13/12/18
This week was our last meeting before Christmas and we visited our local fire station. We arrived and met all the girls in the foyer. A fireman came out to say hello and then took us all upstairs to their lecture room to go through some theory towards the Fire Safety badge. He was really good at fielding questions from the girls and turning them into the correct answers (for example, on asking what could cause a fire, one girls said "leaving an oven on and forgetting about it" and so he said "shall we call that 'unattended cooking' then?"). The leaders and parents at the back also had a bit of a chuckle when one girl said "using a match to turn on a candle" could cause a fire! Once we had covered the basics of what to do if your clothes caught on fire, the common causes of fires, and why smoke alarms are on the ceiling then we split into two groups and went on a bit of a tour of the fire station.
The group I was with first went down to see the fire engines. Our fireman was explaining how each engine had a callsign in the window that they used to tell them apart and one of the girls asked why they didn't just have names. He then asked them what they thought the engines should be called, to which the response was "Bob, Steve, Frank, and Kevin"! We worked our way around the engine and he opened up the different doors and showed the girls all the equipment inside and let them ask questions. We then swapped over and the other group came into see the fire engines and we got to go outside and play with the hose! Each girl got a chance to hold the hose (with the fireman's help) and spray it into a pit. I think that may have been the highlight of the girls evening!
We then headed back inside and he gave a demonstration of the alert they get for a call - they did a test using our unit name as the text which they girls thought was pretty cool too. I then took my group into the community room and started handing out their baubles from last week while the second group got to see the alert process. As their fireman was showing them the printout, the printer whirred into life again and a real call came in for a chimney fire! We then got to see the firemen load up into their engine and drive off. It was a bit eerie to then give all the girls to their parents and leave without actually saying godbye and thank you to the two firemen who had given us the tour. I think the girls all enjoyed their evening, although they were all a bit excitable - probably a combination of the end of term looming and the fact we were at a fire station.
We are now done for the term until January 10th, although I may post another Queen's Guide update at some point over the holidays. Merry Christmas to all.
Monday 17 December 2018
Monday 10 December 2018
Paint It Yourself Pottery
06/12/18
This week we went to our local pottery painting place and all the girls got to paint a bauble. We spent the first 30 minutes drawing a rough design on paper first, and then we transferred the design onto the bauble using a felt tip pen. When the bauble is glazed and put in the kiln, the felt tip pen burns off so it is perfect for planning out a design before painting. We were then given a plate with a few colours on and lots of paintbrushes of different sizes. They recommended that the girls paint all the large areas with the paintbrushes and then they would come round with paint pens to help do outlines and fiddly bits. A few of the girls struggled to come up with ideas so the Leaders offered up a few simple suggestions (reindeer, santa, presents etc.) and then they were all happy getting on with it with limited assistance.
Once the girls had finished painting the large areas with the paintbrushes, they were allowed to use a paint pen to do outlines - basically a squeezy pot of paint with a needle thin point. A few girls had a lot of problems with using the pens as they couldn't squeeze them hard enough, or too much came out at once so they needed a lot more help then.
We left the baubles there to be kilned and glazed, we will pick them up in time to hand them out next week. I think the girls really enjoyed painting their baubles, even if some of the struggled a little bit, and they also enjoyed having some time to sit and chat with their friends.
This week we went to our local pottery painting place and all the girls got to paint a bauble. We spent the first 30 minutes drawing a rough design on paper first, and then we transferred the design onto the bauble using a felt tip pen. When the bauble is glazed and put in the kiln, the felt tip pen burns off so it is perfect for planning out a design before painting. We were then given a plate with a few colours on and lots of paintbrushes of different sizes. They recommended that the girls paint all the large areas with the paintbrushes and then they would come round with paint pens to help do outlines and fiddly bits. A few of the girls struggled to come up with ideas so the Leaders offered up a few simple suggestions (reindeer, santa, presents etc.) and then they were all happy getting on with it with limited assistance.
Once the girls had finished painting the large areas with the paintbrushes, they were allowed to use a paint pen to do outlines - basically a squeezy pot of paint with a needle thin point. A few girls had a lot of problems with using the pens as they couldn't squeeze them hard enough, or too much came out at once so they needed a lot more help then.
We left the baubles there to be kilned and glazed, we will pick them up in time to hand them out next week. I think the girls really enjoyed painting their baubles, even if some of the struggled a little bit, and they also enjoyed having some time to sit and chat with their friends.
Monday 3 December 2018
Christmas Cards
29/11/18
A year or so ago, one of our Brownie's Grandmas was clearing out some craft items and donated a lot of card making stuff to us. A lot of it was Christmassy, so we were going to use it last year and then forgot so we saved it for this year. We laid out all the stickers and coloured card and other items on a table at the front of the hall, gave each girl a blank white card, and then let them come up, a table at a time, to pick 2 items from the table to start with. When everyone had been up once, they could all start making their cards, and they could come up to the front table at any point to swap what they currently had for something different.
It was a perfect evening from a leaders perspective because we literally had to do nothing, short of peeling off a few stickers and stopping minor disagreements over who was using the scissors or the sticker sheet next. Which was probably a good thing because 2 of our leaders couldn't make it and we had to have a parent helping instead!
The girls absolutely loved being given free reign to do whatever they wanted to do on their card and would happily have carried on for longer than we gave them. I was also pretty impressed with the speed at which most of them helped tidy up at the end too - our Young Leader went round with a broom, but the girls put all their rubbish in the bin; pens, glue, and scissors in the correct boxes; unused stickers back on the front table; and their cards with their coats with very little prompting! Definitely an evening we will be running again, not least because we still have reams of card making stuff left over, and not all of it is Christmas themed!
A year or so ago, one of our Brownie's Grandmas was clearing out some craft items and donated a lot of card making stuff to us. A lot of it was Christmassy, so we were going to use it last year and then forgot so we saved it for this year. We laid out all the stickers and coloured card and other items on a table at the front of the hall, gave each girl a blank white card, and then let them come up, a table at a time, to pick 2 items from the table to start with. When everyone had been up once, they could all start making their cards, and they could come up to the front table at any point to swap what they currently had for something different.
It was a perfect evening from a leaders perspective because we literally had to do nothing, short of peeling off a few stickers and stopping minor disagreements over who was using the scissors or the sticker sheet next. Which was probably a good thing because 2 of our leaders couldn't make it and we had to have a parent helping instead!
The girls absolutely loved being given free reign to do whatever they wanted to do on their card and would happily have carried on for longer than we gave them. I was also pretty impressed with the speed at which most of them helped tidy up at the end too - our Young Leader went round with a broom, but the girls put all their rubbish in the bin; pens, glue, and scissors in the correct boxes; unused stickers back on the front table; and their cards with their coats with very little prompting! Definitely an evening we will be running again, not least because we still have reams of card making stuff left over, and not all of it is Christmas themed!
Monday 26 November 2018
Finishing Brownie Traditions and Promise Ceremony
22/11/18
Tonight we finished off the last few clauses for the Brownie Traditions badge. We started by telling the girls how Brownies came to be (a cut down version of this story) and then they had 10 minutes in their six to come up with a short play to explain to someone who didn't know about Brownies where they had come from. There was a lot of confusion to start with and we spent a while as Leaders restating parts of the story to various girlswho had forgotten parts. We were very impressed when they performed them though - a lot of the girls had most of the information in there and none of them were reading from notes.
Once they had finished performing them, we got out some tables and chairs. We read out a list of the girls who missed the previous meeting when we had done things towards the Traditions badge and they sat on one table. All the other girls spread themselves out around the rest of the tables. The girls who had missed the previous meeting had a chance to light a candle, shine a penny, and tie 2 knots. The other girls were designing a poster showing what they thought Brownies would be like in 10 years. There was some entertaining suggestions, including levitating toadstools, pack holidays on the moon, and a new uniform that was pink and purple!
While the girls were doing their posters, I took the two girls doing their Hostess badge into the kitchen to set up their decorations and turn on the kettle ready for the parents. The parents arrived shortly after and the girls asked them if they would like tea or coffee. Surprisingly this time, only one of the parents wanted a cup of tea so I helped the girls make it. We then tidied up the tables and did our promise ceremony - we were enrolling 3 girls this week. Two of them even managed to say the whole Promise without reading the wording from the certificate, which we haven;t seen in a long time.
Then all the girls who had finished their posters were given their Traditions badge, and those who hadn't finished were told that if they did it at home then they could have the badge next week.
This was a fairly relaxed meeting, the girls just got on with doing various things and didn't need too much leader input (except for the candle lighting, obviously!) so we could just wander round and chat to them.
Tonight we finished off the last few clauses for the Brownie Traditions badge. We started by telling the girls how Brownies came to be (a cut down version of this story) and then they had 10 minutes in their six to come up with a short play to explain to someone who didn't know about Brownies where they had come from. There was a lot of confusion to start with and we spent a while as Leaders restating parts of the story to various girlswho had forgotten parts. We were very impressed when they performed them though - a lot of the girls had most of the information in there and none of them were reading from notes.
Once they had finished performing them, we got out some tables and chairs. We read out a list of the girls who missed the previous meeting when we had done things towards the Traditions badge and they sat on one table. All the other girls spread themselves out around the rest of the tables. The girls who had missed the previous meeting had a chance to light a candle, shine a penny, and tie 2 knots. The other girls were designing a poster showing what they thought Brownies would be like in 10 years. There was some entertaining suggestions, including levitating toadstools, pack holidays on the moon, and a new uniform that was pink and purple!
While the girls were doing their posters, I took the two girls doing their Hostess badge into the kitchen to set up their decorations and turn on the kettle ready for the parents. The parents arrived shortly after and the girls asked them if they would like tea or coffee. Surprisingly this time, only one of the parents wanted a cup of tea so I helped the girls make it. We then tidied up the tables and did our promise ceremony - we were enrolling 3 girls this week. Two of them even managed to say the whole Promise without reading the wording from the certificate, which we haven;t seen in a long time.
Then all the girls who had finished their posters were given their Traditions badge, and those who hadn't finished were told that if they did it at home then they could have the badge next week.
This was a fairly relaxed meeting, the girls just got on with doing various things and didn't need too much leader input (except for the candle lighting, obviously!) so we could just wander round and chat to them.
Monday 19 November 2018
More Skills Builders
15/11/18
This week we started by playing one of the games the girls had created a few weeks ago but didn't have time to play that week. This game involved having a group of girls in the middle as chasers, and the rest of the girls split into 4 corners. Each corner chose a name and then the girls in the middle would name 2 corners and an action. The two corners had to swap places while doing the action and the girls in the middle had to try and catch them while also doing the action. If a girl was caught then she became a chaser and the girl who caught her went into her corner instead. Actions that they chose included 'hopping', 'jogging', 'hopscotch', and 'walking'. We played the game for 5 minutes and then stopped the girls as there was no way the game would end otherwise!
