A dream job!

So, it's been a while my friends and lots has changed in my life - but that's for another day!

I have often said that Guiding is an amazing organisation for meeting people who you would never connect with in your normal life!

This is so true for me.

In 2010 I was fortunate to attend the Guiding Centenary Camp at Harewood House in Yorkshire. I had signed up as a general dogsbody and had no idea what I had let myself in for!

I ended up on my second day helping to put up a couple of large tents for a Guiding version of Ready Steady Cook! The person who would be leading this had yet to arrive, so a group of minions were left to do the hard work.

Just as we were putting the final tent pegs this leader arrived - she had a good enough excuse for not being there, she had flown back in from Afghanistan after ending her tour. She wasn't formally in the forces but had spent a period of time out there supporting them by working extremely hard in the background - living conditions weren't great but she managed it!

As I hadn't been assigned to anything in particular at that point, I asked if I could stay and help run the activity with her for the rest of the camp - she agreed and a friendship began.

We are similar in age and have the same sense of humour and you know when you meet some people that this friendship would continue even after the camp had finished. There were a group of 7 of us in total who helped to run this activity and apart from 1, we still try and meet up at least once a year. I am fortunate that I am in the middle of everyone and I do get to see some of them at least twice a year depending where I get to go with work.

This friend was then posted to a British Embassy for 3 years and I was fortunate enough to go out one year for the Queen's Birthday Party as her guest - another experience I would never had got if it wasn't for Guiding!

That posting finished almost 2 years ago now and she has been based back in London since then. She has floated between jobs as her next posting abroad was cancelled and to be honest she hasn't really settled into anything with the gusto she usually does.

20 years ago, she went out to work at Sangam for a year and she has always yearned to return to work there. Just before Christmas, she messaged me to say that the Centre Manager at Sangam job was being advertised and didn't know whether to apply or not - I told her she would be stupid if she didn't!

She applied and obviously got short-listed! Her skills from working for the Government make her perfect for the job. She then had a Skype interview and was given 24 hours to answer 3 questions in 1000 words. She submitted that and was then shortlisted to the final 3. She was then flown out to Sangam with less than a week's notice for her final interview. She loved being back out there and completed the interview and then flew back home on the Sunday and then the wait began!

She waited and waited and waited a bit more - then she messaged me to say that she had been asked to go into WAGGGS on the Thursday. She thought that they would let her know to her face that she hadn't got the job. She was so wrong - they offered her the job and she starts in June.

To her this is her dream job - she has so much to do out there though. The occupancy rate is below 36% and one of her first challenges is to get this increased but knowing her, she will do this.

I am so pleased for her as I know that she is perfect for this - she has so much experience at being the perfect host and getting people to work well together that I know Sangam has an absolute diamond coming to live there.

On the downside, her Rangers and Guides will loose out on a fantastic leader, I won't be able to hop on a train at 3pm and spend an evening in London with her just because we both need to have a rant about anything and everything and set the world to rights!

However, there is What's App and Messenger as well as FaceTime so we will be able to keep in touch, but I will really miss seeing her but hopefully I will be able to visit her at some point!