Easter Baskets and Guide Visit | University

22/03/18

This meeting, we had a parent come in to do a craft with the girls. I arrived and got all the material she had requested out of the cupboard and then we occupied the girls while she set up. While the girls were arriving, we played a game that they call ‘the chair game’ which they constantly request. Once all the girls had arrived, we also played a quick game of Chinese Whispers to keep the noise down while we had a quick chat as leaders. The games went well, although we did have uproar for one round of Chinese Whispers because a girl had said a rude word! It transpired that the rude word was ‘poo’ and the original message was about ‘guinea pigs’ so I’m not quite sure where that came from!

The girls then bought their chairs over to the tables and the parent ran through the craft. They were making Easter Bunny Baskets so she showed them the templates and all the decorations she had bought for them to use. We had a brief moment of panic as we realised one of the girls had somehow (accidentally or otherwise) cut a chunk of her hair off. The other girls said she had done the same thing at school so we tidied up and made a note to alert her Mum at the end of the meeting. The girls then started making their baskets – I spent most of my time helping one of the girls cut out her template and then holding together flaps as they all stuck them together. They then had free reign with pompoms, pipe cleaners, googly eyes, glue, and pens with which to decorate their baskets. We had some very interesting looking ones and even a chick made out of one of the remaining pompoms!

Once the girls had finished their baskets, we had a drink and biscuit and then sat them in a circle. Two Guides had come to visit to talk to the girls about Guides as part of one of the other Leaders ALQ so we left them to it (with a small amount of prompting) while we tidied up the bombshell that was the tables after the craft! The Guides then ran some games that they play at Guides while us Leaders chatted about plans for next term.

We ended up having to stop the games as we had run out of time. After we had ended the meeting, the girls collected their baskets, picked up a piece of tissue paper and then came up to a Leader who gave them a handful of Mini Eggs as an Easter gift. We spoke to the Mum of the girl who had cut her hair and she confirmed that she had done it at school too and she wasn’t cross with us as none of us were aware at the time but was furious with her daughter. We will be keeping a closer eye on her every time we have scissors out now!

This was a fairly nice and relaxed meeting, especially the second half, and the girls seemed to really enjoy decorating their baskets and definitely enjoyed the eggs at the end! This was our last meeting before Easter and, as we meet every other week, we now have quite a long break before the next meeting, although I am going home and hopefully visiting my old unit next week.

 

Mother's Day with the Mums | University

08/03/18

As Mother's Day was the Sunday after our meeting this fornight, we decided to invite the Mum's to come along and do some activites with their daughters. We asked the girls a previous week what their Mums liked doing and what they would like to do with them in this meeting. After having convinced the girls that even though their Mums did all the cleaning at home, they probably wouldn't want to do any more (!) we settled on gardening and hand scrubs.

The meeting place was nice and lively at the start of them meeting with twice as many people as normal and we decided to start off by playing Splat with the parents joining in too. A couple of the Mums got a bit competitive but then realised they were in the last few and backed off a bit so a Brownie could win!

We then got out lots of tables and handed out a plastic plant pot, wooden lollipop stick, and some pens to each person. They wrote their name on the wooden stick and decorated it while one of the leaders bought round compost to fill their pot and some sunflower seed to plant in it. The idea is that the girl and the Mum look after their own seeds and see whose grows the tallest.

Once everyone had finished, we called the girls over to another table and gave them the ingredients for a hand scrub. They had a small pot filled with sugar and they added a sqeeze of lemon juice and some squirts of coconut oil which they then mixed together. They then took the pot back to their Mum and gave her a hand massage. Once they were done, they could go and wash off the compost and the hand scrub, leaving them with clean smooth hands! The Mums really seemed to enjoy this part, even if some of them seemed a bit apprehensive to start with about putting the scrub on their hands.

While they were having their hands massaged, we took orders for tea and coffee and then bought it all out along with some cakes for the girls and Mums to enjoy.

Once the Mums had finished their drinks and cakes, I led a game of Honeypot while the other leaders cleaned up the mess on the tables. It was quite an intense game with some of the girls employing some interesting tactics including stomping around and shaking the keys violently to try and put the person in the middle off the scent!

All in all, I think this was a fairly successful evening and the Mums definitely appreciated having some time to spend with her daughter and also time to chat with the other Mums.

I'm back!

Apologies for suddenly going MIA! Life got in the way a bit and then I completely forgot about this blog... Sorry about that.

Since I last posted, I found a Rainbow and Brownie unit to help at while at university, joined the university SSAGO unit, have been on several nights away with SSAGO, completed 3 more octants of my Look Wider, gained my Going Away With License, and have done much more besides.

I plan on attempting to continue this blog again now, the first few posts will be updates on my Look Wider progress, interspersed with Brownie meetings (I stopped helping at Rainbows after my second year) and maybe a few SSAGO events too! My university Brownies meet every two weeks though so the posts won't be as frequent.