Your letters

Find out what other Trefoil members have on their minds

Keep The Trefoil as it is

I was very surprised, even shocked, to read in the September issue of The Trefoil that it had been suggested the magazine become online only. I was pleased that there was such a large number who, having been asked the question at the national Annual Meeting, said ‘no’.

I am chair of a guild that is attached to a residential home with both disabled and able-bodied members. None of the disabled members who live in the home and the member who lives in sheltered accommodation have access to computers, so are they to be forgotten even though they have had a lifetime interest in the Guiding movement?

For Trefoil members like some of mine, who have various stages of dementia, it is the magazine that can keep their interest in the movement, because they are able to enjoy looking at the photographs, which remind them that we are all sisters in the guiding family whoever we are, whatever our personal needs.

As fully paid-up members, even with their various health issues, they are entitled to be sent the magazine in the present form, as it also informs their care staff of the existence of The Trefoil Guild.

My guild cannot be the only one that has members who are not computer literate because of age or health issues. Even some of my able-bodied members struggle with computers. If you do decide to produce an online edition, please remember the many others and continue to produce a paper edition for them too. I hope the magazine will continue in its present format for many years to come.

Brenda Barwick, 5th Edgware Trefoil Guild

Times are always a-changing!

Guiding has changed during my lifetime. I started as a Brownie aged seven and am now a nonagenarian in Trefoil.

During that time, the uniforms have changed, the activities have changed, even the Promise has changed, but what Lord Baden-Powell and later Lady Baden-Powell set out to do well over a hundred years ago has not changed. As the September 2022 issue of The Trefoil announces on its cover, Guiding and Trefoil are still ‘Fun and Friendship’. Although a member of Kent Lune Trefoil Guild I no longer attend any meetings, but The Trefoil keeps me in touch.

Apart from a couple of years in Canada, I have always been involved in Guiding in one way or another – as a Sixer and then Patrol Leader in Salisbury, as a Guider in Coulsdon, Surrey, an Air Ranger (above) in Exeter during the Second World War and finally a Commissioner and a Trefoil Guild member in Cumbria.

Today I had a phone call from friend who now lives 300 miles away from me but who helped me run a Guide Company many years ago. Memories! Collecting wool from neighbours to knit socks for soldiers during the war. Pink socks? I still have a drawer of wool left over from that effort! Camouflaging tents with brown paint and green cattle dung for a camp in Cornwall during the war. Scouts camping in the garden of the cottage where I now live, forming a bucket chain to remove water from a flooded cellar.

Guiding has been a part of most of my life and I still look forward to receiving The Trefoil to read about the amazing achievements of Trefoil Guild members.

Thank you Guiding!

Maureen Lamb, Sedbergh, Cumbria

Please send your letters to: Trefoil Guild, 17-19 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0PT, or email: thetrefoilmagazine@girlguiding.org.uk