Guides’ ‘festival’ at Waddow was great

The Bank Holiday weekend saw over 700 members of GirlGuiding attend a Festival-style camp at Waddow (“Wellies and Wristbands”), and I was fortunate to attend with some local Guides.
Waddow Hall in Waddington, near Clitheroe. G070711/5nWaddow Hall in Waddington, near Clitheroe. G070711/5n
Waddow Hall in Waddington, near Clitheroe. G070711/5n

This was a new concept for Guiding, with food provided centrally and no campfires allowed, but live music every night, events all day and a lot of activities and crafts on offer, including kayaking, raft building, abseiling, trampolining, dancing, hot tubs, wood carving and African drumming to name a few.

The event was excellent – well organised with freedom given to a lot of girls in a safe and fun environment, with activities to promote teamwork, leadership and confidence building, as well as an excuse to let off steam and have a great time.

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As a resident living within earshot of Beatherder, I can appreciate people may have been apprehensive about the potential noise and disruption, but from what I saw, the music was well controlled and within reasonable hours for campers and residents.

I hope this is an event which is repeated at Waddow – it also introduced a lot of visitors from fairly far afield (including Hereford, Scotland, Wales and Isle of Man) to the Ribble Valley and Clitheroe.

Well done to all the organisers and attendees – I didn’t see any rubbish left on site by campers or litter in the local area, and our visitors enjoyed seeing a little of Clitheroe and Waddington, with some attending church services on Sunday morning in Clitheroe.

Well done to Waddow and the Girlguiding members that took part, job well done.

Harriet Wibberley,

via email

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