GOLD Maldives 2022....Our journey so far🇬🇧🇲🇻


Hi there,

We are the team for GOLD Maldives 2022, welcome to our blog! 


Our journey started back in September 2021 on the 'Go for GOLD' selection weekend. Alongside roughly 70 other Guiders, we undertook the secret process, where we were told to 'expect the unexpected'. It was a brilliant weekend and we all enjoyed learning about GOLDies previous projects, as well as meeting like-minded Guiders from across the UK.

After a long wait... we all received ours emails with the news that we had been selected for a face to face project in Maldives and found out who our team members were!



Now we all know who our team members are it was time to start fundraising and planning for the first briefing. Typically, British weather had other plans! 🙈 Storm Eugene caused havoc, which unfortunately meant Team Maldives were unable to meet face to face for our first briefing weekend. Instead, we had it virtually! We were still able to learn lots about GOLD, and what to expect from the project itself. 

We spent the next few weeks getting to know each other through zoom, assigned team roles and created our team charter. We were really looking forward to meeting properly as a team at our second briefing!


Zoom session #1


Friday 22nd April finally arrived and it was time for the second briefing... we could not wait! We were fortunate enough to have our entire team with us... some teams were missing members due to covid.

This weekend was all about discovering more about our project and the training we will be planning with the Maldives Girl Guides Association (MGGA). We were able to share valuable skills with other GOLD teams too. 😊

It wouldn't be a Guiding weekend without lots of laughter and memories.... Saturday night left us all in hysterics! What appears to be a GOLD tradition - fancy dress! We were asked to bring a white top... but that was all that we were told so we were all left in the dark about our evening entertainment. Off we went to get ready and then Holly, AKA Fawkes came to pick us up and take us to Hogwarts. Throughout the evening, the GOLD team had us completing various challenges and a wide game. By the end of the evening, team Maldives was now known as being members of Maldivort house. All in all, we had lots of fun that evening and enjoyed being creative and competing for the house cup!!

Team building

#pash

GOLD Team Maldives 2022

Team Maldivort

All GOLD teams!

 

After many more zoom sessions and individual project work it was time to meet again for our third briefing in Swansea! By 10 pm, we were sat down eating the wonderful food that Kara had prepared for us and chatting about how entertaining our journeys had been!

On Saturday, we started by sharing fun facts about the Maldives. Did you know that the Maldives consists of 1,192 coral islands grouped in a double chain of 26 atolls, along the north-south direction?! The day continued and we shared information about our individual roles and how we can support each other with these. The next thing on the agenda was training plans! We all shared some ideas and decided that the best way to start would be to make individual activity plans which we could take to the Maldives. 

We spent the afternoon exploring Swansea!







Our evening entertainment was very different to the second briefing... we settled down and enjoyed getting artistic! We each painted our very own mug/glass. See the pictures below for the final products!



Final products!


Before we knew it, it was Sunday and nearly time to say goodbye once again. We continued to make activity plans and had our 1:1 sessions with Holly. We have continuously said to each other since second briefing what an amazing job the GOLD team have done with putting us together. Our team is very supportive of each other and we are very happy with our team! 😁


Fourth and final briefing... it must be July!! 😱 

This time around we are in Birmingham and staying at Trefoil house. By 9 pm we were sat down enjoying fajitas and catching up on life. Saturday morning was all about project logistics. We discussed and booked some post-project accommodation, went through our kit list and discussed what resources we will need to take. We also made 'About Me Cards'! We finalised all our activity plans and Gwen handed out our team badges. 😍

GOLD Team Maldives badges!

After a productive morning we took the opportunity to visit the Trefoil House shop and purchase any necessary uniform / badges that we needed. We are so happy with our badges, we hope you like them too!


After lunch, we spent the afternoon exploring Birmingham!



We arrived back at Trefoil House in the early evening and took the opportunity to try on our team kit! It took a while to capture the photos, but we got there in the end 🙈. We are so pleased with the colours and can't wait to wear our kit in the Maldives!


We did it!!😂

And pose... Mamma Mia style! 💃 


We also called the MGGA! This was a great opportunity to briefly introduce ourselves and ask them any questions we had.



For this briefing, we decided to go out for our evening meal. We decided on Wagamama's and all thoroughly enjoyed our meals! This was swiftly followed by a game of tropical-themed crazy golf.



 

Before we knew it, we were packing up and heading home Sunday afternoon. It is crazy to think the next time we see each other will be at the airport ready to fly out to the Maldives!

Until next time, 

GOLD Team Maldives 2022💛

Follow us on:

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/search/top?q=gold%20maldives 

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/goldmaldives2022/



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