Be part of the new National Training Centre

Help us unlock our future in the new National Training Centre

Dear members, parents and supporters,

We are embarking on a campaign to build a LEGO wall in our new National Training Centre – and we need your help. As you may know, Irish Girl Guides bought a building last year to develop into the future home of IGG – a place for training, for sharing and for each and every one of our members to visit. In line with our focus on the importance of STEM, we want to build an entire wall from bright colourful LEGO blocks representing our members and the importance of play and fun in Guiding. This is an opportunity for each of us to get involved and sponsor a block and it means that our Units and members will have the opportunity to be part of the engineering of their new National Training Centre from it’s begining.

Sponsor your LEGO block and we will print a name or logo on your block – or blocks. You can choose a colour and leave it blank or have your name, or your Unit’s name on the block. Perhaps you would like a block in memory of someone else or on behalf of your family. Some Units have already bought blocks in the name of a camp or event they attended so it will forever be on the walls of IGG’s National Training Centre. This is everyone’s chance to be part of the future of the Irish Girl Guides and be represented in our new home.

Each piece of duplo LEGO means €50 will be dedicated to the fit out and renovation of the new National Training Centre. You can sponsor your LEGO block right here https://irishgirlguides.ie/sponsor-a-lego-block/  Email us at property@irishgirlguides.ie if you have any questions.

Strong and pragmatic women have chartered our geographical history and have made our transitions possible. Up to 1935 Irish Guiding had no National Headquarters, but that year, Lady Powerscourt negotiated the lease of the top floor of 4 Dawson Street in Dublin. The office was sparse to begin with but in a short piece of writing taken from the historical records of the move, it was the many kind benefactors who made this a new home: “To 4 Dawson Street our only piece of furniture, a very small cupboard, was triumphantly removed. Our spirits were then raised by the gift of a cheerful roll of carpeting from the Deputy Chief Commissioner. The Chief Commissioner presented curtains and an invaluable table to which Mrs. Lombard Murphy added a cloth, Lady Walsh a blotter and Miss de Selby an inkstand. To her we also owe gratitude for a charming little picture, and to Lady Murphy for a clock, to Miss Kenny for bookshelves, to Miss Dease and Mrs. Leigh-White for a carved tray and to Mrs. and Miss Beatty for the brass plate on the door.’’

We now need you to be the Miss de Selby’s, the Lady Walsh’s and the Miss Beaty’s –  but to sponsor LEGO blocks in place of bookshelves and brass plates, and help to create a unique and productive space for our girls, and the sisters behind them, to become the change makers of the future. Please share this appeal with the wider circle of Guiding supporters – parents, friends, past-members – and together we can build IGG’s first National Training Centre.

Here is a link to a brochure outlining the plans and dreams for the National Training Centre:  Irish Girl Guides National Training Centre 2020

Thank you,

Helen Concannon

On behalf of the Executive Committee of IGG

Chair of the National Training Centre Committee, Irish Girl Guides, Belgard Square East, Tallaght, Dublin 24