First Skills Builder

04/10/18

This week we decided to bite the bullet and start one of the Skills Builders. The girls had all voted in a previous week so we first got the girls who hadn't been there that week to vote for which one they wanted to do. We then reminded the girls which one they had voted for and got them into the two groups. One group were doing the Rope Race from the Lead Skills Builder and the others were doing Mime Time from the Innovate Skills Builder. We copied the instructions from the card onto paper which we gave to the older girls in each group and let them get on with it themselves.

We milled around a bit and supervised, which ended up consisting mainly of bickering mitigation for the Lead group. They had sort of split into two groups and were making an obstacle course from tables and chairs but some of them had mis-understood the instructions and were using the skipping ropes as obstacles instead of holding onto them. We stepped in, paused what they were doing, and explained it to all of them. Once they understood, things went a little smoother, although we then had the problem of them not working well as a team - the one at the front was going too fast, and moaning at the one at the back for pulling on the rope too much. They did eventually get round the obstacle course a few different ways with different people at the front so we considered the section completed!

The other group did far better. We had gathered a random assortment of items, including plant pots, frisbees, a stick, a roll of packing tape, a scarf, and some half done knitting we found in cupboard. The girls then had to choose an object and mime it being something that it wasn't for the other girls to guess (the example on the cards is an umbrella being a walking stick). The girls spent some time playing around with a few items and deciding what they wanted to do and then our YL stepped in and got them sat down in a circle so they could all mime their object for the rest of the group to guess. Brown Owl and I were focussing all our attention on the Lead group and turned round to check the other group were still OK and were pleasantly surprised! They had finished a bit earlier than the Lead group so our YL had decided to play the Iranian Smiling Game with them, from last week. She is an ex-Brownie so we trust her but it's nice to see her leadership skills coming out a bit more each week.

We then did a bit more of the Century Time Travel UMA - this week we did the part about naming birds, flowers or trees. We stood the girls in a circle and went round it getting them to name one from any of the 3 categories, but it had to be one that no one else had said. I was very surprised at how well the girls did with this. You often hear people bemoaning the fact that children these days spend all their time on phones inside and don't know anything about the outdoors but our girls named some very obscure birds (including a Crested Pigeon and a Blue Footed Boobie - which got a lot of giggles). We also discussed the Health Rules that girls lived by 100 years ago:

“     Only feed on wholesome fare, Through your nostrils breathe fresh air,

Clean yourself both in and out, Twist and turn and run about.         ”

 

We read out each of the 4 sections and got the girls to think about what it might mean and then explained it to them. We got lots of giggles when we explained the third line - it used to be thought that you should poo once a day to be healthy (clean inside)! When we said the last line, the girls all shouted "Excercise!", jumped up and started running manically around the hall in circles! Brown Owl looked at me and raised her eyebrows and then said she had an idea. She yelled "Pirates are Coming!!" and all the girls scattered and hid under the chairs around the room. A couple then came out and looked a bit confused and said "wait, we weren't playing Pirates...". Brown Owl laughed and said "I know, I just wanted you to stop running and listen! We then let the girls actually play Pirates to burn off the excess energy they had in their system!

It was then time to say goodbye to the girls and for us Leaders to empty the cupboard of all the things we need for pack holiday this weekend. It always surprises us how much stuff we end up taking with us... I'm hoping that I will manage to get the Pack Holiday blogs up fairly quickly after this weekend, but that all depends on the amount of sleep I get and whether I catch the cold that Brown Owl has (or one from any of the girls)...

