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!