This blog is going to detail the planning process of District Thinking Day 2019, which I planned as part of my Queen's Guide.
It had been suggested to me by my mentor that I could volunteer to assist with the planning as my Service In Guiding Element 3. I brought it up at a District meeting and somehow ended up being asked if I would plan the whole thing..! At this meeting, we also gathered a few ideas from other leaders which I went to investigate. I pulled up a shortlist and found out the various prices. I also contacted a few local coach companies to get quotes for travelling to each of the chosen venues. From this information, I created a Google Form questionnaire, asking leaders which of the options they wanted to do, and what dates they were available. I also asked them whether they wanted to have 3 separate coach meeting points, as we usually do, or whether they wanted a single central meeting point. It had been suggested by a fellow leader that a single central point would make much more sense as it would mean that parents with girls in different sections would only have to drop off at one place, rather than 2 as has happened in the past (and parents have previously not registered this and dropped both girls off at one stop, incorrectly).
I gave the leaders 2 weeks to reply to my questionnaire and the results were clear cut - and almost unanimous vote to visit Techniquest in Cardiff and there were 2 dates which had equal votes so I chose one of them, Saturday March 9th. The coach situation was more puzzling, almost all the leaders had voted to continue as we had been doing, with 3 separate coach pickups, even though to me this was more work for the parents. I put this on the back burner for now, and emailed out the date, location and price for the trip. I asked for a £10 deposit for each girl, to secure their place, and then the final balance closer to the time, of £5 per girl and £9 per adult.
I collected the deposits and kept track of the numbers over the course of the month we allowed for deposits to be paid. At the end of this time, we had 116 girls and 28 adults booked on the trip across 9 units! I also made a decision on the coach company and confirmed our booking with them. I then returned to thinking about the coach pickup location. I still thought it would be a good idea for all the girls to be picked up from the same place so I consulted another leader and she also agreed. I decided that we would give it a go, even though a large proportion of leaders didn't think it was a good idea. My logic was that we could trial it this year and, if they didn't think it went well then they could go back to their original method next year, when I will have moved out of the district! I also asked my Queen's Guide mentor if she would be able to be our home contact for the day as she doesn't run any units. She said she was more than happy so I got some contact details for her to send to all the leaders.
As it got closer to the trip date, I sent out more final details, relating to where we would be stopping for dinner, how much spending money girls should bring, and exact pick up and drop off times. I then visited Techniquest with my fiancé so that we could gather information for my risk assessment. He writes lots of risk assessments at work so I thought he would be best placed to help me with that as I have never written one for a large scale event before. Techniquest were very nice and allowed us to visit free of charge. We were there for about 2 hours, although part of that was us having a go at some of the activities! We made lots of notes about areas which would need to be covered on the risk assessment, such as a dark area with flashing lights and the coach drop off area.We also stopped on our way home at the services where we will be having dinner, to assess what options were available, their prices, and what was available for gluten free girls, which was a concern raised by several other leaders.
Once we had completed our visit, I wrote up a detailed risk assessment which was emailed out to all the leaders. I also spent some time creating details sheets for all the leaders to carry on the day. I made an A5 sheet, one for each unit, giving details of the number of girls expected to be on their coach, a timetable of the day (including lunch slot and times of the free show that they could book onto on arrival), and the phone numbers of me, the District Commissioner, and the Home Contact. Finally, I created myself some sheets with important information on, including phone numbers for all the units, which unit was on which coach, a detailed timetable with additional notes where needed, and a signup sheet for visiting the shop (it is a small shop so we spread the units out throughout the day).
The full blog on the details of the trip is here. The trip went incredibly smoothly, several leaders came up to me to tell me I had done a great job of organising it. The single coach pickup point worked perfectly, hopefully they will continue to do it that way as I think it was a great idea, and made life so much easier for the parents. Organising a large scale trip was more stressful than I had anticipated, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.
Showing posts with label thinking day. Show all posts
Showing posts with label thinking day. Show all posts
Monday, 15 April 2019
Monday, 9 March 2015
Thinking Day trip
15/02/15
Firstly, apologies that this is a little late, coursework deadlines loomed this past fortnight!
I went home for Thinking Day as all the other adults, except Brown Owl, were going on away during half term and couldn't make it to our District Thinking Day celebrations. I'm not complaining about this by the way; I was planning on coming home for it anyway!