We then split the girls into their skills builder groups and did another activity towards the skills builders. The group doing Lead did Change The Rules and the group doing Innovate did Move and Shake. The group doing Lead split into 2 smaller groups and each came up with a game that they were going to change the rules to. They had to write down the rules of the game they had chosen and then, in pairs, chose one rule to change. Each pair could then teach the rest of the group how to play their variation of the game. In the group that are doing Lead, there is one sixer so she sort of took charge of instructing both subgroups. At one point, when neither group was paying any attention to her at all, she just looked at me and said 'how do you do it?'! One subgroup chose Sleeping Lions and the other chose Wink Murder. The group who chose Wink Murder were then getting on fairly fine with changing one rule, but the group doing Sleeping Lions didn't really understand (they were a younger group of girls). They ended up playing a game they called Sleeping Narwhals (one girl had a Narwhal toy with her!) but that was where the similarities to Sleeping Lions stopped! I ended up having to intervene and re-explain the instructions to them. They then came up with a pretty clever rule change which sort of combined Sleeping Lions with Musical Statues and Musical Bumps. All the girls started off curled up on the floor, as if they were asleep and one girl left the room and counted to 10 (quietly). All the other girls could get up and dance around as much as they liked while she was out but as soon as she opened the door, they had to be curled up asleep again. Any girls who were spotted moving when the door was opened joined the girl outside. This led to a hilarious moment at the end of the meeting, when we let them run it with the whole pack, when the double doors swung open slowly to reveal half our unit stood the other side!
The group doing Innovate also split into two smaller groups. They had to choose a dance which had actions. They then had to write the actions on pieces of paper, with the body part on one colour and the motion on another colour. For example, they might write 'left hand' on white paper and 'on head' on yellow paper. They then had to mix up all the actions and pair them up randomly and then attempt the new dance. The idea behind this is it introduces them to computer algorithms. A computer will do the instructions you give it in the exact order you give them in, so if you accidentally get the instruction in the wrong order then the computer will do something silly. One group decided to do the Macarena and at one point ended up with 'hips on head' (from 'hips - rotate' and 'left hand on head') which caused a lot of giggles. At the end of the meeting, we let both groups perform their new dances to the rest of the unit. One group had decided prior to performing what order they were going to do their moves in whereas the other group made it up on the fly as they had 2 girls in the group who didn't want to perform. These two girls stood behind the audience, one with the yellow paper and one with the white and called out different moves for them to do. Both approaches worked well and it was nice to see the girls take a bit of initiative when they had member who didn't want to do it exactly as stated.
This was a tricky evening from a leaders perspective as the girls all needed a lot of help understanding the instructions and we had to guide them a lot more than we anticipated. The girls all seemed to have a fairly good time doing the activities though so I think we'll mark those two as a semi-success. I was also pretty impressed with the Sleeping Narwhals game, once I had intervened to get them on the right track.
This week we started by playing one of the games the girls had created a few weeks ago but didn't have time to play that week. This game involved having a group of girls in the middle as chasers, and the rest of the girls split into 4 corners. Each corner chose a name and then the girls in the middle would name 2 corners and an action. The two corners had to swap places while doing the action and the girls in the middle had to try and catch them while also doing the action. If a girl was caught then she became a chaser and the girl who caught her went into her corner instead. Actions that they chose included 'hopping', 'jogging', 'hopscotch', and 'walking'. We played the game for 5 minutes and then stopped the girls as there was no way the game would end otherwise!
We then split the girls into their skills builder groups and did another activity towards the skills builders. The group doing Lead did Change The Rules and the group doing Innovate did Move and Shake. The group doing Lead split into 2 smaller groups and each came up with a game that they were going to change the rules to. They had to write down the rules of the game they had chosen and then, in pairs, chose one rule to change. Each pair could then teach the rest of the group how to play their variation of the game. In the group that are doing Lead, there is one sixer so she sort of took charge of instructing both subgroups. At one point, when neither group was paying any attention to her at all, she just looked at me and said 'how do you do it?'! One subgroup chose Sleeping Lions and the other chose Wink Murder. The group who chose Wink Murder were then getting on fairly fine with changing one rule, but the group doing Sleeping Lions didn't really understand (they were a younger group of girls). They ended up playing a game they called Sleeping Narwhals (one girl had a Narwhal toy with her!) but that was where the similarities to Sleeping Lions stopped! I ended up having to intervene and re-explain the instructions to them. They then came up with a pretty clever rule change which sort of combined Sleeping Lions with Musical Statues and Musical Bumps. All the girls started off curled up on the floor, as if they were asleep and one girl left the room and counted to 10 (quietly). All the other girls could get up and dance around as much as they liked while she was out but as soon as she opened the door, they had to be curled up asleep again. Any girls who were spotted moving when the door was opened joined the girl outside. This led to a hilarious moment at the end of the meeting, when we let them run it with the whole pack, when the double doors swung open slowly to reveal half our unit stood the other side!
The group doing Innovate also split into two smaller groups. They had to choose a dance which had actions. They then had to write the actions on pieces of paper, with the body part on one colour and the motion on another colour. For example, they might write 'left hand' on white paper and 'on head' on yellow paper. They then had to mix up all the actions and pair them up randomly and then attempt the new dance. The idea behind this is it introduces them to computer algorithms. A computer will do the instructions you give it in the exact order you give them in, so if you accidentally get the instruction in the wrong order then the computer will do something silly. One group decided to do the Macarena and at one point ended up with 'hips on head' (from 'hips - rotate' and 'left hand on head') which caused a lot of giggles. At the end of the meeting, we let both groups perform their new dances to the rest of the unit. One group had decided prior to performing what order they were going to do their moves in whereas the other group made it up on the fly as they had 2 girls in the group who didn't want to perform. These two girls stood behind the audience, one with the yellow paper and one with the white and called out different moves for them to do. Both approaches worked well and it was nice to see the girls take a bit of initiative when they had member who didn't want to do it exactly as stated.
This was a tricky evening from a leaders perspective as the girls all needed a lot of help understanding the instructions and we had to guide them a lot more than we anticipated. The girls all seemed to have a fairly good time doing the activities though so I think we'll mark those two as a semi-success. I was also pretty impressed with the Sleeping Narwhals game, once I had intervened to get them on the right track.
Monday 12 November 2018
Remembrance Day Poppies
08/11/18
Tonight we did some activities for Remembrance Day. We made Poppy Bead Badges on safety pins, which we had seen another leader recommend on Facebook. Each girl was given 10 safety pins and we put patterns on the tables. We also put out pots of red and green beads for the girls to use. The girls then had to follow the pattern to put the beads on 9 of the safety pins, and then thread the beaded pins onto the 10th pin.
The finished badge here is slightly different to the design that our girls made - I forgot to take a photo of one that the girls had made!
We had 4 tables of girls, with about 6 girls on each table and each table had a Leader or Young Leader with them. The Leaders spent a lot of time opening and closing safety pins for the girls! Some of the younger ones had never used safety pins before and so couldn't open them to start with (so we taught them) but the pins are quite hard to close once they had beads on them so the Leaders ended up doing a lot of closing of pins. We had the occasional giggle when a girl failed at closing her pin and pinged all the beads off and all over the table. When it came to putting the pins on the final pin, we got the girls to slide them onto the opening side as it was far too hard to get them round to the other side of the pin. I was helping one girl put all her pins on in the right order and, as she put the last pin on, she turned to ask me to help her close it and managed to tip all of them off the pin onto the table! Another girl managed somehow to not only ping all the pins off, but one burst open and pinged beads everywhere too!
Once the girls had successfully made their pin badges, we had also printed copies of "In Flanders Fields" which the girls could copy onto card. Once they had finished, we had some red ink pads and they decorated their poem with thumb print poppies - put two red thumb prints side by side, add a black dot with a sharpie, and a green stem with a felt tip. The finished poems actually looked stunning - it's so simple but so effective.
This evening was a surprising success - we had been warned that the poppy pin badges could be very tricky for Brownies to make but our girls all got stuck in and were really focussed. One girl, who is usually a bit of live-wire and can't sit still, got so into it that she decided she was going to buy beads and pins so she could make other patterns. My table also surprised me by reciting "In Flanders Fields" off by heart - the older girls are doing it as part of their assembly so have all had to learn it. It was also a nice to take a break from the new programme, and going back to an evening for the sake of it, rather than aiming towards a badge.
Tonight we did some activities for Remembrance Day. We made Poppy Bead Badges on safety pins, which we had seen another leader recommend on Facebook. Each girl was given 10 safety pins and we put patterns on the tables. We also put out pots of red and green beads for the girls to use. The girls then had to follow the pattern to put the beads on 9 of the safety pins, and then thread the beaded pins onto the 10th pin.
We had 4 tables of girls, with about 6 girls on each table and each table had a Leader or Young Leader with them. The Leaders spent a lot of time opening and closing safety pins for the girls! Some of the younger ones had never used safety pins before and so couldn't open them to start with (so we taught them) but the pins are quite hard to close once they had beads on them so the Leaders ended up doing a lot of closing of pins. We had the occasional giggle when a girl failed at closing her pin and pinged all the beads off and all over the table. When it came to putting the pins on the final pin, we got the girls to slide them onto the opening side as it was far too hard to get them round to the other side of the pin. I was helping one girl put all her pins on in the right order and, as she put the last pin on, she turned to ask me to help her close it and managed to tip all of them off the pin onto the table! Another girl managed somehow to not only ping all the pins off, but one burst open and pinged beads everywhere too!
Once the girls had successfully made their pin badges, we had also printed copies of "In Flanders Fields" which the girls could copy onto card. Once they had finished, we had some red ink pads and they decorated their poem with thumb print poppies - put two red thumb prints side by side, add a black dot with a sharpie, and a green stem with a felt tip. The finished poems actually looked stunning - it's so simple but so effective.
This evening was a surprising success - we had been warned that the poppy pin badges could be very tricky for Brownies to make but our girls all got stuck in and were really focussed. One girl, who is usually a bit of live-wire and can't sit still, got so into it that she decided she was going to buy beads and pins so she could make other patterns. My table also surprised me by reciting "In Flanders Fields" off by heart - the older girls are doing it as part of their assembly so have all had to learn it. It was also a nice to take a break from the new programme, and going back to an evening for the sake of it, rather than aiming towards a badge.
Monday 5 November 2018
New UMA Testing - On Pointe
01/11/18
Brown Owl was on holiday for this meeting, so it fell to me to plan and run the whole meeting. Luckily, I was saved from half of that task by an email saying we had been selected to test a new Unit Meeting Activity card. The card we had been given was called 'On Pointe' from the Express Myself theme and was all about exploring ballet moves. There was no prep for me to do as a leader for the activity itself, however I did need to plan how the girls were going to give their feedback - giving them a double sided piece of A4 paper with lots of questions on didn't feel like the best plan! Instead, I printed the 3 questions which required an answer on a scale out with smiley faces for them to colour in.
