Hello everyone

of our 80th Anniversary Challenge, From small acorns to giant oaks, are overleaf. There’s a badge to be gained too!

The September meeting of the Board of Trustees began with some time to reflect on and celebrate the life of service of Her Majesty The Queen. I am sure that your own guild meetings marked her passing in your own special way. We welcome our new Head of State, His Majesty King Charles III, and now commit to serve the King, as a symbol for our country, when we make or renew our Promise.

I am really looking forward to meeting members when we get together for our Annual Meeting in Glasgow on 24 June next year. It’s a great chance to meet old friends and make new ones, and really FEEL our wider Trefoil membership. Turn to page 19 for further information.

Next year sees us celebrate the 80th Anniversary of Trefoil Guild, and details

I’ve really enjoyed reading on social media about how guilds are widening their appeal to bring in new members, something which was hard to do during the pandemic. Has your guild discussed this and made a plan yet? With the popularity of non-guiding, and expensive, ‘badges for adults’, there’s a real market out there for active Guiding for Adults. Whether setting up a group with a special interest, a different meeting time for those who work, or more physically active activities for members who enjoy this, a flexible, perhaps less formal approach may be worth trying. Why not set up an attractive evening or weekend activity or visit that could be part of our 80th Anniversary or the STARS Challenge and invite the local Girlguiding volunteers along just to have fun? Right away they’ll complete a clause… and they may not even know our badges exist!

I hope that you all enjoy the December celebrations of Christmas, Hanukkah or Yule, without the restrictions we’ve had for the past two years. I look forward to seeing what you’ve been up to in your Facebook posts. I wish you all a happy and healthy New Year.

Della Salway National President