Easter break :)

Easter break from school was well and truly appreciated to say the least.
I love hearing about people who are giving up their time to a worthwhile cause, for example, this week I gave a small donation to Kevin who on the 20th August 2012, will be part of a team climbing the fabled Atlas Mountains in Morocco in aid of Childreach International to help keep kids off the street, keeping them fed and watered and giving them an education. I think its truly amazing! View more at: https://mydonate.bt.com/fundraisers/kevincheung1

I also applied to be a Youth Participant at the 3rd Women Deliever conference in Malaysia in May 2013. I feel like this would be a fantastic opportunity to learn more and offer my contribution. Its very unlikely I will get chosen but I hope someone from WAGGGS gets a chance :)

My boyfriend and I have recently returned from an overnight stay in Londonderry in the Tower Hotel, the only hotel within Derry's City Wall's! We did the Martin McCrossan City Walls tour which enriched my knowledge (of what was very little) about the City of Derry, which is the 2013 UK City of Culture. We would both highly recommend taking a visit to a city so known for its troubles but more recently being remembered as a city of change! :)

I like to think of myself as someone who is very aware of their surroundings. I take into consideration someones body language, their tone of voice and their general being, then usually be able to tell the emotion that person is feeling. However, today I will have to admit that I mustn't be able to 'read' people as well as I thought. It never really occurred to me that someone can permanently be hidden behind a mask, too afraid and restrained by disability to show their true colours. When I read a blog entry from one of my fellow students I felt like I had been so oblivious to the situation. The blog entry can be read at http://ryanhendry1994.tumblr.com/post/21046473631/my-first-attempt-at-a-blog

Success!

This morning, one of the Advocate! members posted a link to an article wrote by Lucy Mangan for Stylist magazine. It was quite similar to the article slating Girlguides from the Daily Mail.
It mentioned our now 'girly' approach to Guiding, and like anticipated, it got a lot of attention. Girlguide leaders HATE reading articles like that, as an organisation they provide SO much more and I wish the article had of been about praising the Girlguides.
My wish was granted :)
I tweeted Stylist magazine saying 'Lucy Mangan's article on Girlguides is a more boring version of the Daily Mail's article' and 'Shouldn't you be praising the amazing young women that have benefited from Girlguides?'

Stylist magazine tweeted me back saying: ' We were Girl Guides ourselves! And loved it. And we celebrated Agnes Baden-Powell for her work last year: http://bit.ly/GYDXxM' and 'That is a great idea - perhaps we could ask our followers to tweet how the Guides helped/inspired them?'

This is exactly what happened! Using the hash tag - #beingaguide. Lots of Guides contributed to this twitter thread, Stylist magazine actually posted a new article.. http://www.stylist.co.uk/life/being-a-girl-guide-your-stories#image-rotator-1'  - SUCCESS! :D

The old article is still existent but not on the front page of their website: http://www.stylist.co.uk/people/lucy-mangan/even-the-girl-guides-is-kowtowing-to-the-modern-world#image-rotator-1

Girlguiding UK and WAGGGS encouraged their members to contribute to the twitter trend via Facebook and Twitter - so glad I spoke up & tweeted them! :)