Not Quite at the Chalet

I realise I’m getting a little ahead of myself with the title of my blog however I have been waiting for this moment for about 6 years. I first went to Our Chalet, the WAGGGS (World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts) world centre in Adelboden, Switzerland, in 2005 as a Young Leader with my Guide unit. We arrived in cloud (and left in cloud, but that’s another story!) and I distinctly remember going to the bathroom just after waking up on our first morning and my jaw dropping as a casual glance out the window revealed the most stunning mountains I had ever seen – the type I had seen in pictures but didn’t realise actually existed. Needless to say we had a week I haven’t yet forgotten, a real eye opener and a week of firsts. We swam in a glacial lake, we hiked up to the summit of the Bundesspitz in time to watch the sunrise (my first proper peak!), we went horse riding, I turned 16 and we visited the Cailler chocolate factory which had an all you can eat tasting room at the end. However, the one thing that stands out to me the most is a comment one of my leaders made to me: “I could imagine you working here…” At that age I had hardly given a thought about what A-levels I wanted to take, let alone what career took my fancy or whether I would ever work abroad.

Which ever leader it was who made that passing comment to me has a lot to answer for. Since that trip I have grabbed every opportunity to climb every mountain, ford every stream, follow every byway…errm hang on, so yeah since then the idea of working at the Chalet has always been at the back of my mind. Their summer season runs from too early in May to be compatible with the British school and university systems which is the only reason I haven’t done it yet. In the meantime though I discovered SSAGO (the Student Scout and Guide Organisation) and have been camping up and down the country with them. The Yorkshire branch made their first international trip this year. We spent a week in Slovakia and did some incredible hiking in the High Tatras. We also took my Leeds unit on the Girlguiding UK’s centenary trip to Our Chalet in February 2010.

International trips aside, my Guiding ‘career’ has gone from strength to strength since that first morning at Our Chalet. I became a qualified leader just after my 18^th birthday and have been an assistant leader with a Guide and a Brownie unit in Leeds and whilst I was in Austria I did my best to help with the Wichtel and Wölflinge (8-10 years) group in Zell am See – leading in German is tough, leading in Pinzgauerisch (the local dialect) resulted more to the WiWö leading me! The Cheshire Border ‘Get Wet Team’ have also successfully taught me to sail and thanks to them I got my Royal Yachting Association Dinghy Instructor qualification in 2009. Since leaving university I became Guider in Charge for a unit briefly which has been a pretty big learning curve, too – and, involves far more paperwork than I imagined!

I see my time at Our Chalet as my next Guiding adventure and although I’m still not entirely sure what it will involve, I am very much looking forward to Guiding on an international level and being a Waggg. I can’t wait for the snow to arrive and to spend my days off skiing, sledging or discovering the rest of Switzerland and particularly ‘Schwytzerteutsch’ a.k.a. Swiss German, but what I think will be the best part is the unknown – I’m almost certain that the long term staff and the guests will provide many unexpected challenges for us short term staff.