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Laurie Pearson The Trefoil Guild


Guiding isn’t just for girls! There’s a group of adventurous Dartmouth ladies who meet every month to go on boat trips, learn balloon modeling, plant trees, hold garden parties and look around local prisons! The Trefoil Guild is ‘guides for seniors’ available to anyone who’s over 18 and still has that courageous spirit to try something new - even at the age of 90! Laurie Pearson helps run the local unit, she told our reporter Steph Woolvin it’s all about food, fun and friendship!


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ooking at 80-year-old Laurie sitting in her tidy home above South Ford Pre School with her homemade cards around her, you wouldn’t think she has a double life! The truth is when she isn’t here Lau- rie likes to be out of doors, travelling and ten pin bowling! Laurie is part of the Trefoil Guild which is a sister organisation to Girlguiding. Back in the 1920s ex-guides with a longing to still be part of the association began to form unofficial groups. A few years later an organisation called the 'Old Guides' was formed and was re-named the ‘Trefoil Guild’ in 1943. Now there are over a thou- sand branches across the UK.


Anyone can join – male or female.


(Men were first allowed access in 1984). You don’t have to have been in the Guides as a child; the only condition is that you make the ‘promise’… I promise that I will do my best: • To be true to myself and develop my beliefs, • To serve the Queen and my community, • To help other people • To keep the (Brownie) Guide Law. Each group plans its own pro-


gramme of activities tailored to its members. That could be walking, singing, baking, kite flying, danc- ing or day tripping. There are also the holidays, which could include getting to grips with locks on canal barges or helping in African orphanages. They also do their bit in the community supporting carol services, charities, making aid boxes for children overseas and helping out in local Brownie and Guide units. Laurie says they don’t work on traditional badges like the younger contingent: “We have a Voyage Award which was established in


2013. It’s like the Duke of Edinburgh Scheme but for older people! You have to do various jobs, activities and services in your community to achieve a bronze, silver or gold certificate and badge. It can include trying something new like yoga, helping Brownies bake cakes or making creative things to sell for your local church.” Some of these things come easily to Laurie who is a dab hand at crafts and makes her own quilts and cards. London born Laurie has been


involved almost from the start. She is a Guiding stalwart being part of the movement since she was a schoolgirl. “I began with the Brownies then Guides, and became a Sea Ranger in my teens, that’s the oldest section and is basically Guides on the water.” Like so many others she found it hard to give up and soon started volunteering as a helper whilst working as a bank clerk for Lloyds here in Dartmouth (she transferred from a branch in London) She then decided to take a break from Guiding…well, that was the idea! “There was a Sea Ranger training ship on the River Dart back then and the leaders would come into the bank every now and again,” Laurie explains with a smile. “One day I mentioned that I recognised the name of my old Sea Ranger skip- per on a cheque. That was a mistake!


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