This week is revision week at university so I decided to come home for a couple of days for the peace and quiet, cheaper printing and, of course, Brownies! As it was also election day, we couldn't use our usual hall so we went to a local park instead.
The girls were split into their sixes and given a quiz to do as they walked around. Each six took 1 or 2 leaders with them. I was quickly snapped up by one of our older girls to go with her six, much to the dismay of her sixer who wanted one of the Young Leaders instead. As we have 5 sixes (we've added Gnomes since I left) and 7 Leaders, I ended up on my own with this six of 2 older girls and 3 new girls who I hadn't met before. Before we'd even left, the Sixer and Seconder were arguing because the Seconder had organised the 3 younger ones while waiting for the Sixer to stop messing with her friends. I smoothed that one out quite quickly by saying that the Seconder was in the right and if the Sixer wanted to be in charge she needed to do what she was told by Brown Owl and not mess around. However, this set the tone for the rest of the evening.
While answering the first question, which involved the girls counting pillars around a building, the arguments started again because they couldn't decide on an answer. This carried on for several questions, to the point where the six had basically split in two with the Sixer and 2 younger girls in one 'half' and the Seconder and another girl in the other and they weren't telling each other the answers. This may have been partly my fault as at one point the Sixer and her group were refusing to answer the questions and so I told the Seconder that she could still answer them, even if her Sixer didn't want to. She apparently took this to mean that if she'd gone to the trouble of answering a question that her Sixer hadn't then she didn't need to tell her the answer. I tried to explain that that wasn't a nice way to behave and that she should at least help the rest of her six work out the answer even if she didn't want to tell them straight off but she was having none of it.
In all this commotion, we also managed to take a wrong turn as I was preoccupied mediating arguments and didn't check my own set of directions. This meant that we missed out a couple of questions and, instead of leaving them and continuing on, the six decided to loop back and do it 'properly'. When we got back to where we were supposed to have gone, they decided that their feet hurt and they needed to stop and watch the pond skaters for a while. Eventually I convinced them to keep going and we made it through a few more questions before things kicked off again, this time in the form of the group of 3 heading off on their own ahead of us or lagging behind, so I had to keep asking them to stick together. We then came across a squirrel, which caused even more delays as the girls wanted to stop and watch it. I had to cut it short when they tried to see who could get closest to it though.
Eventually we got back on track and moved onto the next two questions which involved them reading an information board to find out when the park had been opened and how much the boathouse cost to build. The Seconder took one look at the board, announced that she knew the answer and started to walk off. I asked her to stop and wait for the rest of her six to work out the answer, to which the Sixer said 'what's the point, the Seconder knows, she can just tell us all'. I could see that the Seconder hadn't actually written anything down and so I asked her to share her answer with the rest of her six. When she couldn't produce an answer, I asked of we needed to go back and have another look and she said yes. The rest of the six were too busy arguing about who was going to read the board to cotton on to the fact that she'd lied so I let it be. The girls were all getting more frustrated because they couldn't find the answer that I pointed out the paragraphs that had the answers in and we finally moved on.
We eventually made it into the second half of the park which contained a natural playground which was a trail of stones and logs that the girls could climb over. At this point, I had given up trying to persuade them to answer the questions and just let them go and play. To start with, they were all fairly close together but the group of 3 girls were going faster and slowly got further and further from me. As I could still see them and my voice was starting to go, I didn't bother shouting at them to stay closer. However, this decision came back to bite me when the shout went up, 'Flossie's fallen over and she's crying'. I left the two slower girls where they were, making their way across some logs, and ran down to the injured girl. She'd slipped when climbing onto a net and hit her shin on the metal supporting bar. She had quite an impressive bruise there already and I suspected that there was no damage, just pain from hitting the bruise so I did the usual 'can you move your toes? Can you stand on it?' to which the answers were yes to both.
Me: Well there's nothing else I can do about it then
Her: That's what the teachers always say
Me: But the only thing I have on me is a phone
Her: Hmmph
Me: I can call an ambulance if you want me to...
Her: Nope, I'm fine!
She then ran off again and carried on playing with her friends so I left her to it.
When the faster group finished, they ended up in a playground at the end and we eventually caught up with them. When we did, I realised that it was 7:20 and the parents were picking up at 7:30 so I started heading back with the girls, trying to make them walk as fast as possible so we wouldn't be too late but the more I tried, the slower they were walking, complaining of sore feet and thirst. None of my tactics were working, including telling them that I would have to leave them behind for their parents to find (they were perfectly happy for this to happen)!
Half way back, we were met by Brown Owl who'd come looking for us when they realised they were a couple of girls short. Apparently she'd seen what she thought was a Brownie on the opposite side of the lake but had assumed it wasn't one of ours because her group should have been the last group. But what she didn't know was that our loop back meant we had ended up being the last group. When she got to the playground at the end, she did a quick scan and couldn't see me with the other leaders so she asked if any of them had seen me, to which the answer was no. On her way back out of the playground to find us, she made a comment to the Mum of one of the girls in my group about how we'd lost a few girls. It then dawned on her, looking at the confusion on the Mum's face, that this Mum had never met me and must have thought the girls were on their own in the park as she could see all the leaders in the playground. She reassured her that they were with a suitable adult and then came to find us. When we eventually made it back, she made a point of introducing me to this Mum so she knew that her daughter had been in safe hands. As it turned out, this was the Mum of the girl who'd fallen over so I think I put myself in her good books by telling her exactly what had happened and what I'd done about it.
Overall, this was an interesting meeting to come back to, and definitely tested my ability to control a group of girls by myself but I would happily do it again, purely because I miss Brownies so much while at uni that any time I get to come home and help is a blessing. And, in between the arguments, I did manage to get to know one of the newer girls relatively well. Only 3 more weeks of university though and I will be home for the final term of Brownies!
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I just want to add, I am in no way complaining about these girls and I don't want this to come across as a rant; I thoroughly enjoy everything that happens at Brownies. If anything, it has helped me develop my skills in smoothing out arguments without taking sides and I am now a lot more confident in my ability to control a group of girls by myself. I also hope that this post will help show other Leaders that they're not alone when it comes to tricky groups of girls. Feel free to share any experiences you've had below.