We took 3 coaches of Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Leaders up to Thinktank in Birmingham. It is a science museum with 4 different floors and a garden, all filled with interactive things for children to explore.
It got off to a bit of a rocky start when the coach with the District Commissioner on got stuck in traffic and we were the first there. Luckily they weren't too far behind us and we soon got to go in. We were taken to a room by a member of staff and the girls were told to stay within sight of a leader and not to run or use the lifts (as they are meant for disabled users). Then we went in and were let loose, so to speak. Each unit set their own rules for where the girls were allowed to go. We decided that, as we had 10 girls, 2 YLs and 2 adults that we would all stick together and work our way from floor 0 (where we started) up to floor 4 at the top.
Floor 0 wasn't particularly interactive so the girls quickly became bored (although they were fascinated by the water tipping machine and insisted we had to wait for it to fill up and tip over again because they wanted to see if they'd get wet (it went every 5 minutes or so)!
We then ate lunch before moving up to the next floor. This floor was more interactive with lots of things for the girls to touch and experiment with. They spent quite a bit of time there before we could persuade them to move on up to the next floor. They soon discovered that it was a brilliant idea though, as on that floor was a mock street complete with doctor/dentist, post office, shop, cafe and loads of dressing up costumes! They spent ages in there, and we had a struggle to keep track of where they all were. Luckily, there was on;y one entrance/exit to that section so Brown Owl waited there to make sure no one left without us knowing and the 2 YLs and I wandered around, making sure our girls were fine. There were loads of other leaders and girls in there too so I'm sure, if anything had happened, they would have been in capable hands anyway (and all our girls wear their unit name tape so they can be reunited with us).
Eventually, we persuaded them to leave that area and go outside to the garden. The garden contained loads of water related activities and was entirely self contained so we let them loose and sat with some other leaders discussing Macaroni Woods (our pack holiday location of choice) as they are planning on taking their girls there and wanted to know what it was like. Quite a few of our girls got soaked, so we suggested going inside again to get warm and to finish off the final floor of the main museum.
The top floor was all based around medicine and technology which the girls didn't find particularly interesting (to my dismay, being a CompSci student myself - note to self: run meeting on how awesome technology is), so we went back down and gave them the choice of going back in the mock street or spending their money in the shop, as we didn't have much time left before we had to leave. Most of them chose to come into the shop and I supervised them by the till and directed them back to Brown Owl when they had bought what they wanted.
We arrived back at our coach a minute or two late and were surprised to see we were the first of all the units to get back! A few others then arrived and one of the coaches filled up enough to leave. Then the rainbows on our coach got back but we were still missing the other Brownie unit. Another load of girls and leaders arrived in the car park - most of them got on the second coach but a handful got on ours. We double checked that we were ready to go and that unit said no, they were missing their Tawny Owl and a few girls. We had to pull out of the car park then, to let them lock the gate and we waited for a while. Finally, the rest of their unit turned up - as it turned out, they were trying to get out of the ground floor, despite us having come in on level 2, and couldn't get out of any of the doors...
After that minor mishap, we set off home. On the way, one of our YLs got a text from her sister on a different coach to say their driver had somehow managed to get on the motorway going North instead of South and they were running late! The third coach had got stuck in traffic again so, even though we were the last to leave by quite a large margin, we ended up being the first coach to make it back!
It was a great day and the girls all seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. I think this was a perfect trip for the girls as it shows them that science can be fun and interactive and will hopefully encourage some of them to consider going down that route as they get older, something which I am extremely passionate about being a woman in technology myself.
Firstly, apologies that this is a little late, coursework deadlines loomed this past fortnight!
I went home for Thinking Day as all the other adults, except Brown Owl, were going on away during half term and couldn't make it to our District Thinking Day celebrations. I'm not complaining about this by the way; I was planning on coming home for it anyway!
We took 3 coaches of Rainbows, Brownies, Guides and Leaders up to Thinktank in Birmingham. It is a science museum with 4 different floors and a garden, all filled with interactive things for children to explore.