I then bought some post it notes from Amazon and made up 3 sheets for them to stick them to - "Something I enjoyed" (green post it), "Something I didn't enjoy" (pink post it), and "Something that would make it better" (orange post it). That covered most of the questions that were sent in the feedback questionnaire and then my plan was to shuffle the girls answers into the other questions if they answered those inadvertently! (I was missing "What would make the instructions easier to follow" and "Do you have any other comments").
On the day of the meeting, I set off to the hall nice and early and got myself ready. The girls all arrived and lots of them asked where Brown Owl was. I told them she was on holiday and one girl's response was just "How rude!". We started the meeting as normal, with the Brownie circle and show and tell for one six. I then explained to the girls that the people who run all of Girlguiding had asked us to test an activity which might become part of the new programme. I explained that we would be following the instructions on my card and then they would get a chance to write down what bits they liked and what bits they didn't.
The instructions first asked us to play our favourite warm up game so I asked the girls if they had any suggestions of something to play that involved running around. One girl asked if we could play her friends game which was a version of Tag. You start with 3 people who are "it" and they have to hold hands. The end ones can tag other girls and once the line has 4 people in it, it can split in half. Those lines then tag people and can split when they get to 4 people. It was quite a good game, until we heard a thump and a girl came running over clutching her head and crying. The other leaders took her aside and sat her down. They put a cold compress on her head while I continued supervising the rest of the game. The next thing I knew, I was told that they had called her Mum to pick her up as her head was swelling up spectacularly... Mum came and the girl then decided she was fine and didn't want to go home because she didn't want to miss the rest of the activity. The other leaders said that we would email out the instructions and she could do them at home and then show us next week, so she could also get the credit for it. That made her much happier and she went off with Mum.
After we had finished the game, I then asked the girls to spread out and find a space. I then had to teach them some ballet moves. The card gave instructions on how to do positions 1-4 for the arms and feet, as well as 4 moves - plié, tendu, elevé, and sauté. I worked through the 4 positions, recapping the previous ones as we went and then did the 4 moves. The card then said to spend some time practicing, by having the leader call out the moves randomly and getting the girls to see if they could remember.
They then had to get into small groups - I decided 4/5 was plenty - and they had 10 minutes to come up with a short dance about their day, using only those 8 moves we had just learnt. I then spent the time looping aroud the groups helping them come up with ideas and resolving minor disputes. A lot of the girls moaned that it was too difficult to come up with anything just using those 8 moves, especially given none of them involved any moving so their dance was just going to be on one spot. I told them that they had to do their best and try and I also pointed out that we are testing the activity so it might not be perfect and they would get a chance to tell Guiding that at the end of the meeting. That placated most of the girls and they came up with something.
Once the 10 minutes was up, I stopped the girls and we watched each dance and guessed what each group had done that day. Some of the dances were actually pretty good for only having 8 stationary moves to choose from - and of course some groups had loosely interpreted the brief and added extra hand movements or moved!
I then had the girls sit in a circle and handed out the questionnaire sheets and pens. Once they had coloured in one face for each question, they could go and write on any of the post it notes which I spread around the hall. I was quite surprised at how many post it notes I ended up getting - we didn't specify they had to do one of each but I think most of them did anyway! I was also very surprised to see that the original reservations I, and other leaders, had about the activity featured heavily in the girls negative feedback - most notably questioning why it was only ballet and not "modern or street". I was left with 3 very colourful pieces of paper to transport home and type up for the feedback form! I was also tickled by some of the spellings of ballet!
We still had a bit of time to spare, so we played another round of the Tag variant we started the meeting with, a game of Trains, and a game of Pirates. It was then time to say goodbye and send the girls home. The meeting seemed to go OK, although I was pretty accurate in my initial assessment of the activity - I didn't think it would go down particularly well with our girls and I was right. They participated but they weren't particularly happy about it!
Once I got home, I decided that our accident was serious enough to warrant filling out the Girlguiding Accident Form and so I sent that off to HQ and to my District Commissioner. I also emailed the Mum the next day to see how her daughter was doing, as well as to send her the activity and a copy of the forms but I am still waiting to hear back from her. As I said to my DC, it had to happen on the one night Brown Owl was away, didn't it!
Brown Owl was on holiday for this meeting, so it fell to me to plan and run the whole meeting. Luckily, I was saved from half of that task by an email saying we had been selected to test a new Unit Meeting Activity card. The card we had been given was called 'On Pointe' from the Express Myself theme and was all about exploring ballet moves. There was no prep for me to do as a leader for the activity itself, however I did need to plan how the girls were going to give their feedback - giving them a double sided piece of A4 paper with lots of questions on didn't feel like the best plan! Instead, I printed the 3 questions which required an answer on a scale out with smiley faces for them to colour in.
I then bought some post it notes from Amazon and made up 3 sheets for them to stick them to - "Something I enjoyed" (green post it), "Something I didn't enjoy" (pink post it), and "Something that would make it better" (orange post it). That covered most of the questions that were sent in the feedback questionnaire and then my plan was to shuffle the girls answers into the other questions if they answered those inadvertently! (I was missing "What would make the instructions easier to follow" and "Do you have any other comments").
On the day of the meeting, I set off to the hall nice and early and got myself ready. The girls all arrived and lots of them asked where Brown Owl was. I told them she was on holiday and one girl's response was just "How rude!". We started the meeting as normal, with the Brownie circle and show and tell for one six. I then explained to the girls that the people who run all of Girlguiding had asked us to test an activity which might become part of the new programme. I explained that we would be following the instructions on my card and then they would get a chance to write down what bits they liked and what bits they didn't.
The instructions first asked us to play our favourite warm up game so I asked the girls if they had any suggestions of something to play that involved running around. One girl asked if we could play her friends game which was a version of Tag. You start with 3 people who are "it" and they have to hold hands. The end ones can tag other girls and once the line has 4 people in it, it can split in half. Those lines then tag people and can split when they get to 4 people. It was quite a good game, until we heard a thump and a girl came running over clutching her head and crying. The other leaders took her aside and sat her down. They put a cold compress on her head while I continued supervising the rest of the game. The next thing I knew, I was told that they had called her Mum to pick her up as her head was swelling up spectacularly... Mum came and the girl then decided she was fine and didn't want to go home because she didn't want to miss the rest of the activity. The other leaders said that we would email out the instructions and she could do them at home and then show us next week, so she could also get the credit for it. That made her much happier and she went off with Mum.
After we had finished the game, I then asked the girls to spread out and find a space. I then had to teach them some ballet moves. The card gave instructions on how to do positions 1-4 for the arms and feet, as well as 4 moves - plié, tendu, elevé, and sauté. I worked through the 4 positions, recapping the previous ones as we went and then did the 4 moves. The card then said to spend some time practicing, by having the leader call out the moves randomly and getting the girls to see if they could remember.
They then had to get into small groups - I decided 4/5 was plenty - and they had 10 minutes to come up with a short dance about their day, using only those 8 moves we had just learnt. I then spent the time looping aroud the groups helping them come up with ideas and resolving minor disputes. A lot of the girls moaned that it was too difficult to come up with anything just using those 8 moves, especially given none of them involved any moving so their dance was just going to be on one spot. I told them that they had to do their best and try and I also pointed out that we are testing the activity so it might not be perfect and they would get a chance to tell Guiding that at the end of the meeting. That placated most of the girls and they came up with something.
Once the 10 minutes was up, I stopped the girls and we watched each dance and guessed what each group had done that day. Some of the dances were actually pretty good for only having 8 stationary moves to choose from - and of course some groups had loosely interpreted the brief and added extra hand movements or moved!
I then had the girls sit in a circle and handed out the questionnaire sheets and pens. Once they had coloured in one face for each question, they could go and write on any of the post it notes which I spread around the hall. I was quite surprised at how many post it notes I ended up getting - we didn't specify they had to do one of each but I think most of them did anyway! I was also very surprised to see that the original reservations I, and other leaders, had about the activity featured heavily in the girls negative feedback - most notably questioning why it was only ballet and not "modern or street". I was left with 3 very colourful pieces of paper to transport home and type up for the feedback form! I was also tickled by some of the spellings of ballet!
We still had a bit of time to spare, so we played another round of the Tag variant we started the meeting with, a game of Trains, and a game of Pirates. It was then time to say goodbye and send the girls home. The meeting seemed to go OK, although I was pretty accurate in my initial assessment of the activity - I didn't think it would go down particularly well with our girls and I was right. They participated but they weren't particularly happy about it!
Once I got home, I decided that our accident was serious enough to warrant filling out the Girlguiding Accident Form and so I sent that off to HQ and to my District Commissioner. I also emailed the Mum the next day to see how her daughter was doing, as well as to send her the activity and a copy of the forms but I am still waiting to hear back from her. As I said to my DC, it had to happen on the one night Brown Owl was away, didn't it!
Monday 29 October 2018
Queen's Guide Update #1
As it is half term this week, I thought I would update you on my progess towards my Queen's Guide so far. You can keep up with what I have done on my Queen's Guide page too.
This is on hold until I move house (some point next year - we have made an offer on a house and are now working through all the legal bits).
Residential
I've not done anything towards this one yet, I'm looking to find something in Spring/Summer 2020 as that fits in better with all the other things I have planned (like moving house and getting married!).
Event for 2 Units
I emailed my District Commissioner to ask if she needed any help for Thinking Day 2019. We then had a district meeting and she essentially handed the whole event over to me! I made a suggestion of a venue and the other leaders there had some other ideas so now I am in the process of sorting through all of them and coming up with a rough price for each, along with coach prices so we can make a decision as a District at the next meeting in early December. I will probably also make a Doodle poll of some sort to find out what day would be best for the leaders before we offer it out to all the girls.
Working Group/Committee
I have spoken to the woman who runs our local campsite, who has said that she could definitely find me something to do for their 50th anniversary camp next year. However, I need to find out if this would count as currently it is within my County and this clause specifies that it must be out of the county. Once I have moved house, it will be but I am unsure whether this would count.
There are a few weeks where I haven't managed to get in any practice between lessons, as it has been harder than I anticipated to fit it in once I have got home from work and eaten. It has been really nice to get back into playing again after so long though and I was surprised at how quickly certain things have come back to me! I'm definitely still a little bit rusty, mostly in my ability to count complicated rhythms, but I'm enjoying myself a lot and I can see an improvement every week.
For those of you who are interested, I am doing my Grade 8 under the Trinity College London exam board (yay for no scales!), and my pieces are:
Service in Guiding
Regular VolunteeringThis is on hold until I move house (some point next year - we have made an offer on a house and are now working through all the legal bits).
Residential
I've not done anything towards this one yet, I'm looking to find something in Spring/Summer 2020 as that fits in better with all the other things I have planned (like moving house and getting married!).
