I couldn't find a link to this so have added it now.

This is a collection of notes, letters and memories from GirlGuides and Girl Scouts around the world who have inspired Mel. It is full of love and photos and is really beautiful. Thanks Andii and those at WAGGS who organised this it's a truly precious gift.

https://groupcards.io/share/u…

This is the tribute to Mel read by Andii Gosling - thank you so much Andii.

The whole service can be seen either on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

or downloaded from the vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/1081843153/…

Mel Tribute - Andii

As many of you know, Girl Guiding goes on not only in the UK but all over the world. I have the honour of telling you a little about Mel's contribution to our international Movement, as a volunteer with the World Association of Girl Guides and Girl Scouts.

I can't help but start this part of Mel's story with a memory from when he was a Ranger. We became friends when we were about 14, as volunteers with Bramley Hill Rangers and Trefoil Group. I'll skip incriminating stories from our teenage days, but I clearly remember Mel telling me one day that she was writing a letter to our County Commissioner, saying she wanted to "do more" in Guiding. Mel was never one to sit back if she could see a way to make something happen, and that letter opened doors to, well, many of the things Sue just shared. One door it opened was Mel being selected to attend a special international event for young women from around the world called the Juliette Low Seminar, at Our Chalet, in 2002. It may give you a sense of Mel's journey since if I tell you that, 17 years later, Mel was the lead volunteer for the 2019 Juliette Low Seminar, enabling 500 young women from over 100 countries to take a step on their own international journeys.

Right now, there are more than ten million Girl Guides and Girl Scouts in 153 countries - and Mel had friends in most of them. Friends who considered her an advisor, a mentor, an inspiration. Some never met her in person, and only know her as a smiling face on a Zoom call - but that smile had power! Mel made people feel safe, feel heard, and feel like there was someone out there who was always cheering them on. That's exactly what Mel did, with endless generosity and humility, for hundreds of volunteers around the world.

Mel really cared about doing things right. Not for the sake of it, but because she believed deeply in doing everything she could, from the big plans to the tiny details, to create the best possible experience for others. It didn't matter whether she was designing a training session, planning a large scale event for hundreds of girls, or mentoring a volunteer, Mel would always do her absolute best to make it brilliant. It also had to be fun. Mel's sense of fun and capacity for silliness was infectious, transcending borders and language barriers, and volunteers always felt lucky to be on her team.

I was lucky enough to be Mel's sidekick in global Guiding for over ten years. Out of ALL our projects and plans, the ones Mel would get most excited about were when she could create new opportunities and resources that empowered others. Oh, and any chance to use her laminator. Mel used to say she hated crafts but if there was an opportunity to make a creative facilitation tool, her resistance seemed to fade away very quickly...

Mel's passion for international Guiding, as well as her willingness to take on any challenge, led to her supporting projects both for the Europe Region and globally, from leading international teams and running large scale events to working 1:1 with national Guiding organisations to support their development. This also meant lots of international trips, often with Ned and Barney. In fact Barney's first Guiding trip was to India some months before he was born, when we went to faciitate a national workshop with Bharat Scouts and Guides. The journey to the training centre was something like nine hours by bumpy road, hardly easy for someone with morning sickness - but Mel managed it with a smile over gritted teeth!

Ned and Barney were also there at the WAGGGS World Conference in Cyprus in 2023, where Mel presented a new learning and development policy to the whole Movement. That's the other area where Mel's contribution has been immeasurable. Driven by her passion for making Guiding around the world the best it can be for girls she worked on global policies and tools to improve its quality. That might sound a bit dry, but through this work Mel has been a meaningful part of making Guiding more relevant for millions of girls. Despite the scale of her work, Mel always stayed rooted in the realities of grassroots Guiding. She had the rare skill of making complex ideas accessible and practical in any context, and being able to think about big concepts and practical detail at the same time. She was also a dab hand at spotting spelling and punctuation errors in anything our team produced...

