Fourth Briefing

The final meet!

So final briefing has been and gone! It is definitely feeling very real now. We are less than two weeks away from our adventure!

Hard at work

We have had a productive weekend finalising our planning, making resources and adding more and more to the kit list… 

We have also enjoyed exploring the farm and our evening entertainment of Monsters Inc and munching lots of Cadbury’s!

Team kit!

We were very excited for the arrival of our new team kit and name badges and have been showing it off over the weekend.

Cover of Country Life Magazine anyone?

Catching some fresh air with the dogs

 We were delighted to have six new additions to the team thanks to the lovely people at Minifigs! We have each created our own lego GOLDie. Look out for them on our Facebook and Twitter pages throughout our project!

Our minifigs getting ready for the real Machu Pichu

Caroline’s family kindly put us up on their farm, Hoe Grange, for the weekend, where we had 250 acres to roam with the dogs during our breaks! We made some friends along the way…

Meeting Jess and Oliver

We enjoyed a lovely family dinner of fajitas and were joined by Caroline's grandma, a former County Commissioner and Trefoil Guild member who was very excited to hear all about our project.

Dinner with grandma

Our mascot from Girlguiding

Now we are ready and raring to go! Only 11 days until the adventure begins... Watch this space!

Lots of GOLD love,
Team Peru

Third Briefing

Planning underway....

Claire and Caroline planning recruitment sessions

Third briefing has really put our brains to the test. It has been an intense weekend of researching, planning, preparing resources and of course, sitting up chatting all into the early hours...

Hannah and Katherine planning training sessions

Heather and Emma planning leadership sessions

Project leader Caroline has guided us through the planning process. We have all made amazing progress and met our target for having all the training sessions planned!

Linlithgow Loch with the palace in the background

In between planning, Hannah took us out for a walk around Linlithgow to get some well needed fresh air. As a history geek, Caroline got rather excited by the palace on the edge of the loch - Mary, Queen of Scots was born there!

We are extremely grateful to Hannah and her family for inviting us into their home this weekend. We have been very well catered for and never allowed to go hungry. The amazing meals definitely kept us quiet, especially the ice cream sundae and sticky toffee pudding!

We really appreciate the effort that has gone in to keeping our stomachs full. Thank you very much!

Our first flag photo in Hannah's garden

With another briefing weekend done, we are all feeling well prepared and even more excited for Peru. Just one more briefing weekend before we go!

Lots of GOLD love,
Team Peru

First briefing

And so the adventure begins!

Our first ever team photo!

After finding out that we had been selected for GOLD after INTOPS, we first met as a team at First Briefing at Tolmers in Hertfordshire in February.

We spent much of the weekend getting to know each other as a team, diving straight in with the important things in life: we do all like chocolate, right?! Who drinks tea? Does anyone talk in their sleep?

Anna, the GOLD Co-ordinator, and Carly, representing Girlguiding, were on hand to guide us through the weekend and all the team leaders delivered trainings on different topics.

An energiser in between trainings in the sunshine

The leaders of Team Guyana and Team The Gambia walked us through our GOLD journey - and pointed out that it never really ends! Once a GOLDie, always a GOLDie.

Emma from Team The Gambia and our GOLD journey in footsteps!

We were introduced to the different group roles and decided who was going to do what - you can read more about the roles of different team members on our Meet the Team page.

Team Peru in deep discussion over the important things in life - team kit colour!

After trainings on fundraising, PR, kit and packing, we had an evening of Winter Olympics themed entertainment - complete with events to bring out our competitive side.

The team after warm-up...

Getting competitive during leg ice-hockey

Ice dancing to Bolero

Team Peru winning the biathlon

Teams Latvia and Cambodia in a close-run bobsleigh race

All the 2014 GOLDies (that's people who go on GOLD by the way)

Peru, Cambodia, The Gambia and Malawi team leaders as the Jamaican Bobsleigh team

After a close-run series of events, Team Peru emerged victorious!

The victorious Team Peru with our medals

On the Sunday, we had more trainings on health and wellbeing and culture shock. There was also lots more team time involving sweets, where we began to plan our challenge badge.

Hannah, Claire and Katherine during a rainier Sunday energiser

That was all we had time for. After a busy weekend, we all headed home, buzzing with ideas (or perhaps that was caffeine...) and ready for our GOLD journey to begin in earnest.

Lots of GOLD love,

Team Peru