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Cheshire Border At World in One City
Saturday February 16th saw over 40 units from the County travelling to Liverpool to join with over 800 other units in the national World in One City Thinking Day events. We might have muttered about getting up early on a Saturday but that soon was in perspective when we heard of Rainbows from Cumbria staggering onto buses at 5.45am and Guides from the south having a five hour journey. The longest travelling time will have been for Guides from Norway who joined us as their city of Stavanger is also celebrating having the status of a European Centre of Culture. Trains were extremely busy – one Guard was heard to say that he had never seen so many Family Rail Cards out on one day whilst another gave up attempting to check tickets as the carriages were so packed with standing passengers and with groups that had been forced to be split up!
Members of Girlguiding UK were to be seen moving around the city all day, each one of us wearing a coloured fleecy hat. (The hat colour depended on your choice of activity and was to help in the final performance.) Most people attended one activity session and one session exploring Liverpool (riding on the Ferry or in open topped buses etc). We answered so many questions from the public – what an event it was to showcase guiding.
Six hundred girls made lanterns with the Liverpool Lantern Company which they proudly processed into the arena at the opening of the finale and these formed the backdrop either side of the big screen.
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The Osun Arts Foundation had 50 people for drumming and a total of 900 doing dance during the day. Arts2U taught 600 youngsters an Irish and an Indian dance in one workshop and in the next workshop had another 600 learning a Spanish and a Russian dance to perform. Whilst this was happening 200 girls played percussion instruments and 400 were samba dancing with the help of the Liverpool Samba School. Another 120 were busy music making with Urban Strawberry Lunch.
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I wonder what the public made of our 1300 Brownies and Guides who were singing during the day in the Metropolitan Cathedral! At the University there were 700 girls learning street dancing with Company Fierce. The Senior Section had 90 members out and about in the city filming and their edited film was shown during the performance. Another 20 of the older girls spent the day with the Pantonic All Stars learning to play steel drums – and weren’t they good in the Finale. How all these groups managed to produce such impressive performances in the little time available seems a miracle to me.
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The Rainbows – 300 0f them – had a craft session followed by a sing song led by members of our County, Trisha, Julie and Julia. (Thank you Hazel Lunt for all your input with this section.) |
Late afternoon saw members of the movement all converging on the Echo Arena to take part in the Finale which was co hosted by a member of our own County, Alice Dean who also warmed up the audience as we arrived. What a fabulous display of talent we were treated to. What other organisation could move almost all the seven and a half thousand participants on and off the arena floor for their acts with no apparent hitches? Even more miraculous with no practices for the girls being held in the arena! Guiding is wonderful!
| While most of us left for home, 450 members of the Senior Section stayed on overnight. They took over three Chinese Restaurants for a Chinese Banquet before rocking the night away at John Moore University. Half of them also slept here while the rest went back to The Blackie. Most units then spent Sunday in Liverpool before travelling home. |
The noise of the thanks from all the participants in the arena at the end of the evening showed how much all the efforts of the organisers (who included Guiders, Trefoil members from our county together with the Programme Team Leader, Sue Taylor) were appreciated.
Click here to see photos Olivia with 1st Congleton Rainbows
Offical photos of
