1st Briefing Weekend

Team Malawi at the Stockport Olympics

Team Malawi journey has officially started! We arrived at  Linnet Clough Scout Centre late on the Friday night excited to meet the team we’d be travelling with in the summer. With all the other GOLDies we started to play human bingo, trying our hardest to find someone wearing pink underwear or liked to fish. In the evening we all played a game of charades, and to be honest, team Malawi wasn’t the greatest, especially when the duvet cover was introduced. After eating lots of food and getting way over excited we headed to our room to get to know each other better before bed. We had slyly blagged the biggest room and settled down to play the skittles ‘get to know you’ game.

Saturday was full of talks about various aspects of our GOLD journey. Most of them made us even more excited but the health talk didn’t sound too promising. Although, we did learn some very important rules from our experienced leader Ruth; never eat fruit off the floor and never buy food out of a bus window.

In the evening we all took part in the ‘Stockport Olympics’;  The leaders had dressed up as the London icons and looked incredible. For each event we nominated the best candidate and they took part in diving, pancake tossing, rowing, airplane throwing or an obstacle course, with a deciding quiz to finish. Team Malawi stormed the leader board  early on and were unchallenged for some time. After winning an impressive 4 medals in total, 1 gold, 2 silvers and a bronze medal, we finished 3^rd overall.

Our last day came way too quick; we really gelled as a team and needed a longer weekend. We made the most of the last day and had a laugh at the final talk about adjustment. We had the task of making a drama piece about how we’re going to feel excited about coming home from Malawi. And I’ve got to say, I don’t think I’ve ever seen a group of people get so happy about going to the toilet. 

Posing with our 3rd place trophy and Big Ben (Ruth)