Helen Storrow Seminar 2018

By Becca Rodgers

At the beginning of February I was lucky enough to have the opportunity to travel to Switzerland and take part in the WAGGGS Helen Storrow Seminar at Our Chalet. The Helen Storrow Seminar is an annual event where young women from around the world come together for a week to learn about leadership, change and the environment. It was founded in August 1986 and is named after Helen Storrow, and important figure in the early Girl Scout movement in America, and the founder of Our Chalet.

This year was the biggest seminar yet, with 42 participants, and 40 countries represented at Our Chalet. They have a tradition of putting the flags from all the countries present in a little flag log. They had to drill more holes into the log just for this event! For many of the participants it was the first time they had ever seen snow.

Throughout the week, sessions were held on the WAGGGS 6 leadership mindsets, examples of environmental leaders and change makers, as well as creating our own change plan to implement in our own community. It was great seeing the wide variety of change plans people came up with. They ranged from reducing trash on the streets and encouraging recycling to combating deforestation. I will be working on creating a badge to teach guides about environmental issues, and the changes they can make in their everyday lives to reduce their environmental impact.

As well as the seminar at Our Chalet, mini pop-up seminars were run throughout the world. During the seminar we were able to interact with some of these pop-ups via video call. It was inspiring to see what these other groups had been doing.

It wasn’t all work however. We also got to go sledging. It was great fun and a nice break from the more serious sessions. Every evening a session was run by the Our Chalet staff. These included a Swiss night, with a visit from an alpine horn player, an international night, with presentations and swaps from all the participants, and a “Who Wants to be a WAGGGS Millionaire” quiz. I also managed to find time to complete the Our Chalet Challenge.

It was an amazing experience I will never forget. It has given me a great group of friends from all over the world, as well as helping me develop my leadership skills and confidence.