Event for 2 Units
I emailed my District Commissioner to ask if she needed any help for Thinking Day 2019. We then had a district meeting and she essentially handed the whole event over to me! I made a suggestion of a venue and the other leaders there had some other ideas so now I am in the process of sorting through all of them and coming up with a rough price for each, along with coach prices so we can make a decision as a District at the next meeting in early December. I will probably also make a Doodle poll of some sort to find out what day would be best for the leaders before we offer it out to all the girls.
Working Group/Committee
I have spoken to the woman who runs our local campsite, who has said that she could definitely find me something to do for their 50th anniversary camp next year. However, I need to find out if this would count as currently it is within my County and this clause specifies that it must be out of the county. Once I have moved house, it will be but I am unsure whether this would count.
Outdoor Challenge
I haven't looked into this much further, as I probably won't do it until next summer at the earliest.Personal Skill
I started having weekly clarinet lessons again at the end of August. I bought myself a little notebook which I keep a record of all the things my teacher says in each lesson and also what I have practised each week. This will serve as my record of how much I have improved, if I don't manage to take my Grade 8 in the year given by the Queen's Guide (I'm still going to do it regardless!). I also created a spreadsheet which allows me to see how many hours of playing I have done, and how close I am to the target of 60 hours.
There are a few weeks where I haven't managed to get in any practice between lessons, as it has been harder than I anticipated to fit it in once I have got home from work and eaten. It has been really nice to get back into playing again after so long though and I was surprised at how quickly certain things have come back to me! I'm definitely still a little bit rusty, mostly in my ability to count complicated rhythms, but I'm enjoying myself a lot and I can see an improvement every week.
For those of you who are interested, I am doing my Grade 8 under the Trinity College London exam board (yay for no scales!), and my pieces are:
- Sarabande et Allegro, Grovlez
- Sonata in Eb (Adagio and Allegro Moderato), Mendelssohn Bartholdy
- I Got Rhythm, Harvey
- Scheherazade (3. Satz), Rimsky-Korsakow [orchestral excerpt - first 10 seconds of video only]
- Sinfonie Nr. 6 (1. Satz), Beethoven [orchestral excerpt]
- Sinfonie Nr. 6 (2. Satz), Beethoven [orchestral excerpt]
Community Action
I haven't done anything towards this yet, I will start putting out some feelers soon for some ideas from local STEM businesses and then will start properly on this in the New Year, hopefully.Residential
I haven't done anything towards this yet, as there are very few residentials over the winter months. I have told my other half that I will come on the next camp he takes his Beavers on as a general helper - I plan on floating around to whoever needs an adult at the time, so I spend time with people I don't know, rather than sticking with him and his Beavers for the whole camp.Monday 22 October 2018
Healthy Heart Badge
18/10/18
This week we finished off the parts of the Healthy Heart badge that we didn't get a chance to do while we were on pack holiday. We started off by asking the girls how they would take their pulse. One girls suggested the following
Girl: "with that armband that blows up"
Brown Owl: "no that's your blood pressure"
Girl: "oh, yeah, it's that clippy thing for your finger isn't it"
Brown Owl: "well, yes, but I meant how would you do it now, with no other equipment"
We then explained that you can take your pulse in your wrist or in your neck, and it is different for each person how easy it is. All the girls then had a go at finding their own pulse and leaders moved around the circle helping those that couldn't. Once the majority of them had managed it, we said to the once who hadn't that it was OK, there would be more opportunities through the meeting to find it.
We then said that we were going to do activities based on the 3 sixes we had on pack holiday. We started with the swimming six - all the girls had to 'swim' 3 lengths of the hall any stroke they wanted (except backstroke!) and then Brown Owl would start a stopwatch for a minute and they had to count how many heart beats they could feel in that time. It was a very abrupt change from 24 girls frantically running up and down, arms flailing, to 24 girls stood almost sliently, muttering numbers under their breath! We gave each sixer a piece of paper to write down her sixes results.
We then did gymnastics - the girls had to hop one length of the hall and then take their pulse again and write it on their sheet. Finally, we did horse riding - the girls had to pretend to ride their horse for 5 laps of the hall and take their pulse again. We then asked them which activites got their heart beating faster (horse riding, almost unanimously).
We then did a different clause - each six had to make up a game for the rest of the unit to play. We gave them a while to come up with their game and test them out with their six and then we picked one group that had finished to test theirs out with the whole unit. The game they had come up with was actually pretty good - it was a simple variation on Fishes:
The girls actually really enjoyed playing this game and we could probably have let them carry on for the rest of the meeting but we decided to let a different six have a go. This game seemed far more complicated, and I'm not 100% of the rules but they involved girls stood in a line and going under each others legs or jumping over someone curled up on the floor! I'm not sure anyone understood completely what was going on...
We then had run out of time so we told the other sixes that they could test their games after half term, if they remind us, and we finished the meeting by giving out a few more left over crafts and booklets from pack holiday and then let the girls go home.
It has been a chaotic term, but the girls have enjoyed all the meetings, as far as I can gather. It's going to be nice to have a week off as a leader though! Next weeks blog will be an update on how far I have got with my Queen's Guide Award.
This week we finished off the parts of the Healthy Heart badge that we didn't get a chance to do while we were on pack holiday. We started off by asking the girls how they would take their pulse. One girls suggested the following
Girl: "with that armband that blows up"
Brown Owl: "no that's your blood pressure"
Girl: "oh, yeah, it's that clippy thing for your finger isn't it"
Brown Owl: "well, yes, but I meant how would you do it now, with no other equipment"
We then explained that you can take your pulse in your wrist or in your neck, and it is different for each person how easy it is. All the girls then had a go at finding their own pulse and leaders moved around the circle helping those that couldn't. Once the majority of them had managed it, we said to the once who hadn't that it was OK, there would be more opportunities through the meeting to find it.
We then said that we were going to do activities based on the 3 sixes we had on pack holiday. We started with the swimming six - all the girls had to 'swim' 3 lengths of the hall any stroke they wanted (except backstroke!) and then Brown Owl would start a stopwatch for a minute and they had to count how many heart beats they could feel in that time. It was a very abrupt change from 24 girls frantically running up and down, arms flailing, to 24 girls stood almost sliently, muttering numbers under their breath! We gave each sixer a piece of paper to write down her sixes results.
We then did gymnastics - the girls had to hop one length of the hall and then take their pulse again and write it on their sheet. Finally, we did horse riding - the girls had to pretend to ride their horse for 5 laps of the hall and take their pulse again. We then asked them which activites got their heart beating faster (horse riding, almost unanimously).
We then did a different clause - each six had to make up a game for the rest of the unit to play. We gave them a while to come up with their game and test them out with their six and then we picked one group that had finished to test theirs out with the whole unit. The game they had come up with was actually pretty good - it was a simple variation on Fishes:
- Split the girls into 4 evenly sized groups and put one in each corner of the room
- You will also need 2/3 chasers (depending on size of hall and number of girls)
- Each corner gives themselves a name
- A Leader calls out one of the names and that corner has to run in a circle around the hall (inside the other groups)
- The chasers and the rest of the unit count loudly to 5
- The chasers have to stand still until they reach 5 and then they can try and tag as many of the girls left running as possible
- Girls are safe if they reach their corner without being tagged and they sit out at the side if they got tagged
- The winner is the last group with people in its corner
The girls actually really enjoyed playing this game and we could probably have let them carry on for the rest of the meeting but we decided to let a different six have a go. This game seemed far more complicated, and I'm not 100% of the rules but they involved girls stood in a line and going under each others legs or jumping over someone curled up on the floor! I'm not sure anyone understood completely what was going on...
We then had run out of time so we told the other sixes that they could test their games after half term, if they remind us, and we finished the meeting by giving out a few more left over crafts and booklets from pack holiday and then let the girls go home.
It has been a chaotic term, but the girls have enjoyed all the meetings, as far as I can gather. It's going to be nice to have a week off as a leader though! Next weeks blog will be an update on how far I have got with my Queen's Guide Award.
Wednesday 17 October 2018
Penny Hike
11/10/18
We had read about penny hikes on various Guiding facebook pages and wanted to give it a try so we thought the autumn term would be perfect - light enough to see as we left the hall but dark enough for them to find it exciting as we finished. We picked this week as the Scouts that meet in the small hall at our church have their annual AGM and so we offer up our significantly larger hall and do something either out of the hall or in the smaller one.
When we arrived at the meeting, one of the girls who had come on pack holiday came up to us and handed each of us a chocolate with a thank you note stuck on the back! She even gave me one to give to my other half. It was entirely unexpected and made the whole weekend (and the following week after little sleep) worth it.
We then got out the hi-vis that Specsavers gave us a few years back (Brownie sized!) and got all the girls to put one on, as well as their coat. We then split the unit into 2 and set off, one group followed by the other. Our group decided that TaiLs would be Left and therefore Heads was Right. At each junction, we picked a different girl to toss the coin and decide which way we would be going. There was a lot of throwing the coin into the air and letting it land on the ground! We also added coin tosses for crossing at the pedestrian crossing and going into the park for 5 minutes. Surprisingly enough, the coin landed Tails, meaning we went into the park! The girl then 'confided' in Brown Owl that she had done it deliberately! We knew she had but we didn't really mind spending a few minutes in the park if it meant the girls had a good time. We then continued on our penny hike until 6:50 when we turned and headed back to the hall so we were there for about 7.
We then sat the girls down in a circle and handed out all the pack holiday crafts and posters which we had forgotten to do on the Sunday as they all went home. As we got to the end, a cry suddenly went up "there's a bear in the foyer!" and all the girls immediately got up and ran to the door to see. We calmed them down and got them out of the way of the door so the bear could actually get in. The bear was Winston Bear from Winston's Wish - the girls had raised money for them in the summer term (when I wasn't there) and he had come to collect his cheque. We had got hold of one of the giant cheques and had Winston and the Brownies pose for a photo. One of the girls announced proudly to the Mum from Winston's Wish that we had raised £14,637 so we had a good laugh and then corrected her - we had actually raised £146.37! We took a second photo with just me and the daughters of the Mum who works for Winston's Wish (who was there) and one of the other leaders, as we knew we had photo permissions for all of them to go on the Winston's Wish website if needed.
Winston Bear then left and we finished off the meeting quickly and then let all the girls go. We then had girls coming back in dribs and drabs because they had forgotten their coats! By the time they had all gone, we only had one left, and a Brownie hoodie. I think the girls enjoyed this meeting - they loved the fact that the penny was choosing where they went and that they had a really lucky penny because it took them to the park! We did however realise on the way home that we hadn't actually given Winston Bear the cheque that can be put into the bank (as opposed to the giant one!) so we'll have to slip it to the Mum next week...
We had read about penny hikes on various Guiding facebook pages and wanted to give it a try so we thought the autumn term would be perfect - light enough to see as we left the hall but dark enough for them to find it exciting as we finished. We picked this week as the Scouts that meet in the small hall at our church have their annual AGM and so we offer up our significantly larger hall and do something either out of the hall or in the smaller one.
