TWENTY four girls from the Girlguiding Mid Gloucestershire Division have returned home from an exhilarating overnight trip to Westonbirt Arboretum.

The girls, aged 13 years and upwards, who are older Guides and members of The Senior Section, enjoyed an exciting adventure as the first ever youth group to sleep out at the Arboretum.

After building bivouac shelters from branches and groundsheets in amongst the trees, they slept (more or less) in them overnight.

And, despite the rain in the early hours of the morning, everyone stayed warm and dry.

Izzy, 14, said: “It’s been great fun; after having dinner cooked over the fire, we spent a lot of last night looking out of our shelter at the stars”.

The activity was organised with Westonbirt Arboretums’ Community Youth Officer, Karen Price, as part of a Heritage Lottery Funded (HLF) project to develop and increase young people's engagement with, access to, and enjoyment of the National Arboretum.

The idea that the girls could sleep out at Westonbirt came from the young people themselves, during the consultations that Karen has been carrying out with local youth organisations to establish what they'd like to do at the Arboretum.

The group’s leader Mary Hall said: “The sleep out at Westonbirt was a great chance for the girls to get away and enjoy each other’s company in a safe, girl-only space.

We wanted to take them out of their comfort zone, challenging them to sleep outside without even a tent for shelter in October. They rose to the challenge and had a great time, and have already asked about doing it again!”

Adventures like this are just part of the range of activities open to girls and young women through Girlguiding, which gives them their own space to grow in confidence, raise their aspirations and have fun.