Pack Holiday Badges, More Traditions, and Promise Ceremony

27/09/18

This evening was another pre-pack holiday meeting. All the girls coming on pack holiday have been split into 3 sixes, which they chose a few weeks ago. They now need to make a badge to wear so we know what six they are in. Any girl who is not coming on pack holiday is given the opportunity to make a badge of her choice but the girls coming on pack holiday have to make the badge of her six. We had printed out pictures of the three sixes (swimming, horse riding, and gymnastics) for the girls to colour in. We all sat around tables colouring and Brown Owl and our Young Leader operated the badge machine. When I had coloured mine in, I went over to the badge machine and they were having issues. It is an incredibly old machine and it's starting to show its age so some badges weren't quite getting made correctly tonight. I took over from the YL and managed to coax it through the rest of the evening!

Once all the girls had made their badge, we did another clause of the Traditions badge and the Century Time Travel UMA - knowing the parts of the Union Flag. We first held up a complete version and asked the girls what it was called. One said "a flag" and then another said "the Union Jack". Brown Owl said "that's sort of correct, it's got a different name too" and then one of our newer girls said "it's only the Union Jack on a boat, it's the Union Flag on land"! We were all very impressed that she knew that!! The girls were then given the 3 parts of the flag to cut up and stick together to make the Union Flag in their sixes.

As we started that activity, the parents of a girl who was making her promise arrived. We always invite them about half an hour before we finish so they can watch us do a bit of an activity before watching their daughter make her promise. I took the girl who was doing her Hostess over to them and got their drinks orders and then assisted her in making 2 cups of tea.

Once all the girls had done their flag, we put the tables away and got into a circle. We still had a bit of time to spare so we played the original version of the Iranian Smiling Game which is the last bit of the Century Time Travel UMA. We had to stop before all the girls were out though, as they were very good at it!

Finally, it was time for our promise ceremony, and then I helped the girl doing her Hostess badge wash up and then it was home time. There were no left-over Brownies tonight, and the Mum from last week came in with a bunch of flowers, very apologetically!

Brownie Traditions Badge

20/09/18

This meeting we did the Brownie Traditions badge from the old programme, as this is what our girls had requested last term. We also noticed that a few of these fell into two of the UMAs, the Century Time Travel one from the Know Myself theme and the Strike a Light one from the Have Adventures theme.

We started off by discussing if girls knew what a tradition was and if they could think of any traditions we have at Brownies. I was quite surprised at the two girls who, between them, managed to perfectly define a tradition. The girls als managed to name the uniform, badges, and name as some traditions that we still have now. We also bought in a short chat about how those three have changed over the years (Rosebuds used to wear blue).

We then played a game from the UMA called "Brownie/Broomstick". We went round the circle and named each girl "Brownie" or "Broomstick". We then got the Broomsticks to stand up and got the girls to look round and remember who was who. We then spread them out in the hall and shouted "Brownies" and the Brownies had to chase the Broomsticks until Brown Owl shouted "Broomsticks" when they had to swap and chase the Brownies. After a few swaps, we stopped and asked the girls what they thought. A lot of them asked what they were supposed to do if they had been caught and Brown Owl told them that the instructions didn't say so we asked the girls what they thought the rule should be. One girl immediately said "anyone who is caught swaps sides" and another just said "drop and gimme 20!". We voted on which rule we should add (unanimous decision to swap sides!) and then played again with these new rules for a bit.

We then stopped and played The Card Game, which I introduced to the unit a while back, from one of the many Facebook groups I am part of. Our girls love playing, especially as this week we had to add in Brown Owl because we had 20 girls and it doesn't work with a multiple of 4. They enjoyed playing this so much that we had to play until every girl had got back to her chair.

We then moved onto the clauses from the Traditions Badge. We set up 3 tables and split the girls into 3 groups. On the tables, we set up candle lighting, penny cleaning and knot tying. I ran the penny shining - each girl was given a dirty 2p coin and some brasso to polish it with. We explained that girls used to pay their subs with a penny but it couldn't be any penny, it had to be a nice shiny one. We had one really black penny which some of the girls decided they wanted to have a go at cleaning (but then gave up quickly as it was almost impossible to make a difference. Brown Owl ran the candle lighting station - each girl was given the opportunity to strike a match and light a candle and then blow out the candle to complete the Strike a Light UMA. She also talked to them about fire safety, such as not playing with matches without an adult, and not putting your hands/clothes near flames. The final table was run by our Young Leader and was knots - reef knots, shoelaces, and plaits. At one point they had several pairs of shoes up on the table so I think it was a success!

