Division Trip to Wheelgate!

Event Experience
Division Trip to Wheelgate!
For my Queens Guide Award Service in Guiding Element 3, where you have to organise an activity for 2+ units. Previously for my Leadership Qualification I had organised a treasure hunt around our local town centre with an ice cream shop visit for a few local units. This meant that I wanted to challenge myself with something bigger than just an activity for a few units and so I volunteered to organise a trip for all the Rainbow and Brownie units in our division.
This was the first time I had organised an event of this scale including all transport, tickets, accounts, badges and communication with all the units etc . I was also still quite new to the division and so hadn’t even met all of the units yet. I decided to run the trip for the day to Wheelgate Park in Nottinghamshire.
It was a new process for me but for anyone debating trying to run something like this I’d definitely say go for it!
When broken down the planning is much simpler than it first appears.
*I started by coming up with a rough idea of costs, including ticket price and bus costs, split by how many I thought would come with of course some extras. This information was then collated on a letter to each unit in the division to invite their girls to the now confirmed venue and date and with the finalised price. I had also pre filled in the consent forms with all the information for parents which was handed to all the units.
* I gave a set date for numbers and money to be handed in to me from each unit. From this point you can finalise park ticket bookings and pay for the coach hire to see what is left in the budget.
* My budget left per person enabled each person to have a badge for the trip and an allowance for an ice cream from the park café, of which was very popular due to the lovely weather we had.
* Before the day, the only main things that were left were organising home contacts, risk assessments and other paperwork. (A tip I was given by another leader was to buy paper wristbands for all the young members of which I asked their unit leader to write their contact on for peace of mind if any young member was to get lost).

We had an amazing time at Wheelgate Park! The girls loved travelling on our double decker bus, to then go and explore all of the park. There was a small farm area with animals, lots of fun rides (both indoor and outdoor), lots and lots of slides and amazing play areas, and lots of great cafes and picnic spots where we enjoyed our treat – All together we had almost 200 ice-creams!
Overall it was a great day and an event I would definitely volunteer to organise again.