Westminster Abbey Thinking Day Service, London
23rd February 2008
Polaris was offered two invitations to the Thinking Day service in Westminster Abbey on 23rd February 2008. Names were put into a hat for this exciting opportunity and myself and Joanne were selected. Cecilia and ex-Polaris chair Nic decided that Jo and I couldn't be trusted in such a big city on our own so they had better come too, just to look after us.
Plans for the weekend went up and down but eventually the date came around and we arrived in Waverley Station with train tickets, somewhere arranged for us to stay and of course the tickets for the service. Five hours of square colouring-in later we found ourselves in London!
After a morning of general touristy sight-seeing, during which the number of uniformed children and adults randomly being spotted on the street became quite amusing, we joined the queue for the Abbey. When we reached the front door, we were immediately recognised as having VIP tickets and we were whisked off and taken right up to the choir stalls, at the very front of the church. We were surrounded by country and region commissioners and various other Important People, ourselves just making it our aim to keep quiet and be on best behaviour. The service had a theme of 'water' so along with the usual collection of singing, promise renewals and flag carrying, there were various presentations, stories and an address from the minister on the theme of the role of water on people's lives all around the world. At the end of the service every person there was given the opportunity to see the memorial stone for Lord and Lady BP which lies in the Abbey.
After the formal part of the weekend was over, the four of us continued in our quest to be tourists, taking silly photos and being very conspicuous on buses. Tuneful bells at St Paul's, an apparently fascinating crack in the floor of the Tate Modern, the attempt to find a sandwich at Piccadilly and much entertainment at the West End production of Cabaret kept us amused until we finally gave into exhaustion. As we travelled back North on the Sunday we decided that the time was right to plan the rest of our lives, from degrees, jobs, world travelling and babies to the simple challenge of colouring in the rest of those silly little squares.
I'd like to thank Dinah Faulds for giving us the opportunity to attend this amazing event. To be there, along with many hundreds of other Guides and Scouts, to celebrate such a special day for both Movements in such stunning setting was an experience that I will not forget. And along with that there were so many challenges, experiences and so much fun had over the weekend that I am filled with even more enthusiasm for Polaris, without which none of us would have been there.
- Kirsten Strain