We then explained to the girls that we were going to vote for our first Skills Builder. We had selected 4 Stage 2s for them to choose from - Innovate from the Express Myself theme, First Aid from the Be Well theme, and Live Smart and Lead from the Skills for My Future theme. We explained roughly what each Skills Builder consisted of and then we gave each girl a lolly stick with their name written on and put 4 labelled pots around the room. The girls had to put their stick in the one they wanted to do. We then took the sticks out of the two least favourite and said that those girls had to choose one of the 2 favourite ones to do. We will then run these two badges side by side. The girls chose Lead and Innovate, and we only had 4 who had to move their stick, which was quite impressive.

After all that, it was time to go home. We sang Brownie Bells and let the girls go. Brown Owl stood by the door saying goodbye to the girls and making sure they didn't go outside alone. We eventually were left with 3 girls, two older ones and brand new one (it was her first night). We packed away our stuff and moved into the foyer while talking to the girls about who was supposed to be picking them up. The two older girls said they thought one of their Mums was picking them both up and we were getting ready to ring them when she appeared in a fluster saying her car hadn't started so she had to get the other children dressed and walk round! They left and we just had our one brand new Brownie left. We thought it was a bit odd as she is the 4th sister we have had through us although her Mum had emailed before she started asking us what time we started and where we met! We tried the mobile number we had for her with no luck so we started asking the Brownie if she knew any of the girls. She said there were a couple who were friends with her sister so we rang them but they also didn't answer. At this point, we had been waiting for 25 minutes so I ran our Young Leader home while Brown Owl waited in the hall. When I got back there was still no sign of either parent so we decided to drive the girl to her house. We told the Scouts that if a panicked parent arrived, to send her home where we would be waiting! We got her to her house (there were two of us in the car with her and the law states girls under the height limit can ride without a booster seat in an emergency for short distances) and no one was there either! We had a phone call from one of our other leaders (who wasn't at the meeting tonight) sating that the mum had phoned her in a panic because Dad had failed in his instruction to drop one daughter at gym and then pick up the Brownie (he'd done half a job!). Mum showed up a minute after we got to her house and apologised profusely! We just said that it will give the girl something to talk about when she gets older - the day that she got forgotten at her first Brownie meeting! It was certainly an eventful end to a busy meeting!

Story Making and Pack Holiday Posters

13/09/18

This evening we started with a vote. Every year we do a sale (see here for a previous year's) to raise money for a charity. The last sale they did (while I was at university), we raised money for WWF so we could sponsor an animal. We have sponsored several animals in the past and always get a cuddly toy to go with it which then goes home with a different girl each week. We currently have a dolphin, a gorilla, and an elephant but the dolphin is getting a bit old and so we wanted to retire him to join the dog (they now sit under the toadstool) and get a new animal. I had looked online at the choices and chosen 5 to vote on: lion, panda, penguin, polar bear, and rhino. We printed out the picture of the toy onto paper which we spread round the room. Each girl was given 3 token, a red, a yellow and a blue. They then had to put the red token on their favourite, the yellow on their second choice and the blue on their third. I then counted up the votes - red getting 3 points, yellow getting 2 and blue getting 1. While I was counting, the girls sang 'Who Stole the Cookie from the Cookie Jar'. I then announced that the winner, who got 56 points, was the polar bear. We now just need to send off the money to the WWF and wait for the toy to arrive.