It got off to a bit of a rocky start when the coach with the District Commissioner on got stuck in traffic and we were the first there. Luckily they weren't too far behind us and we soon got to go in. We were taken to a room by a member of staff and the girls were told to stay within sight of a leader and not to run or use the lifts (as they are meant for disabled users). Then we went in and were let loose, so to speak. Each unit set their own rules for where the girls were allowed to go. We decided that, as we had 10 girls, 2 YLs and 2 adults that we would all stick together and work our way from floor 0 (where we started) up to floor 4 at the top.
Floor 0 wasn't particularly interactive so the girls quickly became bored (although they were fascinated by the water tipping machine and insisted we had to wait for it to fill up and tip over again because they wanted to see if they'd get wet (it went every 5 minutes or so)!
We then ate lunch before moving up to the next floor. This floor was more interactive with lots of things for the girls to touch and experiment with. They spent quite a bit of time there before we could persuade them to move on up to the next floor. They soon discovered that it was a brilliant idea though, as on that floor was a mock street complete with doctor/dentist, post office, shop, cafe and loads of dressing up costumes! They spent ages in there, and we had a struggle to keep track of where they all were. Luckily, there was on;y one entrance/exit to that section so Brown Owl waited there to make sure no one left without us knowing and the 2 YLs and I wandered around, making sure our girls were fine. There were loads of other leaders and girls in there too so I'm sure, if anything had happened, they would have been in capable hands anyway (and all our girls wear their unit name tape so they can be reunited with us).
Eventually, we persuaded them to leave that area and go outside to the garden. The garden contained loads of water related activities and was entirely self contained so we let them loose and sat with some other leaders discussing Macaroni Woods (our pack holiday location of choice) as they are planning on taking their girls there and wanted to know what it was like. Quite a few of our girls got soaked, so we suggested going inside again to get warm and to finish off the final floor of the main museum.
The top floor was all based around medicine and technology which the girls didn't find particularly interesting (to my dismay, being a CompSci student myself - note to self: run meeting on how awesome technology is), so we went back down and gave them the choice of going back in the mock street or spending their money in the shop, as we didn't have much time left before we had to leave. Most of them chose to come into the shop and I supervised them by the till and directed them back to Brown Owl when they had bought what they wanted.
We arrived back at our coach a minute or two late and were surprised to see we were the first of all the units to get back! A few others then arrived and one of the coaches filled up enough to leave. Then the rainbows on our coach got back but we were still missing the other Brownie unit. Another load of girls and leaders arrived in the car park - most of them got on the second coach but a handful got on ours. We double checked that we were ready to go and that unit said no, they were missing their Tawny Owl and a few girls. We had to pull out of the car park then, to let them lock the gate and we waited for a while. Finally, the rest of their unit turned up - as it turned out, they were trying to get out of the ground floor, despite us having come in on level 2, and couldn't get out of any of the doors...
After that minor mishap, we set off home. On the way, one of our YLs got a text from her sister on a different coach to say their driver had somehow managed to get on the motorway going North instead of South and they were running late! The third coach had got stuck in traffic again so, even though we were the last to leave by quite a large margin, we ended up being the first coach to make it back!
It was a great day and the girls all seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. I think this was a perfect trip for the girls as it shows them that science can be fun and interactive and will hopefully encourage some of them to consider going down that route as they get older, something which I am extremely passionate about being a woman in technology myself.
Saturday, 22 February 2014
Thinking Day Celebrations
16/02/14
Happy Thinking Day to all!
Last Sunday we had our Thinking Day celebrations because we couldn't get the hall today. We had all the Rainbows, Brownies and Guides from our district all at a local leisure centre - which came to around 100 girls plus leaders all in one sports hall (let's just say noisy was an understatement!). For those of you who don't know what Thinking Day is, it's a day where all Girl Guides in the World all think of each other and Guiding across the World. The day was chosen because it is the birthday of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, the founders of the Guiding and Scouting movements. Districts traditionally get together and carry out activities to celebrate.
At our event, the girls had two activities to do - an external company came in and did a roller disco and each unit supplied a craft for their girls. Each unit spent an hour rollerskating and the other hour doing their unit's craft.
Our girls were doing the craft first. We had bought some little jugs and permanent pens so they could colour them in:
There were a variety of designs (including 2 girls copying me again - so flattering!) and they all looked really good laid out on the table when they were done.We think it would have been a good idea to have picked up a filler (a word search or something similar) though because the girls who had finished were getting restless because they could see the other girls skating and wanted to go and join in but they had to wait until the swap over time because there were limited skates available.
