Team of Northants senior Guides claim stateside challenge prize during '˜trip of a lifetime'

From staging a flash mob Harlem Shake in Toronto Zoo to kayaking down a New Jersey river, a Northamptonshire group of Senior Section Guides 'smashed' a stateside competition to complete 100 weird and wonderful challenges.
By The Newsroom
Published 21st Aug 2016, 06:00 BST
Updated 25th Aug 2016, 17:05 BST
Senior Section Guides Ellie Cox, Selina Trory, Josie Pamment, Helen Odams and Imo Morrow-Goodman have returned from a trip of a lifetime in the US and Canada as victors of the Senior Section Go Stateside competition.Senior Section Guides Ellie Cox, Selina Trory, Josie Pamment, Helen Odams and Imo Morrow-Goodman have returned from a trip of a lifetime in the US and Canada as victors of the Senior Section Go Stateside competition.
Senior Section Guides Ellie Cox, Selina Trory, Josie Pamment, Helen Odams and Imo Morrow-Goodman have returned from a trip of a lifetime in the US and Canada as victors of the Senior Section Go Stateside competition.

The five girls, aged between 15 and 17 returned from the national Senior Section Go Stateside contest as winners this week, beating a field of 96 senior Girl Guides from around the UK.

The competition called on teams to travel to the United States and Canada to try and complete as many of 100 set challenges in 10 days.

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Brownie leader Charlee Welford, 30, of Little Houghton, led the group with an assistant, which managed to complete 96 of the 100 on a £1,200 budget, earning them a winners’ trophy.

She said: “We absolutely smashed it.

“Some of the challenges were easier than others like eating a local delicacy, we chose a ‘Corn Dog’.

“But then there were harder ones like ‘do a flash mob’.

“It was a trip of a lifetime.”

The group of girls, who all live in Northamptonshire and went by the team name The Princess Posse, staged a flash mob Harlem Shake while waiting in the queue to see baby pandas at Toronto Zoo.

For another challenge to “kayak down a local river” they borrowed a canoe from a New Jersey Girl Scouts group.

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And while struggling to “find a beauty pageant winner” the team used a bit of creative license, finding the winner of a local dog show and crowning it with a tiara.

The competition required the girls to head to three different states in Canada and the US and each completed challenge was worth a different amount of points depending on the difficulty.

The opening ceremony of the contest was held in Hype Park, London, with the Guides ending their 10 day trips with a closing ceremony in New York’s Central Park.

On winning the competition, ran by Girlguiding Midlands, Ms Welford said: “We just really went for it.

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“None of us were really that competitive until we got there - then we just thought ‘you know, we can do this’.”

Ms Welford is a Brownie leader in Weston Favell Village and works as a school nurse at Caroline Chisholm School, Wootton.

To find out more about joining the Guides, head to www.northantsguides.com

Related topics:NorthantsUnited StatesCanada