When we arrived at the meeting, one of the girls who had come on pack holiday came up to us and handed each of us a chocolate with a thank you note stuck on the back! She even gave me one to give to my other half. It was entirely unexpected and made the whole weekend (and the following week after little sleep) worth it.
We then got out the hi-vis that Specsavers gave us a few years back (Brownie sized!) and got all the girls to put one on, as well as their coat. We then split the unit into 2 and set off, one group followed by the other. Our group decided that TaiLs would be Left and therefore Heads was Right. At each junction, we picked a different girl to toss the coin and decide which way we would be going. There was a lot of throwing the coin into the air and letting it land on the ground! We also added coin tosses for crossing at the pedestrian crossing and going into the park for 5 minutes. Surprisingly enough, the coin landed Tails, meaning we went into the park! The girl then 'confided' in Brown Owl that she had done it deliberately! We knew she had but we didn't really mind spending a few minutes in the park if it meant the girls had a good time. We then continued on our penny hike until 6:50 when we turned and headed back to the hall so we were there for about 7.
We then sat the girls down in a circle and handed out all the pack holiday crafts and posters which we had forgotten to do on the Sunday as they all went home. As we got to the end, a cry suddenly went up "there's a bear in the foyer!" and all the girls immediately got up and ran to the door to see. We calmed them down and got them out of the way of the door so the bear could actually get in. The bear was Winston Bear from Winston's Wish - the girls had raised money for them in the summer term (when I wasn't there) and he had come to collect his cheque. We had got hold of one of the giant cheques and had Winston and the Brownies pose for a photo. One of the girls announced proudly to the Mum from Winston's Wish that we had raised £14,637 so we had a good laugh and then corrected her - we had actually raised £146.37! We took a second photo with just me and the daughters of the Mum who works for Winston's Wish (who was there) and one of the other leaders, as we knew we had photo permissions for all of them to go on the Winston's Wish website if needed.
Winston Bear then left and we finished off the meeting quickly and then let all the girls go. We then had girls coming back in dribs and drabs because they had forgotten their coats! By the time they had all gone, we only had one left, and a Brownie hoodie. I think the girls enjoyed this meeting - they loved the fact that the penny was choosing where they went and that they had a really lucky penny because it took them to the park! We did however realise on the way home that we hadn't actually given Winston Bear the cheque that can be put into the bank (as opposed to the giant one!) so we'll have to slip it to the Mum next week...
Monday 15 October 2018
Pack Holiday 2018 - Sunday
07/10/18
This morning the girls got up slightly later than they did yesterday. We had the same for breakfast as we did yesterday and, once they had done their duties and inspection, they got their coats on ready to go to the river. One of the girls said she felt a bit sick so Brown Owl stayed with her and we all set off with the rest of the girls. Brown Owl managed to persuade her that a walk outside might make her feel better so they started by walking to the end of the drive and surprisingly she felt fine so they followed us a few minutes behind. The walk there was fairly uneventful although we did get a lot of giggles from the girls when all the cycling groups that went past actually replied to the girls when they said hello!! Luckily for us the river wasn't too deep when we got there so we drew some boundaries, laid down the rules (no splashing or pushing or you get out), and let the girls in. A few people walked past and commented on how nice it was to see the girls enjoying themselves outside. After a while, we got the girls to get out and dry off. We then set off back to the house. For once, I ended up at the front of the group (I usually end up with the slow walkers at the back!) and we were walking along having a nice chat. Two of the leaders set off ahead of us on their own to make sure lunch was started before we got back (we had enough adults to cover our ratios like that!). Shortly after they had gone, one of the girls from further back appeared next to me saying she really needed a wee and what should she do. I told her she would have to wait as there weren't any toilets nearby and she spent the rest of the walk back constantly telling me how much she needed to wee! She kept asking if she could run ahead because she knew the way and I kept saying no because then she would be without an adult. As we got closer to the house, her walk turned more and more into a waddle/dance! We then got to the back of the house and I told her she could run from there to the toilet and she was off like a rocket! We came round the corner and the front door was flapping in the wind slightly and she was nowhere to be seen! She reappeared a few minutes later looking much happier.
The girls all got back and changed out of any damp clothes they were wearing and then sat down for a very late lunch - spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread. It went down an absolute treat - the girls all ate in silence, finished everything that was on their plate, and many went back for seconds! Definitely more of a hit than the chicken nuggets and fish fingers with chips that we used to do!
After lunch there was only really enough time to pack up their bags (and shove sleeping bags into miniscule bags) and then do a speedy tuck shop before counting up the points. The girl with the most points gets to choose her keep-sake first (this year we had a selection of different games and things from the shop Tiger). We gave out badges and leaders presents and then let all the parents in to collect their daughters. There was absolute bedlam for a bit and then, just like that, they were all gone for another year.
We stayed for another hour cleaning the whole house and then we went home for a much need sleep! This year was a slightly odd one in that our whole timetable got tipped on its head by the rain on Saturday but it went well regardless. We didn't manage to finish either of the badges we were doing, but we can do the last few bits at meetings later in the term. And the girls enjoyed themselves which is the main reason we do this, even if it does take it out of all the leaders.
This morning the girls got up slightly later than they did yesterday. We had the same for breakfast as we did yesterday and, once they had done their duties and inspection, they got their coats on ready to go to the river. One of the girls said she felt a bit sick so Brown Owl stayed with her and we all set off with the rest of the girls. Brown Owl managed to persuade her that a walk outside might make her feel better so they started by walking to the end of the drive and surprisingly she felt fine so they followed us a few minutes behind. The walk there was fairly uneventful although we did get a lot of giggles from the girls when all the cycling groups that went past actually replied to the girls when they said hello!! Luckily for us the river wasn't too deep when we got there so we drew some boundaries, laid down the rules (no splashing or pushing or you get out), and let the girls in. A few people walked past and commented on how nice it was to see the girls enjoying themselves outside. After a while, we got the girls to get out and dry off. We then set off back to the house. For once, I ended up at the front of the group (I usually end up with the slow walkers at the back!) and we were walking along having a nice chat. Two of the leaders set off ahead of us on their own to make sure lunch was started before we got back (we had enough adults to cover our ratios like that!). Shortly after they had gone, one of the girls from further back appeared next to me saying she really needed a wee and what should she do. I told her she would have to wait as there weren't any toilets nearby and she spent the rest of the walk back constantly telling me how much she needed to wee! She kept asking if she could run ahead because she knew the way and I kept saying no because then she would be without an adult. As we got closer to the house, her walk turned more and more into a waddle/dance! We then got to the back of the house and I told her she could run from there to the toilet and she was off like a rocket! We came round the corner and the front door was flapping in the wind slightly and she was nowhere to be seen! She reappeared a few minutes later looking much happier.
The girls all got back and changed out of any damp clothes they were wearing and then sat down for a very late lunch - spaghetti bolognese and garlic bread. It went down an absolute treat - the girls all ate in silence, finished everything that was on their plate, and many went back for seconds! Definitely more of a hit than the chicken nuggets and fish fingers with chips that we used to do!
After lunch there was only really enough time to pack up their bags (and shove sleeping bags into miniscule bags) and then do a speedy tuck shop before counting up the points. The girl with the most points gets to choose her keep-sake first (this year we had a selection of different games and things from the shop Tiger). We gave out badges and leaders presents and then let all the parents in to collect their daughters. There was absolute bedlam for a bit and then, just like that, they were all gone for another year.
We stayed for another hour cleaning the whole house and then we went home for a much need sleep! This year was a slightly odd one in that our whole timetable got tipped on its head by the rain on Saturday but it went well regardless. We didn't manage to finish either of the badges we were doing, but we can do the last few bits at meetings later in the term. And the girls enjoyed themselves which is the main reason we do this, even if it does take it out of all the leaders.
Friday 12 October 2018
Pack Holiday 2018 - Saturday
06/10/18
The girls were up fairly early this morning - 6:30 by the other leaders' accounts! I popped out to wake up my other half in his tent while the girls got dressed and then we had breakfast - cereals followed by eggy bread, bacon, and toast. Once we were done eating, the girls all had duties to do - the Hostess six cleared everything off the table, the Cook six went and helped the leaders dry up the dishes, and the Health six wiped the tables, swept under the table and checked the toilets had loo roll and were clean. Once they had all finished, they had a short amount of time to tidy their beds and then it was inspection time. We introduced an extra sticker for the neatest bed (which we didn't tell them about) and surprised even ourselves with the girl we gave it to - she's usually a bit messy and scatty but she had really made an effort making her bed! We made her day by giving her the second sticker.
Once we were done with inspection, we started our first set of activities. One group made book folding hedgehogs (and decorated them with glitter glue and googly eyes), another made bookmarks and the third made posters to advertise the Brownie Olympics we are holding tomorrow. I sat with the girls making bookmarks and chatted with them. The girls started off in their sixes doing one of the three activities but could then move round once they had finished the one they were on (the only bottleneck was the number of seats to do the book folding).
Our original plan for the weekend was for the girls to make a packed lunch (a clause for the Healthy Heart badge) and then walk to the river to eat it but the weather was so miserable that we decided not to eat outside. The girls each made their packed lunch and then we had a picnic on the living room floor instead! Each lunch had a sandwich (cheese, ham, jam, or marmite), a packet of crisps, a selection of fruit/veg (cucumber sticks, grapes, baby tomatoes, bananas, and apples), and a small cake (mini choc chip muffin or chocolate mini roll). The girls really enjoyed being allowed to sit on the floor and eat, and it was interesting to see what groups they formed too.
We then decided that we would postpone our river walk until tomorrow as the weather was meant to get nicer so we set up the tuck shop. We had a selection of various things from Trading which we sold, along with some sweets (they could have 2 each) and some other small trinket like items. The girls enjoy choosing things to spend their £5 on, although this year the parents hadn't listened when we asked for small change and we had to write a few IOUs and pay them back at the end of the shop, when we had some change!
We then did a few more of the crafty things, which we had planned to do tomorrow. This time, we had one six at a time designing a mascot for their sixes sport from random craft things we found in the cupboard and wanted to get rid of! The other sixes could choose to either make a poster about healthy/unhealthy food (or halfy if you're a Brownie!!) using various foody magazines we had collected or colour in a pattern only uing 3 colours. Annoyingly, a pattern can always be coloured in using no more than 4 colours but the Artist badge syllabus specified 3 so I improvised by not colouring in some sections to make it work! The girls really enjoyed this activity, and spent ages deliberating over what colours to pick (we had some really nice combinations) and then working out what parts to colour in to make pretty patterns. Mine came out fairly well, I think.
We also had some entertaining choices for the healthy/unhealthy posters, including a bottle of whiskey on the healthy side and a phone on the unhealthy side (admitted correct but not a food!).