Mel never stopped wanting to "do more" for Guiding. Last November, we went to Japan to run a leadership training with Girl Scouts Japan, and to have an amazing adventure with our families - if you'd like to know more about that, look out for Ned's wonderful trip journal. It turned out to be the last chance Mel had to travel for Guiding. Despite it being incredibly tough for her physically, Mel's resilience and determination to facilitate carried her through planning and delivering the workshop, focused as always on doing the best she could for the group. The day we arrived at Girl Scouts Japan Headquarters and went upstairs to set up the workshop room, Mel's face lit up. "I'm back in my happy place", she said. 

This is the tribute to Mel read by Sue Jackson - thank you so much Sue.

The whole service can be seen either on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UMxsnukLr3g

or downloaded from the vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/1081843153/…

Mel Tribute - Sue 

In the planning of today’s event, Mel gave me the topic of “the early days” to share with your all. So let me, Sue, take you back to the days before social media, to a time when photos were taken on film for developing at Boots… 26ish years ago, when Guiding events were organised and advertised through paper mailings. Melanie Selby was one of the young women to attend Innovate – a nationally- organised forum by young women for young women to have their voice heard by Girlguiding. Back in the late nineties and early 2000s this was a new direction for the organisation. The event was relatively small, held at Waddow House in Lancashire, and was the first of many. It was there (sometime after the salsa dancing night) that Mel applied for a role as part of the team planning the next event. She’d already been a part of a national working group developing a new resource for Senior Section. My friendship with her was cemented a few weeks later when I met her again at the launch for the senior section resource (also at Waddow, and also featuring the salsa dancing!) We were Mel and Sue, just like TV’s Mel and Sue, and just like them, we were best friends. Planning of events back then with a team spread across the UK (and at times in Europe) meant evening phone conferences and meetings in London. Mel’s time management was impeccable. There was also a memorable team building event in the Lake District – one that saw us boating across Windermere on a very foggy day… It was there that Mel confided in some of the team that she had epilepsy – but was not sharing that news with her family. I’m going to take the opportunity now to apologise to Marion & Terry on behalf of the many team members who kept that secret until it became impossible not to do so. Mel had no intention then of letting anything (or anyone) hold her back from doing anything. A mantra which she continued throughout.

It was shortly after the Lake District event that the role of Chair of the Innovate Forum arose and Mel was nominated and duly appointed. As Chair of the Youth Forum, Mel also became the youngest committee member of Giriguiding’s Executive. She read her papers and took her role representing the girls and young women very seriously. She was a force to be reckoned with.

It was during a break on one of our earliest visits to Girlguiding’s headquarters in London that we took the opportunity to explore the building including “Princess Margaret’s toilet”! During that break, we also found ourselves in a large, airy, sunlit room at the back of the building with lilac blinds and chairs around a pretty big table. Mel declared that "this would do" and that she wanted to work in that office. Shortly after, we discovered the room was the Chief Guide's ante room, part of Chief Guide's main office! It became a standing joke for many years and while she never got the position, I think we can all agree that Mel did pretty well in terms of her later Guiding appointments.

In her time as Chair of the Innovate Forum, Mel led successive planning teams to deliver large scale events for 150 young women, taking the event to Birmingham, London and Edinburgh. The events gave participants the chance to get involved in development projects core to Girlguiding. Alongside that, there was the chance to have some fun and try out new activities (including more dance styles than just salsa!) Fundraising themed nights provided some memorable photos (but thankfully not too many… as we were still in the era of film and a long way from smart phone cameras!)

While both Mel and I retired from Innovate, our own Mel & Sue Show continued privately. Mel moved on to work on another Girlguiding national project as the Vice Chair of 4CaST - the team that created and developed 4 – a peer education programme. Mel was now one half of Pinky and The Brain, with Tracey Murray taking the other role, although no one is quite sure who was The Brain! Again, this saw Mel travelling to events up and down the country delivering training to hundreds of young women alongside her University studies and then working and dating life. She dedicated countless hours of her time to develop the training weekend content, marketing materials, governance and support structures for this new activity. Later, Mel worked on creating links between the 4 programme and Girlguiding’s training programme.

