Rainbows year in review

We asked our brilliant Rainbow leaders to write a review of what their unit had been up to in 2023. Take a look below to find out what they said!! 

2nd Lossiemouth Rainbows enjoyed tasting a treat when celebrating, be it St Andrews Day, Burn’s Night, Chinese New Year or King Charles’ Coronation! Some of our pencil express challenge pictures were displayed at Elgin library and our Rainbows and pots of gold are still on show in our hall. We enjoyed a variety of crafts from paper cup robots, monster sock puppets, Christmas angels to tooth fairy collection shells. We contributed recycled plastic poppies to Lossiemouth community’s remembrance display and donated cosy bunny socks and handwarmers for the children in Ukraine. We had a ‘crazy’ time at the County Thinking Day Event and a ‘magical’ time at the Matilda mighty movie screening.

Another fantastic and busy year for the Brochers in 2022-23! Along with working our way through the program and completing purple, blue and pink theme awards, we also gave out over 25 interest badges! We particularly loved making butter with the Rainbows and cross-stitching with the Brownies, and we will never forget the hilariously dramatic accident scenes the girls concocted to show off their new first aid skills. We had one Bronze, four Silver and seven Gold Awards to present across the two units too. We are incredibly proud of all our girls regardless of badges, but it is lovely to see such hard work and enthusiasm being rewarded. Out with the program, we had some awesome activities to keep us busy! We partied our socks off, making clay lamps for Diwali, snowflakes for Christmas, and decorating biscuits at Easter. We were crafting like there was no tomorrow too, particularly at our Christmas sleepover in Roseisle Hall with games, glitter and marshmallows. We were creative, getting involved in the Pencil Express challenge and with some girls lucky enough to have their work displayed in Elgin Library.

 1st Hopeman Brownies have had a great year. The girls participated in lots of programme activities and earned 2 skills builders. The girls particularly enjoyed doing the positivity pebbles. We also did the sock puppet activity and put on a show for parents afterwards. In September the girls all did their local history badge, and we were given a walking tour of the village by a local historian. It was interesting, and the girls loved to hear about times past. Our Halloween mad scientist night was a bit crazy and great fun however the tidying up afterwards wasn’t quite as much fun! The girls took part in the Thinking Day event at Elgin Town Hall and it was a great afternoon which they all enjoyed. In June we had a wonderful night celebrating the King’s Coronation. We had our own mini coronation ceremony which was hilarious and finished off with a proper tea party. Looking forward to starting back and another year's fun.

For our first meeting back after the summer holidays we had a Rainbow Nature Hunt which was our second activity towards our ‘Have Adventures’ Nature Interest Badge. This involved our Rainbows exploring the outdoor grounds of Duffus Church. to create their own unique transient art pictures. In September we were happy to complete the ‘Pencil Express’ challenge. For drawing ourselves we received a special pencil and another Badge. We were delighted to see our work displayed in Elgin Library. We were so proud of the confidence, teamwork and thoughtfulness the girls demonstrated to create their display poster. November was a busy month for our Rainbows. In preparation for our annual Remembrance Day Service at Hopeman Memorial Hall we all made our own poppies to decorate Hopeman Memorial Hall. We were really proud to walk up Harbour Street, with the other Guiding and Scouting Organisations, carrying our Rainbow flag. As part of our ‘Be Well’ First Aid Stage 2 Skills Builder Badge we had a visit from Kayleigh, and Freddie the teddy, from Mini First Aid. We learnt what should be in our First Aid Kit, how to apply plasters and bandages, the importance of ‘sit, chop and chew’ when eating, who to phone in an emergency and the importance of knowing our address and how to put each other in the recovery position. In December we were excited to wrap our seasons calendar which we had created from handprint trees and different coloured fingerpainted foliage. Our families were delighted with their gift and we were awarded our ‘Have Adventures’ Nature Interest Badge. Following on from our visit from Mini First Aid visit we completed another activity towards our ‘Be Well’ First Aid Stage 2 Skill Builder Badge. This involved us using our special teddies as a Breathing Buddy. Alongside this we learnt a fun poem ’Dot Dot, Line Line..’ We enjoyed being part of the Moray Thinking Day afternoon in Elgin Town Hall where we joined others from all the Girlguiding sections. The activities were based on the Theme of Friendship. We were very proud of all our Rainbows and how well behaved and enthusiastic they were when participating at this event. We began March with another badge challenge for the ‘Take Action’ Influence Stage 2 Skill Builder. There was lots of hilarity as we chose from a selection of dressing up clothes to create different book characters. Then we had to put our character in a story starting with ‘Once upon a time…’ To continue our creativity, we designed our own flower arrangement for our families from fresh flowers and oasis. What a lot of concentrating Rainbows and our families were so pleased with their gift. To end Term 3 we had an outdoor sensory Easter Egg Hunt. Dressed up as Easter Bunnies we had to search for 11 Easter eggs thinking about all the sounds, textures and colours we saw and heard around us. We were delighted that this was the final part of our ‘Be Well’ Healthy Mind Interest badge and enjoyed our chocolate treat! Our final term of the year started with a discussion as to how we could celebrate the Coronation of King Charles. We decided we wanted to create our own coronation crowns and bunting, make up a ‘Congratulations’ song and have a final Coronation Picnic celebration wearing our finest party clothes to toast our new King. We were all certainly ‘dressed up’ to celebrate. Finally, we created a special card for King Charles with photos of all our Coronation activities and sent it to Buckingham Palace. It was time to weed our Rainbow Garden again and we are looking forward to watch our new planted seeds grow. In June as part of Moray Guiding’s contribution to King Charles111’s ‘Big Help Out’, to celebrate his Coronation, we did a beach clean and litter pick at Hopeman with our families. Once we had collected all the litter, we created our own stone Rainbow on the beach. We think our families enjoyed this event just as much as us! Our end of term treat was an ice-cream kindly donated by Stew N’ Drew of Hopeman. Our ice creams were delicious and a perfect treat to end our Rainbow year! Well done Duffus Rainbows for being such enthusiastic Rainbows and fulfilling your Rainbow Promise. We are looking forward to more Rainbows joining our Unit and working on more of our badges in August.

