STOURPORT Guides - who have been busy raising almost £1,000 for Kemp Hospice - are among the lucky ones, with other girls in the town queuing up to join the organisation.First Wilden Guides in Stourport, whose bag-packing efforts helped bring in £997 for Kemp Hospice.

The town is desperately short of Guide leaders and the waiting list is growing at an alarming rate, said the leader of the First Wilden group, Kerry Tinsdale.

Despite this, Mrs Tinsdale's group has been busy raising the money, in just three days, for Kemp by packing bags for customers at the Co-op store in Stourport.

Mrs Tinsdale said: "People were brilliant.

"When people who had already given something realised it was for Kemp they put their hands back in their pockets.

"Management at the store were great too, for letting us do it over the three days before Christmas when they were very busy."

As well as the £997 the Guides also raised £1,000 for their own funds.

Mrs Tinsdale of Baldwin Road, Bewdley, said, however, funding for Wilden Guides was not what was worrying her. She was more concerned about the lack of leaders.

She said both her group and the other one in the town, the third Stourport Guides, as well as the group at Areley Kings, were all desperately short of leaders and helpers.

Mrs Tinsdale went on: "It is a crisis really. We have got 14 girls on the waiting list and if we don't get some more help they are not going to get the opportunity to become Guides."

She said if more Guiders could be found, a group which folded some years ago in Hartlebury might be re-opened to take on some of the girls on the waiting list.

She added the numbers of girls joining the organisation nationally was going up and Stourport was no exception. Guiding helpers are recruited up to the age of 65.

Anyone interested can contact Mrs Tinsdale on 01299 405631.