Welcome to the 2011 version of ifg @ fairfield!  We started last year with three leaders, Kirsty Swears, Johanna Whittaker and Deborah Turlington, and 10 girls. At the end of the year Mrs Whittaker opted to take a sabbatical for  2011 and Mrs Turlington moved with her family to Paeroa. Leaving only one leader and who only knew how many girls?? 

God always provides.

Enter Mrs Kate Whitten!  Mrs Whitten has four strapping young sons, and no daughters, but she still stepped into the breach and came on board as the second leader of ifg @ fairfield for 2011.  Since the start of the year Kate has led the IFG camp (in the pouring rain), been mountain biking, played a ton of games, made mosaics and taught more about cycle safety than she ever thought possible.

Kirsty and Kate now enjoy the company of 17 young ladies on Monday nights from 6.30-8.00pm with a mix of games, devotions and activities.  This year the girls have completed their Mosiacz, Bushgirlz, Wheelz and Anzacz badges, and are working towards their Elderz and Jewelz badges for the rest of the term.

Helping with organising weekly activities is Kirsty's daughter, Rose.  Rose sets up and tidies up most evenings and helps out as needed through the night.  Heather Cochran of ICONZ at Fairfield kindly does all our administration for us, and so IFG keeps ticking along.

The hardest part of moving from 2010 to 2011 was needing to limit the age range of the group.  In 2010 we had girls from 8-14 as part of the group, but this year we are offering the programme to 8-11 year olds.  Some of our girls from last year have  not been able to come along this year as there is no one currently available in Hamilton to run the next level of IFG.  We miss these girl's contribution.  We hope that in 2012 we will be able to offer IFG to all the girls who would like to come along .

iconz4girlz@fairfield started in the first week of May last year with 14 girls.  We meet on Monday nights from 6.30pm-8.00pm at Fairfield Baptist Church.   We have between 12 and 14 girls coming along each week and share the Fairfield Baptist Church facilities with the ICONZ group.  Because our girls are largely drawn from the home school community at the moment, the age of the girls ranges from 7-14 years.  The older girls get together for separate activities, and join in well with the evening programmes.  The leaders are Kirsty Swears, Deborah Turlington and Johanna Whittaker, three Hamilton homeschooling Mums whose sons attend ICONZ and whose daughters wanted to join in the fun too. We really appreciate the help and advice we have received from Stu and also from Ross and Heather Cochran, who run Fairfield ICONZ.

We are working towards our trax badges and petz badges this term.  We have had two guest speakers, talking to the girls about the bush safety code and what to take with them on a bush walk, and doing some practical exercises about following tracks and working together as a team.  Weare planning a bush walk in the Pukemokemoke Reserve with IFG girls and their families on a Sunday afternoon and will have a summer walk in the fourth term.  Last week we started out on the Petz badge, talked about the wild birds we find in our gardens and combined recycling with craft to make milk bottle birdfeeders with wild bird seed mix to take home and hang in the garden.  Next week we will be bringing along domestic pets to talk about caring for animals. We start each evening with games, move into a Devotional time before embarking on the evening's badge activity.

It's been a steep learning curve for the IFG leaders, but we are working together well as a team, learning each other’s strengths and helping each other with the preparation and activities each week.