Options for holiday with 40 girls aged 7-14

[GGPackHolidayHereWeCome]

I’m a Brownies leader, currently in the final planning stages of our summer holiday pack holiday with the Guide Group.

For the first day we provide a lunch for the coach, or if we cannot cater for allergies/preferences we ask the parents to provide one and knock the cost per child off the overall holiday.

Was thinking of offering the choice of 1 from each of these categories:

Main

Sausage Roll
Sandwich or Wrap – Chicken, Tuna, Ham, Cheese Spread

Fruit

Apple
Banana
Orange

Then 2 of each the following:

Cucumber and Carrot Sticks (can be done separately if girls ask for it)
Cheesestring or Babybell (whichevers cheaper at the time)
6 Cocktail Sausages
Chocolate or Blueberry Muffin (Made by the café)
Mini Packet of Digestive Biscuits (this is by far the most popular option or was pre-covid, the girls seem to love them)

A local café* is providing 2 per child of mini dips like you get in mcdonalds and also bottled water enough for the 3-hour journey (we’re planning for 3 bottles per girl). We always have squash which we can make up at the stop off – Apple and Blackcurrant or Orange, girls can choose.

The girls are aged 7-14 and we’re responsible for the lunch for all 40 girls going just for this day. The other meals are provided by the centre and with those all allergies are catered for (we also do some of the cooking with the centre staff which goes towards badge work).

To add there is a rough budget but as most of the costs are included we do have a flexible budget. Girls will eat this at the stop off but the lunches will come separately in a cool box with one of the leaders so we can have anything kept cold.

They will also eat their evening about 2 hours after they arrive at the centre, plus they always eat the biscuits on the coach rather than when we stop.

The other leaders think we should offer more for this one meal then we are, but weren’t sure what else to add or change?

*The café is owned by Brown Owls parents so we have a very good relationship with them, they’re always helping us out like this in exchange for us thanking them on letters to Parents and Facebook posts so we know what we can ask for and what they'll provide.

3 bottles of water per girl for a 3 hour drive?

Noooooooooooooo

1 bottle is fine, unless you want to be stopping every 10 mins! Most kids only have water at school, casn you ask them to provide their own water bottle (boosts your green credentials too)

@Loverofoxbowlakes Ohh yeah I like that, ask parents to provide the water would work.

3 bottles is a lot we're not expecting them to all drink 3 bottles, it's just overplanning is what we do.

Please I beg you - no tuna sandwiches on a bus.
The smell is vile 🤮🤢

@Needmorelego We stop off at a place that has picnic benches and eat lunch there.

I'd offer hummus instead of cheese spread.

if we cannot cater for allergies/preferences we ask the parents to provide one and knock the cost per child off the overall holiday.

Is there a reason you want to provide lunches? It would be much easier to ask parents / carers to provide a packed lunch. Also if the coach journey is only 3 hours then they won't need 3 bottles of water. One drink will be plenty

@GGPackHolidayHereWeCome phew that’s ok.
All I could think was hot and stuffy coach + tuna sarnies = 🤮
😂

I would forget the lunches and ask parents to provide

@Whinge It's just a little tradition of the group, we povide lunch.

We overplan delibrately, we don't expect them to drink 3 bottles of water.

Tradition is great, but not when it means you're making so much more work for yourselves. Parents / carers are happy to provide lunches. Asking them to send a lunch cuts down on food wastage and means each child is getting something they like and will eat.

@MandUs Can't have hummus due to the tahini/seasame seeds, we have a couple of girls with those allergies.

@Whinge I've found the opposite, many parents think the no nuts/seasame seeds etc rule doesn't apply to us, so it's much easier to provide it. We've only ever had one girl we couldn't provide lunch for as she gluten and soy intolerant, allergic to dairy and peanuts so her parents provided a lunch but otherwise we provide.

Im a Brown Owl. I'd say your menu is very pork heavy. Ham / sausage roll / cocktail sausages etc. I'd knock one of those off the list and maybe swap for something else? Like an egg sandwich or a flapjack or oat bar depending on allergies etc. Cheese slices might be better than cheese spread which is very processed as well.

We do no pudding until after fruit so you might want to consider holding back the muffins and biscuits until everyone has had some fruit or cucumber / carrot sticks etc first.

Are you on the FB Guiding Pack Holidays & Camps group? There'll be good menus there that you could look at.

But to be honest, i always ask parents to provide a packed lunch for the first lunch journey. Its a nice tradition but I'd be thinking about knocking the cost off for everyone at the minute.

Have a great time!

Sandwich not sausage roll (you can cover vegetarians and less fatty).

Apple probably better than the other fruit.

Digestive biscuits as those are suitable in all temperatures.

Hope everyone has a lovely time.

@GuidingSpirit Thank you you're right very pork heavy, will switch some options around. Eggs a good bet as an extra option and then add flapjacks and oat bars to the pudding bit.

We have the no pudding until after fruit rule to!

I'm not on FB but Brown Owl is so I'll get her to take a look at the group, thank you

I love oranges but will they not be hard for some of them to peel?

On our recent Cub camp the lunch was...

Sandwich (ham, cheese, or jam- they chose and make their own)
Crisps
Fruit
Cake (fairy cake this year)

It was an activity camp... but they had had breakfast or cereal/toast/sausage/egg/bacon/beans for breakfast as well.

I'm an explorer leader, formerly a cub leader.

Making 40 pack ups for the journey is a huge cost of time and money, tradition or otherwise.,Asking parents to provide a pack up for the journey is not, with guidelines on allergies.

This week end we've had:
Friday supper - hotdogs and damper bread cooked on fires

Sat breakfast -DIY cereal, with option of cooking your own eggs and bacon on Trangias (I appreciate that this is only feasible really with teens)

Sat lunch - sandwhiches, crisps, salady bits, cake

Sat supper will s'mores

Sun breakfast will be eggy bread

Sun lunch with be sandwhiches ahsin

Seriously, just get each parent to send their packed lunch, and drinks.

If you want to have a stash of spare drinks (though hardly necessary for such a short journey) then do so, but you are really creating a mass of work for yourselves at a time when you've all got other things you can be doing.

This is just madness. I speak of someone who has been involved in taking young people away for nigh on 40 years, usually traveling a lot longer than that.

Did Guide camp a couple of weeks ago and we provided:
1 sandwich - ham, cheese or ham and cheese
cheesestrings
fruit
carrot and cucumber sticks - no dips
those tube yoghurts
crisps
cake (provided by the girls as our tradition is that all girls provide cakes to share)
squash or water.

Everyone ate most of it and lunch was at 12. Tea was at 7 and we had no complaints of hunger in between.
I also agree that they only need one bottle of water which parents can provide in their own water bottle. If my daughter (7) could have squash and up to 3 bottles of water on a coach journey she would wet herself. By all means have spares in case of coach break down, traffic, but they only need 1 bottle initially.

Thank you great ideas here, will definitely get the girls to provide cakes/brownies/whatever snacks they want love that idea @RantyMcGee

Too much choice, you're going to end up with loads of waste.

Far better to bring their own packed lunch.

Options? Mine would be to run screaming into the distance!

Except if its raining.

In Guiding/Scouting the wet weather plan is usually waterproofs.