyone who came along.
So many people have put time and energy into our units over so many years, so the current units feel very privileged to be the small link in the continuing history.