This year Girlguiding Kent Weald county had the privilege of shadowing Middlesex Northwest county team to take part volunteering at the Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Albert Hall. I had the honour of attending with Dawn (County Commissioner) to see how this was carried out.
On Saturday morning at 6.35am myself and Dawn boarded the train at West Malling to start our journey to London Victoria, from there we made our way to Hyde Park where we were to meet up with Jade and Marian, assistant county commissioners and the ladies from Middlesex Northwest, everyone was excited to be there and wondering what the day would bring us.
Once we all booked in and collected our photo passes, we stopped outside the main doors to have a photo shoot then headed off to security to join many other volunteers to attend a brief of the days schedule. Following our bag drop and briefing on how to use card machines etc. we were able to sit and watch the first rehearsals for the show, at this point we were sitting near to the Royal Box where the Royal Party had the best view of the festival performance. Once this was over, we went on to have a packed lunch which was provided for us, there was a quick turnaround as we then had to man our posts as members of the public were beginning to arrive, buying the festival programme, poppies and giving donations. Just before 2pm we were stood down and given a ticket to sit and watch the whole performance, this time we were seated very high up near to where the orchestra were playing, this was amazing and at times quite emotional especially listening to the stories coming from the veterans or their families, the number of times we stood up and clapped to show our appreciation that I lost count, and this was so over whelming.
After the performance we went back to our base station to grab a snack, have a quick break before starting our duty over again. We had 2 Young Leaders with us selling the programmes which was great to see the interaction they had with the public, most of which were families of veterans or veterans themselves. When the performance started again our duty was over, we then had to return any unsold programmes, poppies and card machines to the collection points before heading off to the loading bay along with other volunteers where we were served a hot meal. Finding where the loading bay was, was an adventure in itself as we didn’t have a map, passing all the bandsman and women etc. getting ready to perform and it was like wandering round a maze! However, we were the first to arrive and get served.
This was the end of our amazing day meeting other guide leaders, Scouts and Service personnel, I’m sure that Girlguiding Kent Weald county will do an amazing job next year and enjoy every minute, it is something I will never forget and was honoured to assist Dawn in doing this.
Julie Bryer
