T-Bird Anni Rides Again

this week last year I covered the Cheshire Show with the Red Cross.  We had to be there at 8am At The Latest and didn’t get away til nearly 8pm on the Tuesday, I was treated like a diserter for leaving early to collect my child from my parents on the Wednesday as they couldn’t keep her past 5pm due to prior commitments.  She was with them because children don’t come on duty, in fact how dare you have children at all really?  We were on duty for the full time, with "breaks" being fairly grudgingly given for those of us in the tent (the Ladies Who Lunch amble round with radios and first aid kits whilst taking in the show, the Workers try to find where the LWL are when they give vague descpriptions of where they have found a casualty but otherwise don’t really see the outside of the tent much at all)  There is always a struggle to get sufficient people to staff it.

Today I covered the Cheshire Show with Girl Guides.  We were asked to be there about half an hour before our rota-ed shift which for me and Aprilia was 9:30am.  They were delighted that i could bring my own Brownie with me and how lovely that she came in uniform.  There were sufficient people willing to work just one short shift in return for a free day at the show that we were a bit crowded in the tent and some of the ladies went out to hunt down a few more visitors for us! We had a great time on the stand, Aprilia pretty much ran the activity set up (a rope maze that people had to climb through without ringing any of the bells strung from the ropes) as well as making sure there were plenty of goodlie bags filled and ready to hand out.  More’s the point, she was ALOWED to run it, under the quiet supervision of one of the Guiding equivelent of the Ladies Who Lunch (the Trefoil Guild) leaving me to chat to stand visitors and glow with pride over my girlie!  After my 2 hour shift was over we wandered round for a while, had a go on the fun fair and then headed back home all happy and feeling generally loved by our organisation rather than used by it.

Would you like to guess which organisation will be getting my assistance in future years?