The girls doing their mascots also had a great time - they had been given free reign over all the craft things we could find, including some big pots of glitter. We had some interesting designs and a few disagreements over what it was they wanted to make. Our YL stepped in and persuaded them to all make a part of their mascot and then combine it at the end to make a whole thing.
When the girls had finished all their craft, they had to write a song about smoking to perform at the campfire, as one of the clauses for the Healthy Heart badge. We then had dinner - the roast we would have had tomorrow but everything is all topsy turvey now! The girls seemed to enjoy it, alhtough not as much as they have done in previous years - they thought the chicken was a bit dry this year.
While the girls were doing their duties, me, our YL and my other half went outside to sort out the campfire. Unfortunately, because it had rained all night, a lot of the wood was damp. We found a few pieces which were dry and then we dragged out the bag of cardboard that hadn't been used yesterday, and was still dry too. We set up a small fire and the girls all came out to watch it be lit and then we sang a couple of songs:
The girls also performed their smoking songs - we had 3 very different styles of song and all were equally as impressive for a quickly thrown together song! We then bought out our surprise of the end of the campfire - magic dust that changes the colour of the flames! We had double checked that it was safe for an outside fire and the only thing we couldn't do was cook over them but we had forgotten the skewers for the marshmallows so that didn't matter. We were about to sing another song while the fire burned green and blue but a massive gust of wind came and blew sparks into the bushes and the girls all ran inside screaming! The three of us who were in charge stayed outside watching the pretty colours while looking for a torch that got dropped in the panic and then spread out the embers so they didn't catch again.
The girls then had hot chocolate and got ready for bed. We told them they could read quietly for a bit and then left them to it. We then spent some time chatting in the living room and then decided to go to bed. We realised we hadn't heard a single peep from them and the lights had been turned off. There was absolute silence from in their room! Success!! We had a great nights sleep ready for tomorrow, with absolutely no interruptions - I guess that's one of the bonuses of taking a fairly young group of girls.
The girls were up fairly early this morning - 6:30 by the other leaders' accounts! I popped out to wake up my other half in his tent while the girls got dressed and then we had breakfast - cereals followed by eggy bread, bacon, and toast. Once we were done eating, the girls all had duties to do - the Hostess six cleared everything off the table, the Cook six went and helped the leaders dry up the dishes, and the Health six wiped the tables, swept under the table and checked the toilets had loo roll and were clean. Once they had all finished, they had a short amount of time to tidy their beds and then it was inspection time. We introduced an extra sticker for the neatest bed (which we didn't tell them about) and surprised even ourselves with the girl we gave it to - she's usually a bit messy and scatty but she had really made an effort making her bed! We made her day by giving her the second sticker.
Once we were done with inspection, we started our first set of activities. One group made book folding hedgehogs (and decorated them with glitter glue and googly eyes), another made bookmarks and the third made posters to advertise the Brownie Olympics we are holding tomorrow. I sat with the girls making bookmarks and chatted with them. The girls started off in their sixes doing one of the three activities but could then move round once they had finished the one they were on (the only bottleneck was the number of seats to do the book folding).
Our original plan for the weekend was for the girls to make a packed lunch (a clause for the Healthy Heart badge) and then walk to the river to eat it but the weather was so miserable that we decided not to eat outside. The girls each made their packed lunch and then we had a picnic on the living room floor instead! Each lunch had a sandwich (cheese, ham, jam, or marmite), a packet of crisps, a selection of fruit/veg (cucumber sticks, grapes, baby tomatoes, bananas, and apples), and a small cake (mini choc chip muffin or chocolate mini roll). The girls really enjoyed being allowed to sit on the floor and eat, and it was interesting to see what groups they formed too.
We then decided that we would postpone our river walk until tomorrow as the weather was meant to get nicer so we set up the tuck shop. We had a selection of various things from Trading which we sold, along with some sweets (they could have 2 each) and some other small trinket like items. The girls enjoy choosing things to spend their £5 on, although this year the parents hadn't listened when we asked for small change and we had to write a few IOUs and pay them back at the end of the shop, when we had some change!
We then did a few more of the crafty things, which we had planned to do tomorrow. This time, we had one six at a time designing a mascot for their sixes sport from random craft things we found in the cupboard and wanted to get rid of! The other sixes could choose to either make a poster about healthy/unhealthy food (or halfy if you're a Brownie!!) using various foody magazines we had collected or colour in a pattern only uing 3 colours. Annoyingly, a pattern can always be coloured in using no more than 4 colours but the Artist badge syllabus specified 3 so I improvised by not colouring in some sections to make it work! The girls really enjoyed this activity, and spent ages deliberating over what colours to pick (we had some really nice combinations) and then working out what parts to colour in to make pretty patterns. Mine came out fairly well, I think.
We also had some entertaining choices for the healthy/unhealthy posters, including a bottle of whiskey on the healthy side and a phone on the unhealthy side (admitted correct but not a food!).
The girls doing their mascots also had a great time - they had been given free reign over all the craft things we could find, including some big pots of glitter. We had some interesting designs and a few disagreements over what it was they wanted to make. Our YL stepped in and persuaded them to all make a part of their mascot and then combine it at the end to make a whole thing.
When the girls had finished all their craft, they had to write a song about smoking to perform at the campfire, as one of the clauses for the Healthy Heart badge. We then had dinner - the roast we would have had tomorrow but everything is all topsy turvey now! The girls seemed to enjoy it, alhtough not as much as they have done in previous years - they thought the chicken was a bit dry this year.
While the girls were doing their duties, me, our YL and my other half went outside to sort out the campfire. Unfortunately, because it had rained all night, a lot of the wood was damp. We found a few pieces which were dry and then we dragged out the bag of cardboard that hadn't been used yesterday, and was still dry too. We set up a small fire and the girls all came out to watch it be lit and then we sang a couple of songs:
- Campfire's Burning
- Cecil is my Caterpillar
- Oh You'll Never Get to Heaven
The girls also performed their smoking songs - we had 3 very different styles of song and all were equally as impressive for a quickly thrown together song! We then bought out our surprise of the end of the campfire - magic dust that changes the colour of the flames! We had double checked that it was safe for an outside fire and the only thing we couldn't do was cook over them but we had forgotten the skewers for the marshmallows so that didn't matter. We were about to sing another song while the fire burned green and blue but a massive gust of wind came and blew sparks into the bushes and the girls all ran inside screaming! The three of us who were in charge stayed outside watching the pretty colours while looking for a torch that got dropped in the panic and then spread out the embers so they didn't catch again.
The girls then had hot chocolate and got ready for bed. We told them they could read quietly for a bit and then left them to it. We then spent some time chatting in the living room and then decided to go to bed. We realised we hadn't heard a single peep from them and the lights had been turned off. There was absolute silence from in their room! Success!! We had a great nights sleep ready for tomorrow, with absolutely no interruptions - I guess that's one of the bonuses of taking a fairly young group of girls.
Wednesday 10 October 2018
Pack Holiday 2018 - Friday
05/10/18
It's that time of year again - pack holiday weekend! I've done the same thing this year as previous ones, and split my blogs into the 3 days which will be published on Wednesday and Friday this week, and Monday next week with the usual Monday post coming on Wednesday instead. Be prepared for some long posts too - sorry not sorry! The theme of this pac holiday was the Olympics - the girls voted to do the Artist and the Healthy Heart badges and that was the only way we could think of to combine the two!
This pack holiday we went to the same place as usual, Campwood House in Macaroni Woods near Eastleach. All of the leaders arrived at around 4:30 and started setting up. We stuck up all of the posters, organised the craft room, put away the food, and had our dinner. While we were eating dinner, the doorbell went. Brown Owl sent me to answer it and said "if it's your other half let him in, otherwise tell them to go away for a bit, they're too early". I opened the door and it was our Young Leader, much earlier than we had anticipated. I let her in and shouted down the corridor that it was her and Brown Owl shouted back "oh yeah, you can let her in too!".
At about 6:10, the first of the Brownies started arriving. A lot of them haven't been before and so the parents were all wandering around and seeing what it was like. Quite a few of them got a bit confused as to where to park too and just drove slowly around the house until we flagged them down and pointed out the parking area under the trees. Surprisingly this year, none of the parents were late - we often have one or two who get lost and are really late. We did have one say that her phone had taken her to a pub called Macaroni in Cirencester and she thought she was going to be late but then they found us. Just as the last Brownie arrived, my other half showed up too, having come stright from work. He is a Beaver Leader and came to help us out as an extra pair of hands. I helped him set up his tent as the light was quickly fading while Brown Owl did the welcome for the girls and gave out booklets and told them all the safety info
Once they had done that, we set up the first activity of the weekend for them - Olympic Village Building. We had bought loads of cardboard and plastic recycling which we piled up outside, having set up some lights. We also gave each six a roll of packing tape. They were then given two pictures of athletes from their sixes sport (Horse Riding, Gymnastics, Swimming) and then had to build a village for the athletes which would be judged on style and also how well it survived the elements. The girls really went to town on their designs, we had full on swimming pools, changing rooms, stables, and more! We took a short break in the middle of making to have a supper of hot dogs. We then gave them a 5 minute warning (which sent them into panic mode!) and then stopped them. We went round each group and rated their design out of 10. We then tested their resilience by squirting them with a water pistol (one of the ones you can pressurise) and then tipped a bit of a bucket of water over them. The girls extracted their athletes from their village and we rated them based on how dry their people were. One six managed to have one completely dry athlete and the other two sixes' athletes were completely drenched and one of them somehow ended up getting ripped in half! We then gave out stickers for their charts - 3 for the winning six, 2 for second, and 1 for last place. The girls really seemed to enjoy doing this, and we were very impressed with their ingenuity - my other half had done it with his Beavers building castles and said our Brownies were much more creative than his Beavers!
The girls then got ready for bed and had hot chocolate before all disappearing into their bedroom. We leaders sat in the living room and chatted for a while before deciding we were tired too. Brown Owl and I got ready for bed, lay down, closed our eyes, and... heard crying coming down the corridor! One of the other leaders was still up but Brown Owl went to investigate too and there were two girls who were tired and feeling a bit ill. They had a drink of water and we settled them again but by then a lot of other girls had woken up and started talking. Brown Owl gave it a bit of time to settle down but it didn't so she went in and told them to shut up and go to sleep. She came back to bed and we both fell asleep. We both vaguely remember waking up and hearing one of the other leaders going in and saying "Brownies, I am not impressed" and we found out in the morning that it was 2:30 and the two leaders in the room closer to the girls hadn't slept much at all before then!
It has been a fairly straighforward start to pack holiday this year, here's hoping the rest of the weekend goes smoothly too!
It's that time of year again - pack holiday weekend! I've done the same thing this year as previous ones, and split my blogs into the 3 days which will be published on Wednesday and Friday this week, and Monday next week with the usual Monday post coming on Wednesday instead. Be prepared for some long posts too - sorry not sorry! The theme of this pac holiday was the Olympics - the girls voted to do the Artist and the Healthy Heart badges and that was the only way we could think of to combine the two!