During her time at University in Edinburgh, Mel ran a successful Guide Unit and, in 2005, led an international trip to Ukraine for an Edinburgh group. She was determined that her own medical needs would not hold her or the group back. She planned for what she foresaw as every eventuality writing enough risk assessments and alternative plans to satisfy the assessors that the trip could successfully go ahead. As anyone here will know, an International trip always brings some unexpected events – and Ukraine was certainly no different! Not only did we find that we were all in home hospitality rather than group accommodation, but we also found ourselves canoeing alongside the shipping lanes of the Dnieper near Kherson (the Ukrainian equivalent of the Thames at Tibury!) In my 26 years of friendship, I think that might have been the only time I saw ever the slightest hint of self-doubt from Mel… and the only time I’ve ever known her paperwork not cover every eventuality!

This is the Tribute read by Ann Macaulay at Chichester Cathedral - thank you so much Ann 

The whole service can be seen either on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

or downloaded from the vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/1081843153/…

Mel’s Leaving Do - Tribute Ann Macaulay

“Life is to have fun”, these words spoken by Mel just days before she passed away echo the words spoken many years previously by Lord Baden Powell who funded the Scouts and asked his sister Agnes to establish the Guides.

In Lord Baden Powell’s last speech to the Scouts, he said - I have had a most happy life and I want each one of you to have as happy a life too.

I believe that God put us in this world to be happy and enjoy life. Happiness doesn’t come from being rich, nor from being successful in your career, nor by self-indulgence.

But the real way to get happiness is by giving out happiness to other people. Try and leave this world a little better than you found it and when your turn comes to die, you can die happy in feeling that at any rate you have not wasted your time but have done your best.

For me those words sum up what Mel was all about, bringing happiness and hope and leaving the world a little better than she found it.

Mel’s guiding career began as a Brownie in Dorset and blossomed when she discovered muddy camping as a Guide. Mel’s love of camping endured and she persuaded Ned and Barney that they too would enjoy this pastime, joining her at camps run by Petworth Guides and Scouts at Petworth Park and West Sussex Guides and Scouts international camps at the Ardingly show ground and those of you here that remember wet Wednesday at our last international camp know that there was plenty of mud for Mel to enjoy!

Mel moved to West Sussex approximately 15 years ago and quickly made her mark! The news rapidly spread that a very active member of Girlguiding had moved into the area and she was soon invited to become part of the Guiding Development Team. She brought with her a passion for supporting and empowering young women to develop themselves and take on leadership roles in Girlguiding. Her experience from her previous roles as Peer Educator and Vice-Chair of 4CaST brought a fresh and vibrant approach to our county and she championed the involvement and engagement of young members at every opportunity.

Later Mel was asked to take on the role of Chair of Guiding Development through which she supported our county Peer Education team, facilitating it to grow (it became the biggest team in the country) enabling Peer Education sessions to be delivered to many young members across the county with several Peer Educators going on to take on county roles with Mel’s encouragement and mentorship.

Mel established the Youth Awards in our County, an annual event to recognise the achievements of young members. Each year a glittery and sweet filled event has been held to celebrate those from each section who have completed their Gold Award, plus recognise the amazing contribution that Guide helpers and Young Leaders make.

Mel was also a strong advocate for international guiding and quickly developed our county international offer, sharing her experiences and passion especially for WAGGGS. As a trainer, Mel was inspirational and had a unique way of encouraging people to think laterally in order to develop their skills. She built connections with so many, in her gentle, empathetic and compassionate way. Mel worked tirelessly to bring people together, to support people to be the best they can be and to make things happen.

In 2021 Mel was appointed County Commissioner for Girlguiding Sussex West a role to which she brought the same passion, vibrancy, high standards and tenacity that had become so evident in all other roles that she had held. At region steering meetings Mel strongly advocated for all guiding members, asking questions and often offering solutions to challenges that arose. She was a huge support to her peers and her knowledge of Girlguiding and WAGGGS was encyclopaedic, so she was often to the go to person for any question! However, her sense of fun and mischief never left her and at the region weekend in February this year she was to be found one evening with a broad smile on her face and the gold tinsel curtain that had formed part of the decoration of our training room wrapped around her as a cloak!

Mel’s outstanding achievements were recognised through a number of prestigious awards including in September 2024 Girlguiding’s highest honour – the silver fish award, and in the King’s 2025 New Year Honours list with an MBE.

Mel Ford MBE rest in peace, you will be greatly missed but your Girlguiding legacy will live on.