We then decided we would do another of the new programme UMAs - we chose 'Catch a Story' from the Express Myself theme. We had a small soft ball which we passed across the circle and each girl had to add a word to the story (we specified no rude words first!). Brown Owl started by saying 'Once' so that the next 3 would have to say 'upon a time' so that the girls got the idea and then we let it continue, with occasional prompting from leaders about the best word. If we did it again, we would definitely write the story down as we went along as by the end we couldn't remember the whole thing. We might also consider adding a time limit to the length of time a girl had to think of a word as we frequently got stuck waiting. We did eventually get a sort of story about a dog called Max who didn't like puppies because they were weird! I was quite impressed with some girls choice of words, we had a few say 'because' and 'however', although I would say it is an activity more suited to older girls as the younger ones were having trouble keeping up with what had laready been said and making sensible suggestions of words (we went round in circles at one point saying things the dog hated).

Once we had done that for around 15 minutes we stopped and got out some tables. We handed out various A5 pictures relating to the Olympics, there were some simple ones such as the rings, and some more complex ones like a man with an Olympic torch. These will form the decorations on pack holiday, and are also a great way to keep the noise down a little bit while we hold the parents meeting for girls who haven't been on pack holiday before. I sat on a table with some of the newer girls and coloured in my own picture, and got to know them a bit more.

This was quite a nice relaxed evening and went very smoothly. I always enjoy meetings where I can just sit and talk to girls and get to know them a bit more, especially with so many girls who've joined since I went away for university. And we always end up having some entertaining conversations, such as tonight when I was asked how old I was so I said "22" and one girl said "I think you look more like you're 23"!

First Meeting Back - Introducing the New Programme

06/09/18

This was our first meeting back after the summer and we thought we would take the time to introduce the girls to the new programme. We are going to be running a bit of a mixture while we, as leaders, get our heads round how it all works but we wanted to get the girls enthused from the beginning and help them understand the different themes a bit more. We also had a Scouting imposter this week - my other half (who's a Beaver Leader) came to the meeting as he is coming on pack holiday with us and we thought it best he meet the girls properly before then!

We started off by explaining to the girls in the pow wow that Guiding had changed the programme, which we told them meant that all the books and badges had changed, but that we would still do the same sorts of things in meetings. We then split them into their sixes and gave each six a pack containing all of the badges (just printed onto paper and cut out) and a badge book. We got them to group them into interest badges, skills builders, and theme awards. We then asked them to pick an interest badge which sounded interesting and find it in the book to decide if they would actually do it after reading the clauses. We had a few problems with them finding the badges in the books but once we pointed out there was a contents page at the front, they were fine! Quite a few, however, didn't understand what part they had to read to see what they had to do and a lot of them said "doI really have to read all of this?!". This was something us as leaders had picked up on when we first opened the books - it is very wordy for some of the younger girls and is not as clear as the old badges what the actual clause is.

We then collected in all the theme awards and put them to one side. The leaders all handed out skills builders and interest badges randomly, one to each girl. They then had to find a partner who had the other part of the theme award (we told them about the 4 hours of activities but didn't include it in the game). Once they were in a pair, one girl with an interest badge, and one with a skills builder, they could go and claim the theme award. We encountered a lot of confusion over which theme the badges were, as there are pale pink, dark pink, and purple ones, and the badges in each theme are not a uniform colour. I had already flagged this as a potential issue, and my suspicions were confirmed in this game! If they could not find a partner, they could go and swap their badge for a different one with a leader. We ended up strategically giving out badges to the last few girls to make sure they found a partner! Once they were in pairs, with a theme award between them, we then told them the requirements for the Brownie Gold badge. We then got them to get into a group of girls who could get the award, i.e. one of each theme award. There was mass confusion for a bit, especially in needing all 6 colours, not just 6 badges, and then we discovered that no one had gained the Express Myself theme award and so no one could get the Gold!