This pack holiday we went to the same place as usual, Campwood House in Macaroni Woods near Eastleach. All of the leaders arrived at around 4:30 and started setting up. We stuck up all of the posters, organised the craft room, put away the food, and had our dinner. While we were eating dinner, the doorbell went. Brown Owl sent me to answer it and said "if it's your other half let him in, otherwise tell them to go away for a bit, they're too early". I opened the door and it was our Young Leader, much earlier than we had anticipated. I let her in and shouted down the corridor that it was her and Brown Owl shouted back "oh yeah, you can let her in too!".
At about 6:10, the first of the Brownies started arriving. A lot of them haven't been before and so the parents were all wandering around and seeing what it was like. Quite a few of them got a bit confused as to where to park too and just drove slowly around the house until we flagged them down and pointed out the parking area under the trees. Surprisingly this year, none of the parents were late - we often have one or two who get lost and are really late. We did have one say that her phone had taken her to a pub called Macaroni in Cirencester and she thought she was going to be late but then they found us. Just as the last Brownie arrived, my other half showed up too, having come stright from work. He is a Beaver Leader and came to help us out as an extra pair of hands. I helped him set up his tent as the light was quickly fading while Brown Owl did the welcome for the girls and gave out booklets and told them all the safety info
- Don't go outside without an adult
- Don't go in the leaders rooms
- Don't touch the fire in the living room (not that we light it!)
- Don't trip over the tent guy ropes,
- And most importantly for this year, keep the bedroom door closed while you're getting dressed as we have a man here this year and we often have a few girls who run around in their undies (or nothing...) while getting dressed...
Once they had done that, we set up the first activity of the weekend for them - Olympic Village Building. We had bought loads of cardboard and plastic recycling which we piled up outside, having set up some lights. We also gave each six a roll of packing tape. They were then given two pictures of athletes from their sixes sport (Horse Riding, Gymnastics, Swimming) and then had to build a village for the athletes which would be judged on style and also how well it survived the elements. The girls really went to town on their designs, we had full on swimming pools, changing rooms, stables, and more! We took a short break in the middle of making to have a supper of hot dogs. We then gave them a 5 minute warning (which sent them into panic mode!) and then stopped them. We went round each group and rated their design out of 10. We then tested their resilience by squirting them with a water pistol (one of the ones you can pressurise) and then tipped a bit of a bucket of water over them. The girls extracted their athletes from their village and we rated them based on how dry their people were. One six managed to have one completely dry athlete and the other two sixes' athletes were completely drenched and one of them somehow ended up getting ripped in half! We then gave out stickers for their charts - 3 for the winning six, 2 for second, and 1 for last place. The girls really seemed to enjoy doing this, and we were very impressed with their ingenuity - my other half had done it with his Beavers building castles and said our Brownies were much more creative than his Beavers!
The girls then got ready for bed and had hot chocolate before all disappearing into their bedroom. We leaders sat in the living room and chatted for a while before deciding we were tired too. Brown Owl and I got ready for bed, lay down, closed our eyes, and... heard crying coming down the corridor! One of the other leaders was still up but Brown Owl went to investigate too and there were two girls who were tired and feeling a bit ill. They had a drink of water and we settled them again but by then a lot of other girls had woken up and started talking. Brown Owl gave it a bit of time to settle down but it didn't so she went in and told them to shut up and go to sleep. She came back to bed and we both fell asleep. We both vaguely remember waking up and hearing one of the other leaders going in and saying "Brownies, I am not impressed" and we found out in the morning that it was 2:30 and the two leaders in the room closer to the girls hadn't slept much at all before then!
It has been a fairly straighforward start to pack holiday this year, here's hoping the rest of the weekend goes smoothly too!
Monday 8 October 2018
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,
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)...
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. ”
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)...
Monday 1 October 2018
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!
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!
Monday 24 September 2018
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!
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!
Monday 17 September 2018
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"!
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"!
Monday 10 September 2018
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).
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).
Monday 20 August 2018
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.
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.
Monday 6 August 2018
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.
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.
Monday 23 July 2018
Grass Sledging and Archery
19/07/18
This evening we finally managed to get back up to our local campsite and went grass sledging and did archery. We had a 2 hour meeting instead of our usual 90 minutes and split the girls into two groups as there could only be 12 doing archery at one time. I took the first group through to get the grass sledges and our first challenge was pulling them up to the top of the hill! They are stored in a shed at the bottom of the slope and are quite heavy! We took 6 sledges and eventually made it to the top. We did a quick safety brief on how to slow down, turn, stop, and where to walk to pull them back up to the top and then we set the first girls off. The rule is that no more than 2 people can be on the slope at a time which is pretty good because it spaces out the girls eventually as it takes them a while to pull it back up again. We only had one major crash where one girl couldn't work out how to steer and crashed into the strip of long grass that runs up each side of the run and flipped out of her sledge. She claimed her wrist was hurting but she could move all her fingers and then part way up the hill swapped hands so she was pulling the sledge with that hand so I was happy that nothing major was wrong with it! I spent most of my time at the top giving girls push starts, chatting to the ones who were waiting at the top, and ensuring everyone had an even number of turns. We then swapped groups and I stayed at the grass sledging area. We got the first group to leave the sledges at the bottom at the end of their last turn and the second group pulled them up to the top (we thought it was only fair as the first group had to pull them up before their first turn too!). I gave another safety brief to the second group and then set them off as with the first group. The second group was a slightly older group (we had let them decide what group to be in) and so they needed less help to organise themselves and so I chatted to the other leaders about some plans for next term and pack holiday.
As we neared the end of the secod hour, we got the girls to wait at the bottom with their sledge after their last turn. It worked out quite nicely that everyone had had 6 turns and we had one sledge left at the top so we loaded it up with all the water bottles that had been left at the top and got one of the girls to pull it down for us! We then watched the last few girls have their turn at archery and then we did the Brownie circle and gave presents to a Brownie, a Young Leader, and an Adult Leader who are all leaving us before sending all the girls home.
This was a nice relaxed evening and didn't require much work from a leaders perspective, except turning up and using the equipment! And the girls thoroughly enjoyed being outside and having fun. If you have a campsite or activity centre nearby that you can use, definitely look into it for an evening in September when it is still warm and dry enough to make use of it!
This evening we finally managed to get back up to our local campsite and went grass sledging and did archery. We had a 2 hour meeting instead of our usual 90 minutes and split the girls into two groups as there could only be 12 doing archery at one time. I took the first group through to get the grass sledges and our first challenge was pulling them up to the top of the hill! They are stored in a shed at the bottom of the slope and are quite heavy! We took 6 sledges and eventually made it to the top. We did a quick safety brief on how to slow down, turn, stop, and where to walk to pull them back up to the top and then we set the first girls off. The rule is that no more than 2 people can be on the slope at a time which is pretty good because it spaces out the girls eventually as it takes them a while to pull it back up again. We only had one major crash where one girl couldn't work out how to steer and crashed into the strip of long grass that runs up each side of the run and flipped out of her sledge. She claimed her wrist was hurting but she could move all her fingers and then part way up the hill swapped hands so she was pulling the sledge with that hand so I was happy that nothing major was wrong with it! I spent most of my time at the top giving girls push starts, chatting to the ones who were waiting at the top, and ensuring everyone had an even number of turns. We then swapped groups and I stayed at the grass sledging area. We got the first group to leave the sledges at the bottom at the end of their last turn and the second group pulled them up to the top (we thought it was only fair as the first group had to pull them up before their first turn too!). I gave another safety brief to the second group and then set them off as with the first group. The second group was a slightly older group (we had let them decide what group to be in) and so they needed less help to organise themselves and so I chatted to the other leaders about some plans for next term and pack holiday.
As we neared the end of the secod hour, we got the girls to wait at the bottom with their sledge after their last turn. It worked out quite nicely that everyone had had 6 turns and we had one sledge left at the top so we loaded it up with all the water bottles that had been left at the top and got one of the girls to pull it down for us! We then watched the last few girls have their turn at archery and then we did the Brownie circle and gave presents to a Brownie, a Young Leader, and an Adult Leader who are all leaving us before sending all the girls home.
This was a nice relaxed evening and didn't require much work from a leaders perspective, except turning up and using the equipment! And the girls thoroughly enjoyed being outside and having fun. If you have a campsite or activity centre nearby that you can use, definitely look into it for an evening in September when it is still warm and dry enough to make use of it!
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This is our last meeting until September, regular posts will resume on September 10th, although look out for an exciting announcement coming in the next few weeks!
Monday 18 June 2018
Tunnelling
07/06/18
This week we went to the local Guiding headquarters to go grass sledging and tunneling. Unfortunately, it started raining as we left to go up there so we couldn't grass sledge as the brakes would not work on wet grass. Instead, we just did the tunnels with all the girls at once, instead of half and half.
We met the girls in the car park and then walked up the hill to the tunnels, which luckily are under a giant tree so the leaders don't get soaked while the girls are in them! We made a pile of water bottles and some leaders went round removing the plastic stoppers from the ends of all the tunnels which keep animals out. We then did a quick safety brief for the girls: essentially, which holes were the entrances to each tunnel system, and that we had head torches and knee pads if they needed them. There are three tunnel systems here, one is a simple straight line where you can see the other end which most of the girls go through first, to get a feel for what the tunnels are like inside. There is then one which is like a lowercase letter 'h' with a bit of a bend in the left hand leg so you can't see any exits when you go in. The final one has about 6 exits and part of it goes round in a circle so the girls can really explore.
We then started handing out head torches. There are not enough for all the girls to have one, so we said they should line up at the entrance to the tunnel they wanted to go in and anyone who had just come out of a tunnel had to go and give their torch to someone at the front of a line. Some of the girls decided that they didn't want to wait for torches and they would go in without one.
I spent most of my time stood near the entrances, making sure there were no arguments about the torches, and that girls weren't left waiting for too long. We then had the problem that the torches were running out of batteries so Brown Owl went to find the organiser to get some more. She came back with a box of 48 so we were set then!
One of the girls came over to me part way through and said that people kept getting stuck in a dead end and were scared so I asked her to take me to the dead end because we were pretty sure there weren't any. We climbed over the tunnels to a point where a tunnel seemed to disappear into the nettles at the endge of the field. I was explaining to the girl that even if there was supposed to be a way out, they wouldn't want come out of it or they would get stung when I realised that it actually did a 90 degree left turn so we followed it a bit more and lo and behold, there was still a stopper on the end! I took it off and let the girls know that there was no longer a dead end!
A bit later, I caught site of some girls playing next to an exit, and then a small flash of something black rolling. I headed over there quickly, confusing Brown Owl as I thrust spare batteries back in her hand and disappeared at speed! As I came out from under the trees, I realised that some of the older girls were attempting to roll one of the stoppers down the hill. I shouted at them to stop and then made them roll it back up the bit of the hill it had gone down, while explaining to them that that was quite dangerous, especially as there is a tented village at the bottom of the hill!
