My First Impressions of the New Programme

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Starting Queen's Guide!

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

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

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