4th Keith Brownies have enjoyed working towards our Have Adventures and Take Action theme award. We went to the local church to sign the condolence book for the Queen. We took part in our local Remembrance parade and joined all of Moray Guiding to celebrate Thinking Day. Celebrating the King’s Coronation, we created our own crowns and had some cake. We had our first pack holiday and a sleepover since Covid, great enjoyment was had. We had brilliant fun with the Take Action theme award and creating fashion out of trash. Our final night of Brownies we went bowling! Congratulations to our leader Holly for completing the Adult Leadership Qualification! Congratulations to our Brownies, Faye and Holly who received their Gold Award.

1st New Elgin Rainbows had a great year with many joint activities with 2nd New Elgin Brownies including a Halloween party, Coronation celebration and a trip to the Elgin Museum. We also had great fun crafting and experimenting and the girls really enjoyed making Easter baskets and fruit kebabs. Our new favourite game is Hiding Hedgehogs, a Get Sporty UMA. During the year we covered the Take Action, Be Well and Skills for My Future themes and 6 of our Rainbows earned their Bronze award!

2nd New Elgin Rainbows have been super busy this year, with all 8 girls moving on to 3 different Brownies Units and 10 new Rainbows joining the unit! We’ve had lots of fun with our favourite arts and crafts, playing games and learning new ones, exploring our outdoor space and performing on the stage! World Thinking Day events, Matilda cinema experience and our trip to Asda was a highlight of our year! We loved finding out all that goes on behind the scenes, going on our 'saver and spender' shopping sprees and especially being checkout colleagues, we'd highly recommend any unit to get in touch with Irene the Community Champion! Earning lots of badges and making lots of memories (and we can't do these without making a mess....and we love to do that too!)

1st and 2nd Elgin Rainbows opened back up after a short break. We were very fortunate to have hall space and amazing new volunteers Hazel and Eilidh. We welcomed 10 new girls to our unit and to the lovely family of Girlguiding Moray. We had some fantastic trips out to the cinema and took part in the Big Beach Clean-up. The girls worked super hard and completed some skills builders and at the end of term made their Promise. It was lovely to be back and working as a unit again. We can’t wait to see what adventures this next year will bring. 

1st Lhanbryde and Urquhart Rainbows have enjoyed a great year. It started with achieving our Pencil Express badges. We had a lovely visit to Elgin library to explore our digital skills to achieve our Google badge. We contributed several shoe boxes to the Blythwood Christmas shoebox appeal. Everyone dressed up for our Halloween party where we made some spooky ghosts and spiders. We participated in the Remembrance parade in Elgin and then achieved some retro Beatrix Potter badges! We successfully planted our trees as part of The Queen’s Jubilee Tree Canopy, and we have a special plaque to commemorate our participation in this UK event. In January 2023 we started the year with some celebrations to mark the Lunar festival and then Robert Burns. We all thoroughly enjoyed the county Thinking Day celebration at Elgin Town Hall. We have made great use of our sewing machine and have achieved sewing bags, bookmarks and bunting. During our summer term we visited St. Andrew’s and Urquhart Bowling where everyone had a fantastic evening where the Rainbows achieved Blue Peter sport badges. Thank you to our three young leaders who have committed their time weekly to our sessions. They along with our parent helper are a fantastic team who we could not do without.

