Brownie Pack Holiday Kit

All year the brownie pack holiday kit helps lag my attic.

After each pack holiday parents return the kit in dribs and drabs and it just gets thrown up there into big sacks. (They are NOT borrowed Ikea sacks, no sireee, nothing to see here.)

A few weeks before pack holiday I get it out and resort it into types and sizes.

I rebag it, label the bags and it goes to brownies on a meeting night to be allocated in closest sizing to all the girls going away this time.










I even make sure there is a bag and a label for the bag for them to write their names on, so they don't get mixed up as they go home.

I think pack holiday kit makes a weekend away feel more brownie like for the girls.  It's not just a residential trip, it's a brownie residential.  It helps make it extra special.

And easier on the parents who don't have to worry about what the girls need to take to wear.

Although every year I have to throw some away.  How did a parent manage to turn the lovely golden t-shirt into a slime grey misshapen wreck in a single wash?

Sigh

The clothes were picked up by our WiseOwl and she took them to Brownies to be distributed and I heaved a sigh of empty room relief and then I remembered...

....back into the attic for the kitchen stuff like the knife block, jelly bowls, oven gloves, tin openers etc, the cleaning box full of cleaning and washing up stuff, the Tupperware we use, the points collectors, the bingo machine, loo rolls and tea towels.  See the empty bag? that was when I discovered mouse poo at the bottom of the bag arrrrrrrgh.  There is often mice at the pack holiday home we go to and if had obviously crept in, crapped and crept out again.  Boil wash here we come!

Sigh.

And as I thought I was done, I remembered the posters, all under my mattress, the weather chart, the jobs rotas, the kitchen cleaning charts, the graces that go up on the walls at meal times so all can see the words.  Then the things I take out of my own house every year that make it a bit easier, the popcorn maker, the whisk.  There is just so much stuff.

Getting ready for these residential events takes up a lot of time from all the leaders involved, the leader in charge all the more so.  She is not me, I'm not even really needed this year.  I will only get to help setup, visit and pack up.  I wonder if parents will every really understand the amount of effort we put in for their children.  From the thanks we get, I think not.  But the smiles on brownie faces makes it worthwhile.