We then told the girls we were going to play a game which was part of the new programme. We chose 'Fox, Frog, Flea', from the Have Adventures UMAs. We gave up trying to explain food webs - the girls had heard of food chains but couldn't grasp the concept that it could be a web instead. We explained the rules - essentially you have 2 teams, they choose to be one of the three animals, each team lines up facing each other down the middle of the room and does the action associated with their animal, and then one chases the other according to the rules on the card with any girls that get caught swapping teams. The game itself went pretty well, although we started off with quite a few rounds which were draws which the girls thought was hilarious. The girls really seemed to enjoy it, but we did have to put a time limit on it instead of playing until all girls were on one team.

We then needed to sort out sixes for pack holiday which is coming up pretty soon. We have 3 sixes which are different to our regular meeting sixes so we named the three sixers and then asked the rest of the girls to split themselves evenly between them. Some years we specific that each six must have a certain number of girls who have been on a pack holiday before in them but this year we only have 5 of the 18 who have been before (of which, 3 are the sixers) so we let them just choose whoever they wanted to be with. They then had to choose a name for their six which fits in with our Olympics theme. We decided to go with Olympic sports instead of countries as last year we did Around the World. Luckily they chose pretty quickly, and we now have Swimming, Gymnastics, and Horse Riding. We made a note of who was in each six and then moved onto another part of the new programme.

We chose the 'Magic Moving Postcards' from the Express Myself UMAs. We got the girls into their actual sixes and gave them 15 minutes to come up with whatever they wanted. As leaders, we moved round the room settling small disagreements and giving suggestions. We then got each six to perform their mime and all the other girls had to guess where they had been and what they had done. There were a few slightly tenuous links but we guessed all of them eventually.

We had a few minutes to spare so we decided to play a game to end the meeting. We chose Pirates but decided not to get girls out and treat it as a practice game for the new girls to learn how to play as we didn't have enough time to get all the girls out.

This was a great first meeting back, it is nice to see all the girls again, especially as I have been away at university and haven't seen them as regularly, although there are a lot of new faces and names to learn! Our first foray into the new programme wasn't too bad, but it will take time to get used to having prescribed activities to do rather than free reign to do whatever we want all the time. The girls seemed to enjoy the activities we did, although they did also seem a bit confused to start, but that will work itself out, especially once we have made our sticker chart for the new programme (we have ones for the Adventure badges and they work really well as a visual aid to the girls).

My First Impressions of the New Programme

As many of you will be aware, Girlguiding has released a new programme for all sections. I only do Brownies, so can only comment on that part, but I thought I would write down my first impressions of it.

Initially, reading the information provided to leaders in the latest Guiding magazine, I was pretty confused. There seems to be a lot of parts to it, which all interlink. It is definitely going to take some time to get used to which parts link together, and what girls have to do to get the theme awards and skills builders. This, however, is something I think we will all get used to pretty quickly once we actually start implementing it.

In terms of interest badges, I was personally disappointed by the choice Brownies now have. I enjoyed having badges related to things the girls do outside of meetings, such as musician, horse rider, and booklover. Personally I loved being able to get a badge for things I loved. In our unit we also use the hostess badge at every promise ceremony. The oldest girl who does not already have her badge is offered the opportunity to do her hostess badge at the promise ceremony of the newest girls. I feel like this teaches them valuable life skills; skills which I still use to this day, such as making tea and coffee, addressing envelopes, and entertaining guests. I do however like the sound of some of the new badges, especially aviation (my sister is training to be a pilot and there are almost no girls there), inventing, and space. A few of the others sound a bit odd, like mindfulness, zero waste, and archaeology. As a graduate software engineer, I am also slightly disappointed that there is no coding or computing badge in the new programme (yes, I have seen the Google badge which is a step in the right direction but very basic). It is slightly annoying that we cannot see any of the syllabuses online either. In our unit, we have a few badge books for girls to flick through and then we direct them online to read the syllabuses. Now, every girl will need a copy of the badge book, or we will have to photocopy the unit copy (not sure where we stand on that either). It would also be helpful for us leaders to be able to see what girls needed to do so we can encourage them to do them. Time will only tell if the girls actually complete them at home too, currently very few girls from our unit do, and most of the time they only get ones we complete as a unit.