What a busy year we have had at Cullen Rainbows. When we returned from our summer holidays, we started working on our First Aid Skills Builder badge. We also visited the fire station, which wasgreat fun, they let us see the engine and knock down blocks with the hose. From Halloween party, silent disco and Christmas party too we have had a blast, we hope all the happy memories willsurely last. Lots of girls joined and made their promise. In the new year we attended the ThinkingDay event in Elgin, we also had a King’s Coronation party. We have been playing games, baking, visiting the library, litter picking and having fun indoors and outdoors and earning lots of badgesalong the way. A special mention to Isla who has earned her Gold Award before moving on to Brownies.

We have had a busy year and one that allowed us to get back to ‘normal’. Hawaiian Party Night Outdoor Cooking – Sausages and pancakes - yummy! In the Autumn, after renewing our Promise with the County Commissioner in September. We celebrated Parliament Week with Big Ben activities and raised money for Children in Need with a Litter Pick during our mini sleepover in Buckie as well as programme activities. In the Spring we really enjoyed joining with the County for Thinking Day and had a proper sleepover for the older girls with the remainder joining us for the day. During the sleepover we went to Artisans in Buckie where we painted canvases. We also surveyed Fochabers and decided it was a reasonable place to live though it had more litter than it should have. We said goodbye to Moon (Lisa) as she moved to run Fochabers Brownies at Easter but know that we will see her at joint activities. The summer term saw us out and about doing the Trefoil Guild 80th Birthday badge with a trail round Fochabers, a litter pick in Mosstodloch, learning the Promise in Makaton, sending cards to Anderson’s and making a Guiding family tree to decorate the hall. At the end of July, we ran a Hook the Duck at the Fountain during the Fochabers Gala again. We were grateful to the Developing Guiding Fund and the Gannochy Trust as well as Fochabers Village Association for funding over the year.

The Rainbows in Buckie have had great fun this year and we have had lots of girls achieve their Bronze Award and we had Delilah who was presented with a Guiding Hero Award in recognition of her fundraising efforts for a little girl names Tilly who has cerebral palsy - Well done Delilah for thinking of others before yourself. We have had fun making crafts, making pompoms for Buckie Roots Crafters to put in their sea life knitted display in the square, baking, making pizzas, film night, parties, going to the Thinking Day Event, making puppets, making teddies into a superhero, litter picking, decorating stones and so much more.

1st Forres Rainbows have had a very busy year. We have completed several Skills Builders including Teddy Travels and the Good Nights activities. We also made blanket tents/dens which was great fun. A visit from Rex’s Reptiles proved very popular, the girls were all very brave. We did pancake tasting on Ash Wednesday, made coronation crowns and played lots of games. We also made nut and bolt keyring for dads at Father’s Day. Trips out of the unit included going to Brodie Castle to see their Illuminations in November. We also had great fun when we went to Pinz soft play. We look forward to another great year!

2nd Forres Rainbows continue to amaze us every week. Their enthusiasm to learn new things and give everything a try is so encouraging. Another busy year of fun and adventure. The girls made remembrance cards recalling their memories of her majesty the Queen. This also made them aware of loss and the empathy in their messages was heart-warming. The Rainbows had lots of fun nights at Forres library enjoying the use of the library while quiet! They have looked for the different birds on their display; made bookmarks and designed a town and then built it out of Lego some great designs, working on the construction badge. Christmas cake baking and crafts, at our annual craft day made for a busy day making 10 different crafts! The girls also enjoyed Carol singing at Cameron Court. County events to the cinema to see The Little Mermaid and Thinking Day allowed the Rainbows to meet up with lots of members from across the County. They had a lovely evening doing an Easter egg hunt at The Tolbooth in Forres visiting the cells in search of hidden eggs! Eight new Rainbows made their promise to the King. Teddy travels was a great activity with the girls learning about passports and travelling - the girls did enjoy the international food tasting experience - tortillas and Guacamole in Mexico; Yorkshire pudding, digestives and cheddar cheese in England; Switzerland had salami and chocolate marshmallows and India delicious Burfi sweets made by Meerkat. Involved with the Big help Out the Rainbows did a litter pick on Hopeman Beach. Along with a visit from Spey Bay Dolphin Centre the girls learnt lots of new things and enjoyed exploring dolphin bones. They celebrated the coronation of King Charles with a party, making crowns and eating some very special soldier biscuits. The Rainbows had great fun at the end of year sausage sizzle, soaking Meerkat with wet sponges to complete their water challenge badge. Roasting marshmallows to make S'mores finished a busy year. Another exciting year ahead can't wait to share it all again.