Here is the eulogy to Mel that I read at Chichester Cathedral on 28th of May 2025. She looked absolutely resplendant with her coffin wrapped in her beautiful and awe inspiring camp blanket adorned with her highest medals of acheivement (the girl guides Silver fish, the WAGGS medal of service and her MBE).

The whole service can be seen either on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch…

or downloaded from the vimeo link: https://vimeo.com/1081843153/…

Eulogy for Mel

Good morning everyone.

Thank you all for being here today. It means a great deal to us that you're here to honour the life of Mel. She was so much to so many — a daughter, a friend, a colleague, a mum, a Guide, and to me, my beautiful wife.

Mel was born on 27th September 1981 in Poole Hospital. She grew up in Dorset with her twin brothers Iain and Jamie. With her gorgeous blue eyes and perfect blond hair, her father Terry often said he couldn’t put her into a baby contest because it simply wouldn’t be fair on the competition. Throughout her childhood she was fiercely headstrong and independent characteristics she never lost. When she came back from her first brownie evening saying she didn’t want to go back because it was boring she was told that the whole term had already been paid for along with her uniform and she would be going back for the whole term at least. After her first Brownie camp she was utterly hooked and as you have heard the rest of her life would be aligned with the Girl Guiding movement. She also helped out as a matron at Dumpton Prep school earning some pocket money tucking in the children to bed one of whom became a famous presenter and was recently on strictly come dancing. At school she was a keen musician, however after a few lessons on her first choice of instrument, a violin, her teacher with the greatest of tact said “Mel I think you were born to blow, not bow” she exchanged the violin for a clarinet and anyone who has heard her playing her Buffet will agree she was a true virtuoso.

Mel and I first met in 2001. In Croydon, there was a day centre for people with learning disabilities called Bramley Hill. Annually they camped at Dudsbury and the local guide groups would provide carers. My neighbour Tony volunteered as a chef and asked me if I’d like to come along and volunteer as a male carer, and my younger brother Thad as his kitchen boy. At the time I didn’t realise that this would change my life forever. Camp was great fun and a couple of the guides, Thad and myself got together in our downtime to write some songs to perform to the group. One of Mel’s great qualities was her tenacity. At camp she loved nothing more than being given an impossibly filthy billycan with baked on porridge and soot from the fire, a scourer and some fairy liquid. She would go to town at that Billy can and by the end it would be gleaming like freshly polished parade shoes - she on the other hand would be covered in Grime but beaming her unmistakable smile. One song we wrote was “Minging Billies” to the tune of my bonnie lies over the ocean in three part harmony. Part of the chorus included “so bring all your billies to Mel” at which point she would leap up shouting “To Me!”. Mel’s natural warmth, and calm confidence drew people to her. Her infectious smile would light up a room along with her twinkly blue eyes. She also had great inner strength that carried others through hard times even when she was carrying her own burdens quietly.

She qualified as a radiographer from Queen Margaret University Edinburgh in 2005 and began her career in Cornwall. It didn’t take long for her to become an integral part of the team — not just for her professional skill, but for her creativity, compassion and her tireless support of others. I always admired how she gave her whole self to everything she did with full commitment. A perfect example: she helped her Cornwall radiography team plan and complete the Three Peaks Challenge. Despite being quite unwell at the time and unable to climb the mountains, she didn’t just cheer from the sidelines. She created a beautiful, hand-crafted banner for the team. Mel always downplayed her sewing and craft skills but when she did do something it was always amazing – whether it was a banner for a challenge, a no-bot robot costume for Barney with functioning detachable bottom, or her camp blanket that you can all see today. I always admired her passion and enthusiasm, always going the extra mile, always finding a way to bring people together and lift them up.

We had kept in touch since Bramley Hill, and in 2006, after a fortuitous purchase of a bass guitar in Cornwall, we decided to take a leap and start a relationship. It wasn’t easy — we were 315 miles apart, she was in Cornwall and I was in Doncaster — but somehow, we ensured it worked. She was worth driving more than half the country to see. For two years, we courted across thirteen counties, and finally in 2007, she moved in with me when I began my GP training in Darlington.