I think the skills builders are a really nice idea, and help girls develop skills across all the sections. I am however, annoyed that there is a camping skills builder but no skills buiilder that can be obtained by going on an indoor residential. Personally, we do not take girls camping as none of our other leaders enjoy sleeping in tents and this means that they cannot complete level 2 of the camp skills builder as this requires them to put up and take down a tent. We cannot offer this as we do not have a tent or the know-how. I know we could invite Guides or other leaders to come along but it a lot of hassle to teach girls a skill which they would definitely never use at Brownies, and many of our girls do not go on to Guides and wouldn't use it there either. We will certainly be seeing which parts of other skills builders we can complete on pack holiday but this is also not fair on the girls that we cannot take. Our pack holiday house can only sleep 18 girls and we have 24+ girls in the unit most of the time (and woe-betide anyone who suggests swapping venues, there would be a mutiny amongst the girls!). In the old programme, there was a badge for each and I am disappointed this has not stayed the same, and have emailed Guiding with that feedback.

Having read the magazine, and looked on GO, it also appears that the only activities you are allowed to do towards the 4 hours for the theme awards are the ones on the Unit Meeting Activity cards. I agree that grab-and-go activities are incredibly helpful, especially for leaders that do not have the time to plan anything else, or other plans have fallen through. However, I feel very restricted by being forced to use them. I have been going to Brownies with Mum since I was a few days old, and she has been doing Brownies for over 30 years and we are both more than capable of creating our own activities that also fit the theme. I have emailed Guiding asking them to clarify, and give my feedback.

I do like the idea of the anniversary badges, however I am not a fan of the colours (the girls may disagree!). The system on GO also doesn't seem to be quite right either, as short gaps between girls being removed from the Rainbow list and added to the Brownie one seem to be counted as time outside of guiding which isn't fair on the girls. I also can't quite see why GO lists times as a decimal number of years, instead of years and months which would be much more intuitive!

Additionally, on a personal note, I am disappointed that the Look Wider badges are being stopped too. I have thoroughly enjoyed working towards mine, and fully intend on finishing them (my District Commissioner has already said she will buy me the 4 badges I am missing ready for when I do complete them). I can see the logic that they are overhauling the Senior Section and splitting it into Rangers and 18-25 year olds but I feel like those of us who had already started the Look Wider should be allowed to continue until we finish or turn 26. I have put at least 5 years work into it now, and am only missing a couple of parts of each Octant (you can see how close I am here) and I'm sure many other girls are in the same situation so it would be a shame for us to miss out due to a technicality.

Reading back over this, it feels very negative. I guess change is hard! I will hopefully find it much easier to get my head around once we have started running this new programme, and maybe the girls will find it much better than the old version. As with all programme changes, we will eventually forget how it used to be and get used to the new version, I guess. After all, the new girls will not know any different!

What are your thoughts? Do you agree with my initial reaction? You can email any suggestions and thoughts to ourjourney@girlguiding.org.uk.

Starting Queen's Guide!

On the 17th July, I officially started my Queen's Guide Award! For those of you who don't know, the Queen's Guide is the highest award you can earn in Girlguiding, and is similar to the DofE Gold Award. You have 3 years to complete it once you have started and you must also complete it before your 26th birthday.

It consists of 4 sections: Service in Guiding, Outdoor Challenge, Personal Skill & Development, and Community Action. Each of these have various sub-elements which must all be completed. You also have to go on a residential with a group of people you do not know.

I am going to be documenting my progress on this blog, alongside my regular meetings. Click the link in the top navigation bar to see what stage I am at in planning and completing each element! Hopefully this will serve as an interesting insight into what things you could possibly do for your Queen's Guide if you are thinking of starting it.