Eventually they were told to swap over which was a huge logistical challenge for the leaders, trying to make sure the girls who'd been skating put their skates in the right place and went to the correct unit table while also trying to help all the other girls to put on their skates and guards. It was compulsory for girls to wear wrist guards (the most common injury is broken wrists) and then they could choose to wear elbow and knee pads and helmet so there was a lot to co-ordinate! Eventually we had all the girls in the right places and then the next challenge began - helping a group of 18 girls on their feet when many of them had never skated before. I helped a few of them find their feet and then got some skates on myself - I'm a figure skater so I figured that I could more easily help the girls if I was also on skates (and also enjoy myself!). I didn't realise quite how different roller-skating is from figure skating but I managed to adjust enough to be able to hold onto girls to keep them upright without falling over myself whenever they did! The hour went by really quickly and suddenly it was time for our girls to take their skates off.
Another tradition for Thinking Day is for the girls to all remake their Promise, and we are no different. However, in this case the girls weren't just remaking their Promise, they were all making the new one for the first time. We have 3 candles in our District, a red, a yellow and a blue. When each is lit, the corresponding section remake their Promise, starting with the Rainbows. I have to say that, while I totally agree with the changing of the Promise to encompass all girls, it really doesn't roll off the tongue as well as the old one! Once everyone had remade their Promise, we sang 'This Little Guiding Light of Mine' (lyrics here) and then the girls were told to go back to their table and collect their things and their parents would come over to collect them. Surprisingly, that went very well and we got rid of all our girls really quickly. We did a quick tidy up and then all went home, exhausted but happy!
All in all, it was a very successful Thinking Day and all the leaders and girls enjoyed themselves.
Happy Thinking Day to all!
Last Sunday we had our Thinking Day celebrations because we couldn't get the hall today. We had all the Rainbows, Brownies and Guides from our district all at a local leisure centre - which came to around 100 girls plus leaders all in one sports hall (let's just say noisy was an understatement!). For those of you who don't know what Thinking Day is, it's a day where all Girl Guides in the World all think of each other and Guiding across the World. The day was chosen because it is the birthday of Lord and Lady Baden-Powell, the founders of the Guiding and Scouting movements. Districts traditionally get together and carry out activities to celebrate.
At our event, the girls had two activities to do - an external company came in and did a roller disco and each unit supplied a craft for their girls. Each unit spent an hour rollerskating and the other hour doing their unit's craft.
Our girls were doing the craft first. We had bought some little jugs and permanent pens so they could colour them in:
Eventually they were told to swap over which was a huge logistical challenge for the leaders, trying to make sure the girls who'd been skating put their skates in the right place and went to the correct unit table while also trying to help all the other girls to put on their skates and guards. It was compulsory for girls to wear wrist guards (the most common injury is broken wrists) and then they could choose to wear elbow and knee pads and helmet so there was a lot to co-ordinate! Eventually we had all the girls in the right places and then the next challenge began - helping a group of 18 girls on their feet when many of them had never skated before. I helped a few of them find their feet and then got some skates on myself - I'm a figure skater so I figured that I could more easily help the girls if I was also on skates (and also enjoy myself!). I didn't realise quite how different roller-skating is from figure skating but I managed to adjust enough to be able to hold onto girls to keep them upright without falling over myself whenever they did! The hour went by really quickly and suddenly it was time for our girls to take their skates off.
Another tradition for Thinking Day is for the girls to all remake their Promise, and we are no different. However, in this case the girls weren't just remaking their Promise, they were all making the new one for the first time. We have 3 candles in our District, a red, a yellow and a blue. When each is lit, the corresponding section remake their Promise, starting with the Rainbows. I have to say that, while I totally agree with the changing of the Promise to encompass all girls, it really doesn't roll off the tongue as well as the old one! Once everyone had remade their Promise, we sang 'This Little Guiding Light of Mine' (lyrics here) and then the girls were told to go back to their table and collect their things and their parents would come over to collect them. Surprisingly, that went very well and we got rid of all our girls really quickly. We did a quick tidy up and then all went home, exhausted but happy!
All in all, it was a very successful Thinking Day and all the leaders and girls enjoyed themselves.
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