During those years, she worked at James Cook Hospital, where she was part of a pioneering service in the cardiac labs. They helped develop a method to replace heart valves using guidewires — a less invasive alternative to open heart surgery. It offered hope and healing to patients who were too frail for traditional surgery. She didn’t just work in that department — she believed in what they were doing. Mel loved her job as a radiographer and she was particularly proud to be part of this team, and I was so proud of her.

When I completed my GP training we decided to move closer to our families as we were considering having children. We drew a line at Northampton and I applied for jobs south of there. From my first interview in Selsey I felt welcomed and at home there so we ended up settling in Chichester. Mel got a job at the Spire hospital and immediately got heavily involved in Sussex West Guides.

In 2014 she fell pregnant with Barney, she was due to be induced on her birthday however one of her stern guider looks later and the plan was swiftly changed to the 29th September. Fortunately he was a boy as Barney was the only name we could agree on! Every day she would tell him she loved him and was proud of him. His clothes were always ready and ironed, his school bag packed with the appropriate kit ready, lunch either ordered on the unfathomably complicated parentpay website or packed and ready to go. School trips were booked and in the diary. She micromanaged everything at home in between a myriad of online meetings in different timezones around the world. She loved Barney intensely as do I, and was proud of him every day as am I.

In December 2022 she noticed a lump in her breast – I was immediately concerned, but Mel in her casual manner played it down. Sadly it turned out to be cancer. Throughout the next year she endured chemotherapy and radiotherapy. She was always ready for the next treatment and wanted to try everything she could to beat the cancer. She researched treatments and often knew about new licensed treatments as quickly as her consultant who was often disarmed by her extensive knowledge of second line breast cancer chemotherapy. In the last few weeks of April the cancer took away her dexterity and her eyesight. Despite this she remained ever positive and didn’t have a bad word to say to anyone. She was so grateful for everything – I remember her being so grateful for just a small sip of water.

Mel really was the most extraordinary person I’ve ever known. She made me a better man. She made everyone she met feel seen, supported, and valued. Losing her feels unbearable — but having had the chance to spend twenty years of my life with her is the greatest gift I’ve ever known.

She lives on in every life she touched, every life she helped through her work, every young Guide who learned to believe in herself because of her. She lives on in Barney, and in all of us.

Thank you, Mel. Thank you for your love. Thank you for your passion and belief in doing good. I will carry you in my heart always. I know that you’re watching over us, keeping warm by an eternal campfire singing campsongs with your friends.

Rest peacefully, my love. 

A wonderful service and a great tribute to Mel.  Thank you for sharing the service via the live streaming.  

Thinking of you all at this difficult time, hang on to those beautiful memories.

As the song goes “Make new friends but keep the old, some are silver and the other gold” When Mel and I met at Pax Lodge in 2019 I found a friend of gold.

 Coming together, as the volunteer Leads for the Core Mission team, we were roomies for a week and that was the beginning of a truly wonderful friendship. And so, the story goes, as we were both Mel Louise, to make life easier in meetings, we soon became known as Mel F and Mel R.

The two of us could talk day and night about our shared passions. We would often refer to our passionate conversations on any favourite topic as ‘being able to speak under water with marbles in our mouths”. Whether it was Guiding, developing learning opportunities, making resources, our families, cool stationary or just having a natter about day-to-day life over a cuppa., It could be first thing in the morning, middle of the night, while cooking, walking to school or driving in the car, messenger and zoom made us feel more like neighbours than on opposite sides of the world.

I will miss her wicked sense of humour and the way she could sometimes go off on a comical tangent even in the midst of a serious thing. Mel’s smile lit up a room and her antics made me laugh so much at times to the point of tears. I have never enjoyed working alongside anyone so much. The creativity and ideas would fly all over the place and in no time at all we had developed something amazing. Mel had an ability of making people feel confident and able to achieve things they didn’t imagine possible. Mel helped me to believe in myself, dream big and push myself more times that I can remember. A true example of Leadership at its finest. 

The world is better because of you, my friend. We said we would be friends volunteering together until we were old and grey and there will always be a Mel F sized hole, whose shoes are way too big to fill, standing there with me.

And as the song goes, “A circle is round, it has no end, that’s how long I’m going to be your friend.”