We eventually had to tell the girls to get out of the tunnels - they didn't want to leave! The leaders quickly went round putting the stoppers back on and then we headed back down to meet the parents.
This meeting, although not quite as planned, still went very well. If we do it again though, we will suggest to the girls to bring their own torch as that then stops them spending time waiting around for a head torch. We have also asked if there any other dates than we could reattempt the grass sledging as the girls were annoyed that we couldn't do it.
This week we went to the local Guiding headquarters to go grass sledging and tunneling. Unfortunately, it started raining as we left to go up there so we couldn't grass sledge as the brakes would not work on wet grass. Instead, we just did the tunnels with all the girls at once, instead of half and half.
We met the girls in the car park and then walked up the hill to the tunnels, which luckily are under a giant tree so the leaders don't get soaked while the girls are in them! We made a pile of water bottles and some leaders went round removing the plastic stoppers from the ends of all the tunnels which keep animals out. We then did a quick safety brief for the girls: essentially, which holes were the entrances to each tunnel system, and that we had head torches and knee pads if they needed them. There are three tunnel systems here, one is a simple straight line where you can see the other end which most of the girls go through first, to get a feel for what the tunnels are like inside. There is then one which is like a lowercase letter 'h' with a bit of a bend in the left hand leg so you can't see any exits when you go in. The final one has about 6 exits and part of it goes round in a circle so the girls can really explore.
 |
| Small tunnel system |
 |
| Loop of large tunnel system |
We then started handing out head torches. There are not enough for all the girls to have one, so we said they should line up at the entrance to the tunnel they wanted to go in and anyone who had just come out of a tunnel had to go and give their torch to someone at the front of a line. Some of the girls decided that they didn't want to wait for torches and they would go in without one.
I spent most of my time stood near the entrances, making sure there were no arguments about the torches, and that girls weren't left waiting for too long. We then had the problem that the torches were running out of batteries so Brown Owl went to find the organiser to get some more. She came back with a box of 48 so we were set then!
One of the girls came over to me part way through and said that people kept getting stuck in a dead end and were scared so I asked her to take me to the dead end because we were pretty sure there weren't any. We climbed over the tunnels to a point where a tunnel seemed to disappear into the nettles at the endge of the field. I was explaining to the girl that even if there was supposed to be a way out, they wouldn't want come out of it or they would get stung when I realised that it actually did a 90 degree left turn so we followed it a bit more and lo and behold, there was still a stopper on the end! I took it off and let the girls know that there was no longer a dead end!
A bit later, I caught site of some girls playing next to an exit, and then a small flash of something black rolling. I headed over there quickly, confusing Brown Owl as I thrust spare batteries back in her hand and disappeared at speed! As I came out from under the trees, I realised that some of the older girls were attempting to roll one of the stoppers down the hill. I shouted at them to stop and then made them roll it back up the bit of the hill it had gone down, while explaining to them that that was quite dangerous, especially as there is a tented village at the bottom of the hill!
We eventually had to tell the girls to get out of the tunnels - they didn't want to leave! The leaders quickly went round putting the stoppers back on and then we headed back down to meet the parents.
This meeting, although not quite as planned, still went very well. If we do it again though, we will suggest to the girls to bring their own torch as that then stops them spending time waiting around for a head torch. We have also asked if there any other dates than we could reattempt the grass sledging as the girls were annoyed that we couldn't do it.
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I am now going on holiday and graduating so there will be no new posts until July 23rd 2018.
Monday 4 June 2018
Games Night and My Last Meeting | University
24/05/18
This meeting was my last one at my university unit. We were going to take the girls for a walk in the nearby woods as the weather has been so great recently but, unfortunately, the good weather didn't last and rain was forecast for the whole day so we changed our plans and decided to have a games night at the hall instead.
We started the evening with a quick game of Horses and Jockeys as everyone arrived and then played a few rounds of Shoe Bomb once everyone was there.
We then played a game which one of the leaders had found on a Guiding Facebook Group. We separated the girls into 3 teams randomly and gave each team two large-ish pieces of cardboard and one smaller one. The teams lined up at one end of the hall (we put out a line of chairs to mark the start). We then picked one girl from each team to be blindfolded and two girls who were not allowed to speak. We deliberately picked a quiet girl to be blindfolded and the noisy ones to be silent - there was absolute uproar from the noisy ones! The girls then had to get their whole team from one side of the hall to the other without falling in the 'lava' (stepping off their cardboard). If the girl with the blindfold peeped or a silent girl spoke, the whole team had to go back to the start.
To start with, we said that their whole team had to be touching the end wall for them to win, without stepping in the lava but it soon became very clear that the pieces of cardboard were not big enough for all the girls to get on in one go and so we created a 'safe zone' with some more chairs at the other end. Once a girl was in the safe zone, she remained there even if other members of her team had been sent back to the start, and we allowed them to talk and remove the blindfolds there too. It was quite entertaining watching the girls attempting to get to the other end, especially those who were blindfolded. Each team had a different tactic - one team had one of the older girls stand on a piece of cardboard, put the other piece in front of her, lift up the blindfolded girl and put her on the new piece, stand on the new piece herself and then move the previous piece on front of them and continue! I was very impressed as the other two teams were doing variations on "take a small step with your left foot. Put it down. Now the right foot. NO that's too far!" and ended up getting sent back multiple times. Quite a few girls also stood with one foot on each piece of cardboard and skated across to the other side before trying to throw the cardboard back to the start. Sometimes they were successful and other times they then had to run across the lava to rescue the cardboard and then they were sent back to the start too!
Eventually, every girl made it to the safe zone. They then said they wanted to play again but switch up who was blindfolded and silent. We were more than happy for them to do that, so we ended up playing 2 more rounds of this game before we called it quits and got the parachute out instead. We played a couple of quick games of In 'n' Out where alternate girls are trying to keep the ball on the parachute or get it off the parachute. That didn't go as well as planned because the girls all just shook it violently and the ball fired off the parachute and across the room multiple times!
We then decided to play Sharks. The girls absolutely loved this game, and there was a lot of screaming from the girls and laughter from the adults as girls were being pulled under the parachute but friends near them were hanging onto them for dear life. I'm not sure what anyone passing the hall thought we were doing - it sounded like we were murdering the lot of them! There were quite a few shocked faces from the parents as they walked in to pick up their daughters.
We then put the parachute away and got into a circle. The other leaders told the Brownies that tonight was my last night and they gave me a small gift - a National Book Token voucher (very apt for me!). They also apologised that they had not got a card tonight because one of the girls who was tasked with getting all the girls' signatures at school had left it at her friends house! The girls all seemed to be sad to see me go - one even asked "are you leaving forever?". I will be very sad to leave them, some of them I have known for several years as they were Rainbows when I helped out in my second year and had moved up to Brownies by the time I returned after my placement year. I had said that I will keep in touch though. And then, as a final touch, once we had sung Brownie Bells and the girls were leaving, the card appeared - the Mum of the girl who had forgotten it had heard as she arrived that it was at the friends house and had run up the road and back to go and get it for me!
This isn't the end of my Guiding story though, I am heading home from university and returning to my home unit in a few weeks, so stay tuned for that!
This meeting was my last one at my university unit. We were going to take the girls for a walk in the nearby woods as the weather has been so great recently but, unfortunately, the good weather didn't last and rain was forecast for the whole day so we changed our plans and decided to have a games night at the hall instead.
We started the evening with a quick game of Horses and Jockeys as everyone arrived and then played a few rounds of Shoe Bomb once everyone was there.
We then played a game which one of the leaders had found on a Guiding Facebook Group. We separated the girls into 3 teams randomly and gave each team two large-ish pieces of cardboard and one smaller one. The teams lined up at one end of the hall (we put out a line of chairs to mark the start). We then picked one girl from each team to be blindfolded and two girls who were not allowed to speak. We deliberately picked a quiet girl to be blindfolded and the noisy ones to be silent - there was absolute uproar from the noisy ones! The girls then had to get their whole team from one side of the hall to the other without falling in the 'lava' (stepping off their cardboard). If the girl with the blindfold peeped or a silent girl spoke, the whole team had to go back to the start.
To start with, we said that their whole team had to be touching the end wall for them to win, without stepping in the lava but it soon became very clear that the pieces of cardboard were not big enough for all the girls to get on in one go and so we created a 'safe zone' with some more chairs at the other end. Once a girl was in the safe zone, she remained there even if other members of her team had been sent back to the start, and we allowed them to talk and remove the blindfolds there too. It was quite entertaining watching the girls attempting to get to the other end, especially those who were blindfolded. Each team had a different tactic - one team had one of the older girls stand on a piece of cardboard, put the other piece in front of her, lift up the blindfolded girl and put her on the new piece, stand on the new piece herself and then move the previous piece on front of them and continue! I was very impressed as the other two teams were doing variations on "take a small step with your left foot. Put it down. Now the right foot. NO that's too far!" and ended up getting sent back multiple times. Quite a few girls also stood with one foot on each piece of cardboard and skated across to the other side before trying to throw the cardboard back to the start. Sometimes they were successful and other times they then had to run across the lava to rescue the cardboard and then they were sent back to the start too!
Eventually, every girl made it to the safe zone. They then said they wanted to play again but switch up who was blindfolded and silent. We were more than happy for them to do that, so we ended up playing 2 more rounds of this game before we called it quits and got the parachute out instead. We played a couple of quick games of In 'n' Out where alternate girls are trying to keep the ball on the parachute or get it off the parachute. That didn't go as well as planned because the girls all just shook it violently and the ball fired off the parachute and across the room multiple times!
We then decided to play Sharks. The girls absolutely loved this game, and there was a lot of screaming from the girls and laughter from the adults as girls were being pulled under the parachute but friends near them were hanging onto them for dear life. I'm not sure what anyone passing the hall thought we were doing - it sounded like we were murdering the lot of them! There were quite a few shocked faces from the parents as they walked in to pick up their daughters.
We then put the parachute away and got into a circle. The other leaders told the Brownies that tonight was my last night and they gave me a small gift - a National Book Token voucher (very apt for me!). They also apologised that they had not got a card tonight because one of the girls who was tasked with getting all the girls' signatures at school had left it at her friends house! The girls all seemed to be sad to see me go - one even asked "are you leaving forever?". I will be very sad to leave them, some of them I have known for several years as they were Rainbows when I helped out in my second year and had moved up to Brownies by the time I returned after my placement year. I had said that I will keep in touch though. And then, as a final touch, once we had sung Brownie Bells and the girls were leaving, the card appeared - the Mum of the girl who had forgotten it had heard as she arrived that it was at the friends house and had run up the road and back to go and get it for me!
This isn't the end of my Guiding story though, I am heading home from university and returning to my home unit in a few weeks, so stay tuned for that!
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