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!
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